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Analyzing Factors Influencing the Quality of Life in Vietnamese Married Immigrant Women in Korea

Article information

Res Community Public Health Nurs. 2015;26(3):268-277
Publication date (electronic) : 2015 September 30
doi : https://doi.org/10.12799/jkachn.2015.26.3.268
Hung Sa Lee1, Chunmi Kim1orcid_icon, Myung Sook Park2
1Department of Nursing, Sunmoon University, Asan, Korea.
2Department of Nursing, Konkuk University, Chungju, Korea.
Corresponding author: Kim, Chunmi. Department of Nursing, Sunmoon University, 70 Sunmoon-ro, 221beon-gil, Tangjeong-myeon, Asan 336-708, Korea. Tel: +82-41-530-2757, Fax: +82-41-530-2725, spring4cmk@gmail.com
Received 2015 August 05; Revised 2015 September 21; Accepted 2015 September 22.

Abstract

Purpose

The purpose of this study was to analyze factors influencing the quality of life in Vietnamese married immigrant women in Korea. The factors included socio-demographic characteristics, spouse's support, and social support of Vietnamese married immigrant women.

Methods

A descriptive survey was conducted to collect data from 190 subjects during the period between May and June, 2015. The randomly sampled subjects answered a self-report questionnaire translated into Vietnamese. Collected data were analyzed using SPSS/WIN 21.

Results

The subjects' quality of life was found to be influenced by economic level, subjective perception of their own and spouse's health, Korean communication ability, spouse's support, and social support. The most influential factor for the quality of life was spouse's support, and next, subjective perception of their own health, Korean communication ability, and economic level in order of influence.

Conclusion

The results of this study suggest that social support programs should be customized to the subjects' characteristics in order for married immigrant women to adjust themselves to new Korean environments and to lead a high-qualitylife through the promotion of marital relationship, Korean communication ability, health status, and economic capability.

Keywords: Quality of life; Social support; Vietnam; Immigrants; Women

References

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Article information Continued

© 2015 Korean Academy of Community Health Nursing

This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution Non-Commercial License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/3.0/) which permits unrestricted non-commercial use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.

Table 1

Differences of QOL according to the Sociodemographic Characteristics (N=190)

Characteristics Categories n (%) or M±SD QOL t or F p
M±SD
6.3±1.54
Age (year) Subjects 29.6±5.66
 ≤29 98 (51.6) 6.3±1.57 1.20 .309
 30~39 82 (43.2) 6.5±1.48
≥40 10 (5.2) 6.4±1.53
Husband 45.6±5.93
 30~39 15 (7.8) 6.1±2.09 0.35 .699
 40~49 140 (73.9) 6.3±1.48
 ≥50 15 (7.8) 6.5±1.56
 No response 20 (10.5)
Marital status Married 170 (89.5) 6.3±1.55 -1.63 .104
Divorced 18 (9.5) 5.7±1.41
Bereaved 2 (1.1)
Marriage period (year) <1 8 (4.2) 6.5±1.75 2.44 .066
1~<3 22 (11.5) 6.2±1.87
3~<5 59 (31.0) 5.8±1.30
≥5 102 (53.3) 6.5±1.54
Education level No education 27 (14.2) 6.4±1.57 0.99 .414
Elementary school 48 (25.3) 6.4±1.67
Junior high school 43 (22.6) 5.9±1.55
High school 64 (33.7) 6.2±1.43
College 8 (4.2) 7.0±1.53
Economic status Low 44 (3.2) 5.5±1.40a 10.70 <.001
(a<b<c)
Middle 99 (52.1) 6.2±1.27b
High 47 (24.7) 7.0±1.86c
Religion Have no 142 (74.7) 6.2±1.57 0.22 .819
Have 48 (25.3) 6.3±1.49
Children No 31 (16.3) 5.9±1.65 -1.41 .158
Yes 159 (83.7) 6.3±1.51
Living with family No 132 (69.5) 6.3±1.56 1.10 .270
Yes 58 (30.5) 6.1±1.51
 Parents in law 30 (15.8)
 Mother in law 25 (13.2)
 Father in law 2 (1.1)
 Others 2 (1.1)
The perception of subjects's health Healthy 162 (85.3) 6.5±1.48 5.70 <.001
Unhealthy 28 (14.7) 4.8±1.11
The perception of husband's health Healthy 150 (79.0) 6.5±1.49 3.55 <.001
Unhealthy 20 (10.5) 5.4±1.52
No response 20 (10.5)
Job No 102 (53.7) 6.3±1.53 0.04 .967
Yes 88 (46.3) 6.3±1.57
 Agriculture 13 (6.8)
 Worker 50 (26.3)
 Others 25 (13.2)
Korean communication ability Poor 11 (5.8) 5.7±1.02a 10.98 <.001
(a<b)
Fair 140 (73.7) 6.0±1.52a
Excellent 39 (20.5) 7.2±1.34b

QOL=quality of life.

Table 2

The Scores of a Social Support and Spouse's Support (N=190)

Variables M±SD
Social support 4.0±0.84
 Others thank to me. 3.9±1.07
 Others respect me. 3.9±1.02
 Others concerned about me. 3.9±1.12
 Others help me with information and advice. 4.1±0.96
 Others help me if I have many things to do. 4.1±0.94
 Others listen to me when I want to get it off my chest 4.1±0.97
Spouse's support 3.3±0.92
 He listen my emotion and feeling. 3.5±1.40
 I freely tell my physical problem to him. 3.6±1.40
 I can talk with him my family problems freely. 3.7±1.33
 He helps me when I am sick. 3.6±1.41
 He spends time with me if he is free. 3.3±1.53
 He knows well about my relatives and friends. 3.2±1.43
 He expressed to me the feeling of intimacy and love. 3.5±1.33
 He respects my opinion. 3.5±1.36
 He forces to follow his thinking.† 3.7±1.34
 He always asking me to obey his thought.† 3.8±1.35
 He tries to solve the problems when we have a conflict. 3.1±1.46
 He gets digging my bad points.† 4.0±1.34
 He makes efforts to solve the family problems. 3.7±1.35

†Negative item.

Table 3

Correlation among Economic Status, the Perception of Health, Korean Communication Ability, Support and Quality of Life (†=190)

Variables Economic status PSH PHH KCA Spouse's support Social support
r (p) r (p) r (p) r (p) r (p) r (p)
Economic status 1
PSH .18 (.008) 1
PHH .13 (.046) .57 (<.001) 1
KCA .18 (.007) .07 (.372) .06 (.431) 1
Spouse's support .18 (.014) .18 (.013) .25 (.001) .09 (.213) 1
Social support .32 (<.001) .41 (<.001) .28 (<.001) .30 (<.001) .21 (.004) 1
Quality of life .32 (<.001) .40 (<.001) .28 (<.001) .45 (<.001) .45 (<.001) .27 (<.001)

PSH=the perception of subject's health; PHH=the perception of husband's health; KCA=Korean communication ability.

Table 4

Variables Influencing on the Quality of Life

Factors B SE β t p
(Constant) 2.57 0.87 2.95 .004
Economic status 0.35 0.13 0.15 2.62 .009
The perception of subjects's health 0.70 0.20 0.25 3.43 .001
The perception of husband's health 0.05 0.18 0.02 0.31 .751
Korean communication ability 0.74 0.18 0.23 3.94 <.001
Spouse's support 0.63 0.11 0.34 5.47 <.001
Social support 0.18 0.11 0.10 1.63 .103
R2=.394, Adjusted R2=.373, F=18.98, p<.001

Calculated by multiple regression analysis.