The Effects of Undergraduate's Optimism and Family-control on Their Awareness of Caregiving for the Elderly

Abstract

The purposes of this study was to examine the effects of undergraduate's optimism and family-control on their awareness of caregiving for the elderly. The subjects for this study were 374 undergraduates from 4 universities in G city. The collected data were analyzed with SPSS WIN(ver. 12.0) program, and frequency and percentile, mean and standard deviation, t-test, correlation analysis, multiple regression, and path analysis were utilized. The main findings of the study were as follows. The undergraduate's degree of optimism and family-control, and their awareness of caregiving for the elderly were slightly higher than the average. In addition, the undergraduate's optimism and family-control were differed according to their 'existence and/or nonexistence of religion', and their awareness of caregiving for the elderly was significantly different depending on 'existence and/or nonexistence of religion', and 'existence and/or nonexistence of living together with their grandparents'. It was also found that the undergraduate's awareness of caregiving for the elderly was directly influenced by their family-control, whereas their awareness of caregiving for the elderly was indirectly influenced by their optimism via family-control.