The elderly who just reached senescence are exposed to the various problems of life which they had not experienced during the prior life-cycle. Loss of vocational role and economic difficulty from retirement, changes in the body and health, death of ...
The elderly who just reached senescence are exposed to the various problems of life which they had not experienced during the prior life-cycle. Loss of vocational role and economic difficulty from retirement, changes in the body and health, death of the spouse and people closely related and reduction of the social network are elements to threaten humanly life and survival of the elderly. The suicide rate of the elderly is higher than that of other age groups and recently it's increasing continually. So in order to prevent suicide of the elderly, it's required to study factors influencing on the suicidal ideation leading to actual suicide.
For 207 old persons above 65 residing at Seoul, this study intended to inspect what relation there exists between the elderly's social support, self-esteem and the suicidal thinking, and examined factors influencing their suicidal ideation.
For response data, frequency and percentage, minimum and maximum, mean and standard deviation, t-test and ANOVA, Pearson's Correlation Coefficient and Multiple Regression Analysis were performed using PASW Statistics 18.0 program.
The results of the study were summarized in the following.
1. Among the general characteristics of objects, as for sex distinction, the rate of men was higher than that of women and the rate of 75~84 olds was higher than that of 65~74 olds as for age. As for the marital status, the married were 57.0% and the cases of living together with the spouse were 52.7% so it was the highest as for the living arrangement.
2. Social support wasn't much higher as the average 3.39 in the total points of 5. As for the sub-areas of the social supports, family support was the average 3.48 points with others' support of 3.40 points so they perceived both social supports as the similar points.
Self-esteem was the average 3.37 in the total points of 5 so objects of this study had low self-esteem. If inspected sub-areas of self-esteem from 5- point scale, they perceived self-esteem as the average 3.57 point of the positive self-recognition and as the average 3.07 point of the negative.
In addition, as the average 1.47 point in the total points of 3 of the suicidal ideation, it showed that objects of this study have a little higher suicidal ideation.
3. As for the social support according to the general characteristics, there was statistically significant difference in sex distinction, religion, living arrangement, educational level, monthly allowance and mode to use spare time.
As for self-esteem according to the general characteristics, there was statistically significant difference in sex distinction, religion, living arrangement and monthly allowance. And as for the suicidal ideation, there was statistically significant difference in the marital status.
4. As for the relation between the social support, self-esteem and the suicidal ideation, it showed statistically very significant positive correlation in the social support and self-esteem. And there existed relatively higher positive correlation in family support among sub-factors of the social support and the positive self-recognition among sub-factors of self-esteem. Furthermore, relation between the social support and the suicidal ideation had significantly negative correlation, so did in the relation between self-esteem and the suicidal ideation.
5. It showed that positive and negative self-recognition as sub-factors of self-esteem, others' support as sub-factor of the social support influence on the suicidal ideation. In other words, as positive self-recognition was lower, as negative self-recognition was higher, as social support of others was lower, they had much more effect on the suicidal ideation of the elderly. And it showed about 36.1% of the explanatory capability.