title: Locus of control in the black elderly.
abstract: There is considerable literature pertaining to the health care of the elderly and nursing has developed educational programmes whose major focus is the geriatric population. Nursing has also begun to recognize needs of people from different cultural backgrounds, which has resulted in the development of programmes in transcultural nursing. In light of this important variable of racial and cultural differences, the purpose of this study is to compare the locus of control of the black elderly to the white elderly. An individual's locus of control could affect their health care practices and beliefs. Locus of control is a measurable concept in psychology which explains how individuals make choices concerning their behaviour. The design is descriptive. Rotter's locus of control scale was used. The sample was based on non-random methods. The settings for this study were senior citizen centres and retirement communities in a midsize midwestern metropolitan area. The mean score for black elderly was 9.074. The scores were analysed with the t-test, which failed to show a significant difference in the scores of the two groups. The results failed to show that black elderly differ significantly from white elderly in regard to locus of control.
authors.affiliation: University of Southwestern Louisiana College of Nursing, Department of Baccalaureate Nursing, Lafayette 70504-2490.
authors.forename: S L
authors.initials: SL
authors.lastname: Tabb
mesh_terms: D001741:Black or African American / Q000523:psychology*; D000368:Aged / Q000523:psychology*; D006801:Humans; D007389:Internal-External Control; D044465:White People / Q000523:psychology