• Journal of Korean Academy of Nursing
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• v.35 no.2
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• pp.336-343
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• 2005

Purpose: The purpose of this study was to investigate the effects of dependency and abuse on depression according to gender in widowed elderly. Method: A convenient sample consisted of 246 widowed elderly who were more than 65 years old in four cities. Data was collected using a structured questionnaire from August to September, 2002. A dependency Scale developed by Ahn (1999) was used to measure the level of dependency. Emotional abuse and physical abuse were measured by 10 items for emotional abuse and 7 items for physical abuse selected out of the Conditions Scale of Elder Abuse. The level of depression was measured by the Geriatric Depression Scale (GDS). The SPSS WIN 11.0 version program was used for data analysis. Result: In male widowed elderly, dependency affected depression indirectly through emotional abuse. While in female widowed elderly, dependency affected depression directly and affected emotional abuse indirectly. Conclusion: The study showed that dependency was the most explainable variable on depression in widowed female elderly. Therefore, it dependency should be assessed first in nursing intervention to relieve depression of widowed elderly.

• Journal of Preventive Medicine and Public Health
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• v.41 no.4
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• pp.272-278
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• 2008

Objectives: To compare the health behaviors of widowed women with those of currently married women. Methods: We randomly sampled the subjects from the Jeollanamdo Resident Registration Data and we then selected 2,331 widowed women and 4,775 married women. Well-trained examiners measured the height, weight, blood pressure and abdomen circumference, and the women were interviewed with using a questionnaire. Logistic regression analysis was used to estimate the odds ratios(OR) of the two groups. Results: The smoking rate (OR=2.46; 95% confidence interval [CI]1.65, 3.66) was significantly higher for the widowed women. On the contrary, the awareness rate of a smoking cessation campaign (OR=0.80; 95% CI=0.70, 0.92), a quit tobacco telephone line (OR=0.73; 95% CI =0.61, 0.88) and a quit smoking clinic (OR=0.74; 95% CI=0.62, 0.89) were lower for the widowed women. The rate of receiving a health exam (OR=0.80; 95% CI=0.70, 0.91), the rate of undergoing gastric cancer screening (OR=0.77; 95% CI=0.68, 0.88), breast cancer screening (OR=0.79; 95% CI=0.69, 0.89), cervix cancer screening in the last 2 years (OR=0.81; 95% CI=0.71, 0.92), colon cancer screening in the last 5 years (OR=0.74; 95% CI=0.63, 0.87) were significantly lower for the widowed women. Conclusions: This study revealed that the health behaviors are significantly different between the widowed women and the married women. To improve the health behaviors of the widowed women, further study and research that will investigate the socioeconomic and environmental factors that affect the health behaviors of widowed women will be needed.

• Journal of Families and Better Life
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• v.33 no.4
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• pp.67-82
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• 2015

The study examined whether informal and formal social participations may mediate the association between widowhood and depressive symptoms, and whether gender may moderate the mediated associations. The data consisted of men and women 65+ who participated in the $3^{rd}$ wave of the Koran Longitudinal Study of Aging (KLoSA ; N = 4,146). Findings suggest that first, widowed older adults experienced significantly higer levels of depressive symptoms compared to their married counterparts. At the same time, the widowed individuals also reported more frequent contacts with family, friends, and neighbors (informal social participation), which contributed to narrowing the depression gap between widowed and married. Second, gender moderated the mediated association such that the mediating effect of informal social participation was significant only for older widowed women. Further, no mediating effect was found of formal social participation (participation in social, leisure, religious groups) for widowed and married regardless of gender. Previous studies indicated that social participation may be an important mediating factor that attenuates the effect of widowhood on depressive symptoms. Building on existing research, the present study highlighted theoretical rationales for potential gender differences in the way social participation may mediate the widowhood-depression linkage and evaluated statistically whether gender may moderate the mediated association.

• Korean Journal of Human Ecology
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• v.7 no.2
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• pp.59-79
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• 2004

The purpose of this study is to investigate the living status of widowed and unwidowed elderly women by means of the case study employing in depth interviews. The main results are following : First, In the case of economic status of elderly women was very low: widowed, it was significantly low. The allowances were provided by their children. And they were spent for medical expenses¬Second, Most elderly women have one or two chronic diseases, mostly Arthritis, Gastritis, Hyperpiesia. Third, The emotional relationship of the elderly women centered around their children. Fourth, Leisure activities of the elderly women were not partially formed, usually T.V. watching, chatting, playing Korea cards. Fifth, The elderly women wanted most to work for house chores, do light exercises, and to earn pocket money. Sixth, The wish for the goverment was financial support! health support! and emotional welfare support.

• 한국노년학
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• v.27 no.2
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• pp.371-392
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• 2007

Marital status has drawn much attention as previous studies have been pointed it out as a key factor of health. Nonetheless, systematic studies on elderly marital status and health have been quite limited, for most researches have neglected the varying effects of marital status on health over the lifespan and mainly focused on midlife. This study, using nationwide survey on elderly population, attempts to discover the health differentials between widowed and married elderly and explain the differences though the structure and function of their social network. The results reveal that the magnitudes of marital status effects were differed by dimensions of health. The widowed were more likely to be unhappy than married, even after controlling the socio-demographic characteristics. In physical health, however, the health differences between widowed and married were less noticeable or disappeared, as sex, age and other structure factors were considered. Furthermore, the strength of social network factors affecting the physical and mental health of elderly turned out to be different between married and widowed: widowed were more likely than married to be affected by the contact with children and less likely to be affected by contact with friends/relatives. Such results had both positive and negative impact on physical and mental health of widowed. This may imply the difference in pathways of regulating health among the married and widowed elderly.

• Journal of Korean Academy of Fundamentals of Nursing
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• v.17 no.3
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• pp.382-390
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• 2010

Purpose: This study was done to identify the relationship of perceived health, coping strategies, dependency, suicidal ideation and depression widowed elders, and to identify predictors of depression in this population. Method: The research design for this study was a descriptive survey design using a convenience sampling. Data collection was done using self-questionnaire with 162 elders from welfare centers for senior citizens located in 3 cities, Seoul, Gangneung and Seosan. Pearson correlation coefficients and stepwise multiple regression with the SPSS Win 12.0 Program were used to analyze the data. Results: Depression had significant negative correlations with perceived health (r=-.525, p<.001), and coping strategies (r=-.253, p=.005) and positive correlations with dependency (r=.430, p<.001), and suicidal ideation (r=.473, p<.001). The explained variance for depression was 47.5%. Of the variables, perceived health (${\beta}=-.237$, p=.003), suicidal ideation (${\beta}=.398$, p<.001) and dependency (${\beta}=.341$, p<.001) significantly predicted the degree of depression. Conclusion: Findings from this study provide a comprehensive understanding of depression and related factors for widowed elders in Korea. However, further study with a larger random sample and more a detailed research design is necessary.

• Journal of Korean Academy of Nursing
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• v.37 no.7
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• pp.1098-1107
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• 2007

Purpose: The purpose of this study was to analyze the types of life adjustment of widowed elderly women in Korea. Methods: The research design was a Q-Methodological Approach. Thirty selected Q-statements from 32 subjects were classified into a shape of normal distribution using a 7 point scale. The collected data was analyzed using a QUANL PC program. Results: Three types of life adjustment were identified. Type I is the independent type: overcome the reality. Type II is the abandonment type: deny the reality. Type III is the accommodation type: accept the reality. Conclusion: The results of the study indicate that different approaches to the quality of life for widowed elderly women in Korea are recommended based on the three types of life adjustment.

• Journal of Korean Library and Information Science Society
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• v.46 no.4
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• pp.299-324
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• 2015

This paper is a qualitative single case study and it was conducted for the purpose to explore change in interactive bibliotherapy experience with a middle-aged widowed spouse. A Middle-aged Widowed Spouse was taken as a research partaker. Through this research, we explored partitively the partaker's experience changes by each session during the commencing of interactive bibliotherapy and the partaker's inner/external experience change after the end of session. The result, interactive bibliotherapy facilitated and expressed the reaction of a partaker by its writing skills and reading materials including partaker's own poems. Furthermore, facilitated emotion from material and self-awareness made a partaker understand and accept itself through therapeutical interaction. In addition, those kind of changes appeared inner/external experience in life, and lasted after the end of the session. In this regard, the inner/external change appeared from a partaker means the effect of bibliotherapy, and we can notice that it is a result that facilitated through truthful reaction of counselor and texts.

• Korean Journal of Human Ecology
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• v.22 no.4
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• pp.609-618
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• 2013

The purpose of this study is to explore gender differences in elderly's dating experience and related variables. 427 elderly of age 65 or older participated. The results are as follows. 1. 80% of widowed elderly had no dating experience, and far more elderly men than women had dating experience. 2. Attitudes towards dating, of both elderly themselves and their children, had influence on the elderly's dating experience, regardless of gender. This indicates that the elderly's own acceptance and their children's positive attitude are important to the elderly's dating experience. 3. Gender differences were found in influences of living arrangement (whether they lived with their children or not), economical reasons, and personality factors. These variables proved significant only for the elderly men. More elderly men who did not live with their children than the elderly men who did had experienced dating, and economical reasons along with personality factors proved to be obstructive for elderly men's dating life.

• Journal of Families and Better Life
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• v.27 no.6
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• pp.215-227
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• 2009

The subject of this study is a cohort of elderly women who are older than 60 years of age and reside S city in and Jeonnam. The sample size of this study is 386. The statistics used for data analysis were frequency, percentage, mean, standard deviation, reliability, ANOVA, correlation, and multiple regression analysis through the SAS package program. The major study result were as follows. First, the physical satisfaction of elderly women is low, and the life satisfaction of the married group is higher than for the widowed group. Second, according to the results. For the women from the married group, the effect were from economic state, age, and physical satisfaction. There were also significant interaction effects according to economic state$\times$physical satisfaction, age$\times$economic state$\times$physical satisfaction, and age$\times$physical satisfaction. As for women from the widowed group, the effect were from physical satisfaction, economic state, and age. There were also significant interaction effects according to economic state$\times$physical satisfaction, age$\times$physical satisfaction, age$\times$economic state$\times$physical satisfaction, and age$\times$economic state. Fourth, the married group gave significance to life satisfaction, economic state, physical satisfaction, and age. The group of widows gave significance to life satisfaction, physical satisfaction, economic state, and age. The results of this study suggest that we should be concerned about the physical satisfaction of older women and should foster a social atmosphere to establish a positive image of elderly women.