Life Habits of the Female Elderly Who Live Alone and Live with Spouse -Using the Questionnaire of "Life Planing Center Life Habits Inventory"-

Nowadays the proportion of the elderly living in our country rises steadily, and the changes of their socioeconomic environment and/or life-style have been largely caused by whether they live alone or live with a spouse. The quality of life is most important for these people, but previous reports concerning their health or life habits were not enough to meet social needs for this nrnhlem. Therefore, we examiend differences in life habits and health status between the female elderly who live alone and those who live with a spouse, using the questionnaire of "Life Planning Center Life Habits Inventory". The subjects numbered 66, 35 for the former group and 31 for the latter group, who live in Kumamoto city and participated in a five-hour course for health promotion. The results obtained were as follows; 1) Some differences in life habits were observed between the elderly living alone and those living with a spouse, and effects of living with a spouse was made clear by discriminant analysis. 2) Four factors were chosen by factor analysis, i.e., positiveness in daily behavior, psychosomatic condition, steadiness of daily living, and diretary pattern. These factors of the elderly's life habits are consistent with those which were reported for young or middle aged females, and thus are considered to be common among females in our country, regardless of age.