The study was to examine the relationships among health promoting lifestyle, level of anxiety, and perceived health status and to reveal those variables affecting health promoting lifestyle in Korean immigrants in the United States. The subjects were 425 adults chosen from Korean religious and social organizations located in New York from April 25th through July 5th, 1996. Data analyses were conducted by using pearson correlation coefficients, t-test, ANOVA, and stepwise multiple regression. The results were as follows : Health promoting lifestyle was significantly different according to age, religion, occupation, and the length of residence in the US. Those insured and those with no chronic conditions revealed a significantly higher score in health promoting lifestyle. Significant differences in the level of anxiety were found according to education, marital status, occupation, family income, and the length of residence. Those with no chronic conditions experienced a significantly lower level of anxiety. In the subscales of the health promoting lifestyle profile, self-actualization and interpersonal relationship revealed higher scores, whereas the scores of stress management, health responsibility, and exercise were lower. Those subjects whose perceived health status was very good, showed the lowest level of anxiety and the highest score on the health promoting lifestyle profile. Negative correlations were observed between the health promoting lifestyle profile and the level of anxiety, and between the perceived health status and the level of anxiety. Health promoting lifestyle was significantly predicted by the level of anxiety(22.0%), age(2.0%), health insurance(1.1%), respectively.

Every year the number of the elderly increases in Korea thanks to the improvement of social and economical levels and the development of medicine. However, many problems such as insufficent care and the isolation of the elderly have been commonplace. This trend exists not only because of increased lifespan but also the changing social structure of the nuclear family. Accordingly, inspite of the development of medicine, geriatric diseases including circulatory diseases are increasing in proportion of elderly population, as well as the severity. Therefore, it is important to emphasize that health care programs provide the best possible health care and functional capacities in terms of healthy elderly lifestyles. Especially, the phenomena of aging and geriatric diseases taking place with the elderly naturally are affected by lifestyle and the drastic changes in exercise patterns. This study aims to improve geriatric health by introducing a rhythmic movement program for the elderly to estabilish a health-promoting self-care system and by developing quality of life, perceived health status, their physical and physiological functions and emotional state. The theoretical framework used in this dissertation is derived from the Health-Promoting Self-Care System Model (Simmons, 1990), which integrates the Self-Care Deficit Nursing Theory (Orem, 1985), the interaction model of Client Health Behavior (Cox, 1982) and the Health Promotion Model (Pender, 1987). As a quasi-experimental design, the nonequivalent control group pretest-posttest design is utilized for this study. The subjects of this study consist of 64 people, over 65 years old who live in 2 nursing homes for the aged located in S city , Kyong-gi province and volunteered for this study from July, 12, 1999 to September, 17, 1999. They are divided into two groups: 33 in the experimental group and 31 in the control group. The experimental group particpated in the Rhythmic Movement Program at the nursing home, which was comprised of 45 minutes a session, 5 sessions a week during 9 weeks. In order to measure the results of the Rhythmic Movement Program, aspects of perceived health status, balance, flexibility, grip strength, leg strength, heart rate, blood pressure, depression, anxiety and the quality of life were measured before and after participating in the Rhythimic Movement Program for the experimental group after 9 weeks, as well as the control group. The collected data were processed by SPSS PC+ and analyzed by the X2 test, t-test, ANCOVA and the Pearson Correlation Coefficient. The results of this study are as follows: 1. The perceived health status conditions in the experimental group show statistically significant improvement when compared to the control group (F=17.51, p=.000). 2. The physical and physiological functions, that is, balance (F=17.51, p=.000), flexibility (F=8.01, p=.006), grip strength (F=3.21, p=.018) and leg strength (F=25.78, p=.000) in the experimental group are higher than the control group. The vital signs, that is, the number of heart rate (F=.022, p=.884), systolic pressure (F=1.73 p=.193), and diastolic pressure (F=2.74, p=.103) in the experimental group compared to the control group decreased, but doesn't show statistically significant differences. Immune responses (F=5.13, p=.003) showed statistically significant increases in the experimental group when compared to the control group. 3. The emotional state are improved, that is, degree of depression (F=11.56, p=.001) and degree of anxiety (F=9.14, p=.004) in the experimental group showed statistically significant decreases. 4. The quality of life in the experimental group (F=3.03, p=.037) showed statistically significant differences compared to the control group. 5. The observations of the relationships among the perceived health status, emotional state , the quality of life, the relationships between the perceived health status, the degree of depression (r=-.653, p=.000) and the degree of anxiety (r=-.786, p=.000) were in contrary propotions, while the relationships between the perceived health status and the quality of life (r=.234, p=.008) were in direct propotion. In conclusion, the Rhythmic Movement Program used in this study for geriatric nursing care is simple and safe for application to the elderly and shows significant effects by implementing 5 sessions a week for 9 weeks. The Rhythmic Movement Program improves the quality of life, maintains as well as improves the physical and physiological fuctions and emotional state, therefore this program is strongly recommended for positive applications for independant geriatric nursing health care.

Although healthy lifestyle have been proved as an effective way of improving higher well-beings for individuals, researches on health -promoting behaviors of minority elderly with a specific ethnic heritage have been sparsely tried. This study was designed to explore health-promoting lifestyle patterns of Korean immigrant elderly living in Seattle. USA and its relationships with two associated elderly were recruited from two senior centers and interviewed with a structured questionnaire. Data were collected from October 1998 to January 1999, and analyzed using SPSS program through which t-test, ANOVA, and Pearson Correlation Coefficients were tested. As the results, the mean HPLP score of the Korean immigrant elderly was 2.54 (SD =.36), showing significant differences by education (F=3.61, P=.016), economic status (F=3.01, P=.034), and current health status (F=3.69, P=.008). In self-esteem, two socioecomic variables showed statistical association with self-esteem; martial status (t= 2.47, P=.015) and living situation (F= 4.03, P= .021). The HPLP subscales that showed higher mean scores were nutrition (M=3.01, SD= .52) and interpersonal support (M= 2.65, SD= .47) while lower mean scores were detected in the domain of excercise (M= 1.92, SD= .74) and stress management (M= 2.26, SD= .47). Perceived health status revealed significant positive correlation with health-promoting lifestyle patterns (r= .19, P=.043) and self-esteem (r= .19, P= .043) and self-esteem (r= .32, P= .001) in the present study. It is concluded that engagement in health-promoting lifestyle patterns should be actively encouraged to enhance personal health of Korean immigrant elderly. Developing health promotion programs focused on exercise and stress management is also imperatively suggested not only for better health practices of Korean immigrant elderly population but also for enhancing their level of well-beings and life satisfaction.