• Journal of the Korean Society of Industry Convergence
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• v.27 no.3
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• pp.709-725
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• 2024

This study utilized the raw data from the Community Health Survey (2023) to compare differences in body function, activity, participation, environment, personal factors, and suicidal ideations between elderly individuals aged 65 and older living alone and those living with families in Korea. The study subjects consisted of 80,618 elderly individuals aged 65 and older. Cross-tabulation analysis χ²-test), independent sample t-test, and logistic regression analysis were conducted. The results indicated that for both elderly individuals living alone and those living with families, age(p<.001), smoking(p<.001), stress(p<.001), depression experience(p<.001), and falls experiences(p<.001) were risk factors that increased suicidal ideations. Conversely, educational level(p<.05), income level(p<.001), subjective health status(p<.001), social participation(p<.001), economic activity(p<.001), community environment(p<.001), and social relationships were protective factors that reduced suicidal ideations. These findings demonstrate that demographic characteristics and individual health status significantly influence suicidal ideation in the elderly, while social factors contribute to a decrease in suicidal ideation. Furthermore, considering the differences found between elderly individuals living alone and those living with families regarding hypertension and gender, differentiated interventions for suicide prevention are necessary.

• Journal of Families and Better Life
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• v.32 no.5
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• pp.207-219
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• 2014

The purpose of this study was to examine the characteristics of suicide attempts and non-attempts of the elderly living alone and the subjects in this study were 690 elderly persons living alone in Seoul and Gyeonggi Province. For data analysis, this study used descriptive analysis, mean comparison correlation analysis, and binominal logistic regression analysis using PASW 20.0. To explain the suicide attempts of elderly persons who live alone, variables such as sex, age education level, monthly household income, religion, subjective economic status, subjective health status, ADL/IADL, depression, hopelessness, social support, and stress were used. The findings of the study were as follows: First, 9.2 percent(64) of the elderly living alone had attempted suicide and 90.8 percent(626) had never attempted suicide. Second, monthly household income, hopelessness, and social support were identified as the factors that affected their suicide attempts. In other words, the elderly living alone who had lower monthly household income, less social support, and greater feelings of hoprlessness had made more suicide attempts. As it is a cross-sectional research using data from non-probability sampling, this has a limitation in generality sampling, this has a limitation in generalizing the study results. To overcome this limitation, longitudinal research using data from probability sampling is necessary.

• Research in Community and Public Health Nursing
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• v.22 no.4
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• pp.355-364
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• 2011

Purpose: The purpose of this study was to investigate factors that influenced depression of the elderly vulnerable people living alone in the public home visiting health service center. Methods: The participants for this study were 491 Korean elderly men living in G city. Data were collected from February to July, 2011 using structured questionnaires. ${\chi}^2$-test, t-test, Pearson's correlation coefficient and multiple regression with the SPSS/WIN program were used to analyze the data. Results: The levels of ADL and IADL of the elderly living alone were higher, and the levels of social support and life satisfaction were lower than the normal elderly. Depression was positively related to ADL and IADL and negatively to social support and life satisfaction in the elderly living alone. In addition, age, fall experience, ADL, IADL and life satisfaction had influence on the depression. Conclusion: The elderly living alone are in a more serious health status, especially in depression than the normal elderly. It is necessary to develop depression controlling intervention programs in order to promote healthy lifestyles for the elderly vulnerable people living alone.

• Korean Journal of Community Nutrition
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• v.12 no.1
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• pp.58-67
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• 2007

For the rapidly growing elderly population, the achievement and maintenance of good nutritional status is critical to health, functioning and quality of life. Elderly women living alone have been identified as a group associated with poor nutrition. The purpose of this study was to assess dietary intakes of elderly women living alone as compared to those of elderly women living with family in a rural area and to examine seasonal variation. The subjects are 49 elderly women living alone and 41 elderly women living with family who reside in Goryeong-gun, Gyeongbuk, and their food intakes were assessed once each time in summer 2005, winter 2005-2006, and spring 2006. The average ages were 74.7 years for living alone and 72.8 years for living with family. Education level was not different between the two groups. Height, weight, body mass index, systolic and diastolic blood pressures, and fasting blood glucose were not significantly different between the two groups. Average intakes of major nutrients, nutrient adequacy ratio, mean adequacy ratio and index of nutritional quality were lower in the elderly women living alone compared with the elderly women living with family in summer, but the differences in intakes of most nutrients became insignificant both in winter and in spring. High carbohydrate and low fat diet was prevalent and intakes of carbohydrate and fat in summer deviated from macronutrient acceptable distribution ranges. Percentages of the subjects who consumed energy less than 75% of the estimated energy requirement and nutrients less than the estimated average requirement were higher than those reported by the Third National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey. In summer, the percentage of the subjects who consumed energy less than both 75% of the estimated energy requirement and 4 nutrients less than estimated average requirements was 58.5% of the elderly women living alone, which was higher than 26.5% of the elderly women living with family and that of National Nutrition Survey. Therefore, nutrition policies including nutrition education and support are necessary to improve nutritional status of elderly, especially elderly women living alone and should reflect regional and seasonal characteristics.

• Journal of Community Nutrition
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• v.7 no.1
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• pp.21-28
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• 2005

In order to investigate the differences in nutrient intakes and eating habits between people living alone and people living together with family or others by age group, dietary survey data of the subjects aged 20 years or older from 2001 Korean National Health and Nutrition Survey were analyzed. Living status of the subjects was defined as 'single' when the subjects' household member was one person. Age, gender, income, education were adjusted during the comparative analysis. The subjects living alone had diets with lower score of nutritional adequacy ratio and lower quality, and drank more alcoholic beverages when compared with the subjects living together. Females were more greatly affected in dietary intakes by living alone situation than males. Of the four age groups, a group with ages from 30 to 39 years showed less nutrient intake patterns in persons living alone than in persons living together, but the rest three groups with ages from 20 to 29, from 50 to 64, and 65 or older did not show any significant differences. Eating habits of the subjects living alone, such as skipping meals, kinds of snacks, dining-out, were worse as a whole than the other. In conclusion, single living particularly of females or of 30 to 39 years of age group had negative influences on dietary intakes and behavior. There may be statistical errors if socioeconomic and demographic factors such as age, gender, income, and education are not controlled in the population study investigating the effect of living alone on dietary intakes. Further studies will be needed to know the age-specific reasons for the worse nutrient intakes of single living persons.

• Journal of the Korean Institute of Rural Architecture
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• v.14 no.2
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• pp.59-66
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• 2012

The rate of the rural population over the age of 65 was increased from 14.7% in 2000 to 20.6% in 2010. The rate of elderly living alone in rural areas was increased from 9.2% to 13.3% for 10 years. Two million households over 40% of the elderly living alone nationwide are concentrated in rural areas. This paper investigates cases used as living space by interview and remodeling senior centers (village community center) for the elders living alone in rural areas. In Gimje two the nation's first senior centers were remodeled in 2006 (for both the village community center) and were begun to use these as group homes. Evaluation was a success. Since then, these were increased by approximately 20 centers per year by year and are currently 108 centers at the end of 2011. In Chungcheongnam-do, a pilot project has been begun for communal living by remodeling the senior center (for both the village community center) and elderly housing. Municipalities are similar in their business (is mostly). However, the interview results for each municipality are different. The success of the project depends on rules proposed by local governments and the development of programs with users to continuous financially support.

• The Journal of Industrial Distribution & Business
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• v.11 no.2
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• pp.41-48
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• 2020

Purpose: This study is to examine the intention of the elderly who live alone in the customized AI speaker for the elderly living alone to improve the quality of life service for the elderly living alone in the smart city environment. Based on the quality of life model of the elderly, this study is applied to the technology acceptance model to investigate the relationship between perceived usefulness and ease of use on the sustained use intention. Research design, data and methodology: Residents in Suwon, Gyeonggi-do, selected as candidate local governments for the Smart City Challenge Project of the Ministry of Land, Infrastructure and Transport in June 2019 to measure the perceived technology acceptance of potential users for the AI technology for the elderly living alone as part of the smart city technology. In order to evaluate the intention of using AI speaker, which is the target system of this study, a video of a chatbot using experience of elderly people living alone was produced. Results: First of all, in order for the elderly living alone to have an attitude to use AI-based speakers, there should be a perceived usefulness of the quality of life of the elderly. However, ease of use did not show any significant causal relationship to attitude toward use. In addition, the attitude toward use weakly influenced the intention to use. In other words, elderly people living alone were not likely to have a significant effect on their attitude toward use. However, feeling that AI speakers are easy to use will help to improve the quality of life, which in turn led to the attitude toward using AI speakers, which could lead to indirect effects. Finally, the perceived usefulness of quality of life was found to have a weak effect on direct use intentions. Conclusions: This study conducted a study on the technology acceptance of service environment to improve the quality of life for the specific user group who live alone in the smart seat environment. In this study, we examined the effects of AI speaker on the elderly living alone to improve the quality of life for the elderly living alone.

• Korean Journal of Culture and Social Issue
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• v.9 no.1
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• pp.115-137
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• 2003

This study aims to investigate the related variables of self-esteem and depression among the Korean elderly people living alone and examine the relationships or interactions between those variables. Participants were 676 elderly men and women who were at least 65 years of age(M=76.17, sd=7.60) and lived in Seoul, Korea. Three hundred seventy eight participants of this study were living alone. Participants completed questionnaires and psychological tests including: Rosenberg's Self-Esteem Scale, Zung's Self-Rating Depression Scale, The Index of Activities of Daily Living(IADL), Social Support Index(SSI), and Life Satisfaction in the Elderly Scale(LSES). Main statistical designs were 2(gender)×2(residential types), Pearson-product moment and regression analysis. Results indicated that the elderly living alone recognized their health poorer, have lower economic status, and received less social supports than the elderly lived with others. The elderly men who had children were more likely to lived alone. And the elderly men living alone received less social supports than the elderly women living alone, and significant gender difference was found in the reason of living alone. The elderly men living alone had lower self-esteem than the elderly women living alone, while the elderly living alone showed more depressive symptoms than the elderly living with others. There were 2-way interactions both in self-esteem and depression by gender and residential types. There was highly significant gender difference in self-esteem only for the elderly living alone, and it was found that there was no significant difference in depression between elderly men living alone and women living with others. Regression analysis revealed that physical function and self-reported health are predictors of self-esteem, and physical function, self-reported health, and social support are predictors of depression for the Korean elderly living alone. These findings reiterate the role of physical function, social support, health in self-esteem and depession among the elderly and suggest the gender role for quality of life among the Korean elderly living alone.

• The Korean Journal of Community Living Science
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• v.27 no.spc
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• pp.625-634
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• 2016

This study aims to verify the effect of the rural community living home use through an analysis of depression among the elderly women who live alone in the rural community living home. A survey was conducted from July to September 2015 through direct interviews with 236 elderly people who live alone in community living homes at 52 locations across the country. The main results of this study are as follows. First, social support from family/relatives and neighbors/friends was found not to affect depression in the elderly living in community living homes. Second, satisfaction with health status, economic status and life appeared to affect their depression. This indicates the need for various measures to increase the subjective satisfaction of health. Third, when the demographic characteristics, social support and personal satisfaction were controlled, the period of use, satisfaction with use and operational service/no service were proven to have an impact on depression in the elderly living alone in community living homes. In other words, since the level of satisfaction with community living homes is very high and this has a positive impact on the elderly living in community living homes, it is desirable to have an ongoing policy for the homes to be utilized as important welfare resources. Based on these findings, this study proposes improvements in the user experience and programs and services offered for rural community living home business programs.

• 한국노년학
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• v.39 no.3
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• pp.451-465
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• 2019

This study focuses on the relationship between living alone and depression of the elderly, and explores the possibility that loneliness mediates the relationship between the living alone and the level of depression in Korean Elderly. The sample of the study consists of 1000 elderly aged 65 and above living in Chuncheon. The data is analyzed with the path analysis method with OLS regression method. The main results of this study are as follows. First, the level of loneliness showed a significant difference according to whether they were living alone. The reason for the difference was that the elderly living alone had less intimate relationship comparing with the elderly living with others and did not feel that they had the sense of belonging or intimate relationship with others. Second, it was confirmed that controlling the loneliness, the living alone showed no direct relationship with depression, but it's indirect effect through loneliness was significant.