• Journal of Korean Society of Forest Science
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• v.103 no.1
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• pp.129-136
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• 2014

This study aims to investigate the effect of frequency of using forest environment on workers' stress. Workers in medical and counseling industry, which is recently known to require heavy emotional burden and thus cause a lot of stress and burnout syndrome, participated in the study. We classified 370 subjects, who were working at medical and counseling service institutions in Seoul metropolitan area, into two groups according to frequency of using forest environment by conducting a screening survey. 69 subjects submitted written consent and were recruited for either forest therapy program or control-group test; the "high" group (n=27) at the high frequency of using forest environment and the "low" group (n=42) at the low level. We measured the level of stress by using psychosocial indicators such as Worker's Stress Response Inventory (WSRI), Recovery Experience Questionnaire (REQ), and Maslach Burnout Inventory-General Survey (MBI-GS) and biological ones such as heart rate variability (HRV), cortisol, and Natural Killer cell (NK cell). The results suggested that the level of stress differed by frequency. The "high" group showed significantly low scores in the depression and work sub-scale and the total score of WSRI, emotional exhaustion, professional efficacy and total score of MBI-GS, and high scores in the total score of REQ. Similar tendencies were observed in the most of other indicators of psychosocial measures. Regarding the biological indicators, the "high" group showed the highest SDNN, RMSSD and TP measures of HRV and NK Cell activity and the low cortisol, although the statistical power did not reach the significant level. Our results suggest that the subjects who use forest environment frequently show favorable stress level both psychologically and biologically.

• Journal of the Korea Academia-Industrial cooperation Society
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• v.21 no.5
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• pp.433-442
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• 2020

This study established the relationship between job stress and burn-out syndrome of firefighters. The research targets were 582 firefighters who worked at five fire stations in the D metropolitan city. The survey was conducted using a self-administered questionnaire during the period from July 1st 2019 to September 30, 2019. On the correlation analysis, burn-out showed a significant positive correlation with job stress. On the results of the logistic regression anaylsis, the risk ratio of high levels of burn-out was significantly higher in the very high stress groups than that in the groups with low job stress. According to the multiple regression analysis, the factors having an influence on burn-out were gender, age, the specific level of job career, shift work, the physical burden of work, the sense of satisfaction with the work, consideration for quitting the job and job stress. These findings suggest that the job stress of firefighters is closely related to burn-out. This demands the development and implementation of programs that can properly control and curb the factors of job-stress.

• Korean Journal of Psychosomatic Medicine
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• v.12 no.1
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• pp.38-46
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• 2004

Objectives: The aim of this study was to investigate the quality of life of staffs in a hospital. The results of the investigation were taken as a basic data of evaluating the quality of life of patients in psychiatric hospital and family members. Methods: The subjects of this study were Ankang Chungang Hospital staffs. The tool of this study was the Korean version of the SmithKline Beecham Quality of Life Scale. A total of 39 survey was returned. All answers were analyzed statistically by ANOVA or t-test. Results: Internal consistency was high, measuring 0.887 for the 23 items. Staffs have, statistically insignificant, relatively high quality of life. Indirect patient contact group and married group scored more higher than the other group. In so far as age, 30s and 40s scored more higher than the others averagely, the higher educated group, the higher quality of life, except factor competence and physical well-being. Conclusion: This study results support that the indirect patient contact group have higher quality of life in competence factor in quality of life. We recommend that the program that lift self-esteem and quality of life should be supplied for direct patient contact group who may have burnout syndrome. It will be necessary to evaluate the quality of life of patients in psychiatric hospital and patients' family members later.