The Elderly's Problems and its Relation to Psychological Hardiness “A Pilot Study on a Sample of the Palestinian Elderly at Gaza Governorates”

The study aimed at identifying the problems the Palestinian elderly complained of at Gaza governorate, recognizing the level of their psychological hardiness, investigating the relationship between these problems and their psychological hardiness, and reporting the differences between the two sexes in the problems and the level of psychological hardiness. The study sample consisted of (114) one from all female and male elderly at Gaza governorate. The study results showed that the problems dimensions found in the society of the Palestinian elderly were ranked as follows: socio-economic problems (63.7%), psychological problems (57.5%), and physical health problems (56.4%). In addition to that, the results concluded that there was a high level of psychological hardiness among the Palestinian elderly with a ratio of (70%) as hypothetical level, and reverse correlative relation between the problems and the psychological hardiness was also revealed, as this relation was statistically significant. It was also indicated that there were no statistically significant differences between the two sexes in problems; whereas there were statistically significant differences between them in the level of psychological hardiness in favor of the males.