A Qualitative Analysis Of The Psychological Needs Of The Empty - Nest Elderly Community And Its Application

Influenced by the traditional culture and conservative ideas, the empty-nest elders take community as the first choice of home-based care as the changes of the times and the social transformation. Rooting in the community, probing into the inclinations of the empty-nest elders’ psychological needs related to the community have an important role in enriching the theory of community mental heath service and directing its practices.Research process is divided into two parts, the grounded theory and the exploratory application.In the grounded theory stage, this research uses the collaborative method of qualitative research and takes Suojin community in Xuanwu district of Nanjing as cooperation base to discuss and refine the theory based on the deep investigation of the inclinations of the empty-nest elders’ psychological needs. The research conducts a semi-structure interview with34empty-nest elders after a year of field research in the community. By the grounded theory method of documentary analysis, the research sorts and analyzes the related literature and tap-recorded data, and extract a theoretical mode of the inclinations of the empty-nest elders’ psychological needs and draws to the following conclusions:(1) It is pressing to call for a historical, relational and positive vision in the study of empty-nest elders’ psychological needs.(2) As time changes, the ecosystem of the empty-nest elders’ psychological needs has changed, from "people in the" big family" system to "people in the unit" system and finally in a "people in the society" system."Society" here mainly refers to the community.(3) The empty-nest elders’ psychological needs contain three kinds of inclinations, that is, positive ability inclination, positive experience inclination, and positive environment inclination. Positive ability inclination is embodied by three dimensions, i.e., ability protection, ability growth and ability demonstration, which aspire to have a productive aging and finally lead to a sense of value and efficacy. Positive experience inclination includes experience acquisition, experience expression and experience sharing, which appeal to have an enjoyable aging and finally feel a sense of community and belonging. Positive environment inclination consists of three dimensions, namely, living environment, service environment and policy environment,, which seek to have a supportive aging and eventually get a sense of security and comfort. These three kinds of inclinations affect and change each other to bring out a system in a common aim to construct positive life.In the exploratory application stage, With the hub-type social organization as foothold, this research applied the extracted theory to the community service project as a practical exploration. The process gives life to the theory as well as perfects it through the feedback from practice. The conclusions are as follows:(1) The empty-nest elders’psychological needs theory is instructive and of good application in the community practice. The psychological needs inclination reflects dynamics in the community practice. There are some kinds of personal biases on the abutment of three kinds of needs inclination when the elderly interact with the community, and such kind of biases seems to have a relationship with age differences.(2) The construction of community mental health service system is not merely the interaction between theory and practice, its sustainable operation rely on the establishment of a comprehensive cooperation mechanism.