Korean J Rehabil Nurs.  2003 Jun;6(1):26-39.

The Relationship between Perceived Stress and the Ways of Coping in the Elderly

• Hong MJ
• Lee MH

Abstract

The elderly can experience a lot of stressful events and the stress acts as a various fluent that affects a well-being level, the self-contentment of lives. and the achievements by themselves. Also. the elderly are different from the young in many unexpressed stress and have diverse copings for perceived stress. Moreover. they mainly seem to use a problem-focused coping and an emotion-focused coping. To use whatever copings is to improve the quality of life in the old period and very important fact to achieve their ends. The purpose of this study was to investigate the relationship between Perceived Stress and the Ways of Coping in the Elderly and to gain the baseline data for development of nursing intervention program for improve to the quality of life in the elderly. The design of this study was a correlational study. The subjects of this study consisted of 230 of the elderly living in Pusan. The data was collected from 1st July, to 1st September. 2002. The instruments used for this study were 'Perceived Stress Scale(20items, 5point. scale)' developed by Kang In(990) and translated by Lee young-ja(1999). and its reliability is Cronbach's a= .89. Coping Scale(30items, 4point. scale. 14 items about a problem-focused coping, 16 items about an emotion-focused coping, 4 points scale) developed by Lazarus & Folkman (1984) and translated by Yang Young-hee(1998). The reliability of this study is Cronbach's a = .90. The data was analyzed by the SPSS WIN 10.0 program using frequency, percentage, mean, standard deviation, t-test, ANOVA & Scheffe test and Pearson's correlation coefficient. The results of this study were as follows: 1. The mean score of perceived stress was 31.75+/-0.23(Min 20, Max 100), which the item mean score was 1.59+/-.51(Min 1. Max 5). 2. The number of subjects in a problem-focused coping was 72(31.3%), the number of subjects in an emotion-focused coping was 158(68.7%) 3. There were statistically significant positive correlation between perceived stress and problem-focoused coping method and the more emotion-focoused coping method. (r = .180, r= .209, p< .05). It means the more stress, the more problem-focoused coping method and the more emotion-focoused coping method. 4. There was significant difference the score of perceived stress according to sex (F=-5.057, P=.000)marital status, (F=-2.909. P=.004) , economic level, (F=10.243, P=.000), paticipated meeting, (F=9.346, P=.000), perceived health status(F=5.1l7, P=.007). 5. There was significant difference the score of problem-focoused coping method according to age(F=14.200, P=.000), marital status (F=2.432, P=.0160), economic level (F=14.410, P=.000), monthly income, (F=8.300. P= .000), income resource (F=10.235, P=.000), educational level (F= 15.222, P= .000), occupation (F= 1.544, P=.04l), paticipated meeting (F=4.936, P= .008), perceived health status(F=5.655, P= .004). And there was significant difference the score of emotion-focoused coping method according to monthly income(F=4.781, P= .009), income resource (F=2.930, P= .035), educational level (F=6.101. P=.003), religion(F=2698, P= .032), paticipated meetings(F=7.285, P= .00l). As a result of the study, the elderly had a bit less stress and the two-thirds of the elderly used the emotion-focused coping. Thus, the more perceived stress, the more problem-focoused coping method and the more emotion-focoused coping method. Accordingly, to improve the quality of life of the elderly, there needs and applies a nursing intervention program that relieves the stress and use effective coping method.

MeSH Terms

Aged*
Busan
Humans
Life Change Events
Marital Status
Nursing
Occupations
Quality of Life