The present age is a graying society. The aged easily expose themselves to many other diseases. When one of the family members fell into an acute and chronic diseases, the structure and the function of the family change. Especially, chronic diseases such as depression threat social, physical, mental functions of patients and have influences on the function of the whole family.
Therefore, The purpose of this research was to examine the comparative of belief systems & family function between the depressive elderly and the non-depressive elderly. Family function has the fields of problems, communication, role, affective reactions, affective involvement, behavior control, and general function. and belief systems have the fields of making meaning of adversity, positive outlook in overcoming adversity and transcendence, spirituality & transformation. And also, This research will contribute building up the base of depression education program for the family and the depression.
The instruments were S-GDS to depressive or non-depressive, short type of Family Sense Of Coherence (FSOC) & Family Adaptation Scale (FAS), Family Strength and Family Crisis Oriented Personal Evaluation Scales (F-COPES) to belief systems. And then Family Assesment Device (FAD) to estimate the effectiveness of family function.
The data were analyzed by frequency, percentage, means, standard deviations, t-test, ANOVA, Duncan post test, and correlation, using the SPSS WIN 15.0
The result were as following
1. A comparative between The Depressive elderly and The Non-Depressive elderly by social-populational variations showed statistically differences in age, marital status, education, occupation, income, health condition, and disease.
2. The Non-Depressive elderly displayed more functional in the fields of whole fields in belief systems and the fields of role, affective reactions, affective involvement, behavior control, and general function in Family function exclusive of communication and problems.
3. Positive outlook in overcoming adversity and transcendence, superiority & transformation in belief systems are connected with decrease in Geriatric depression. And Communication and behavior control in the family function is significant related to decrease in Geriatric depression, too.
From these results, this study proves that there is a significant relationship between the depressive elderly and belief systems and the family functions. Therefore it is necessary to develop the depressive elderly education program in order to improve the belief systems and family function of the depressive who fails in the self-control and their family members.