• The Journal of the Society of Korean Medicine Diagnostics
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• v.18 no.3
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• pp.205-216
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• 2014

Objectives The purpose of this study is to help improve the management of traditional Korean medical(TKM) clinics and the policies for supporting them, by conducting a survey of the practitioners of TKM. Methods Stratified sampling was conducted based on regional location, and 700 samples were selected in a random manner from the membership list. The questionnaire was delivered and returned by mail. The survey was conducted between 20 July and 31 August 2010. A total of 177 questionnaires (recovery rate: 25.28%) were recovered and analyzed for the study. Results 1. The the survey indicate that the overall size of TKM clinics has fallen compared with previous survey, while the average number of beds per clinic has remained unchanged at 7.9. The sale of medicine as a proportion of total monthly sales has increased. 2. There has been no change in the composition of clinical staff as there are three nursing assistants. Although the average daily number of patients to clinics has remained at around 33.90 compared with ten years ago, the number of patients requiring seeking acupuncture treatment has increased while the number of those treated with medication has decreased. 3. Clinicians in TKM have indicated their preference for a binary system that separates TKM from western medicine (57.4%). The respondents do not favor the separation of dispensary from medical practice (81.5%), marks of origin for medicinal herbs (68.9%), disclosure of the prescriptions (67.2%), and the overseas expansion of Korean medical services (70.4%). However, they indicated that they are very much in favor of being granted the authority to employ and give orders to medical technicians (96.0%). 4. The respondents selected Korea as the country that maintains a proper academic system for traditional medicine (45.5%), and are not in favor of opening Korea's traditional medicine market under an Free Trade Agreement(FTA) with China (72.7%). Conclusion The overall status of the management of TKM clinics has declined compared with the preceding decade. There has been only a slight change in clinicians' opinion of the related policies and regulatory issues.

• Journal of the Korea Academia-Industrial cooperation Society
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• v.21 no.10
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• pp.299-307
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• 2020

Purpose: The purpose of this study was to investigate the financial hardships affecting the quality of life of cancer survivors. Method: Data were collected from five convalescent hospitals using self-administered questionnaires, and 422 questionnaires were used for the final analysis. We used a 5-step hierarchical multiple-regression analysis by entering each sociodemographic variable, medical variable, and three types of financial hardship (a material situation, the psychological response, and coping behavior coming from cancer treatment cost) into each step. Results: The results of statistical analysis indicate that the most influential factor in the quality of life was the financial difficulty, which was the frustration that they could not work as usual or support their family financially. In addition, the performance of physical activity, accompanying diseases, women patients, psychological burden on cancer treatment cost, the satisfaction of communication with medical staff for medical expenses, and the feeling unsuccessful financial coping strategy were predictors for the quality of life of cancer survivors. Conclusion: This study provides a blueprint for the development of intervention programs in practice to improve the quality of life of cancer patients, clinical intervention plans, and health policies.

• Journal of Hospice and Palliative Care
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• v.12 no.3
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• pp.115-121
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• 2009

Despite a recent increased nation's attention given to improving end-life care, we professionals need to be more critical and reflective on our realities surrounding hospice palliative care. The aim of this paper is to suggest that palliative care models can be used for patients/families in the last phase of life and examine whether they are appropriate for caring them in congruence with philosophy of hospice. The hospice experience model (HEM) of Eagan & Labyak and the developmental model of Byock are introduced and examined for their congruence with philosophy of hospice in applying to clinical practice. The HEM as a patient/family value-directed end of life care model emphasizes three principles; unique experience of patient/family, interactions/relationships among multiple dimensions of personhood and between family, and personal growth and development in the face of suffering through a life-completion. The developmental model stipulates dying as the last stage of living, a stage of life cycle in which patients/family may have growth through life-completion in multidimensional relationships of personhood. The model includes the developmental landmarks and tasks for life-completion as the framework to guide a means of professionals' to recognize their opportunity to grow. The landmarks and tasks include worldly and social affair, individual relationships, intrapersonal, and transcendent dimension. The models could work as appropriate palliative care models for patients/families in the last stage of living. The professionals need to be encouraged to apply the models to end of life care setting.

• The Journal of the Korea Contents Association
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• v.18 no.6
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• pp.180-192
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• 2018

Purpose: This study is aimed to identify the ethical issues and needs for ethical education of nurses in long-term care hospitals. Methods: Data were collected in 2015. Participants were 142 nurses working in nine long-term care hospitals. The Ethical Issues in Clinical Practice Tool was used. Data analysis was performed using SPSS WIN 24.0. Results: The degree of experienced ethical issues was 1.23 out of 3, and 'Providing care with a possible risk to your health' was an ethical problem most frequently experienced in nurses. In addition, the ethical problem that the nurse most disturb was identified by 'Determining when death occurs'. The degree of needs for ethical education was 3.11 out of 4, and the highest ethical topic was 'Legal/ethical issues in the use of restraints'. Ethical issues and needs for ethical education were not statistically significant differences according to the characteristic of participants. Conclusion: In this study, we identified the ethical problems and necessity of ethics education experienced by nurses working in long-term care hospitals. The results of this study can be used as basic data for the development of customized ethical education contents for nurses in long-term care hospitals.

• Korean Journal of Psychosomatic Medicine
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• v.18 no.1
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• pp.30-39
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• 2010

Objectives：Assessment of sleep disturbance is an essential part of the diagnostic criteria used for several psychiatric disorders. Change in sleep patterns over time may indicate response to treatment. In clinical practice, sleep is usually evaluated subjectively by patient self-report. This study was aimed to compare subjective sleep assessment with objective sleep measurement by actigraphy in psychiatric inpatients. Methods：A total of 32 psychiatric inpatients were studied. Patients were asked to wear a wrist actigraphy for three consecutive days and nights and to fill out a sleep log each morning. The severity of depression and anxiety was evaluated according to Beck Depression Inventory and State-Trait Anxiety Inventory on the first day of the study. The subjective level of satisfaction with quality of sleep was also evaluated according to visual analog scale. Nurses assessed sleep at one hour interval between 10:00 PM and 6:00 AM for three consecutive nights. Results：There was statistically significant difference of sleep latency between patient's sleep log and acti-graphic measurement. Nursing reports were more consistent with actigraphic measurement than sleep log. Interestingly, subjectively poor sleepers show no significant difference in sleep parameters compared with those of good sleepers. Subjectively poor sleepers report longer sleep latency than that of actigraphic assessment. The discrepancy between subjective and objective assessment of sleep latency was significantly correlated with scores of Beck Depression Inventory and State-Trait Anxiety Inventory. Conclusion：These results show that there are discrepancies between subjective and objective assessment of sleep. The discrepancy of sleep assessment could be influenced by severe depression and anxiety. Especially objective sleep measurement is needed to assess sleep in psychiatric inpatients with severe depression or anxiety and the subjectively poor sleepers for more reliable measurements.

• 한국노년학
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• v.37 no.2
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• pp.445-459
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• 2017

The purpose of this study is to provide a systematic review of the nonpharmacological interventions of ADL improvement for dementia published in foreign journals for the past 10 years, and to provide general information on nonpharmacological interventions and effective intervention methods to dementia expert in clinical practice. We searched published studies in the Medline Complete, PubMed Central, and Scopus databases from January 2007 to November 2016. The main keywords used "Dementia AND (ADL OR Activities of daily living) AND Nonpharmacological interventions" and total of 9 studies were selected for analysis from 974 searched articles. The level of evidence were belonged to 3 each studies in I~III level. The mostly provided nonpharmacological interventions were exercise, the study field was variety of areas including rehabilitation(occupational therapy, physical therapy), nursing, and psychology. The Barthel Index(BI) was most frequently used assessment tools to evaluate basic activities of daily living, Cognition was most dependent variables measured with the ADL. Through this study, we provided evidence for the understanding of nonpharmacological interventions of ADL improvement for dementia. In the future, based on this study, helpful intervention needed for ADL training.

• Korean Parent-Child Health Journal
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• v.3 no.1
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• pp.1-14
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• 2000

The Low Birth Weight infant birth rate in this country is a little more than 15 percent and is being increased. The survival rate of Low Birth Weight infant is over 90 percent and recently the rate runs is getting. However, because of the high risk of Low Birth Weight infant for handicap in growth, a preventive nursing intervention program for Low Birth Weight infant and their mother is considered to be necessary. Touch and massage, thus sensory stimulation has been considered to be important ensuring a normal growth of Low Birth Weight infant During the past decades sensory stimulation program has been used for premature and Low Birth Weight infants. Recently a study on the sensory stimulation for Low Birth Weight infants has bee n done in this country. Mother and infant relationship has a great influence on child's development. Especially, mother and infant interaction during one year after birth plays important role in child's social. affective and cognitive developments. But in the study of Low Birth Weight infants, the mother and infant interaction has been rare yet. However, there was no study effectiveness of the sensory stimulation on mother and infant interaction. In this respect, this study based on the importance of the nursing intervention, is intended to measure the effectiveness of the massage therapy in the aspects of weight, daily feeding amount, cortisolurine stress hormone and mother and infant interactions. This study has been conducted on the nonequivalent control group pretestposttest design in quasi experimental basis and Low Birth Weight infants from NICU of two Medical University Hospitals located in Taegu Metropolitan were selected in experimental group of 21 infants and control group of 20 infants. Data has been collected from May 1, 1999 to September 5, 2000. For the experimental group Field's sensory stimulation(tactile and kinesthetic stimulation) was applied 2 times a day for 10 days(10:00 - 11:00 hours in the morning and 19:00 - 20:00 in the afternoon) by nurse and mother. The electronic indicator scale (Cas Co. Korea) was used to measure infant's body weight. To determine urine cortisol concentration level under stress, rad immuno assay method was used. And to determine mother and infant interactions during feeding, tools developed by Kim Mi-Ye (1999) were used. Collected data were analyzed with SAS program using x-test, t-test, paired t-test and repeated measures ANOVA. Findings were as follows : 1. For the daily mean weight gain, the experimental group showed little higher than the control group, even though, there was no Statistically significant differences between two groups. 2. For the amount of daily mean feeding, the experimental group showed little higher than the control group, while there was no Statistically significant differences between two groups. 3. The level of wine cortisol concentration was increased in both groups, while no Statistical significance was shown between the two groups. 4. Mothers in experimental group were more likely to have higher mean scores in mother and infant interaction during feeding than mothers in the control group. Statistical significance was shown between the two groups(t= 5.78, P=.001). In conclusion, the massage therapy in this study showed with regard to even though through there was no statistically significance in the weight gain and urine stress hormone concentration. there was Statistical significantly higher in the mother and infant interaction during feeding. Based on the result of this study, it is considered that the massage therapy should be applied clinical practice and home to help a developmental growth and interaction of Low Birth Weight infants and mothers during the period of recovery.

• Journal of the Korea Academia-Industrial cooperation Society
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• v.12 no.10
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• pp.4425-4433
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• 2011

The purpose of this study was to explore the relation of BMI, smoking and drinking with biomedical parameters in 20s and 30s men. This was a retrospective exploratory study and the subjects were 603 men who participated in health check-up for clinical trial at a tertiary hospital between October 2006 and June 2011. RBC, hemoglobin(Hb), hematocrit(Hct), triglyceride(TG), uric acid(UA), ALT in obese group were significantly higher than those of normal weight group. WBC and Hb in smokers were significantly higher than those of nonsmokers, protein in smokers was significantly lower than that of nonsmokers. Platelet in moderate smokers who smoke 10~19 cigarettes a day was significantly higher than that of nonsmokers and light smokers who smoke below 10 cigarettes a day, albumin in moderate smokers was significantly lower than that of nonsmokers and light smokers. TG in moderate smokers was significantly higher than that of nonsmokers, and blood glucose(BG) in moderate smokers was significantly lower than that of nonsmokers. AST and ALT in drinkers who drink over 10g a day were significantly higher than those of nondrinkers. In regression, BMI was significant factors of increasing RBC, Hb, Hct, total cholesterol(TC), TG, BG, UA, AST and ALT. Smoking amount was significant factors of increasing WBC, Hb, Hct and TG, and was significant factors of decreasing BG and Ca. Smoking amount was significant factors of increasing TC, AST and ALT, and was significant factors of decreasing WBC. In conclusion, there was significant relations of BMI, smoking, and drinking with biomedical parameters such as Hb, TC, TG, and ALT in young-aged men. Therefore, practice of healthy lifestyle activities to include preventing obesity and heavy drinking, and quitting smoking needs to the 20s and 30s men for preventing lifestyle disease.

• Clinical and Experimental Pediatrics
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• v.50 no.7
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• pp.622-628
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• 2007

Purpose : While pediatric observation units (POU) have become a common practice in hospitals throughout developed countries, there has been no report about POUs in Korea so far. The aims of this study were to analyze our one-year's experience of the POU and to decide which disease entities are suitable for the POU. Methods : All children admitted from March 2006 to February 2007 to the POU at the Department of Pediatrics in Our Lady of Mercy Hospital were included in this study. Data were collected from retrospective reviews of their medical records. Results : There were a total of 1,076 POU admissions. Median age of patients was 2.4 years and median length of hospital stay 14.0 hours. The most common diagnoses were gastroenteritis (42.7%), pharyngotonsillitis (19.1%), bronchiolitis (7.8%), pneumonia (5.5%) and febrile seizure (5.2%). Overall, 7.5% of the POU patients required subsequent inpatient admissions due to hospital stays of longer than 48 hours. The disease entities that were most likely to require inpatient admission were pneumonia (17.0%), febrile seizure (12.5%) and asthma (11.5%). Diseases that allowed successful discharge from the POU were gastroenteritis (4.6%), upper respiratory tract infection (5.8%), such as otitis media and pharygnotonsillitis and seizure disorder (6.4%). Compared with the previous year when the POU was not in operation, there was a statistically significant reduction in the average length of hospital stays (from 4.69 to 3.75 days), as well as a rise in the bed turnover rate (from 78.8 to 98.2 patients/bed). Conclusion : Our study shows that the POU is efficient for the management of children with certain acute illnesses. Based on this study, we suggest that the POU be used as a new modality which links between the outpatient, inpatient, and emergency departments in the field of pediatrics in Korea.

• The Journal of Korean Physical Therapy
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• v.3 no.1
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• pp.109-121
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• 1991

To investigate the period prevalence rate and therapeutic practic for low back pain (LBP) in the adult population of rural area, a personal interview was conducted for 2.024 persons or 20-59 years old in Seohu Myon, Andong County, Kyungpook Province between 1st and 20th of April, 1991. The period prevalence rate (l February 1990-31 January 1991) of LBP for 1,106 adults who were interviewed was $47.9\%$. The age adjusted period prevalence rate for males was $43.7\%$ and that for females was $52.3\%$ and the difference was statistically significant (p<0.005). Clinical course of th LBP was acute in $14.1\%$ of males and $9.0\%$ of females, recurrent in $57.0\%$ and $55.2\%$, and chronic in $28.9\%$ and $35.8\%$, respectively. Common causes of the LBP were insidious on set with aging without known cause$(48.1\%)$, heavy work $(15.1\%)$, and trauma $(11.3\%)$. Due to LBP $12.5\%$ of the patients were not able to stand or walk for more than an hour and $2.5\%$ were bed-ridden or unable to carry out daily routine. To have the LBP diagnosed $10.2\%$ of the patients utilized a oriental medical clinic or hospital, $31.3\%$ visited a clinic or hospital, and $56.6\%$ hat not utilized any medical facility. Main reason for not having the LBP diagnosed was that the LBP was tolerable. The most popular therapeutic method that the LBP patients chose at the first was drug and physical therapy. Herb medicine was most commonly used when the first therapeutic method was not effective and the acupuncture was the most popular choice of therapy when the second therapeutic method failed. Folk medicine was utilized in $15.5\%$ of the LBP patients and it included 36 regimens such as tincture of motherwort (Leonurus sibiricus), boiled chicken with liquor, etc. It was revealed by this survey that the LBP is a serious health problem in the rural area and many of the LBP patients do not utilize a clinic or hospital but take non-scientific folk remedy. To prevent the economic waste and side effects of the folk remedy, public health education is needed for tile rational therapy of LBP.