• International Journal of Advanced Culture Technology
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• v.6 no.2
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• pp.9-15
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• 2018

The purpose of this study was to assess risk indicators of depressive symptoms such as demographic, socio-economical domains (age, gender, marital status, education, child, religion, income, health, friendship) and personality domains (neurotic personality, self-esteem and life goal attitude) of community dwelling elderly persons. A total of 300 community-residing elderly participants aged 65+ in a metropolitan city in Korea, were recruited for this interview survey. The interview covered demographic and socio-economic characteristics, and administration of the 20-item Korean Version of CES-D, the 10-item Self-esteem, the 19-item Neuroticism and the 10-itm Goal Instability scale. The prevalence of significant depressive symptoms (CES-D scale >= 21) was 31%. Logistic regression analysis showed high risk for depression was associated with high neuroticism, less intimate friendship, high goa1 instability, and childlessness, respectively in the order of significance. Factors in the personality domains were more strongly associated with depressive symptoms than factors in the socio- economical domains. Both cultural and universal meaning of the findings was discussed with regard to intervention.

• Journal of agricultural medicine and community health
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• v.39 no.4
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• pp.209-221
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• 2014

Objectives: The objective of this study was to identify the effects of area-based health promotion initiatives with community participation and partnerships conducted in Sabong-Myeon, Jinju City for three years. Methods: We used data from the '2008 Sabong-Myeon Health Survey' and the '2011 Health Plus Happiness Plus Community Health Survey'. The study comprised 520 systematically sampled individuals, composed of 300 adults in 2008 and 200 adults in 2011. We compared some health behavior and mental health indicators as well as social capital levels between these two surveys. Results: The prevalences of smoking and walking exercise in 2011 were significantly higher than those in 2008. The prevalences of high risk alcohol consumption in men, stress perception, depressive symptoms experience, and suicide ideation were significantly lower than those in 2008. The proportion of people having a high level of social capital in 2011 was significantly higher than that in 2008, regardless of sex or marital status. However, the difference in the proportion was not statistically significant among people with a high educational background. Conclusions: This study suggested that the 3 years' implementation of area-based health promotion initiatives conducted in Sabong-Myeon might help to improve the mental health and social capital level of this community. The long-term health effects of area-based health promotion initiatives with community participation and partnerships need to be studied further, and lessons from these initiatives can be obtained by adapting proper evaluation methods.