COPING RESPONSES AMONG ELDERLY LIVING WITHIN FAMILY SETUP

Ageing can be described as a continuous irreversible changing process that normally comes with stressors over a long period of time. In human life old age is the closing period of the life span when people move away from previous more desirable periods or times of usefulness. Old age is considered as a curse being associated with deterioration of all physical, psychological, social and economic problems. In this stage people need extra care, love affection and social security so family members should provide facilities which full fill elderly people needs but some family members think these type of work is burden and maintain distance from elderly. This has promoted the concept of old age homes where their loved ones manage to find a middle path. Old people get proper care where as their loved ones remain busy with their lives. Surely, decreased or even absence of love from their family members leave deep scares on their psyche leading to elevated feelings of insecurity and fear of death.

Coping
Coping can occur as a response to an event or in anticipation of upcoming demands but it also can involve a proactive approach to selfimposed goals and challenges. Many attempts have been made to reduce the universe of possible coping behaviour s to a more parsimonious set of coping dimensions. Coping strategies refer to the specific efforts, both behavioural and psychological, that people employ to master, tolerate, reduce, or minimize stressful events. According to Lazarus & Folkman (1984) “Coping is the process of Managing Demands (external or internal) that are apprised as taxing or exceeding the resource of the person”. He further describes that coping consists of efforts, both action oriented and intra psychic, to manage (i.e., master, tolerate, reduce, minimi ze) envi ronmental and internal demands.

Coping and Ageing
Coping for elderly persons is different from coping for people of other age groups, as stressors also change with age. While young adults experience more stress in areas related to work, their finances, home maintenance, their personal life, family, and friends; the elderly tend to experience stress related to the limitations of aging (Cavanaugh & Blanchard-Fields, 2011). During the phase of ageing process elderly face series of challenges such as illnesses and irreversible loses. The process of ageing works against the will and interest of the elderly. Many illnesses come with lots of problems during old age and that time elderly may be a need to keep in shape one’s emotions, self image, ability and relationship with friend, relatives along with family members. Coping is categorized based on individual perspectives and its applications depend on the state of health along with the nature of elderly. Coping style could be vary from elderly to elderly it may be problem focused, emotion focused, active, adaptive, avoidant, problem solving, corrective or preventive. Golden (1982) found that the experience of caring for an elderly parent evoked a distinctive set of fears regarding the subjects own aging, including fear of living to be very old, of having the same or similar illnesses as the ill parent, and of becoming dependent on one’s own children. Which fear was most prominent seemed to be connected with which of the three coping styles and which forms of anticipatory coping they used to deal with their own ageing.

Aim
To assess and compare socio-demographic domains and coping responses of male and female elderly living within family setup.

MATERIALS AND METHODS
A cross sectional research design was adopted for this study. Sample were recruited through purposive sampling techniques from two areas namely Kanke and Kantatoli in Ranchi.Total 60 samples of elderly were collected including 30 male and 30 female elderly. Elderly having age range between 65-75 years and living with family members for at least 2 years were included in the present study.

Tools

• Socio-Demographic Data Sheet: It is semi-structured performa especially drafted for this study and contains information about various sociodemographic variables like age, sex, religion, education, marital status and domicile.
• Ways of Coping Questionnaire (Folkman & Lazarus, 1988): This Questionnaire was used to derive measure that could be used to explore the role of coping in the relationship between stress and adaptational outcomes.

Statistical Analysis
Statistical analysis was conducted using Statistical Package for Social Sciences (SPSS) version 20.0 Descriptive statistics were used to calculate percentage profiles of different socio-demographic and clinical variables. Chisquare tests was used to compare categorical variables across two groups. To calculate the significance of coping responses and various clinical variables across two groups for continuous variables independent sample ttest was used.