This study was designed to examine the effects of a bereavement intervention program on levels of depression and life satisfaction in middle aged widows in Korea.

A quasi-experimental design with non-equivalent control-group pretest-posttest was used. The subjects (control group, n = 10; intervention group, n = 17) were bereaved less than 6 months in G City and J Province, Korea. The bereavement intervention program consisted of Dan-jeon breathing, self-help group activities and a health examination. The experimental group attended 10 sessions of a bereavement intervention program. The control group had a health examination without the intervention program. For both groups, the level of depression and life satisfaction levels were measured before and after the experiment.

The decrement of depression level in the experimental group was significantly greater than in the control group (p<.001). The increment in life satisfaction in the experimental group was significantly greater than in the control group (p<.001).

The results suggested that the bereavement intervention program was effective in decreasing level of depression and in increasing the life satisfaction of widows. Accordingly, a bereavement intervention program can be applied as an intervention to help widows.

The purpose of this study was to investigate the effect of aromatherapy on pain, depression, and feelings of satisfaction in life of arthritis patients.

This study used a quasi-experimental design with a non-equivalent control group, pre-and post-test. The sample consisted of 40 patients, enrolled in the Rheumatics Center, Kangnam St. Mary's Hospital, South Korea. The essential oils used were lavender, marjoram, eucalyptus, rosemary, and peppermint blended in proportions of 2:1:2:1:1. They were mixed with a carrier oil composed of almond (45%), apricot(45%), and jojoba oil(10%) and they were diluted to 1.5% after blending. The data were analyzed using an 2-test, Fisher's exact test, t-test and paired t-test.

Aromatherapy significantly decreased both the pain score and the depression score of the experimental group compared with the control group. However, aromatherapy didn't increase the feeling of satisfaction in life of the experimental group compared with the control group.

The result of this study clearly shows that aromatherapy has major effects on decreasing pain and depression levels. Based on our experiment's findings, we suggest that aromatherapy can be a useful nursing intervention for arthritis patients.

The number of elders in institutions has increased as family supporting systems have changed in Korea. The purpose of this study were to understand the life satisfaction among elders in institutions and to identify the factors influencing on life satisfaction.

The instruments used were Yun(1982)'s scale modified Memorial University of Newfoundland Scale for Happiness(MUNSH) in life satisfaction, ADL and IADL in activity level, Self-rating Depression Scale(SDS) in depression and Norbeck Social Support Questionnaire(NSSQ) scale in social support. Also, Perceived health status was measured by Visual Graphic Rating Scale. The subject of this study is 107 cognitively intact and ambulatory elders in 7 institutions in Daegu city and Kyungpook province. The data have been collected from May 1 to June 30, 2001. For the analysis of collected data, frequency analysis, mean, standard deviation, Pearson's correlation and stepwise multiple regression analysis were used for statistical analysis by SPSSwin(version 9.0) program.

Life satisfaction for the elders in institutions showed negative correlation with SDS, and positive correlation with activity level. The regression form of the stepwise multiple regression analysis to investigate the influencing factors of life satisfaction for the elders in institutions was expressed by y = 90.988-0.733x1-0.188x2-0.069x3-0.565x4 (x1: SDS x2: Social support x3: Activity level x4: Monthly pocket Money) and 57.9% of varience in life satisfaction was explained by the model.

The factors influencing on life satisfaction among the elders in institutions were SDS, social support, activity level and monthly pocket money. According to the results of this study, depression, social support and activity level are considered the prime causal factors for life satisfaction.

This study was done to identify the factors which influence depression for elderly people who live at home.

The participants were 134 elderly people living at home in M city. Data were collected from April 2 to 30, 2009 and analyzed using SPSS/WIN 12.0 and AMOS 5.0 program. I assumed path coefficients by doing path analysis to understand synthetically causal relationship which influences on depression.

Social support, sleep pattern and self esteem had significant direct effects on life satisfaction and accounted for 50% of the total variance in life satisfaction. Physical symptoms, sleep pattern and life satisfaction also had significant direct effects on depression and accounted for 59% of the variance in depression. But social support, self assertiveness and self esteem were not significant for depression.

These results provide guidance for designing useful strategies to reduce depression in elderly people living at home.