[A comparative study on health promotion lifestyles between employed and unemployed women].

Abstract

This comparative survey research was conducted to compare the relationship between health promotion lifestyles, self-esteem, health locus of control and health perception for employed and unemployed women. The sample consisted of 58 employed women and 63 unemployed women residing in Seoul and over 35 years old. The tool used for this study was a structured questionnaire which was revised by the researcher. The tool consisted of 8 items related to demographic characteristics, 47 items on health promotion lifestyle profile, 10 items on self-esteem measurement, 18 items on health locus of control, 21 items on health perception questionnaire. The data collected from the interviews were analyzing using SPSS, yielding frequencies, percentiles, means, standard deviations, t-test, x2-test, Pearson's product moment correlation. The result of this study are as follows: 1) The demograpic variables for the two groups were homogenous except for age. 2) No significance differences were found between the two groups on the health promotion lifestyle (t = -.06, p = .954), but there was a statistically significant difference between the two groups on 2 subscale (self actualization and nutrition) of the health promotion lifestyle. Comparison of the order of the scores between the two groups for the employed women showed that the highest score was for nutrition, then self actualization, interpersonal support, stress management, health responsibility and exercise in that order. For the unemployed women, the highest score was for nutrition, then interpersonal support, self actualization, stress management, health responsibility and exercise in that order. 3) There was a statistically significant difference between the two groups on the self-esteem, employed women had lower score on self-esteem than unemployed women (t = -3.37, p = .001). 4) The result of the comparison between the two groups were significantly different for future health status, employed women (mean 3.57) had higher scores than unemployed women (mean 3.25) (t = 2.14, p = .034). 5) Comparison of the order of the scores between the two groups showed that the highest score was for internal health locus of control, but there was a statistically no significant difference. However, there was a statistically significant difference between the two groups on the external health locus of control (t = -3.90, p = .000).(ABSTRACT TRUNCATED AT 400 WORDS)