• Journal of Korean Academy of Nursing
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• v.30 no.4
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• pp.982-994
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• 2000

This study was designed to develop a program for unemployed matriarchs and show if the program affected their view on the meaning in life. The subjects were women registered in an occupational training program for unemployed matriarchs, which is being practiced in the 'Working Women Center' located in Busan. The researchers selected 44 persons from the group who agreed to our program. This study was done from the 10th of March, 1999 to the 9th of October. The researchers used the measurement tools, The Purpose in Life, Self-esteem, Hope and Meaning in Life which was composed of 63 items developed by them. Their Cronbach's alpha were .88, .79, .76 and .95. The researchers analyzed the data with frequency, percentage, Mean, S.D, Wilcoxon signed ranks test which were deduced from SPSS 10.0 WIN program. The results of this study were as follows: 1) The program is composed of 'becoming intimate', 'open-minded', 'exploration on self', 'relax of repressed emotion', 'self- acceptance', 'establishing the life-goal', 'enrichment of human relationship' and closing. It took 20 hours for this program to come into practice. 2) According to the analysis of the general traits of all subjects, average age was 39.36. High school graduates were 86%, college graduates were 14% and divorce were 57%, bereavement were 18%, and the rest were 25%. 3) The result of 1st progam showed self-esteem during the program was high. 4) The result of 2nd progam showed self-esteem during the program was high. 5) The result of 3rd progam showed the sum scores of meaning in life, creative meaning, and attitudinal meaning during the program was high. 6) The result of 4th progam showed the sum scores of meaning in life and creative meaning during the program was high. On the viewpoint of above results, we convinced that 'a program for unemployed matriarch is effective to establish a stronger meaning in life. Therefore, it is demanded that support for unemployed matriarchs should not only be economic help such as technical training and help of living expenses, but also psychological, professional and systematic support.

• Women's Health Nursing
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• v.8 no.2
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• pp.190-200
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• 2002

The purposes of this study were to understand the sex role identity and the meaning in life(MIL) of matriarchs and analyze their relationships to offer basic data for effective nursing strategies for improving MIL. The data for this study was collected from the 10th of August to the 30th of November, 2000. The subjects were women registered in an occupational training program for unemployed matriarchs which is held in the Working Women's Center in Busan. The measurement tools of this study were MIL(unpublished)developed by researchers and sex role inventory designed by Kim Deuk Ran(1992). The results of this study were as follows: 1.Sex role identities of matriarchs were feminity 13.7%, masculinity 13.4%, androgyny 37.8% and undifferentiated 35.1%. 2. The mean MIL for matriarchs was $173.46{\pm}16.09$. 3. The levels of MIL were 57.2% of the subjects felt a loss of meaning in life, i. e. existential vacuum, 42.8% were in pursuit of meaning but had not discovered it completely and 6.0% felt they had established meaning in life. 4.There were significant differences in MIL levels, concurrent to 4 types of sex role identities(F=11.93, P=.000). And according to Scheffe's post test, between feminity and masculinity, feminity and androgyny, masculinity and the undifferentiated, androgyny and the undifferentiated, there were significant differences. From the results of this study, most matriarchs felt loss of meaning in life, i. e. existential vacuum, and the group with masculine sex role identity had the highest level of MIL. In conclusion, the factors related to masculine sex role identity are necessary to develop nursing strategies for improving levels of MIL.