A Study on the Status and Improvement of Physical & Mental Health for Middle-aged People

Background/Objectives: The purpose is to find out utilization and necessity of public support related to the physical and mental health experienced by the middle-aged and elderly people.

Method/Statistical Analysis: In distribution of 28 cities and 3 Guns of Gyeonggi-Do, 8,653 subjects are middle-aged people between 50 to 64 years old, and 6,547 subjects are the group under 49 years old and 11,953 subjects are the group over 65 years old. This study examined the differences in physical and mental health characteristics of the middle-aged and comparative groups through X 2 validation and one-way ANOVA analysis by SPSS 21.0 program.

Findings: The middle-aged showed relatively low level of difficulty than the group over 65 years old in all areas of physical health problems, physical health care difficulty, mental health problems, and mental health care difficulty. However, it showed a significantly higher level of difficulty than the group under 49 years old. The 6,731 people (77.8%) had no intention of using the social services provided to alleviate physical health problems, and 266 people (3.1%) are currently using related services. Among those who are willing to use the service, 1,135 people (13.1%) did not know the related service, the next highest rate, and 377 (4.4%) who knew the service but did not apply, 114 people (1.3%) applied for the application but could not use it. In the analysis of social service use to alleviate the difficulties of mental health, 7,165 (82.8%) of the middle-aged group had no intention of using it.

Improvements/Applications: The results showed that the physical and mental difficulties experienced by the elderly and the level of difficulty were lower than normal, but higher than those under the age of 49.