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The Accuracy of Older and Younger Australians' Understanding of Mental Health and Aging

Inadequacies in contemporary mental health care for elderly individuals may come about partly through ignorance of both positive aspects of mental health in old age (e.g., the responsiveness of older clients to psychotherapy) and the negative aspects (e.g., elderly men's unusually high suicide risk). A quiz measuring knowledge of both kinds was administered to a total of 250 Australian men and women aged seventeen to eighty-one years who were either retired, employed, housewives, or university students. As hypothesized, the retired group scored lowest on the quiz, with no significant differences among younger students versus non-students. Age was found to be a more important mediator of the retired group's low scores than gender, living with an older person, or self-definition as retired versus employed or a housewife. A previous finding of higher scores by Australians than by U.S. undergraduates in an aging course was also replicated and extended to older nonstudent groups. Implications of these findings for mental health services for elderly individuals and for educational interventions to improve understanding of mental health in older age groups were considered.