• Journal of Hospice and Palliative Care
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• v.10 no.3
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• pp.137-144
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• 2007

Purpose: The purpose of this study is to identify and assess the needs of the cancer patients and their families and provide basic data to meet with their needs. Methods: This is a descriptive study using questionnaire method. Questionnaire were collected by mail from 76 discharged patients from a hospice ward from May until the end of October, 2004, and data were analyzed by SPSS 10.0. Results: Admitted patients had needs of pain control (85.5%), non-pain symptoms (63.2%) such as vomiting, dyspnea, ascites, etc, and emotional and spiritual problem solving (28.9%, 14.5%). Interests of patients were health care of himself/herself (65.8%), concern for their spouses left alone (32.9%), and future of their children (15.8%). In families' needs of care of 5 areas, "information on patient's status and treatment/nursing care" was shown most high score ($3.48{\pm}0.62$). In detailed questions, they request most 'to inform the prognosis of patients' and the next is 'to inform the reasons that nursing care was required'. The next highest score was to 'inform family roles' ($3.39{\pm}0.64$), and next was spiritual support ($3.11{\pm}0.79$), and emotional support ($3.08{\pm}0.72$). Expectations of family on the treatment were comfortable dying (73.4%) scored the highest. Patients' families were satisfied with volunteer service most in service area (97.4%). The next was pain control (89.5%) and nursing service (77.6%). Conclusion: Health care staff should identify the actual needs of families caring cancer patients and they should operate realistic programme which can give continuous and assistance by reflecting individual needs and characteristics. With these srategies, the quality of life of patients and families can be improved. And then the intervention programme should be developed to measure subjective nursing care needs of terminally ill cancer patients and their families.

• Journal of the Korea Academia-Industrial cooperation Society
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• v.18 no.11
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• pp.498-508
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• 2017

Purpose: The present study investigated nutrient supplement intake to examine the relationship between the health behaviors of nutrient supplement users and nonusers and nutrient supplement users and other drug users. The results provide baseline data to understand whether nutrient supplements actually perform as expected in view of the fact that healthy people that take nutritional supplements may become healthier, but may also develop nutritional supplement abuse problems. Among 7,006 household heads of 24,614 household members from the Korea Health Panel data in 2008, a total of 6,009 household heads were the respondents of the Korea Health Panel Survey (appendix) in 2009. Method: The subjects of the present study were targeted household heads. The respondents who reported that they had taken (planned to take) life/health promotion-related drugs (01. vitamins/nutritional supplements) for more than three months that were purchased at pharmacies during the past one year at the time of the survey were defined as nutritional supplement users. Those who took other drugs (05. hair-loss treatments, 06. obesity treatments, 10. others) were regarded as other drug users. A chi-squared test was performed to analyze the sociodemographic characteristics of the subjects and differences between groups. Multiple regression analyses were conducted to analyze health behaviors according to nutrient supplement intake. Result: Comparison of (A) nutritional supplement users and nonusers revealed that those who were women, 50 years or older, and spent more than average living expenses were more likely to take nutritional supplements, which was not significant in health behavior variables. Analysis of nutritional supplement users and other drug users (B) revealed that those who were high school graduates or above, had a spouse, were non-smokers, took drugs, ate regular meals, and were not stressed by economic or family conflicts were more likely to take nutritional supplements. Conclusion: The results of the present study indicated that people take nutritional supplements because of their psychological desire to be healthy, not because they are not healthy, have problems, or believe supplements will make them healthier.