A Study on Stressful Life Events, Self-esteem and Perceived Health Status of the Elderly in a Rural Community

노인의 스트레스 생활사건, 자아존중감, 지각된 건강상태에 관한 연구

This study was performed to estimate stressful life events, self-esteem and perceived health status in the elderly persons and to compare degree of self-esteem and perceived health status according to experience of stressful life events and general characteristics. The data was collected from 179 elders in a rural community. Data collection was done from October 20 to December 6, 1997. A comparison of self-esteem and perceived health status by experience of stressful life events and general characteristics was summarized as follows : 1) Eighty three persons, $46.4\%$ of the surveyed, have experienced stressful life events, including disease(54 persons) and death of family member(l2 persons). 2) Thirty eight percents of the surveyed persons evaluated they are not healthy. The average score of perceived health status of the elderly was 2.88± .92 for the scale of 5, which represents the healthiest status. 3) There were significant differences on the self-esteem score in the elderly according to having a spouse or not(t=3.51. p=.00l), having family members living together or not(t=2.98. p=.003) and socioeconomic status(F=7.08. p=.00l). 4) There were significant differences on the perceived health status in the elderly according to experience of stressful life events(t=3.51. p=.00l), having family members living together or not(t=2.09, p= .038) and socioeconomic status(F=6.56, p=.002). 5) Positive correlation was observed between self-esteem and perceived health(r= .5037, p=.000). The above results imply that support of family and society should be reinforced to improve self-respect and health of aged persons, and that it is desirable to build up social and economic environment promoting health status through daily life.