Technology and Health Care 22 (2014) 489–495 DOI 10.3233/THC-140808 IOS Press
489
Comparative study on the attitudes of female seniors and female university students toward seniors Joohyun Kima , Jiyun Leea , Jeongbun Parka , Dong Hee Choia , Eunmi6 Kima, Jiyeon Kima , Meesook Youa , Mengja Lima , Hana Leea and Sejin Jub,∗ a Nursing
b Nursing
College, Kangwon National University, Chuncheon, Korea College, Namseoul University, Chungcheongnam-do, Korea
Received 26 October 2013 Accepted 23 January 2014 Abstract. This study compared the relating factors on the attitude for elderly between elderly women group and female university student group. The elderly woman group had higher scores in perceived health status, self integrity, self-efficacy, social support, attitude for elderly than female university students group. These differences were statistically significant. The relating factor on the attitude for elderly was self integrity in elderly women group significantly. Variables that significantly affected the attitude towards seniors were not found in the female university student group. Keywords: Attitude for elderly, self integrity, self efficacy, social support
1. Introduction Consistent economic growth and rapid development of modern medical science has increased quality of life, extended life expectancy and has caused senior issues to emerge as serious social issues. The portion of the senior population > 65 years old was 11% in 2010, meaning that 1 of every 10 Korean people was older than 65 years. Korea has already entered an aging society in 2000 and seniors will account for 14.3% in 2018 and 20.8% of the population in 2026 [18]. In particular, male and female elderly in Korea in 2010 accounted for 8.9% and 13% of the population, respectively [19]. However, in the past, women were not able to earn their own money due to the social structure and have shown health issues due to uncontrollable delivery and excess house work. Additionally, restrictions based on social custom exist and the women had no capability to utilize systemic support due to insufficient experience in society [4]. Increasing the number of senior people has caused various social issues. The issues consistently raised are nuclear families in Korean society, industrialization, physical and sentimental separation, and conflicts among the generations due to urbanization, causing the younger ∗ Corresponding author: Sejin Ju, Department of Nursing, Namseoul University, 331-707 Daehak-ro 91 Sebuk-gu Cheonan-si Chungcheongnam-do, Korea. E-mail: [email protected].
c 2014 – IOS Press and the authors. All rights reserved 0928-7329/14/$27.50
490
J. Kim et al. / Attitudes of female seniors and female university students toward seniors
generation to have negative attitudes toward their counterparts. Several studies have reported that the younger generation responds negatively to the older generation [4,17] and that this trend does not show significant changes even after training [12]. Such a negative attitude toward seniors may negatively impact solving aging issues and nurturing senior in future Korean society and indicate that this is an important issue that requires attention. The important factor in deciding the quality of geriatric nursing is the nurse’s attitude toward the senior and a negative attitude toward the old affects not only maintenance responsibility [16] but also has harmful effects on quality of life for the senior and impedes development and adaptation depending on lifecycle. This may cause fear of aging in seniors, as well as in all generations [4]. Prior studies investigating attitudes toward seniors include studies that investigated factors affecting attitudes toward seniors, developing the means to change the attitudes, and verify the effects. Attitude is affected by demographic features such as age, gender, and economic status, experience contacting seniors, and knowledge of older people [11]. Older people, those with a higher economic status, more contacts with the elderly and more knowledge of seniors show positive attitude toward the elderly [11]. Females tend to hold more negative views compared to males but other studies report the opposite, indicating that the gender difference is inconsistent. Attitudes toward seniors directly affect their actions, and a positive attitude results in more volunteer activities by seniors [6]. The reason why that study investigated the attitudes of female university students, particularly students studying nursing in universities, is that 40.3% of seniors answered that health is one of their major issues [20] and the demand for geriatric nursing is increasing. However, a survey of nursing university students showed that geriatric nursing is the least popular specialty at 4.9%. Attitude is a subjective assessment and attitudes towards seniors are formed by direct and indirect experiences and depend on socio-psychological aspects of the senior. Among socio-psychological variables, ego-integrity is related to attitudes about death [9] and is significantly related to age, educational background, career, and experience with volunteer activities. Ego-integrity is high at a younger age, in people with a higher educational background and a career as an office worker or teacher [13]. Selfesteem directly and indirectly affects the quality of life for elderly women living alone and the quality of life is higher with higher self-esteem. Additionally, factors that affect self-esteem the most are recognized health condition and social support, indicating that the higher the recognized health condition and better the social support, the higher the self-esteem [1]. Factors that affect youth and adult attitudes toward seniors are psychological factors such as self-esteem rather than demographic features [6]. Here, we confirmed a generation difference by comparing the attitudes of female senior and female university students towards elderly people and investigated whether the socio-psychological variables of the subjects were related to attitudes toward seniors. 2. Related work 2.1. Objective The purpose of this study was to compare female senior and female university student attitudes toward the elderly and understand related factors. The specific goals were: 1) Understand and compare attitudes toward seniors as recognized by female elderly people and female university students 2) Understand and compare socio-psychological factors related to the attitude toward seniors from female elderly people and female university students
J. Kim et al. / Attitudes of female seniors and female university students toward seniors
491
3. Methods 3.1. Research design The study was a descriptive survey to understand factors related to attitudes of female elderly people and female university students toward seniors. 3.2. Research subjects and data collection The research subjects were 148 female elderly people > 60 years old in Seoul, Gyeonggi and Gangwon registered in the silver halls and who visited the hospital as well as 154 female university students at the department of nursing of University K in Gangwon Province. The data were collected from November 3 to December 1, 2011 and we visited the silver halls and hospitals in Seoul, Gyeonggi and Gangwon to explain the purpose of the study and the questionnaire for those who completed the survey. Then, we directly compiled the survey results. A total 153 of 160 questionnaires were collected, and 148 copies were analyzed. The female university students completed the survey after class with cooperation from professors at the university. A total of 160 questionnaires were collected, and 154 were analyzed except six with insufficient answers. 3.3. Ethics consideration The signatures of the respondents were obtained on an approval form in the questionnaire. The approval described the purpose and content of the study and described the ethical consideration by stating that the collected data will be handled with anonymity and used only for this study. 3.4. Research tools 3.4.1. Recognized health condition The recognized health condition is the health level recognized on a subjective basis. The recognized health condition was measured by a tool developed by Speake, Cowart, and Pellet [23] and the tool consisted of three questions on current health condition, relative health condition compared to a person of the same age, and current health condition compared to the past. A higher score indicates a better recognized health condition. The Cronbach’s alpha for development was 0.85, and it was 0.66 in this study. 3.4.2. Ego-integrity Ego-integrity is the psychological peace of a subject that is measured by a tool developed by Hong [5]. The tool consists of 16 questions including 11 on acceptance of the past and the present and five questions on life attitude. It is scored with a 4-point Likert system from 1 = “never” to 4 = “always”. A higher score means higher ego-integrity. The Cronbach’s alpha for developing the tool was 0.83 and it was 0.55 in this study. Thirteen questions except three with very low credibility had a Cronhach’s alpha of 0.62. 3.4.3. Self-efficacy Self-efficacy is the feeling that an individual successfully performed activities. The measurement tool was developed by Sherer and Maddux [21]. The tool is based on a 4-point Likert scale, and a higher score means higher self-efficacy.
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J. Kim et al. / Attitudes of female seniors and female university students toward seniors
Table 1 Comparison of psychosocial characteristics and attitude for elderly between elderly women group and female university student group
Perceived health status Self integrity Self-efficacy Social support Attitude for elderly ∗∗
Elderly women group (n = 148) Mean SD 2.71 0.58 2.35 0.38 2.89 0.47 2.37 0.56 3.49 0.41
Female university student group (n = 154) Mean SD 2.40 0.54 2.22 0.31 2.61 0.36 2.70 0.50 3.10 0.33
t
p
4.75 3.22 5.83 5.44 9.22
0.000∗∗∗ 0.001∗∗ 0.000∗∗∗ 0.000∗∗∗ 0.000∗∗∗
p < 0.01; ∗∗∗ p < 0.001.
3.4.4. Recognized social support Recognized social support is support for information, material, and self-esteem for seniors and we implemented a tool developed by Song [22]. The tool consists of 20 questions and is based on a 4-point scale. The Cronbach’s alpha was 0.97, and it was 0.92 in this study. The tool is based on a 4-point Likert scale and a higher score means higher recognized social support. 3.4.5. Attitudes toward seniors The attitudes toward elderly people were measured with a scale of 101 questions for Korean seniors developed by Lee [14] including 30 questions created by Kim and Lee [10]. The tool consists of eight questions on characteristics, seven on emotional traits, three on family relationships, four on physical characteristics, three on self-management, two on judgment, and three on the way of thinking of the senior. It was measured with a 5-point Likert scale and a higher score means a better attitude toward the elderly. The Cronbach’s alpha of Lee’s study [14] was 0.53–0.81 and the overall credibility in our study was 0.87.
4. Research results 4.1. Comparison of psychosocial characteristics for elderly between elderly women group and female university student group Table 1 shows the comparison of recognized health conditions, ego-integrity, self-efficacy, social support, and attitudes toward senior people in the female senior and female university student groups. It shows that the recognized health conditions, ego-integrity, self-efficacy, and attitude toward seniors were significantly higher in the female elderly group than those in the female university student group. The female university students showed higher social support than their counterpart. 4.2. Correlation between attitude towards seniors and psychosocial variables Table 2 shows the results of the regression analysis to analyze the psychosocial variables related to attitudes towards seniors. A significant item related to the attitude from the female elderly group was an ego-integrity value of 14.7%. The recognized health condition was significant among the female university students at 2.2%.
J. Kim et al. / Attitudes of female seniors and female university students toward seniors
493
Table 2 Correlation between attitude towards seniors and psychosocial variables Elderly women group (n = 148) Beta S.E t Self integrity 0.39 0.08 5.05 F = 25.490, p = 0.000, R2 = 0.159, adjusted R2 = 0.147 Female university student group (n = 154) Beta S.E Perceived health status 0.17 0.01
t 2.078
p 0.000∗∗∗
p 0.000∗∗∗
F = 4.316, p = 0.040, R2 = 0.029, adjusted R2 = 0.022; ∗∗∗ p < 0.001.
5. Discussion A female senior tends to understand and positively accept the recognition, self-management, physical and emotional features of seniors because the group has more knowledge than its counterpart. The attitudes towards seniors from female elderly people were the median value in this study and the female university students showed a lower score than the median value. This result was different from that of Lee’s study [14], which showed that both groups have higher scores. However it was performed in the 1980s and social conditions and recognition have changed. Additionally, our results showed that the female senior group had a more positive attitude toward the elderly than its counterpart and this was opposite to the result of Lee [14] with more positive scores by youth. This may have been because her study contained youth > 13 years old. The reason why the female senior group showed a more positive attitude toward seniors than the female university student group may be due to the knowledge and understanding of elderly people commonly proposed from prior studies. Attitudes toward elderly people become more positive by experiencing seniors in volunteer activities and integration among generations [2]. However, attitude toward seniors from another generation is just a viewpoint from a third party rather than an exact judgment [14]. Therefore, knowledge of senior people and a program to improve understanding of senior people shall be enhanced further by social integration and solving the aging problem. Recognized health condition, ego-integrity and self-efficacy were more positive in the female senior group and social support was more positive in the female university students among the psychosocial variables that affect current psychosocial health, as well as healthy activities and quality of life and health condition, ego-integrity and self-efficacy were lower in female university student groups must be determined in a future study. We performed a regression to analyze variables that affected attitudes toward seniors. As a result, ego-integrity significantly affected the attitudes toward seniors by female elderly people (11.2%). However, the variables that significantly affect attitudes toward seniors were not found in the female university student group. Hong and Kwak [6] reported that psychological features including depression, anxiety, self-esteem, and family affinity affect youth and middle-aged group attitudes toward seniors from and assert that positive psychological features cause positive attitude. We also showed that female seniors with more ego-integrity had better attitudes toward seniors, meaning that positive changes in the socio-psychological conditions in the seniors themselves resulted in a positive attitude toward the elderly and a happy senescent life. We showed that items other than the recognized health condition are not related to attitudes towards senior and socio-psychological factors of female university students. The reason is that the group failed to connect their attitude to ego-integrity, self-efficacy, social support, and future status. The current socio-psychological situation may directly affect female elderly attitudes toward seniors but female university students may not connect their current status to future changes and consider seniors as an entity far from their current status. The student group begins
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J. Kim et al. / Attitudes of female seniors and female university students toward seniors
to have interest in the elderly people and aging only if students worry about physical aging depending on their own recognized health condition. It is middle-age when recognition of senior starts to be realized and time perspectives change [13]. Therefore, experience-based programs allowing younger people to realize that aging is a future reality and is directly related to their own lives help the younger generation to have positive attitudes toward the old. Studies on interventions to positively change attitudes toward seniors have report that education to improve the understanding of the elderly people is effective [3]. This coincides with the statement of Jung [7] that improving the sympathetic understanding through experience with seniors is an important factor affecting attitude. Programs to experience seniors, volunteer activities for the elderly people, and integration among generations are chances to improve understanding and affinity to the old and positively change attitudes [2]. Additionally, self-efficacy is a concept that reflects ego-integrity and shows a pure correlation with exercise and health motivation. Therefore, intervention programs are needed for female seniors to positively accept their old age through psychosocial intervention including ego-integrity.
6. Conclusions We surveyed attitudes towards seniors, recognized health condition, ego-integrity, self-efficacy and recognized social support in 148 female seniors in silver halls and hospitals of Seoul, Gyeongi and Kangwon and 154 female university students at the department of nursing at Kangwon university. We checked differences in the two groups for each variable to identify factors that affect attitudes toward senior people. The senior group had more favorable attitudes, recognized health condition, ego-integrity, and self-efficacy than those of the female university student group. Ego-integrity is a socio-psychological variable related to the attitude towards senior by the female elderly people. Variables that significantly affected the attitude towards seniors were not found in the female university student group.
References [1] [2] [3] [4] [5] [6] [7] [8] [9] [10]
Baek, S. S (2005) A Model Construction for Quality of Life in Single Aged Women, thesis for the degree of doctor, graduate school of Jungang University. Byun, M. Y., Kim, E. K (2011) The Effects of Intergenerational Integration Programs on the Children’s Attitudes Toward Elderly, Journal of the Korean Home Management Association 29(3): 143-155. Choi, Y. D (2008) A Study on Attitudes and Knowledge of the elderly Among College Students Majoring in Nursing and Social Work, graduate school of Hanseo University. Han, J. R. (2000). Undergraduate Students’ Attitudes toward Elderly, Journal of the Korean Gerontological Society 20(3), 115-127. Hong, J. Y (2000) Reminiscence functions predictors in the elderly, thesis for the degree of doctor, graduate school of Ewha University. Hong, S. H., Kwak, I. S(2010) Generational Differences in Attitude and Voluntary Behavior toward the Elderly, Journal of the Korean family resource management association 14(2): 177-199. Jung, H. S (2012) Influencing Factors on Nursing Students’ Attitude to the Elderly, Journal of the Korean Data Analysis Society 14(4B): 2025-2037. Kim, J. H. (1995) Effect of guided imagery applied to hemodialysis patient, thesis for the degree of doctor, graduate school of Seoul National University (in Korean). Kim, J. H., Min, K. H (2010) Predictors of Death Attitude and Death Competency among the Elders, The Korean Journal of Social and Personality Psycology 24(1): 11-27. Kim, M. J., Lee, N. J (2008) High school student’s attitude toward the Elderly, Journal of the Korean association of human ecology 55-77.
J. Kim et al. / Attitudes of female seniors and female university students toward seniors [11] [12] [13] [14] [15] [16] [17] [18] [19] [20] [21] [22] [23]
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Kim, U. (2011). A Study on the Knowledge of and Attitudes toward the Elderly of College Students in Korea and the United States, Journal of the Korean Gerontological Society 31(3): 505-526. Lee, I. S., Jo, J. Y (2010) A Comparison of Knowledge, Attitude and Behavior on the Elderly between before and after caregiver training program, Journal of the Korean Data Analysis Society 12, 4(B): 1993-2007. Lee, J. I., Lim, M. L. (2011) Health behavior, Ego-integrity, and Death anxiety of Elderly woman, Journal of the Korean Data Analysis Society 13(5B): 2407-2415. Lee, S. J. (1989) study on the attitude towadrd the aged of different age groups, thesis for the degree of doctor, graduate school of Ewha University. Park, K, N (2004) Lives of Elderly Women living alone through their life Histories, Feminism Research 4(1): 149-194. Park, K. Y (2012) Factors influencing Attitudes toward Elders b volunteer baccalaureate nursing students, Journal of the Korean Gerontological Nursings. 14(3): 191-199. Park, S. Y., Park, Y. S (2007) Geriatric Hospital Nurses’ Knowledge and Attitudes Toward the Aged and Geriatric Nursing Education Needs, The Journal of Korean academic society of nursing education. 13(1): 59-95. Statistics, Korea (2011) http://kostat.go.kr/wnsearch/search.jsp, 2010. Statistics, Korea (2010) http://kostat.go.kr/wnsearch/search.jsp, 2010. Statistics, Korea (2006) http://kostat.go.kr/wnsearch/search.jsp, 2006. Sherer, M., & Maddux, J. E (1982) The self-efficacy scale: Construction and validation, Psychological Reports. 51: 663-671. Song, M. S (1991) Construction of a functional status prediction model for the elderly, thesis for the degree of doctor, Seoul National University. Speake, D. L., Cowart, M. E., & Pellet, K (1989) Health perception and lifestyles of elderly. Research in Nursing and Health. 12: 93-100.
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489
Comparative study on the attitudes of female seniors and female university students toward seniors Joohyun Kima , Jiyun Leea , Jeongbun Parka , Dong Hee Choia , Eunmi6 Kima, Jiyeon Kima , Meesook Youa , Mengja Lima , Hana Leea and Sejin Jub,∗ a Nursing
b Nursing
College, Kangwon National University, Chuncheon, Korea College, Namseoul University, Chungcheongnam-do, Korea
Received 26 October 2013 Accepted 23 January 2014 Abstract. This study compared the relating factors on the attitude for elderly between elderly women group and female university student group. The elderly woman group had higher scores in perceived health status, self integrity, self-efficacy, social support, attitude for elderly than female university students group. These differences were statistically significant. The relating factor on the attitude for elderly was self integrity in elderly women group significantly. Variables that significantly affected the attitude towards seniors were not found in the female university student group. Keywords: Attitude for elderly, self integrity, self efficacy, social support
1. Introduction Consistent economic growth and rapid development of modern medical science has increased quality of life, extended life expectancy and has caused senior issues to emerge as serious social issues. The portion of the senior population > 65 years old was 11% in 2010, meaning that 1 of every 10 Korean people was older than 65 years. Korea has already entered an aging society in 2000 and seniors will account for 14.3% in 2018 and 20.8% of the population in 2026 [18]. In particular, male and female elderly in Korea in 2010 accounted for 8.9% and 13% of the population, respectively [19]. However, in the past, women were not able to earn their own money due to the social structure and have shown health issues due to uncontrollable delivery and excess house work. Additionally, restrictions based on social custom exist and the women had no capability to utilize systemic support due to insufficient experience in society [4]. Increasing the number of senior people has caused various social issues. The issues consistently raised are nuclear families in Korean society, industrialization, physical and sentimental separation, and conflicts among the generations due to urbanization, causing the younger ∗ Corresponding author: Sejin Ju, Department of Nursing, Namseoul University, 331-707 Daehak-ro 91 Sebuk-gu Cheonan-si Chungcheongnam-do, Korea. E-mail: [email protected].
c 2014 – IOS Press and the authors. All rights reserved 0928-7329/14/$27.50
490
J. Kim et al. / Attitudes of female seniors and female university students toward seniors
generation to have negative attitudes toward their counterparts. Several studies have reported that the younger generation responds negatively to the older generation [4,17] and that this trend does not show significant changes even after training [12]. Such a negative attitude toward seniors may negatively impact solving aging issues and nurturing senior in future Korean society and indicate that this is an important issue that requires attention. The important factor in deciding the quality of geriatric nursing is the nurse’s attitude toward the senior and a negative attitude toward the old affects not only maintenance responsibility [16] but also has harmful effects on quality of life for the senior and impedes development and adaptation depending on lifecycle. This may cause fear of aging in seniors, as well as in all generations [4]. Prior studies investigating attitudes toward seniors include studies that investigated factors affecting attitudes toward seniors, developing the means to change the attitudes, and verify the effects. Attitude is affected by demographic features such as age, gender, and economic status, experience contacting seniors, and knowledge of older people [11]. Older people, those with a higher economic status, more contacts with the elderly and more knowledge of seniors show positive attitude toward the elderly [11]. Females tend to hold more negative views compared to males but other studies report the opposite, indicating that the gender difference is inconsistent. Attitudes toward seniors directly affect their actions, and a positive attitude results in more volunteer activities by seniors [6]. The reason why that study investigated the attitudes of female university students, particularly students studying nursing in universities, is that 40.3% of seniors answered that health is one of their major issues [20] and the demand for geriatric nursing is increasing. However, a survey of nursing university students showed that geriatric nursing is the least popular specialty at 4.9%. Attitude is a subjective assessment and attitudes towards seniors are formed by direct and indirect experiences and depend on socio-psychological aspects of the senior. Among socio-psychological variables, ego-integrity is related to attitudes about death [9] and is significantly related to age, educational background, career, and experience with volunteer activities. Ego-integrity is high at a younger age, in people with a higher educational background and a career as an office worker or teacher [13]. Selfesteem directly and indirectly affects the quality of life for elderly women living alone and the quality of life is higher with higher self-esteem. Additionally, factors that affect self-esteem the most are recognized health condition and social support, indicating that the higher the recognized health condition and better the social support, the higher the self-esteem [1]. Factors that affect youth and adult attitudes toward seniors are psychological factors such as self-esteem rather than demographic features [6]. Here, we confirmed a generation difference by comparing the attitudes of female senior and female university students towards elderly people and investigated whether the socio-psychological variables of the subjects were related to attitudes toward seniors. 2. Related work 2.1. Objective The purpose of this study was to compare female senior and female university student attitudes toward the elderly and understand related factors. The specific goals were: 1) Understand and compare attitudes toward seniors as recognized by female elderly people and female university students 2) Understand and compare socio-psychological factors related to the attitude toward seniors from female elderly people and female university students
J. Kim et al. / Attitudes of female seniors and female university students toward seniors
491
3. Methods 3.1. Research design The study was a descriptive survey to understand factors related to attitudes of female elderly people and female university students toward seniors. 3.2. Research subjects and data collection The research subjects were 148 female elderly people > 60 years old in Seoul, Gyeonggi and Gangwon registered in the silver halls and who visited the hospital as well as 154 female university students at the department of nursing of University K in Gangwon Province. The data were collected from November 3 to December 1, 2011 and we visited the silver halls and hospitals in Seoul, Gyeonggi and Gangwon to explain the purpose of the study and the questionnaire for those who completed the survey. Then, we directly compiled the survey results. A total 153 of 160 questionnaires were collected, and 148 copies were analyzed. The female university students completed the survey after class with cooperation from professors at the university. A total of 160 questionnaires were collected, and 154 were analyzed except six with insufficient answers. 3.3. Ethics consideration The signatures of the respondents were obtained on an approval form in the questionnaire. The approval described the purpose and content of the study and described the ethical consideration by stating that the collected data will be handled with anonymity and used only for this study. 3.4. Research tools 3.4.1. Recognized health condition The recognized health condition is the health level recognized on a subjective basis. The recognized health condition was measured by a tool developed by Speake, Cowart, and Pellet [23] and the tool consisted of three questions on current health condition, relative health condition compared to a person of the same age, and current health condition compared to the past. A higher score indicates a better recognized health condition. The Cronbach’s alpha for development was 0.85, and it was 0.66 in this study. 3.4.2. Ego-integrity Ego-integrity is the psychological peace of a subject that is measured by a tool developed by Hong [5]. The tool consists of 16 questions including 11 on acceptance of the past and the present and five questions on life attitude. It is scored with a 4-point Likert system from 1 = “never” to 4 = “always”. A higher score means higher ego-integrity. The Cronbach’s alpha for developing the tool was 0.83 and it was 0.55 in this study. Thirteen questions except three with very low credibility had a Cronhach’s alpha of 0.62. 3.4.3. Self-efficacy Self-efficacy is the feeling that an individual successfully performed activities. The measurement tool was developed by Sherer and Maddux [21]. The tool is based on a 4-point Likert scale, and a higher score means higher self-efficacy.
492
J. Kim et al. / Attitudes of female seniors and female university students toward seniors
Table 1 Comparison of psychosocial characteristics and attitude for elderly between elderly women group and female university student group
Perceived health status Self integrity Self-efficacy Social support Attitude for elderly ∗∗
Elderly women group (n = 148) Mean SD 2.71 0.58 2.35 0.38 2.89 0.47 2.37 0.56 3.49 0.41
Female university student group (n = 154) Mean SD 2.40 0.54 2.22 0.31 2.61 0.36 2.70 0.50 3.10 0.33
t
p
4.75 3.22 5.83 5.44 9.22
0.000∗∗∗ 0.001∗∗ 0.000∗∗∗ 0.000∗∗∗ 0.000∗∗∗
p < 0.01; ∗∗∗ p < 0.001.
3.4.4. Recognized social support Recognized social support is support for information, material, and self-esteem for seniors and we implemented a tool developed by Song [22]. The tool consists of 20 questions and is based on a 4-point scale. The Cronbach’s alpha was 0.97, and it was 0.92 in this study. The tool is based on a 4-point Likert scale and a higher score means higher recognized social support. 3.4.5. Attitudes toward seniors The attitudes toward elderly people were measured with a scale of 101 questions for Korean seniors developed by Lee [14] including 30 questions created by Kim and Lee [10]. The tool consists of eight questions on characteristics, seven on emotional traits, three on family relationships, four on physical characteristics, three on self-management, two on judgment, and three on the way of thinking of the senior. It was measured with a 5-point Likert scale and a higher score means a better attitude toward the elderly. The Cronbach’s alpha of Lee’s study [14] was 0.53–0.81 and the overall credibility in our study was 0.87.
4. Research results 4.1. Comparison of psychosocial characteristics for elderly between elderly women group and female university student group Table 1 shows the comparison of recognized health conditions, ego-integrity, self-efficacy, social support, and attitudes toward senior people in the female senior and female university student groups. It shows that the recognized health conditions, ego-integrity, self-efficacy, and attitude toward seniors were significantly higher in the female elderly group than those in the female university student group. The female university students showed higher social support than their counterpart. 4.2. Correlation between attitude towards seniors and psychosocial variables Table 2 shows the results of the regression analysis to analyze the psychosocial variables related to attitudes towards seniors. A significant item related to the attitude from the female elderly group was an ego-integrity value of 14.7%. The recognized health condition was significant among the female university students at 2.2%.
J. Kim et al. / Attitudes of female seniors and female university students toward seniors
493
Table 2 Correlation between attitude towards seniors and psychosocial variables Elderly women group (n = 148) Beta S.E t Self integrity 0.39 0.08 5.05 F = 25.490, p = 0.000, R2 = 0.159, adjusted R2 = 0.147 Female university student group (n = 154) Beta S.E Perceived health status 0.17 0.01
t 2.078
p 0.000∗∗∗
p 0.000∗∗∗
F = 4.316, p = 0.040, R2 = 0.029, adjusted R2 = 0.022; ∗∗∗ p < 0.001.
5. Discussion A female senior tends to understand and positively accept the recognition, self-management, physical and emotional features of seniors because the group has more knowledge than its counterpart. The attitudes towards seniors from female elderly people were the median value in this study and the female university students showed a lower score than the median value. This result was different from that of Lee’s study [14], which showed that both groups have higher scores. However it was performed in the 1980s and social conditions and recognition have changed. Additionally, our results showed that the female senior group had a more positive attitude toward the elderly than its counterpart and this was opposite to the result of Lee [14] with more positive scores by youth. This may have been because her study contained youth > 13 years old. The reason why the female senior group showed a more positive attitude toward seniors than the female university student group may be due to the knowledge and understanding of elderly people commonly proposed from prior studies. Attitudes toward elderly people become more positive by experiencing seniors in volunteer activities and integration among generations [2]. However, attitude toward seniors from another generation is just a viewpoint from a third party rather than an exact judgment [14]. Therefore, knowledge of senior people and a program to improve understanding of senior people shall be enhanced further by social integration and solving the aging problem. Recognized health condition, ego-integrity and self-efficacy were more positive in the female senior group and social support was more positive in the female university students among the psychosocial variables that affect current psychosocial health, as well as healthy activities and quality of life and health condition, ego-integrity and self-efficacy were lower in female university student groups must be determined in a future study. We performed a regression to analyze variables that affected attitudes toward seniors. As a result, ego-integrity significantly affected the attitudes toward seniors by female elderly people (11.2%). However, the variables that significantly affect attitudes toward seniors were not found in the female university student group. Hong and Kwak [6] reported that psychological features including depression, anxiety, self-esteem, and family affinity affect youth and middle-aged group attitudes toward seniors from and assert that positive psychological features cause positive attitude. We also showed that female seniors with more ego-integrity had better attitudes toward seniors, meaning that positive changes in the socio-psychological conditions in the seniors themselves resulted in a positive attitude toward the elderly and a happy senescent life. We showed that items other than the recognized health condition are not related to attitudes towards senior and socio-psychological factors of female university students. The reason is that the group failed to connect their attitude to ego-integrity, self-efficacy, social support, and future status. The current socio-psychological situation may directly affect female elderly attitudes toward seniors but female university students may not connect their current status to future changes and consider seniors as an entity far from their current status. The student group begins
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to have interest in the elderly people and aging only if students worry about physical aging depending on their own recognized health condition. It is middle-age when recognition of senior starts to be realized and time perspectives change [13]. Therefore, experience-based programs allowing younger people to realize that aging is a future reality and is directly related to their own lives help the younger generation to have positive attitudes toward the old. Studies on interventions to positively change attitudes toward seniors have report that education to improve the understanding of the elderly people is effective [3]. This coincides with the statement of Jung [7] that improving the sympathetic understanding through experience with seniors is an important factor affecting attitude. Programs to experience seniors, volunteer activities for the elderly people, and integration among generations are chances to improve understanding and affinity to the old and positively change attitudes [2]. Additionally, self-efficacy is a concept that reflects ego-integrity and shows a pure correlation with exercise and health motivation. Therefore, intervention programs are needed for female seniors to positively accept their old age through psychosocial intervention including ego-integrity.
6. Conclusions We surveyed attitudes towards seniors, recognized health condition, ego-integrity, self-efficacy and recognized social support in 148 female seniors in silver halls and hospitals of Seoul, Gyeongi and Kangwon and 154 female university students at the department of nursing at Kangwon university. We checked differences in the two groups for each variable to identify factors that affect attitudes toward senior people. The senior group had more favorable attitudes, recognized health condition, ego-integrity, and self-efficacy than those of the female university student group. Ego-integrity is a socio-psychological variable related to the attitude towards senior by the female elderly people. Variables that significantly affected the attitude towards seniors were not found in the female university student group.
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