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Immigration is a demanding and challenging life event that may cause married immigrant women to be likely to adopt unhealthy lifestyle behaviors. The aim of the authors of this study was to assess the prevalence of health-promoting lifestyle behaviors and their correlates among Vietnamese female immigrants in Taiwan. A cross-sectional study was conducted with 140 Vietnamese female immigrants from November 2012 to October 2013. Measures included demographic information, the Chinese Health Questionnaire, the General Functioning Scale of the Family Assessment Device, and a short version of the Chinese Health-Promoting Lifestyle Profile. Data analyses included descriptive statistics, Pearson’s product-moment correlation coefficients,t-tests, one-way analysis of variance, and a hierarchical multiple regression analysis. Vietnamese female immigrants with better individual health status, higher education from their original country, greater communication ability, better health status of the husband, and adaptive family functioning demonstrated greater participation in health-promoting lifestyle behaviors. Particularly, better husband’s health status and family functioning correlated with greater practices of health-promoting lifestyle behaviors after controlling for individual characteristics and experiences, with 38% of the total variance explained. Findings may serve to guide and design culturally specific, family-focused health promotion interventions to assist Vietnamese female immigrants and their families. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

chiao c.-y. & schepp k.g. (2011) The impact of foreign caregiving on depression among older people in Taiwan: model testing. Journal of Advanced Nursing 68(5), 1090-1099. Abstract Aim. This article is a report of a study of predicting the factors that influence depression in the older people in Taiwan. Background. In 1991, Taiwan opened the labour market to foreign caregivers for the older people who needed long-term care. With the differences in language, culture and lifestyle between foreign caregivers and older people in Taiwan, it was hypothesized that the older people would not be able to relate to them, and therefore become depressed. Methods. The data were collected from 116 Taiwanese older people from July to September, 2005. Path analysis using multiple regression analyses was conducted to estimate the direct and indirect effects of caregiving communication, activities of daily living, income and social support on depression among older people in Taiwan. To evaluate the hypotheses for this research, bi-variate linear regression and multiple regression analyses were used. Results/findings. The results indicated that the level of activities of daily living (β = −0·201, P = 0·010), care-giving communication (β = −0·272, P = 0·002) income (β = −0·305, P = 0·000) and social support (β = −0·276, P = 0·002) were the predictors of depression in older people in Taiwan. Social support was a mediating factor for caregiving communication and depression. Furthermore, foreign caregiver care was not correlated with depression among older people in Taiwan. Conclusions. The findings influence the public awareness of depression in older people, and provide the foundational information to influence the policy makers of Taiwan to evaluate the foreign caregiver policy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]