Abstract

PURPOSE
This study was to investigate the family life events stress and family functioning and social support of wives, and to find out the correlation among these variables.
METHOD
The subjects were 263 wives who participated voluntarily in the questionnaire. The instrument used in this study comprised family life events stress, family functioning and social support instruments, and the data were collected from Sep.10 to Sep. 29 with selfadministered questionnaires. We analyzed the data using descriptive statistics, Pearson correlation, t-test and ANOVA with SPSS win.
RESULTS
1) The mean score of family life events stress was 25.8, family functioning was 47.2, and social support was 43.4(4 point scale), 2) The rate of correlation between family life events stress and family functioning was (r=-.18), that between family life events stress and social support was (r=-.26), and that between family functioning and social support was (r=0.46). 3) The mean score of family life events stress by general characteristics was significant in age, religion and family type. The mean score of family functioning by general characteristics was significant in education. The mean score of social support by general characteristics was not significant.
CONCLUSION
Considering the results above, we can recognize that there are close relations among family life events stress, family functioning and social support. Although the correlation coefficient is somewhat different, these three variables are very significant for wives.