노년여성의 브래지어 착용실태 조사연구 -일반환경변인을 중심으로-

A Study on he Actual Condition of Brassiere for Elderly Women -Focusing on General Environment-

The purpose of this study is to suggest fundamental information about wearing method and production of brassiere, which is suitable for physiological hygiene and efficient action for elderly women. The subject is 418 elderly women aged 50∼69 years old. Data is processed by a computer(SAS) and is analyzed by using frequency, percentage, x²-test. The main results of this study are as follows. 1. Elderly women'weight and breast size are higher thant their younger counterparts'in their 20's, but the older and poorer women with more children have smaller weight and breast. Most of the elderly women feel that their breasts are drooped or falling apart. I fact, those elderly women who gave birth to more children have more drooped and wider breasts. The major type of elderly women'breast is the 'drooped breast' featured more by those elderly women who have more children. 2. Most of the elderly women began to wear the brassiere for the first time in their 20's the older women with more children began to wear the brassiere earlier, while those less educated and poorer began to protect their breasts with brassiere later. Many elderly women wear the brassiere to be protected from dirt, noise or look more neat, but day tend to wear the brassiere not all day around but at certain times, older, less educated and proper women with more children tend to use the brassiere for etiquette and less often. This group of elderly women feel tedious, stage or uncomfortable for the brassiere. 3. Most of the elderly women know about their brassiere size. Such variables as age, education and income are correlated positively with the interest in and consciousness of the brassiere size. All in all, the statistical distribution of elderly women's brassiere size is very wide, while most of them use 90A, 85A and 95A sizes. On the other hand, the most popular size of the under bust circumference is 85∼90cm, while their primary cup size is A.