• Tuberculosis and Respiratory Diseases
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• v.61 no.2
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• pp.121-128
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• 2006

Background: The "health-related quality of life" (HRQL) for patients with chronic respiratory disease has been emphasized, because chronic respiratory disease (CRD) is chronic and progressive, and it finally causes disability. HRQL instruments may be useful for monitoring patients' progress or for determining the most appropriate choice of treatment. We describe the adapting St George's Respiratory Questionnaire (SGRQ), which is a self-administered questionnaire developed by Jones et al. (1991), into the Korean version for covering three domains of health for the patients suffering with airways disease. Method: We obtained the original SGRQ from the author after gaining permission. For adaptation, we created an expert panel and translated the original questionnaire into Korean language. The translated questionnaire was then back-translated by bilingual experts and we compared it with the original questionnaire. After correction and feasibility testing, 74 patients with chronic respiratory disease (COPD, asthma, destroyed lung) completed the Korean version of the SGRQ. The clinical status of each patients was evaluated concurrently with measurement of their health status. Result: The Korean version of the SGRQ was acceptable and easy to understand. Cronbach's alpha reliability coefficient was 0.92 for the overall scale and 0.63 for the "Symptoms", subscale, 0.87 for the "Activity", subscale, and 0.89 for the "Impacts" subscales. The correlation coefficients between the overall score and the Borg scale score, oxygen saturation, and forced expiratory volume in one second ($FEV_1$) were 0.52, -0.32 and -0.26, respectively. These results support that the Korean SGRQ was correlated with other measurements. Conclusion: The Korean SGRQ was reliable and valid for patients with chronic respiratory disease, such as COPD, asthma, and destroyed lung. The SGRQ score was well correlated with other respiratory measurements as well. Although further studies should complete the adaptation work, our results suggest that the SGRQ may be used in Korea and also for international studies involving Korean CRD patients.

• Korea journal of population studies
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• v.19 no.2
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• pp.139-173
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• 1996

This study is an attempt to identify factors affecting korean immigrants concentration in small business enterprises in the middleman minority sector including the priphery and core sectors, with the private wage and self-employed worker examined in each sector, employing the 5 percent public use sample from the 1980 United States census. One out of five koreans aged 25∼64 years is engaged in self-employed small businesses, while the majority of koreans (4 out of 5) are in the private wage sector. In contrast to expectations, English language difficulties and inferior education are not the prime factors affecting self-employment small businesses. The korean self-employed small business owners both in the periphery sector and in the core sector showed the 'middle' strata of their position in the social structure in terms of their industry, occupation, earnings, etc.