| Abstract: | As the number of elderly persons increases, the social service needs of older Americans will grow too. To provide a variety of services, many social service agencies across the nation are helping the elderly organize to help themselves. This paper represents the second of a series of research reports derived from a federally funded research project to investigate the types of services that trained elderly volunteers provide to other elderly persons in the community. This paper presents a multivariate analysis of elderly volunteers who go beyond providing socializing and reassuring services and provide instrumental services. The independant variables are developed to capture the level of the physical and mental strengths of elderly volunteers. Theses strengths are psychological functioning, perceived health, psychological adjustment, and social resources. In addition, program-participation factors, such as the duration of participation in the volunteer project and the number of persons served, as well as variables related to demographic and educational backgrounds, are included in the analysis as controls. The major findings from this study are the following: (1) Among the independant variables, perceived health is a statistically significant predictor of a volunteer's becoming a provider of instrumental services; (2) The volunteer's level of education and the number of elderly persons served are also statistically significant predictors. One the whole, however, elderly volunteers perfer socialization and reasurance over instrumental services when they try to help other elderly persons. |
