• Anxiety and mood
• /
• v.9 no.1
• /
• pp.31-37
• /
• 2013

Objective : The PDSQ is a brief and psychometrically strong self-report scale designed to screen for common DSM-IV Axis I disorders in clinical settings. In this study, the K-PDSQ was compared with the M.I.N.I.-Plus (Mini-International Neuropsychiatric Interview-Plus) for diagnostic validity and availability of the K-PDSQ as a part of standardization of the K-PDSQ. Methods : The 640 patients were evaluated with the K-PDSQ and the M.I.N.I.-Plus. Diagnosing with the M.I.N.I.-Plus, the diagnostic correspondence, administering time, sensitivity, specificity, ROC curve, and AUC of the K-PDSQ were evaluated. Results : For the diagnostic correspondence of the K-PDSQ, Cohen's kappa coefficient was .66 between the K-PDSQ and the M.I.N.I.-Plus. The administering time of the K-PDSQ was $18.2{\pm}11.80$ minutes. Both sensitivity and specificity of the K-PDSQ were higher: the mean sensitivity across 10 subscales of K-PDSQ was 86%; the mean specificity was 84%. All AUCs of each subscale were above .80, which were statistically significant. Conclusion : The K-PDSQ is valid and available as a diagnostic screening tool. It will be widely used in clinical settings for screening DSM-IV Axis I diagnosis because of its simplicity and high reliability.

• Journal of Korean Society of Occupational and Environmental Hygiene
• /
• v.31 no.3
• /
• pp.202-212
• /
• 2021

Objectives: The reproductive health of female workers has been extensively investigated in South Korea and other countries worldwide. However, few studies have discussed the reproductive health of male workers. In this study, we reviewed the recent literature that reports on the effects of occupational exposure on the reproductive health of male workers and the health of their children. Methods: In May 2020 we used the PubMed search engine to search the literature over the last 10 years and chose case-control, cohort, and cross-sectional studies and reviews. We selected epidemiological studies that investigated the association between pre-pregnant occupational exposure and the reproductive health of male workers and the health of their children. We excluded case reports, non-epidemiological studies (animal experiments, cellular-level experiments, and similar articles), and studies that described postnatal occupational exposure. Results: We eventually selected 23 studies. The studies that included exclusively male workers reported that those employed in the agricultural sector or those exposed to pesticides showed lower blood levels of reproductive hormones and a high risk of lympho-hematopoietic system cancer in their children. Male workers exposed to complex organic solvents and organic compounds showed a high risk of poor semen quality, increased time to pregnancy, decreased blood levels of reproductive hormones, and a high risk of lympho-hematopoietic system cancer in their children. Male workers employed in occupations that involved significant social contact, or in the leather and livestock industries, and in occupations with high levels of exposure to lead and organic solvents showed a high risk of malignancies, including lympho-hematopoietic system cancer, neuroblastoma, and central nervous system tumors in their children. Studies that investigated both male and female workers reported that children of male smelters showed a high risk of premature birth, and children of male workers exposed to metals showed a high risk of hypospadias and cryptorchidism. Children of male welders and workers employed in the glass, ceramic, and tile industries showed a high risk of premature birth. Conclusion: The findings of this study will serve as basic data for further research on male workers' reproductive health and provide a scientific basis for the development of strategies to protect the reproductive health of males employed in high-risk occupations. Moreover, the results of this study may provide guidelines to improve the understanding of and knowledge on male workers' reproductive health.

• Tuberculosis and Respiratory Diseases
• /
• v.65 no.1
• /
• pp.15-22
• /
• 2008

Background: Lung cancer is the leading cause of cancer death in South Korea since the year 2000 and it is more common in elderly patients, with a peak incidence at around 70~80 years of age. However, these elderly patients receive treatment less often than do the younger patients because of organ dysfunction related to their age and their comorbidities, and they show poor tolerance to chemotherapy. The aims of this study were to analyze the clinical characteristics and treatment-related survival of elderly patients with lung cancer. Methods: In this retrospective study, we analyzed the clinical data of 706 lung cancer patients who were diagnosed at hospitals in Daegu and Gyeongsangbukdo from January 2005 to December 2005. We compared the clinical characteristics and outcomes of the patients who were aged 70 years and older (elderly patients) with those clinical characteristics and outcomes of the younger individuals. Results: The median age of the patients was 68 years (from 29 to 93) and the elderly patients were 38.7% (n=273) of all the study's patients. Squamous cell carcinoma was the most common type of lung cancer in both the elderly and younger patient groups. Elderly patients had more symptoms of dyspnea and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) than the younger patients (p<0.001 and p<0.001, respectively). A good performance status (ECOG 0-1) was less common for the elderly patients (p<0.001). The median survival of the non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) patients was significantly higher in the younger patient group than in the elderly patient group (962 days vs 298 days, respectively, p=0.001). However, the median survival of the NSCLC patients who received any treatment showed no significant difference between the younger patient group and the elderly patient group (1,109 days vs 708 days, respectively, p=0.14). Conclusion: Our data showed that appropriate treatment for selected elderly patients improved the survival of patients with NSCLC. Therefore, elderly NSCLC patients with a good performance status should be encouraged to receive appropriate treatment.

• Journal of the Korean Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry
• /
• v.7 no.1
• /
• pp.68-76
• /
• 1996

30 DSM-III or DSM-III-R tic patients were assessed by hospital records and Yale Global Tic Severity Scale to study the common characteristics, clinical course and longterm outcome of tic disorders after 3.1-18.1 years, 73.3% of the patients(treated or untreated) have recovered or partially improved. Identifical precipitating factors were found in 9 patients. Associated disorders were ADHD, sleep disorder, and so on. The outcome according to age of onset, duration of follow-up and diagnoses have no statistically significance. Increased age at follow up was influenced improvement of tic symptoms, though statistically not significant(p=0.327). These results suggest that the outcome of tic disorder is not ominous and they are relatively good social adjustment inspite of carrying the tic symptoms. But this study has some limitations such as retrospective study and sample size. Studies designed prospectively with large sample would be needed to generalize theses results.

• Journal of Digital Convergence
• /
• v.17 no.2
• /
• pp.217-230
• /
• 2019

This study was conducted to develop a customized severity-adjustment method and to evaluate their validity for acute myocardial infarction(AMI) patients to complement the limitations of the existing severity-adjustment method for comorbidities. For this purpose, the subjects of KCD-7 code I20.0 ~ I20.9, which is the main diagnosis of acute myocardial infarction were extracted using the Korean National Hospital Discharge In-depth Injury survey data from 2006 to 2015. Three tools were used for severity-adjustment method of comorbidities : CCI (charlson comorbidity index), ECI (Elixhauser comorbidity index) and the newly proposed CCS (Clinical Classification Software). The results showed that CCS was the best tool for the severity correction, and that support vector machine model was the most predictable. Therefore, we propose the use of the customized method of severity correction and machine learning techniques from this study for the future research on severity adjustment such as assessment of results of medical service.

• Journal of Preventive Medicine and Public Health
• /
• v.28 no.2 s.50
• /
• pp.462-472
• /
• 1995

This study examined the relation between anger-coping types and hypertension in employed men aged $40\sim60$ who consented to participate during the biannual physical checkup in the department of health management in 1988. The subjects analyzed were five hundred thirteen excluding those having hypertension history and/or current antihypertensive medications. Anger-coping types were constructed from the Harburg's model with two hypothetical anger-provoking situations involving wife and boss. Hypertensives were defined more than 140mmHg systolic blood pressure and/or 90mmHg diastolic blood pressure. Hypertensives were one hundred fifty two(29.6%) and those who suppressed their anger were 61.6% and 62.8% in wife and boss situations respectively. Items of anger, guilt, protest, and suppressed anger in wife situation showed odds ratios of 0.78-0.94 without statistical significance. But four items in boss situation showed odds ratios more than 1, especially anger-in types of anger item had 1.58 times the prevalence of hypertension of anger-out types(95% confidence intervals(CI) $1.06\sim2.35$) and subjects who indicated that suppressed their anger had 1.55 times the prevalence of hypertension of those who expressed their anger(95% CI $1.03\sim2.32$). For anger suppressed vs. expressed types of total suppressed anger index, prevalence of hypertension was 1.31 (95% CI $0.83\sim2.08$). After adjusting for age, body mass index, smoking and drinking, the odds ratios were slightly increased in both situations except guilt items compared with univariate analysis. These results suggest that the relation between Harburg's anger-coping model and hypertension is replicated partially in this subjects.

• Journal of Preventive Medicine and Public Health
• /
• v.29 no.3 s.54
• /
• pp.539-553
• /
• 1996

The study was conducted from May to September in 1994 to investigate applicability of the Hearing Handicap Inventory for the Elderly-Screening version(HHIE-S) in parallel with the pure-tone audiometer to the initial screening test of noise-induced hearing loss(NIHL) in some noise-exposed workers. Subjects were selected by systemic sampling that took every 10th person from 6, 700 workers taking the annual occupational health examination by the department of Health Maintenance of Dongsan Hospital Keimyung University in Taegu. The authors administered the pure-tone audiometric test and self-reported questionnaire of HHIE-S including items of sociodemographic and job-related variables concurrently. The final subjects analysed were 1,019(488 males and 531 females) excluding fourteen persons who had many missing values in their questionnaires. The reliability coefficients of HHIE-S scale by Cronbach's alpha were 0.84. In the univariate analysis of hearing handicap measured by the HHIE-S, work duration, military service and the hearing threshold loss at 1KHz and 4KHz by the initial audiometer were significant in males while age, work duration and hearing threshold loss at 1KHz and 4KHz were significant in females. In the stepwise linear regression analysis, hearing threshold loss at 1KHz and 4KHz, was the only selected variable explaining the hearing handicap in males and hearing threshold loss at 1KHz and 4KHz, age, and work duration were selected in females. In ROC curves for HHIE-S scores against NIHL as gold standard which was defined by the follow-up audiogram as more than 30dB of the average of 0.5/1/2KHz and 50dB at 4KHz, the optimal cutoff for the parallel HHIE-S appeared to be 8. The results suggest that HHIE-S appeared to have some reliability and validity in this data and might be used in screening NIHL in parallel with pure-tone audiometer in noise-exposed workers.

• Clinical and Experimental Pediatrics
• /
• v.45 no.8
• /
• pp.1007-1015
• /
• 2002

Purpose : The aim of this study is to find a method to diagnose and treat children who showed benign hemophagocytic histiocytes in bone marrow examination. Methods : We analyzed the clinical data of thirty patients retrospectively who showed benign hemophagocytic histiocytes in bone marrow examination from January 1995 to November 2001 at Keimyung University Dong-san Hospital. Bone marrow histiocytes were classified into a few, some, and many according to the number of histiocytes comparing with the white cells. Results : The age of thirty patients ranged from two months to 15 years. The median age was 5.6 years with male predominance(2.3 : 1). The most frequent clinical manifestation was fever; others were respiratory symptom, hepatosplenomegaly, lymphadenopathy and skin rash(in order of frequency). Common laboratory findings were leukopenia, thrombocytopenia, anemia and abnormal liver function test. Infection was present in 30 patients; causative organisms were documented in 15 patients, and bacterial infection was more common. Epstein Barr virus was the cause of infection in four patients. Bone marrow examination showed a few(20.0%), some(75.0%) and many(30.0%) hemophagocytic histiocytes. Combination immunochemotherapy including immunoglobulin, steroids and cyclosporine were helpful in 22 out of 30 patients. The mortality rate was high in young patients who showed some to many hemophagocytic histiocytes. Conclusion : Bone marrow examinations and early detection of histiocytes will be helpful in children who have fever, hepatosplenomegaly and abnormal liver function test. Immunochemotherapy were helpful and further investigation will be needed for the detection of the relationship between the bone marrow findings and prognosis.

• Tuberculosis and Respiratory Diseases
• /
• v.48 no.4
• /
• pp.522-529
• /
• 2000

Backgrounds : Assessment of the presence and degree of reversibility of airflow obstruction is clinically important in patients with asthma or chronic obstructive pulmonary disease. The measurement of peak expiratory flow(PEF) is a simple, fast, and cheap method to assess the severity of obstruction and its degree of reversibility. Assessing the reversibility of airflow obstruction by peak expiratory flow(PEF) measurements is practicable in general practice, but its usefulness has not been well investigated. We compared PEF and $FEV_1$ in assessing reversibility of airflow obstruction in patients with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease or asthma and developed a practical criterion for assessing the presence of reversibility in general practice. Methods : PEF measurements were performed (Spirometry) in 80 patients(aged 24-78) with a history of asthma or chronic obstructive lung disease before and after the inhalation of 200 g salbutamol. The change in PEF was compared with the change in forced expiratory volume in one second($FEV_1$). Reversible airflow obstruction was analyzed according to American Thoracic Society(ATS) criteria. Results : A 12% increase above the prebronchodilator value and a 200ml increase in either FVC or $FEV_1$ reversibility were observed in 45%(36) of the patients. Relative operating characteristic(ROC) analysis showed that an absolute improvement in PEF of 30 l/min gave optimal discrimination between patients with reversible and irreversible airflow obstruction(the sensitivity and specificity of an increase of 30 l/min in detecting a 12% increase above the prebronchodilator value and a 200ml increase in either FVC or $FEV_1$ were 72.2% and 72.7% respectively, with a positive predictive value of 68.4%). Conclusions : Absolute changes in PEF can be used to diagnose reversible airflow obstruction.

• Journal of the Korea Academia-Industrial cooperation Society
• /
• v.19 no.11
• /
• pp.126-136
• /
• 2018

The purpose of this study was to develop a severity-adjustment model for predicting mortality in acute stroke patients using machine learning. Using the Korean National Hospital Discharge In-depth Injury Survey from 2006 to 2015, the study population with disease code I60-I63 (KCD 7) were extracted for further analysis. Three tools were used for the severity-adjustment of comorbidity: the Charlson Comorbidity Index (CCI), the Elixhauser comorbidity index (ECI), and the Clinical Classification Software (CCS). The severity-adjustment models for mortality prediction in patients with acute stroke were developed using logistic regression, decision tree, neural network, and support vector machine methods. The most common comorbid disease in stroke patients were hypertension, uncomplicated (43.8%) in the ECI, and essential hypertension (43.9%) in the CCS. Among the CCI, ECI, and CCS, CCS had the highest AUC value. CCS was confirmed as the best severity correction tool. In addition, the AUC values for variables of CCS including main diagnosis, gender, age, hospitalization route, and existence of surgery were 0.808 for the logistic regression analysis, 0.785 for the decision tree, 0.809 for the neural network and 0.830 for the support vector machine. Therefore, the best predictive power was achieved by the support vector machine technique. The results of this study can be used in the establishment of health policy in the future.