• The Journal of the Korea Contents Association
• /
• v.19 no.6
• /
• pp.125-134
• /
• 2019

The purpose of this study is to explore the direction of decision support for senior citizens living alone by identifying the level of self-determination and desire for decision support. The survey was conducted on 300 elderly people living alone in five districts of Seoul. The analysis results are as follows: First, it has been shown that elderly living alone have thought that it is most important to reflect their decisions when deciding where to live. Second, respondents highly recognized that the need for support decision making as the age group grew. Third, it was found that the factors affecting the perception of the need to support decision-making by senior citizens living alone were age, trust in family and recognition of importance in decision-making. The study suggested the need for a specific, institutionalized system to support decision making for elderly living alone.

• The Journal of the Korea Contents Association
• /
• v.16 no.9
• /
• pp.297-307
• /
• 2016

This study aims to carry out empirical analysis on the effect of care workers' awareness of professionalism on the service quality, and to provide policy level and action oriented recommendations for the improvement of care workers' awareness of professionalism and service quality based on the key findings. The study targeted care workers who work at the senior citizen care take centers at the S and Y cities in the Jeollanam-do Province, carrying out survey research. A total of 190 questionnaires among the collected questionnaires were used for the analysis. Key research methods included factor analysis, reliability analysis, descriptive statistic analysis, correlation analysis, t/F-verification and regression analysis. The following are the results. First, conviction of the care workers' awareness of professionalism towards public service and the empathy of service quality were manifested at the highest level. Second, there was a difference in the service quality according to the care workers' experience. Third, care workers' awareness of professionalism affected service quality while service quality increased as the awareness of professionalism increased. The research results were utilized to recommend the need to develop and to disseminate structured education program for the care workers, to set the guideline for the care workers' employment form and salary, and to develop structure for the care workers' ethics.

• 한국노년학
• /
• v.30 no.3
• /
• pp.1005-1020
• /
• 2010

This study was conducted to explore and understand the meaning of stigma of families having old people admitted to nursing home within the Korean culture. Data collection was performed through in-depth interviews and participant observations which were recorded and transcribed verbatim with the consent of the participants. The key informants were 12 people having the aged family member in nursing home. The data was collected from October 2008 to February 2009 until completed. Data were analyzed utilizing the taxonomic analysis method developed by Spradley. As a result, 24 themes, 8 categories and 4 cultural domains are founded from the cases. The cultural domains resulted from the analysis are: 『Incompetence of Oneself: 'Adaptation to Inevitable Realities', 'Difficulty of Economic Independence', 'Difficulty of the Subjective Self-assertion'』, 『Contradictoriness of Decision Making: 'Decision Making Different from Own Mind', 'Conflicts between Neighboring'』, 『Self-rationalization of Decision Making: 'Self-comfort of Decision Making'』, 『Shifting Responsibility: 'Services Different from that of Family', 'Laking in Sincerity of Responsible Institution'』. Theoretical model about stigma of the family having old people admitted to nursing home by the research result in the above was able to be confirmed that it was expressed with the original form of thought of recursive system which continuously showing the inconsistency of decision making, rationalizing decision making, and shifting one's own responsibility in the process of accomplishing the duty of supporting old people. Based on the results, I discussed the meaning of stigma of families having old people admitted to nursing home and provided recommendations for future research.

• The Journal of Industrial Distribution & Business
• /
• v.8 no.6
• /
• pp.51-60
• /
• 2017

Purpose - This study aimed to investigate the correlation between the social activity of the elderly and recognition of family cohesion of the elderly who are exposed to the current aging society. In addition, the study has delved into the method of family cohesion improvement through the differences between groups based on the mediator effect of how the results have effects on the elderly's self-control capabilities. Research design, data, and methodology - This study has targeted the elderly who are attending the elderly university among users in seven community centers located in Seoul and Gyeonggi-do area. The study has also conducted a survey by the format of a half-structured questionnaire. It is aiming to investigate the elderly's family cohesion with children and their self-control capability, and understand their satisfaction of social activity to help successful elderly life. The study has suggested the following as mentioned. First, the study analyzed that the perceptual factor of family cohesion with children would be deducted based on advanced researches. Second, the influencing relationship would be analyzed through the relational analysis between the elderly's family cohesion and social activity. Results - The family cohesion with children has a significant effect on psychological happiness and it showed the influencing relationship with improvement of the elderly's self-control capability. Therefore, creating fellowship through meaningful conversation with children would be needed. In addition, various programs and consultant service would be offered to build healthy relationship between aged parents and their children. Through this, the elderly will be able to have not only better relationships with their family, but also increased psychological health and well-being as well. Conclusions - It is needed that not only supporting policies for children who take care of aged parents but also that the elderly who need long-term care could meet their children whenever they want through increased numbers of sanatoriums operated by cities and countries. In addition, the nation would offer financial and administrative support continuously so that people receive the benefits from sanatoriums located in the locality of children's residence beyond the elderly's residence. Moreover, social infra would be established as well.

• The Journal of the Korea Contents Association
• /
• v.16 no.10
• /
• pp.96-107
• /
• 2016

This study examined the relationship between leisure needs and perception of psycho-social aging among 1307 older adults aged over 60 years utilizing social services of a social welfare center for senior citizens in Seoul, Korea. A convenience sample of this study was collected for three weeks in December 2012 among older adults via paper survey. Hierarchical multiple regression was utilized to analyze collected data. The present study demonstrated that age, years of education, perception of health status, and perception of economic status were significantly associated with perception of successful aging. However, years of education and perception of economic status were no longer significantly associated with perception of psycho-social aging, when leisure needs was included. Age, perception of health status, and hobbies/entertainment activities and employment/plan of later years activities among types of leisure needs were significantly associated with perception of psycho-social aging. This finding demonstrates that leisure needs influence perception of psycho-social aging. Implications and suggestions to improve perception of psycho-social aging among older adults are discussed.

• 한국노년학
• /
• v.41 no.2
• /
• pp.217-240
• /
• 2021

The purpose of this study is to examine the effect of care workers' employment characteristics and perception of facility directors' transformational leadership on quality of service through a hierarchical linear model. For this aim, survey data were collected amongst 240 older adults and 200 care workers who are affiliated within 45 long-term care facilities in Seoul, and analyzed using SPSS 26.0 and HLM 8.0. As a result, one's perception of transformational leadership had a positive effect, whereas, among employment characteristics, employment type and working hours had negative effects on quality of service. Regular workers with fewer working hours and higher awareness of transformational leadership toward the director provided higher quality of service. But wage, total experience and tenure didn't meaningfully affect it. Therefore, the following suggestions were presented. First, it is necessary to reorganize incentive, salary systems and budgets, changing the status of temporary workers' hourly wage system into that of regular workers' monthly one in order to strengthen employment security with acknowledging fundamental professional values through reinforcement of expertise. Reinforcement of long-term care's publicness and establishment of base facilities are also suggested. Second, maintaining appropriate hours of work and rest including annual leave under the Labor Standards Act is needed. Also, increasing the salary of and decreasing working hours for night shift workers are required. Third, education and intervention for inspiring transformational leadership of directors and strengthening qualification standards of them are required.

• 한국노년학
• /
• v.30 no.4
• /
• pp.1359-1375
• /
• 2010

Expecting the expansion of the elderly population under long-term home care with the coming of the aged society, this study purposed to propose a prevention and self-reliance support model and to get practical implications for minimizing dependency on care benefits and enhancing the effectiveness of prevention and self-reliance support. Research methods employed for this study were: first, reviewing theoretical literature for clarifying the concept of prevention and self-reliance support in providing long-term care benefits for the elderly; second, identifying factors hindering prevention and self-reliance support through analyzing standard long-term care use plans and documents related to long-term care benefits at elderly welfare centers to which the research subjects belonged; and third, surveying care benefit users on factors hindering their use of prevention and self-reliance support and their needs in the use of care benefits. Based on the results of the three types of qualitative research, we proposed directions for prevention and self-reliance support modeling and suggested practical implications for enhancing the effectiveness of prevention and self-reliance support. For this study, we collected documentary materials and conducted in-depth interviews with the participants with the consents and cooperation of managers and professional social workers at day care centers and elderly welfare centers in D City. According to the results of this study, literature review suggested that long-term care prevention and self-reliance support should be provided in a way of 'strengthening user-centered support systems,' which support elderly long-term care beneficiaries' right to lead a life as the subject of their own life. Document analysis found the absence of benefits related to health and medicine and lack of social support systems for prevention and self-reliance support, and the results of in-depth interviews suggested the necessity to strengthen services related to elderly long-term care beneficiaries' prevention and self-reliance, and the keen needs of the long-term care elders for prevention and self-reliance included: ① loneliness, anxiety, fear; ② missing for and worry about children and people; ③ moving, outing; ④ health and medical services, rehabilitation programs; ⑤ desire to use day care; ⑥ inconvenience of house structure; ⑦desire for meal menus; and ⑧ the occurrence of disuse syndrome. Based on these results, we suggested the base of prevention and self-reliance support modeling with three axes: ① strengthening user-centered support systems; ② strengthening support systems connected to health and medicine; and ③ strengthening social support systems.

• 한국노년학
• /
• v.29 no.4
• /
• pp.1501-1520
• /
• 2009

The aim of this study is to observe the settlement experience among elderly North Korean women defectors who have been living in South Korea, and to understand their experience more fully. In this study, we adopted Colaizzi's phenomenological research method. The research participants consisted of six elderly North Korean women defectors in the age group of 65 to 70 who have settled in South Korea over three years. We utilized the purposed sampling and an in-depth interview for data collection. Data analysis was based on Colaizzi's six specific steps. As a result, eight theme clusters and sixteen themes were deduced from this research. The eight theme clusters are , , , , , , , . Based on these results, we discussed the meaning of elderly North Korean women's settlement experience in South Korea from a socio-cultural aspect and provided social welfare implications and future research suggestions.

• The Journal of the Korea Contents Association
• /
• v.13 no.7
• /
• pp.238-247
• /
• 2013

This study aims to examine care workers' role perceptions of their occupation and job satisfaction with their work. They are core human resources in elderly care work practices and their perceptions of their occupation are likely to affect their work performance and job satisfaction. A mail survey is conducted targeting to 400 care workers who are at work in long-term care facilities located in Seoul, Gyeonggi and Pusan. Research findings are as follows: firstly, the perception level of care workers' professionalism is 3.38, and job satisfaction is 3.41. Secondly, the correlation analysis between perception level of professionalism and job satisfaction, coefficient is .553, which shows positive relations between two variables. Thirdly, the study shows that care workers' perceptions of professionalism significantly affects their job satisfaction. This study concludes that it is necessary to take a variety of measures in contribution to improve the quality of service through reinforcement of perception of professionalism higher than present level of care workers who supply direct service in long-term care facilities.

• Human Ecology Research
• /
• v.51 no.3
• /
• pp.275-284
• /
• 2013

The purpose of this study is to provide useful insights into community-level support services for family caregivers in Korea by comparing them with the services in the United States. Similar to most developed countries, life expectancy has led to rapid population aging in Korea over the last several decades. However, despite increased social needs of long-term care for the elderly, many elderly Koreans are still dependent on their family for the long-term care. Yet, existing support programs for family caregivers are very limited. As a result, family caregivers often suffer from a lack of financial resources and emotional support. In this study, we comprehensively review the extensive literature, including relevant studies and documents of community-level support services for family caregivers of the elderly at home in Korea and the United States. One of the most important differences is that compared to Korea, diverse services based on the law of NFCSP to support the family caregivers, such as counseling, organization of support group, and educating have been available in the United States since 2000. Additionally, the legal definition of family caregivers in the United State is broader than that in Korea, where family caregivers are limited to those who are related by blood or marriage. Therefore, more caregivers are eligible for support programs and benefit from the programs in the United States. The findings of the study suggest that policy makers in Korea should legislate for diverse and comprehensive services for family caregivers. Further, it is necessary to define legal terms for family caregivers more broadly to extend beneficiaries of the programs.