Abstract

PURPOSE
The purpose of this study was to identify an influence of self-esteem and family- support on powerlessness of hospitalized elderly patients with chronic disease. METHOD: The subjects were 151 hospitalized elderly patients, age over 60, with chronic disease and admitted for at least 1 week. The data were collected by individual interview using a tructured questionnaire during the period from July 10th to August l0th, 2003 from three general hospitals in Busan. The data were analyzed by descriptive statistics, t-test, ANOVA, Pearson's correlation, hierarchical multiple regression. RESULT: The level of self-esteem, family support, and powerlessness was 38.00, 38.26, and 38.38, respectively. There was a significant positive correlation between self-esteem and family support and a negative correlation between self-esteem and powerlessness and between family support and powerlessness. Self-esteem and family support were each significant predictor of powerlessness. CONCLUSION: This study showed the hospitalized elderly patients need greater family-support and higher self-esteem to relieve the level of powerlessness. I suggest to study for replication in a larger sample size and considering the lengths of hospitalization for generalization of this study and to develop individual intervention programs for increasing family support and self esteem and testify their effects on the relief of powerlessness of the elderly.

• Keywords: Self-Esteem; Family-Support; Powerlessness; Elderly