[A study on depression, stress, and social support in adult women].

PURPOSE

This study was conducted to examine the relationship among Depression, Stress, and Social support in Korean Adult Women.

METHOD

The subjects of this study consisted of 2,503 Korean Adult Women from 20 to 64 years. The data was collected through personal interviews from March to May of 2001 using questionnaires. The data was analyzed by the SPSS(ver.10.0) computer program, and it included descriptive statistics, t-test, one way ANOVA, the pearson correlation coefficient, and Stepwise multiple regression.

RESULT

The level of depression, stress, and social support were 16.22 for depression, 27.43 for stress, and 87.48 for social support. There was a significant difference in social support according to residence area, age, level of education, marital status, type of family, religion, income, and job. There was a significant positive correlation between stress and depression, a significant negative correlation between stress and social support, and social support and depression. Stress and social support were significant predictors (29.6%) of depression.

CONCLUSION

This study showed that thorough nursing assessment of variables related to social support is needed for development of nursing intervention strategies. Further studies need to be conducted for group comparisons according to the life cycle of Korean women.