Life satisfaction continues to be an important construct in the psychosocial study of ageing. It is one of the commonly-accepted subjective conditions of quality of life and seems to be one of the facets of successful ageing, both of which are key concepts in ageing. Research reports that life satisfaction is strongly related to socio-demographic and psychosocial variables. These, however, are mutually dependent interactive variables, and much more attention should be paid to the study of the relative contribution of these two types of factors to life satisfaction. The purpose of the research reported in this article was to discover which socio-demographic conditions and psychosocial factors are the most important, and to decide to what extent they contribute to life satisfaction. A sample of 507 individuals aged 65 and over and representative of the Spanish population in terms of age and gender, were interviewed at home. The results indicate that two socio-demographic characteristics (income and education) influence life satisfaction both directly and also indirectly, through psychosocial factors such as activity (physical activity level, satisfaction with leisure activities, and social contacts), perceived health and physical illness. Among psychosocial factors, activity and health both contribute to explaining life satisfaction. The results are discussed from the point of view of the activity theory of ageing.
The incidence and prevalence of intestinal parasites in children is most likely due to lack of natural or acquired resistance and differences in behavior and habits closely related to environmental and socioeconomic determinants. The most important protozoa that parasitize humans are Giardia, Entamoeba, Blastocystis, and Cryptosporidium. These parasites present wide intraspecific genetic diversity and subsequently classified into assemblages and subtypes. The Amazon basin is the largest in the world and is the fifth freshwater reserve on the planet. Contradictorily, people living in these areas (Indigenous populations) have poor quality of life, which favors the infection of diseases of fecal-oral transmission. The aim of this work was to unravel the molecular epidemiology of Giardia, Blastocystis and Cryptosporidium across four communities (Puerto Nariño, San Juan del Soco, Villa Andrea and Nuevo Paraíso). We obtained 284 fecal samples from children under 15 years old that were analyzed by direct microscopy (261 samples) and Real Time PCR (qPCR) (284 samples). The positive samples for these protozoa were further characterized by several molecular markers to depict assemblages and subtypes. We observed a frequency of Giardia infection by microscopy of 23.7% (62 samples) and by qPCR of 64.8% (184 samples); for Blastocystis by microscopy of 35.2% (92 samples) and by qPCR of 88.7% (252 samples) and for Cryptosporidium only 1.9% (5 samples) were positive by microscopy and qPCR 1.8% (5 samples). Regarding the Giardia assemblages, using the glutamate dehydrogenase (gdh) marker we observed AI, BIII and BIV assemblages and when using triose phosphate isomerase (tpi) we observed assemblages AI, AII, BIII and BIV. In contrast, Blastocystis STs detected were 1, 2, 3, 4, and 6. Lastly, the species C. viatorum, C. hominis (with the subtypes IdA19 and IaA12R8) and C. parvum (with the subtype IIcA5G3c) were identified. We observed a high profile of zoonotic transmission regarding the Giardia assemblages and Blastocystis STs/alleles. Also, we highlight the elevated frequency of infection by these two protozoans suggesting an active transmission in the area. Our findings reinforces the need to deploy better epidemiological surveillance systems for enteric pathogens in the area.
Esta es la versión de autor del artículo publicado en: This is an author produced version of a paper published in: El acceso a la versión del editor puede requerir la suscripción del recurso Access to the published version may require subscriptionResilience (RS) refers to positive adaptation or recovery despite experiences of significant adversity, that is, despite life situations that usually produce maladjustment (Luthar, 2006). According to this author's review (2006), that covers five decades of research on resilience, it is not unusual that children exposed to different kinds of adversities and life stressors develop positive adaptation. Confronted with this fact, researchers have recognized the importance of identifying which environmental and personal factors are responsible of such adaptation, in order to develop intervention programs aimed at promoting resilience. Three kinds of protective factors had been identified: family, community and personal factors (Luthar, 2006). However, the different conceptual perspectives and methodological strategies used in research make progress difficult, unless some problems are solved (Luthar & Brown, 2007;Masten, 2007). First, there is a conceptual problem. Resilience, competence, ego-resilience and hardiness overlap in some way, and it is necessary to decide whether they are unique or redundant scientific constructs. With the intent to clarify their similarities and differences, Luthar (2006) relied on theoretical criteria. For her, resilience implies two elements, positive adaptation and adverse situations, whereas competence implies only the first.As for ego-resilience, it is considered a trait reflecting general resourcefulness in response to varying situations, whereas resilience is a phenomenon. As for hardiness, it is a general trait including three personality dispositions: commitment (having a purpose, being active, etc.), control expectancies, and challenge (Kobasa, Maddi, & Kahn, 1982). Other authors even consider that resilience is a personality super-factor including different intermediate personality factors (Block, 2001). For us, from a conceptual point of view, most personality traits need to be explained. Their identification, in most cases, is the result of analysing self-report measures describing and summarizing behavioural tendencies resulting from the interaction between temperament and environment conditions, but not of the identification of the "personality processes" underlying such tendencies. So, it might be the case that such processes were common for resilience and the personality factors mentioned. And the same happens to resilience. In fact, resilience -as a phenomenonneeds to be explained (Leopold & Greve, 2009). So, in order to determine in précis way which kinds of factor contribute to resilience, or whether it is different or not from the characteristics referred to by the personality constructs above mentioned, the phenomenon itself needs to be measured in some way. That is, it is necessary to state the degree of positive adaptatio...
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