Abstract
A descriptive correlation study was done to provide a basic data for comprehensive nursing care by analyzing the relationship between spiritual wellbeing, hope and perceived health status of the rural elderly. 130 respondents who lived at their homes and nursing homes for elders in D county. Kyungbuk province were selected and their age was over 60 years old. Paloutzian and Ellison(1982)'s spiritual wellbeing scale. Nowotny(l989)'s hope scale and Northern Illinois University's health self rating scale was used. From September 2nd to September 30th, 2002, ready made questionnaires were handed out by researcher and two well trained nurse research assistants. to those who can fill it out and for those who cannot fill out the questionnaires alone, the researcher and assistants read it and finished by interview. This study used Pearson's correlation coefficient for the hypothetic test and the average point and standard deviation of spiritual wellbeing, hope, and perceived health status were checked. To find out the difference between spiritual wellbeing, hope, and perceived health status by general characteristics ANOVA and Tukey test were used. The results are as follows : 1. The mean score for spiritual wellbeing of the rural elders was $49.94(\pm5.62)$ in a possible range of 20-80. The mean score of religious wellbeing was $25.20(\pm3.91)$ and that of existential wellbeing was $24.74(\pm2.83)$ in a possible range of 10-40. The average point of religious wellbeing was $2.52(\pm0.39)$ points and existential wellbeing was $2.47(\pm0.28)$ points to 4 point full marks. 2. The mean score for hope was $67.68(\pm10.92)$ in a possible range of 29-116. The average point of hope was $2.33(\pm0.38)$ points to 4 point full marks. 3. The mean score for perceived health status was $9.95(\pm2.66)$ in a possible range of 4-14. The average point of perceived health status was $2.15(\pm0.72)$ point to 4 point full marks. 4. In testing the hypothesis concerning the relationship between spiritual wellbeing and hope, there was a statistically positive correlation(r=0.621. p=0.000). 5. In testing the hypothesis concerning the relationship between hope and perceived health status, there was a statistically positive correlation(r=0.305, p=0.000). 6. There were significant differences in spiritual wellbeing according to age(F=5.60, p=0.000), religion(F=11.61. p=0.000), family status(F=2.86, p=0.040) and average monthly pocket money(F=4.32, p=0.015). 7. There were significant differences in hope according to age(F=16.49, p=0.000), religion (F=3.56, p=0.009), educational level(F=8.94, p=0.000), present occupation(t=-3.13, p=0.002), family status(F=5.90, p=0.001) and average monthly pocket money(F=3.41. p=0.036). 8. There were significant differences in perceived health status according to present occupation(t=-2.16, p=0.033) average monthly pocket money(F=4.11, p=0.019). From the above results it can be concluded that: There was a positive correlation between spiritual wellbeing and hope, hope and perceived health status. There was no positive correlation between spiritual wellbeing and perceived health status. For futher study, adequate spiritual wellbeing scale and hope scale for rural elders should be developed and, age and religion factors has to be reconsidered. When the nurse implicate the nursing intervention which can be promote the spiritual wellbeing and hope, rural elder's spiritual wellbeing and hope can be improved and at the same time, their perceived health status also can be improved.
