• 한국노년학
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• v.30 no.3
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• pp.1005-1020
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• 2010

This study was conducted to explore and understand the meaning of stigma of families having old people admitted to nursing home within the Korean culture. Data collection was performed through in-depth interviews and participant observations which were recorded and transcribed verbatim with the consent of the participants. The key informants were 12 people having the aged family member in nursing home. The data was collected from October 2008 to February 2009 until completed. Data were analyzed utilizing the taxonomic analysis method developed by Spradley. As a result, 24 themes, 8 categories and 4 cultural domains are founded from the cases. The cultural domains resulted from the analysis are: 『Incompetence of Oneself: 'Adaptation to Inevitable Realities', 'Difficulty of Economic Independence', 'Difficulty of the Subjective Self-assertion'』, 『Contradictoriness of Decision Making: 'Decision Making Different from Own Mind', 'Conflicts between Neighboring'』, 『Self-rationalization of Decision Making: 'Self-comfort of Decision Making'』, 『Shifting Responsibility: 'Services Different from that of Family', 'Laking in Sincerity of Responsible Institution'』. Theoretical model about stigma of the family having old people admitted to nursing home by the research result in the above was able to be confirmed that it was expressed with the original form of thought of recursive system which continuously showing the inconsistency of decision making, rationalizing decision making, and shifting one's own responsibility in the process of accomplishing the duty of supporting old people. Based on the results, I discussed the meaning of stigma of families having old people admitted to nursing home and provided recommendations for future research.