ABSTRACT

This study aims to identify relationships between the level ofpowerlessness and social support for the elderly women. Theparticipants were 205 community-dwellers who aged over 60 years.Data were collected by the face-to-face interview from summer2001. Scores for powerlessness and social support were 66.4 out of95 and 45.3 out of 80, respectively. The social support showedsignificant relations with both emotional and self-esteem support inthe powerlessness. Furthermore, it was found that social supportincluding emotional support had been the most important factor toinfluence on powerlessness. The findings suggested that those withsocial support may be more likely to have a psychosocial wellbeingin elderly women. Thus, it is necessary to assess their socialsupport network in the context of their family, as this is a factorstrongly linked to the powerlessness.