The Effect of Self-Estem Images on the Well-Being of the Elderly People in Geriatric Homes and a Community Living Elderly

Although living long has been a dream of mankind, people are worried about ageing, as individuals and society, because old age is historically associated with being sick, dependent and face many psychological concerns due to the emotional responses that follow the normal ageing process. As well as, changes in their sociodemographic status, social relationships and the burden of the associated chronic diseases, they experienced. Only few studies have explored the psychological implications of living geriatric homes and psychological distress that most frequently experienced by them, with health perception, life-satisfaction and self-esteem that are correlated with abandoned self-care behaviours and dealt with negative aspects of the late life. The poor self-images of the selfesteem symptoms of excessive self-consciousness, social phobia, nervosa and depression among elderly population enforce the study of these issues, when studying any elderly concerns. This study aimed to assess and compare selfesteem images and associated socio-demographic factors, social effective relationships and the comorbidity status among geriatric home residents and non-institutionalized elderly people.Methods & Subject: A cross-sectional study was conducted to study the self-esteem status among a sample of 100 elderly people aged 65 years and more, fifty of them were geriatric home residents and the other half from outpatient clinics attenders. All participants accepted to participate and were cognitively alert. They were selected randomly from non-governmental care homes and outpatients clinics in National Medical Institute of Damanhour at El-Behaira Governorate. Tools: specially designed interview questionnaires were developed and used to collect data for socio-demographic and medical data. Self-esteem scale, according to the Arabic version was utilized to measure individual self-esteem variables. Data were collected in period of a month. The results of the study presented that the mean ± SD age of the studied subjects was 70.0±7.1. More than half (59%) of the respondents were males and nearly half (46%) were widowed. Illiterate and only read & write subjects accounted 64% and those with monetary inadequacy contributed 60% having less than 600 Egyptian pounds monthly. The self-esteem scores of the studied subjects by their sociodemographic factors did not detect any significant difference between socio-demographic studied factors except income source (P=0.03). No significant differences between self-esteem scores and socio-demographic factors among geriatric home residents. For the non-institutionalized participants, both age group and educational level showed significant differences, (P= 0.022 and P= 0.040, respectively). The mean ± SD and median of the selfesteem scores according to pattern of social visits for geriatric home residents were higher for daughters' visits, (20.0±3.2 and median 20.5), while no coming visits were reported. No significant difference for outpatient respondents for self-esteem scores and different patterns of effective social relationships, (P=0.449). There was no significant difference between institutionalized and non-institutionalized studied subject according to the level of self-esteem mean ± SD scores, (P=0.315). The effective support relationships of the geriatric home residents, were from some family members and some non-family members. No one was socially supporting the outpatient clinics participants. Brothers & sisters, children and some neighbours were the stressors, (62%, 40% and 40%, respectively) for the geriatric residents. The dominant associated chronic diseases among the two studied groups were common, namely diabetes mellitus, hypertension, osteoporosis, hepatic diseases and diabetes & hypertension. No significant differences were detected among the two studied groups or even within each group, between self-esteem score and the associated chronic diseases.The findings of this study will be useful for planning interventions to improve selfesteem and life-satisfaction among the elderly population in Egypt. As further studies about self-esteem on a larger number of elderly from different geographical areas are recommended. [Samia Kattab Abd El-Rahman and Nagia Ibrahim Hassan. The Effect of Self-Estem Images on the Well-Being of the Elderly People in Geriatric Homes and a Community Living Elderly. J Am Sci 2013;9(3):339-354]. (ISSN: 1545-1003). http://www.jofamericanscience. org. 58