Abstract:
The purpose of this research was to study the relationship between demographic variable (gender, education, income and family memberships), percieved health status, family relationships, psychological self-care (developing self-awareness, communicating effectiveness, time-management, problem solving strategies, develoments of a social support system, religious pratice and physical self-care) and mental health status among the elderly, to the investigate the cooperative prediction of mental health status from independent variables. A multistage sampling method was used to recruit a sample consised of 210 elderly people residing in the municipal area of Chon Buri province from Febuary to May, 2000. Data were gathered by interviews and were analyzed by stepwise multiple regression.The results indicated that family relationship, percieved health status, income, and gender were significant factors that could cooperatively predict the mental health status among the elderly at 32 percent and family relationship were the most influential to mental health status. The standardized equation showed that family relationship, percieved health status, income and gender (male) were positively correlated with mental health status, the equation was :Mental health status in elderly = 10.88 + .24 (family relationship) + 1.88 (percieved health status) + 1.4 (income) + 1.17 (male)