PURPOSE: The purpose of this study was to investigate the factors associated with social isolation in older adults using a senior welfare center. METHODS: This study was a cross-sectional survey. Data was collected from June to August 2006 using a questionnaire. A total of 248 older adults responded. RESULTS: About one third (34.9%) of participants responded they felt socially isolated. There were statistically significant differences in living, religion, family and belongingness social support, loneliness, depression, family function, perceived health status, and number of chronic illnesses between socially isolated and non isolated groups. However, factors influencing social isolation were family function (OR=0.954, CI=0.926-0.982), loneliness (OR=1.042, CI=1.002-1.083), depression (OR=1.041, CI=1.002-1.081), and number of chronic illness (OR=1.657, CI=1.153-2.382). CONCLUSION: We found that some older adults were feeling socially isolated even though the senior welfare center was a good place to meet people. The findings of this study indicated that older adults suffering from social isolation need special attention and may benefit from interventions which promote health and social interactions. Further studies are needed to develop and evaluate an intervention program for this population.
Aged ; Aged, 80 and over ; Cross-Sectional Studies ; Depression ; Family ; Female ; Health Status ; Humans ; Loneliness ; Male ; Middle Aged ; Predictive Value of Tests ; Questionnaires ; Social Isolation/*psychology ; Social Welfare ; Translating

OBJECTIVE: This study aims to investigate differences between the elderly living alone and those living with others in frustrated interpersonal needs and life satisfaction. Also, we explore the effects of frustrated interpersonal needs on life satisfaction in the elderly living alone. METHODS: The participants include 572 elderly people aged over 60 in Busan, Korea. Life satisfaction were evaluated by the Life Satisfaction Self-Rating Scale (LSRS) and frustrated interpersonal needs were measured by the Interpersonal Needs Questionnaire-Revised (INQ-R). RESULTS: The overall LSRS scores were significantly lower in the elderly living alone (106.2±20.1) than living with others (115.3±13.9, p<0.001). The total INQ-R score was significantly lower in the elderly living alone (73.8±12.1) than those living with others (76.9±12.0, p<0.05). As a result of multiple regression analysis, we came to know that frustrated interpersonal needs were factors affecting life satisfaction in living alone group. CONCLUSION: The results of present study suggest that the elderly living alone are more likely to have poor life satisfaction and frustrated interpersonal needs. Also, frustrated interpersonal needs are related to life satisfaction. Thus, it is necessary to establish the social support system such as social isolation prevention and interpersonal relationship development.
Aged ; Busan ; Humans ; Korea ; Social Isolation

Evoked Potentials ; Social Isolation ; Attention ; Humans

Currently, adolescent idiopathic scoliosis (AIS) is principally regarded as benign, but some researchers have cited serious or extreme effects, including severe pain, cardiopulmonary compromise, social isolation, and even early death. Therefore, exploration of the long-term effects of AIS, the most common type of idiopathic scoliosis, is warranted. The purpose of this review was to examine the long-term studies on the natural history of AIS and/or reviews concerning the long-term effects of untreated AIS. A PubMed search was conducted using the key words idiopathic scoliosis, long-term effects and idiopathic scoliosis, natural history. For further analysis, references cited in those studies were reviewed for additional, related evidence not retrieved in the initial PubMed search. A review of the pertinent bibliography showed that older natural history studies did not distinguish between late-onset scoliosis (referred to in this paper as AIS) and early-onset scoliosis (EOS). The more recent studies offer such important distinction and reach to the general conclusion that untreated AIS does not lead to severe consequences with respect to signs and symptoms of scoliosis. It is possible that earlier studies may have included patient populations with EOS, leading to the perception of untreated scoliosis as having an unusually high morbidity rate. Studies on the long-term effects of AIS that specifically excluded EOS patients conclude that AIS is a benign disorder. This indicates that for research and reporting purposes, it is important to distinguishing between AIS and EOS. This will allow the practitioner and patient and their families to decide on an optimal treatment plan based on the most appropriate prognosis.
Adolescent* ; Humans ; Natural History ; Prognosis ; Scoliosis* ; Social Isolation

Dementia caregivers suffer a considerable care burden. They are confronted with a high rate of economic burden, psychological morbidity, social isolation, physical ill-health and financial hardship. Although many researchers have tried to determine the influence of the stressors in dementia caregiving on caregivers, the results remain inconclusive. However, many kinds of psychosocial interventions have been demonstrated to reduce caregivers'psychological symptoms and delay nursing home admission. Caregiver characteristics rather than objective care needs tend to be responsible for a caregiver's psychological symptoms. Future research should focus on individualizing treatment approach and developing partnerships with health professionals as well as disseminating general information about dementia caregiving.
Aged ; Caregivers ; Dementia ; Health Occupations ; Humans ; Nursing Homes ; Social Isolation

It is hypothesized that a number of environmental factors affect animals' behavior. Without controlling these variables, it is very hard for researchers to get not only reliable, but replicable data from various behavioral experiments testing animals' cognitive as well as emotional functions. For example, laboratory mice which had restricted environment showed different synaptic potentiation properties with wild mice (Zhao MG et al., 2009). While performing behavioral experiments, however, it is sometimes inevitable that the researcher changes the animals' environments, as by switching the cages in which experimental animals are housed and separating animals raised together into small experimental groups. In this study, we investigated the effect of environmental changes on mice's emotional behaviors by socially isolating them or reducing the size of their cage. We found that social isolation selectively increases the animals' levels of anxiety, while leaving depression-like behaviors unchanged. On the other hand, alteration of the housing dimensions affected neither their anxiety levels nor their depression-like behaviors. These results suggest that environmental variables may have a prominent impact on experimental animals' emotional behaviors and possibly their psychological states, leading to bias in the behavioral data produced from experiments.
Animals ; Anxiety ; Bias (Epidemiology) ; Hand ; Housing ; Mice ; Social Isolation

The purpose of this study was to describe the relationship between family stress and adaptation in families with a disabled child through literature review using McCubbin's Double ABCX family crisis framework. The literature review focused on (1) family stress and factors affecting family stress, (2) the critical individual, familial and social resources which families acquire and employ over time in managing crisis situation, (3) the changes in definition and meaning families develop in an effort to make sense out of their predicament, (4) the coping strategies families employ, and (5) the range of outcomes of these family efforts The results showed that families reported financial difficulties and the burden of care-giving demands as major family stressors. Siblings of disabled children manifested depressive symptoms and social isolation, but was not consistent study results. The parents' views of the cause of the disabling condition fundamentally affected their behavior toward their disabled child. Especially, the fathers' views of the child's characteristics made the greatest contribution to positive changes in the mothers' perceptions. The term perceived social support refers to the cognitive appraisal by individuals that they are cared for and valued, that significant others are available to them if needed, and that they are satisfied with their interpersonal relationships. The perceived social support was more protective than social support source, network size and network density. Parental adaptation was found to be related to the child's communication competence rather than family coping strategies proposed by Lazarus and Folkman. One study results showed that there was no difference in depressive symptoms and physical health between mothers with a disabled child and those without all though mothers with a disabled child had negative attitudes and perceived themselves as having significantly less social support and lower family functioning. But a longitudinal study revealed decreases in the negative impact of the child and increases in sibling and overall family adaptation.
Child ; Depression ; Disabled Children* ; Humans ; Mental Competency ; Mothers ; Parents ; Siblings ; Social Isolation

PURPOSE: The aim of this study was to describe our experience of a class, using a film that deals with the social issues of human immunodeficiency virus (HIV), and the results of surveys before and after the class. METHODS: One hundred fifty-six second-year medical students were surveyed with self-questionnaires (9-point Likert scale) before, immediately after, and 2 years after a class that viewed a film ('Philadelphia', 1993). The same survey, comprising 4 items, was administered to 81 non-medical students in the same university. RESULTS: In 156 medical students, 153 (98%) answered the questionnaires. Before the class, there was no significant difference between medical and non-medical students with regard to the cognition of social isolation of HIV-infected persons (4.13 vs. 4.43, p=0.307). immediately after the class, medical student' cognition changed significantly in the positive direction on all items, irrespective of age, sex, and course grade. Two years after the class, this positive effect remained significant on 2 items: 'social isolation of HIV-infected persons' and 'casual contact with an HIV-infected person.' CONCLUSION: A film can be used to reinforce medical education in the affective domain.
Cognition ; Education, Medical ; HIV ; Humans ; Motion Pictures as Topic ; Social Isolation ; Students, Medical ; Surveys and Questionnaires

OBJECTIVES: The purpose of this study was to examine psychological characteristics of patients who visited psychiatric clinic for medical certificate for military service using MMPI-2-RF. We compared target group with general psychiatric patients with same age range. METHODS: A total of 165 male patients for medical certificate and 154 general psychiatric patients were collected from the Department of Psychiatry of three university hospitals. There were significant differences of age and educational level between two groups. We used independent t-test, ANCOVA, χ² test to examine differences between two groups. RESULTS: Medical certificate group scored higher on the validity scales, the Higher-Order(H-O) scales, the Restructured Clinical(RC) Scales, the Specific Problems(SP) Scales, and the Personality Psychopathology Five (PSY-5) Scales. Especially, EID, RC7, HLP, SFD, SAV, SHY, DSF, and INTR-r showed significant differences between two groups on all three statistical tests. CONCLUSIONS: The present study showed that psychiatric patients who received psychological evaluation for military service have significantly higher emotional distress, helplessness, lower self-confidence, and lower quality of interpersonal relationships. And the difference of validity scales between two groups could be related with psychological burden of compulsory military service in the study sample which causes elevation on scales of infrequent responses. MMPI-2-RF would be helpful instrument to assess these emotional and psychological characteristics.
Affective Symptoms ; Hospitals, University ; Humans ; Male ; Military Personnel* ; Psychopathology ; Social Isolation ; Weights and Measures

In the 21st century, the number of elderly population will reach 10% of Korean's total population, As the elderly population are increasing, the anticipation of the elderly with chronic health problem are also increased. They feel social isolation, alienation because of pain, and psychological flinching such as depression, but they can not control appropriately their chronic pain. Therefore, this study is an attempt to expose a group reminiscence therapy effect to decrease pain and depression, increasing self-esteem of the elderly as effective therapeutic nursing intervention This study is conductcd for 5 weeks from July 28 to August 31, 1997. The Subjects of this study consisted of 33 the elderly women having ronic pain. 17 of 33 residents S nursing home were ontrol group in C city. 16 of 33 resident E nursin home were experimental group in M city. The study design was a nnneqi.uivalent nontrol group with a pretest-posttest design. As for the tool for this study, Visual An logue Scale and Discriptive rating Scale were u ed to measure the pain, Zung's Depression Status nventory(DSI) which was translated by Yang S k Ha was used to measure the depression, and self-esteem scale which was translated by Byung Jae Jeon was used Lo measure self-esteem. As for the process of the study, demo raphic variables, pain, depression, self-esteem were tested with both the experimental and control grou prior to the group reminiscence. The ezperimental group was divided into 3 subgroup and a total of 4 ession of the group reminiscence therapy was performed to the experimental group for an hour at a time once a week from the first to the fourth week. Analysis of this study was computerized by using SPSS/PC. and the homogeneity which may be affected by various bariables was verifie with Chi-square and t-test, the reliablity of th tools with Cronbach's alpha, the comparison of pre and post-test with t-test in the Pain, Depression, and Self-Esteem among the experimental group and control group. The Pearson Corelation Coefficient was for analysis the relation of the Pain, Depression and Self-esteem. The results of the study can be summarized as follows ; 1. The first hypothesis, the degree of pain will be decreased on the experimental group which performed group reminiscence therapy than that of control group, was supported. VAS(t = -2.35, p=.025), DRS(t= -2.11, p=O.43). 2. The second hypothesis, the degree of depression status of the experimental group which has perfomed group reminiscence therapy will be reduced than control group was supported(t= -2.53, p= .017). 3. The third hypothesis, self-esteem of the experiinental group which has performed group reminiscence therapy will be increased than that of control group was not supported(t=1.34, p= .191). 4. The fourth hypothesis, the correlation with pain, depression, self-esteem was to appeared highly. The significance of this study through the above results shows that the Group Reminiscence Therapy is an effective nursing intervention for the elderly with chronic pain and depression.
Aged* ; Chronic Pain* ; Depression* ; Emigrants and Immigrants ; Female ; Humans ; Nursing ; Nursing Homes ; Social Isolation