Abstract
This study was conducted to find out residential environment, mood states, ADL(Activity Daily Living) and nursing need of the elderly who live alone. The questionnaire survey was conducted on 154 single household elderly over 65years who live n D-city, Kangwon Province. The data were collected between September 1. 1999 and October 17, 1999 and analyzed by means of SPSS package. The results were as follows; 1. The percentage of the subjects who owned their house was no were than $13\%$., which showed that they still belonged to the economically vulnerable class. As for their residential environment, the average indoor temperature and humidity level were $16.45^{\circ}C\;and\;44.62\%$ respectively during the daytime between September and October, which proved to range within the standard scope. The average indoor illumination level was, however, 43.61 Lux, which showed that their illumination environment was very poor. 2. The average score of their mood states was 3.31. which turned out to be rather low. 3. The mean score of ADL was 1.69, which showed that they didn't have any serious inconveniences in their ordinary lives. 4. The mean score of their nursing need was 275, which proved to be close to the normal level. 5. The higher the room humidity was, the higher their nursing need increased. The higher the degree of illumination level was, the lower the degree of their nursing need was and the higher the level of ADL was. 6. The major factors influencing their moon status were the frequency of their contact with children and room humidity. These two factors could account for $22\%$ of the total mood status. These results suggest that the residential environment should be necessarily considered in the psychological nursing intervention for the elderly who live alone and they should be urgently supported in terms of health policy so that they can maintain the optimum level of illumination during the daytime.