The development of a quality of life scale for informal carers for older adults

Background: The aim of the study was to develop a multidimensional quality of life instrument suitable for use among individuals across cultures who have an informal care role for older persons. Methods: Participants were informal carers of older adults in the United Kingdom (n = 308), United States (n = 164), and China (n = 131). We carried out exploratory and confirmatory factor analyses of 61 items derived from the eight-factor Adult Carers Quality of Life Questionnaire with newly added items to define both traditional and nontraditional informal care roles. Results: Findings suggest a 24-item quality of life scale with a six-factor structure to caring for older adults that assesses (a) exhaustion, (b) adoption of a traditional carer role, (c) personal growth, (d) management and performance, (e) level of support, and (f) financial matters. Conclusion: We present a new scale to assess the multidimensional aspects of quality of life among those caring for older adults

Digital Ethics of Care Philosophy to Understand Adolescents' sense of Responsibility on Social Media

Through empirical work we conceptualise a framework of an ethics of care philosophy with digital media, coining the notion, a ‘digital ethics of care’. Increasing focus on the potential of social media to harm the mental wellbeing of adolescents has led to greater emphasis on their conduct online. Entrenched with adolescent conduct in digital spaces are moral theories of development as young people grapple with responsibility toward others from behind screens. Utilising thematic analysis on focus group data from 11-18-year-olds we applied a digital ethics of care understanding. We identified that adolescents found social media to play an important role in facilitating their caring relationships, they took responsibility for their own online behaviour and believed that when others failed in their moral reasoning online it led to negative consequences. Repositioning moral theory for congruence with a new digital society has valuable potential for the protection of adolescent mental health.</p

Adventure with Lex: The Gamification of Research?

There is a wide range of interest in gamification – with game design elements being used in an increasing number of non-game contexts. Yet, despite these developments, there has been little interest from the academic community in the potential opportunities that gamification presents in the research context. Law in Children’s Lives is an innovative project that has explored the use of a specially designed tablet-based game, Adventures with Lex, as a data collection tool. The game, developed using participatory design techniques, has been used as a means to investigate children’s perceptions of the law in their everyday lives. This article presents a case study of the processes and challenges involved in the development of the game which leads to a discussion of the implications of this study for the wider use of game-based research

Adventures with Lex: the story so far

This project investigates how far, if at all, children perceive themselves to be empowered by law in their everyday lives

The development of a quality of life scale for informal carers for older adults

Background.The aim of the study was to develop a multi-dimensional quality of life instrument suitable for use among individuals across cultures who have an informal care role for older persons.Methods.Participants were informal carers of older adults in the UK (n=308), USA (n=164), and China(n=131). We carried out exploratory and confirmatory factor analyses of 61 items derived from the eight-factor Adult Carers Quality of Life questionnaire with newly added items to define both traditional and non-traditional informal care roles.Results.Findings suggest a 24-item quality of life scale with a six-factor structure to caring for older adults that assesses (1) exhaustion, (2) adoption of a traditional carer role, (3) personal growth, (4) management and performance, (5) level of support, and (6) financial matters.Conclusion.We present a new scale to assess the multi-dimensional aspects of quality of life among those caring for older adults.</p