Intervention study on support exchange: An Intergenerational program

为探讨社会支持交换对改善老年人主观幸福感的有效性，我们进行了一项干预研究，该研究涉及护理专业学生对60岁及以上老年妇女的家访。老年人被试（n=15，平均年龄72.3岁）是从东京都区一个小型集体住宅的121名女性老年居民中选出的。十个四年级的护理专业学生已经接受了培训，学习基本技能的咨询和沟通，在为期四天的会议，干预之前。在为期两个月的时间里，学生们多次访问受试者（平均2.8次）。干预前后比较，老年人在主观幸福感和对年轻一代的看法方面的大多数指标都有积极的变化。至于对学生的影响，两个月后，他们对老人的态度也普遍比较积极。由于样本量小，缺乏适当的对照组，本研究的结果是有限的。此外，培训是密集的，因此它可能不适合大规模的干预，如一个使用高中生作为干预。需要进一步的研究来证实代际计划对老年人主观幸福感和年轻一代对老年人的看法的有效性。

To investigate the effectiveness of social support exchange for improving the subjective well-being of the elderly, we conducted an intervention study, which involved home visiting by nursing students to elderly women aged 60 and over. The elderly were asked to tell their life-course events to the students in order to help them to make a report for their study.The elderly subjects (n=15; mean age=72.3) were chosen from all the 121 female elderly residents living in a small collective housing in Tokyo Metropolitan Area. The ten fourth-year nursing students had been trained to learn basic skills in counseling and communication during a four-day session, prior to the intervention. It lasted for two months, during which the students visited the subjects several times (2.8 times on average). Comparing before and after the intervention, the elderly subjects showed positive changes in majority of the indices regarding subjective well-being and perception toward young generation. As for the influences on the students, they also showed more positive attitudes toward the elderly in general after the two-month period.The findings of our study were limited because of its small sample size and lack of proper control group. Also, the training was intensive so that it may not be suitable for large-scale interventions such as one using high school students as intervenes. Further studies are necessary to confirm the effectiveness of intergenerational programs on the subjective well-being of the elderly and the perception of younger generation toward the aged.