노년층의 건강과 운동생활에 따른 기능성소재의 인지 및 착용에 관한 연구

Abstract

The population of active senior today has increased because of the extension of average life expectancy with the medical advancement. The more have they the opportunity to do social and cultural activities, the more they became interested in clothes. Especially, the interest in functional fabrics has been rising along with the increase in the number of patients senile who need clothes having thermal responses and anti-bacterial function. However, clothing manufacturers tend to miss the aged consumer's wanting on functional fabrics. This study aimed to research i) clothing comfort functions of fabrics highly considered in the elderly with respected to group types of health and exercise life in the aged, ii) the awareness and wearing behavior of functional fabrics according to demographic features, and iii) demands and complaints as well. Consequently, this study intended to develop functional clothing materials which can serve greater comfort to older people, and to present the basic data to produce functional clothing for health. For empirical research, a survey was developed and the aged 50 and above were 332 respondents. SPSS 12.0 was used for final statistical analysis: descriptive statistics, frequency analysis, cross table analysis, chi-square test, t-test and multiple response analysis. The results of the study are as follows. First, silver generation considered all the clothing comfort sensations important when wearing clothes, such as tactile sensation, clothing pressure sensation, thermal/wet sensation, and motion sensation in human physiological aspect. Also, stretchy fabrics were ranked first in awareness, the number of wearing times, and satisfaction of comfort functional fabrics. More than 30% of silver generation have fifteen items out of 36 functional clothes. The motivation of wearing functional fabrics was 'health-consciousness' and 'the pursuit of special function'. The reason 'why no experience' was 'high price' and 'lack of information'. 'High price' was also firstly ranked in complaints. Second, in a comparative study the aged was divided into four groups: 'high health-conscious', 'low health-conscious', 'healthy body', and 'weak body' group. The level of awareness for both comfort-oriented and health/safety-oriented functional fabrics in high health-conscious group was much higher than that in low health-conscious group. In number of wearing times, health body and high-conscious group wear comfort-oriented fabrics more frequently, while weak body group wear health/safety-oriented fabrics more often. All groups were satisfied with overall functional clothing products. The health-consciousness significantly influenced the possession of active sportswear with various functions. As comparative study, the aged divided four groups: 'high exercise-conscious', 'low exercise-conscious', 'high exercise activities', and 'low exercise activities'. The awareness of functional fabrics in exercise activities groups was much higher than that in exercise-conscious groups. High exercise activities group know more about the wet sensation-related fabrics and clothing materials for outdoor activities than low exercise activities group. Low exercise-conscious group put on health/comfort-oriented fabrics for casuals more frequent than functional fabrics for sportswear. High exercise activities group preferred to wear sportswear suitable for outdoor activities. All groups were satisfied with overall functional clothing products, and the aged people have a lot of health/comfort-oriented functional casual wear appropriate for indoor activities regardless of exercise-consciousness. However, the more they enjoy exercise activities the more they are interested in functional sportswear. Even though they were unconcerned with exercise, older people are interested in functional casual clothes. Finally, in analysis of awareness by gender on functional clothing products, women were more aware of health/safety-oriented fabrics than men were. Otherwise, men had a bit more knowledge about the water-related properties of functional fabrics than women have, such as water/moisture absorptive and water-repellent/vapor permeable fabrics. While women have more indoor casual wear, men had more active sportswear. Also, women expressed a strong preference to the stretchy function of fabrics. As a conclusion, the high interest in health and exuberant activities in silver generation arose the necessity of new multi-functional clothing products. Therefore, understanding their awareness and wearing of functional fabrics is expected to contribute to clothing products development to improve and maintain their health and marketing strategy fit for user characteristics.