• Research in Community and Public Health Nursing
• /
• v.13 no.4
• /
• pp.732-742
• /
• 2002

There are few research on the social drinking experience reported by women. Thus, it is necessary to understand the increasing tendency of womens drinking experience in the sociocultural context. This study was aimed to explore and delineate the drinking experience of full-time house wives base don Strauss and Corbin's grounded theory (1998). The subjects of this study were 10 full-time middle-aged house wives who were living in Seoul region. The data were collected through several in-depth interviews and observations until the theoretical saturation was achieved. The data were analyzed using Strauss and Corbin's grounded theory method. The results of this study generated a paradigm that the drinking experience of the full-time middle-aged house wives has a core category of 'free-oneself-from' and is also connected with mingling, anguish, accessibility, reaction of other people, change, personal resources, self-expression and building relationships by drinking. All processes from the occurrence of the central phenomenon to extinction are as follows; 1) Starting the process of the drinking experience for mingling and resolving anguish, and by having an easy accessibility; 2) Perceiving the process of reaction by other people, physical change of herself. and psycho-behavioral change; 3) Experiencing the process of free-oneself from thorough drinking; 4) Acknowledging the process of the resources for free-oneself-from; 5) Selecting the process of self-expression according to the resources; 6) Building the process of the relationship with drinking as a way of self-expression. Based on this paradigm, 4 hypothesis and 4 types are generated. Thus, this study suggests that it is useful to develop nursing interventions to improve the self-esteem of the full-time middle-aged house wives and to provide them various methods of problem solving strategies. This study also proposes that there should be a strategic program for the women so that they could make a route for positive self-expression by achieving a proper relationship with drinking.