Even in this country in which the family ties are strong and the status of the aged is firmly established, as the structure of the society has become modernized, the status of the aged has been degrading and the caregiving function of the family has b...
Even in this country in which the family ties are strong and the status of the aged is firmly established, as the structure of the society has become modernized, the status of the aged has been degrading and the caregiving function of the family has been weakening. Consequently the stresses of the aged and their family, in its quantity and quality has much worsened than before.
Due to rapid industrialization, the aged and their supporters in Korea have experienced a great deal of stresses as the status of the aged has been degraded and the caregiving function of the family has been weakened. In particular, the aged in low-income families are overburdened by stresses, since their family members have to participate in economic activities to make their living and consequently, the aged have to fulfill their need of dependency by themselves. Meanwhile, the supporters in low-income also provide appropriate care-services for the aged. Furthermore, the supporters not only have to provide care-giving for the aged but also have to play other roles such as economic activity, housekeeping, childbearing and education.
With the recognition of these problems, the main purpose of this study was to clarify what kinds of stresses the aged and their supporters suffered respectively and what kinds of coping strategies they adopted. To put is concretely, it aimed at 1) verifying dimensions, affecting factors and the difference of dimensions of stress the aged and their supporters experienced respectively, 2) verifying types, affecting factors and the difference of adopting the coping strategies to alleviated or relieve stress, 3) comparing-analysis of stress the aged and the supporters experienced and the coping strategies they adopted in such cases, 4) providing socio-political coping strategies to relieve stress of both the aged and the supporters.
For this study, 398 of the aged of 60 years old and over their supporters who resided in a permanent rental apartment complex in Seoul city were chosen by purposive sampling and were interviewed. The structured questionnaire form used for this study was composed of 1) questions for the characteristics and resources of the aged, supporters and family, 2) questions for stresses of the aged and supporters, 3) questions for stress coping strategies of the aged and their supporters. The data collected were analyses by SAS statistics package after coding and data-correcting process. The major findings were as follows.
The dimensions of stress experienced by the aged and their supporters were classified as that of depression, loss of self-confidence, alienation and dissatisfaction were not found, while the dimension of depression of the aged was largely depended on the living cost of the family, the expected income of the aged. The dimension of the loss of self-confidence was determined by the expected income of the aged, monthly living cost of the family, the degree of harmonization of the family and the health condition of the supporters. The dimension of the depression of the supporters was mainly determined by the health condition of the supporters, monthly living cost of the family, the expected income of the supporters. Meanwhile the dimension of alienation was determined by the health condition of the supporters, the level of education and age of the aged. The dimension of depression was influenced y the health condition of supporters themselves.
The dimensions of stress of the aged determined by these precedent factors showed differences concerning the general characteristics of the aged. As for the dimension of depression of the aged, female aged indicated higher depression than male aged, And the depression degree of the aged who participate in economic activities. On the other hand, the dimensions of the loss of self-confidence, alienation and dissatisfaction did not show any significant difference according to the socio-democratic characteristics of the aged. As for marital status, all 4 dimensions of stresses showed no significant differences, the only dimension that showed concerning the general characteristics of supporters was that of depression; 1) female supporters indicated higher depression than their male counterparts, 2) supporters who had spouses showed the lowest level of stress and supporters without spouses showed the highest level of stress, 3) supporters who did not participate in economic activities showed higher level of stress than those in economic activities.
The coping strategies for both the aged and their supporters adopted to cope with stress events consisted of 3 dimensions, that is, aggressive coping, negative coping and positive coping. As for the factors affecting the degrees of adopting coping strategies, the degree of adopting aggressive coping strategies was more likely to be determined by the level of education of the aged and the subjective evaluation of the family economic status by aged. But the statistically significant factors affecting negative and positive coping strategies were not confirmed. The degree of adopting aggressive coping strategies of supporters was mainly determined by the factors which were directly related with the aged such as age, monthly income of the aged, and also was influenced by the age of the supporters.
The degree of adopting coping strategies of the aged and supporters showed differences according to socio-demographic characteristics. As for the aged, their coping strategies showed no significant difference regarding sex or marital status. In terms of economic activities, those who participated in economic activities adopted positive strategies more often than those who did not. According to the marital status of supporters who divorces tended to adopt less aggressive coping strategies and more positive coping strategies. According to economic activities, supporters who did not participated in economic activities tended to adopt more negative coping strategies. As for sex of supporters, any significant difference was not shown in the degree of adopting coping strategies.
Each the aged and their supporters and showed differences in adopting coping strategies responding to the coping strategies of their counterpart, 1) As supporters adopted aggressive coping strategies, the aged utilized negative coping strategies, 2) As supporters adopted negative coping strategies, the aged tended to utilize positive strategies. As the aged suffered depression and loss of self-confidence, they tended to adopt positive coping strategies. As the level of the alienation became severs, they tended to adopt both positive and aggressive coping strategies. As the dissatisfaction of the aged became higher, the aged tended to adopt aggressive coping strategies, while the level of dissatisfaction goes down, they tended to adopt negative coping strategies. Regardless of the dimensions of stress, the higher the level of stress became, the more they tended to adopt positive coping strategies. The lower the level of stress became, the more they utilized negative coping strategies. As for supporters, regardless of the dimensions of stress, they tended to adopt negative coping strategies as the level of the stress they experienced increased. But as the level of depression, loss of self-confidence and dissatisfaction increased, they adopted aggressive coping strategies while the level of dissatisfaction became to be higher, they adopted aggressive coping strategies while the level of dissatisfaction became to be higher, they adopter positive aggressive strategies more often.
Based on these major findings, linkage system among three subjects for welfare-government, family and individual ? must be firmly established and all of these three subjects should make efforts to alleviated the stresses of the aged and their supporters. First, the government should improve the unequal redistribution of income through the expansion both in quantity and quality of life protecting program relieve economic, time, social and psychological burdens of supporting the aged by managing self-supporting facilities in order to provide community care. And people are encouraged to future plan for their old years when they are in their middle aged. Also the aged and their supporters should be helped to learn elf-control methods to relieve the stress they are now experiencing. The further study should be done from the theoretical perspective synthesizing the processes and structures of stresses. The buffer effect of social support, factors directly related with supporting activities and the comparative study between strata/area should also be conducted