Background
: It is known that hearing impairment is one of the most common of all physical impairments with aging process, but in clinics physicians seldom screen the elderly for it, and patients often overlook hearing problems. It is generally accepted that hearing impaiment inevitably leads to a breakdown in communication and consequent physical and mental problems, and therefore a highte degree of social isolation. Nevertheless, few community based studies have been undertaken to examine both the mental and more general physical state of the elderly with hearing impairment. This study therefore sought to examine the elderly living in the community in a general practice who reported experiencing difficulty with hearing, and also th investigate the relationships between this and depression.

Methods : Self-administered screening questionnaire(HHIE-S, SDS, Katz Index) including epidemiological data were given to 261 the elderly over the age of 60 years during period from July 1994 to October 1994 living in Ahansan and were selected appreciable 216 of them. Hearing impairment tendency was based upon HHIE-S as cut off point 8 and depression tendency was based upon SDS as cut off point 50. Katz Index was used for excluding close relationship between physical disability and depression. The results were statistically analyzed by chisquare test and logistic regression test.

Results : The prevalence of hearing impairment in this sample was 25.9%. The factors that were significantly associated with hearing impairment were age, education degree, present occupation, marital status, but sex, chronic disease, monthly income, religion were not associated with hearing impairment. The factors that were sigrificantly associated with depression were sex, age, monthly income, religion, and which were very sigrificantly associated with depression were education degree, marityal status, but present occupation, chronic disease were not associated with depression. There wass a very close association between age and hearing difficulty(P<0.01). On logistic regression test, the hearing impairment was the only variable that shows significant association with depression.

Conclusion : Depression might occur commonly with hearing impairment. Since hearing impairment is a very common problem in the elderly. We recommend when a primary care physician see the elderly that he shouldconsider the coincidence of depression of hearing impairment and evaluate both ailments.

No abstract available.

Background
: Stress according to industrial development affect the alcohol dependence.
The aim of this study is to evaluate the corredlation between alcohol dependence and life change events.

Methods : Data were gathered from 73 male drinkers who were evaluated for general check-up and were classified into alcohol dependent group by MAST. And data were collected from 73 male drinkers who were similar in demograph with case groups.
All data were completed from March to September, 1992 and the korean SRRS was used to evaluate the stress in alcoholic patients.

Results : The total score of KSRRS is higher in alcoholics than controls.(P<0.001) The items of KSRRS are more common in alcoholics than controls.(P<0.001) The score and item in change of health life, change of occcupational life, change of family life and change of economic life are more higher in alcoholics than controls.

Conclusion : There was significant difference between life change events and alcohol dependence. Thus, stress is thought to play a great role in alcohol dependence.