• Korean Journal of Culture and Social Issue
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• v.12 no.5_spc
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• pp.133-147
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• 2006

Korean society is rapidly becoming an ageing society. The Korean may have to live longer than did their parents. Increasing life expectancy and changing social structure, Korean people are getting interested in quality of life, and well-being is becoming a matter of concern. And, the Korean is fully aware of the importance of health for well-being or good life. This concern about health may bring about specific behaviors related to health. Although health care expenditures of Korea are currently smaller than those of other developed countries, it is continuously increasing. Large portion of increased amount of health care expenditures is to spend for disease prevention and expansion of long-term care facilities. Constructs of well-being of the Korean, not living in western culture, may be different from those of people living in western society. Health is not top-ranked to importance for quality of life in previous studies. It does not mean health isn't determinant factor for good life or well-being. Health is an essential element for well-being. It has been proved in several researches which examined poor quality of life caused by certain diseases and management of health-related quality of life. Some theories relate to health-seeking behaviors suggested the health belief or the attitude toward health, intention to do health behavior, perceived behavioral control, and self efficacy as important factors which could predict health-related behaviors. With getting older, people decline in physical and physiological functions and become vulnerable to chronic diseases. Quality of life depends on how to adjust to these changes in senescence. Social supports, especially supports from offspring, are very important to quality of life in senescence, because supports from offspring have influence on pride of the older, they may be afraid of disclose the conflict with their offspring. Avoiding self-disclosure exclude other source of social supports and harm individual's health, therefore psychological intervention is needed to. Increasing life expectancy of the Korean, Korean government has to provide numerous long-term care facilities as well as psychosocial supports. The Korean, so far, does not recognize that psychologist could render great service to promoting individual or community health and improving individual's quality of life. It is highly expected that psychologists take actively interested and involve in health related to quality of life.