• Journal of Preventive Medicine and Public Health
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• v.53 no.4
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• pp.220-227
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• 2020

Objectives: The aim of this study was to assess how different social determinants of health (SDoH) may be related to variability in coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) rates in cities and towns in Massachusetts (MA). Methods: Data about the total number of cases, tests, and rates of COVID-19 as of June 10, 2020 were obtained for cities and towns in MA. The data on COVID-19 were matched with data on various SDoH variables at the city and town level from the American Community Survey. These variables included information about income, poverty, employment, renting, and insurance coverage. We compared COVID-19 rates according to these SDoH variables. Results: There were clear gradients in the rates of COVID-19 according to SDoH variables. Communities with more poverty, lower income, lower insurance coverage, more unemployment, and a higher percentage of the workforce employed in essential services, including healthcare, had higher rates of COVID-19. Most of these differences were not accounted for by different rates of testing in these cities and towns. Conclusions: SDoH variables may explain some of the variability in the risk of COVID-19 across cities and towns in MA. Data about SDoH should be part of the standard surveillance for COVID-19. Efforts should be made to address social factors that may be putting communities at an elevated risk.

• Journal of Korean society of Dental Hygiene
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• v.18 no.1
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• pp.1-8
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• 2018

Objectives: The purpose of this study is to provide basic data on the continuous management and institutional measures in the future by understanding the research trends of patient safety in healthcare field. Methods:The data were extracted from 2011-2016 KoreaMed, KMBase, KISS, NDSL and KISTI. Data were analysis by frequency analysis using the SPSS 14.0 program. Results: 87.0% of the studies were quantitative studies. As for the method of sampling, 'No use' was the highest at 56.5%. Most of the participants in the study were 'nurses' (50.7%). 19 hospitals (35.8%) were the most common. The subjects of the study consisted of 35 (51.5%) patients' safety culture (awareness) and 20 (29.4%) 'safety nursing activities'. Conclusions: Patient safety and patient safety should be maintained. Further, a mature patient safety culture should be settled through cooperation management among medical staff.

• The Journal of Korean Physical Therapy
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• v.30 no.4
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• pp.151-157
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• 2018

Purpose: This study was conducted to identify the characteristics of physical therapy service utilization and user satisfaction depending on the experience with therapeutic exercise or ultrasound intervention among elderly persons using senior centers. Methods: The subjects were adults aged over 60 years (total 215) recruited in 40 senior centers located in each province in South Korea. Subjects responded to questions concerning overall demographics factors, utilized characteristics of physical therapy service and 12 variety user satisfactions with effectiveness, facilities, and therapist using a survey instrument. The collected data were analyzed by Fishers' exact tests and t-tests using the SPSS 21.0 program to compare the results of elderly persons who had or had not experienced exercise therapy or ultrasound therapy. Results: The participants that experienced ultrasound therapy or therapeutic exercise reported significantly higher overall results pertaining to effectiveness of physical therapy and a clear explanation from physical therapist's satisfaction than those who were non-experienced. Satisfaction with pain relief was significantly higher among elderly who experienced therapeutic exercise than those who did not. Those who underwent ultrasound therapy showed significantly higher satisfaction with facilities and location than those who did not. Conclusion: The results of this study suggest that satisfaction among users differs by type of physical therapy. In the future, physiotherapy services provided in senior centers needs to be designed to improve the effectiveness of physical therapy, professionalism of physical therapists and comfort of facility.

• Journal of Korean Academy of Nursing
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• v.32 no.3
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• pp.344-354
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• 2002

This study is a fact-finding research to understand the status of visiting nursing services operated by health centers in Korea and it aims to provide basic information for policy development on operation and management of visiting nursing services in health centers. Method: This study investigates the results of visiting nursing services in 242 health centers from Jan. 10 through Dec. 30, 2000, where 3,106 visiting nurses were employed by the public work program. Result: In 2000, 129,401 new household as service recipients was identified and that was 0.9% of Koreas total households (15,137,000), and 5.8% of low income households (2,242,000). The highest high risk group was dementia patients(aver. 55.2/1,000 person). Average number of households visited by visiting nurse were 4.5 households per day and the first-visited houses per visiting nurse were 1.1 households per day. The re-visiting rate was 71.3%. Total 4,059,130 service items were provided and assessment ranked the highest with 33.7%. The satisfaction level of clients on the nurses was an average of 3.17 points in the scale of 4 and the nursing service was a 2.60 points in a scale of 3. Conclusion: Visiting nursing service should continue to provide comprehensive healthcare services in cost-effective ways while cooperating with others

• Journal of Korean Academy of Nursing
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• v.33 no.6
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• pp.820-828
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• 2003

Purpose: In this longitudinal study, we examined the moral judgment level and its related factors, such as individual characteristics. The result of this study will provide baseline data to establish policy of ethics education for college students and healthcare professionals. Method: We enrolled 37 nursing students and 20 medical students as the subjects in a university in Suwon, Korea. We conducted a questionnaire on the subjects using Korean version of Defining Issues Test(DIT) to analyze the subjects' moral judgment level. Collected data was coded using ASCII document and scored using Fortran program for computer. Then the data was statistically analyzed by SPSS Version 10.0. Result: Nursing students' moral development score at each stage were consistently higher at stage 5A across 4-years rather than other stages. On the other hand, medical students' moral development score were consistently higher at stage 4 than other stages. There was no significant difference in the change P(%) score at each academic year in both groups. In the perspective of the subjects' general characteristics, P(%) score showed no significant in both groups. Conclusion: Based on the results of this study, further studies will examine the correlation between curriculum and moral judgment development in detail. Moreover, we suggest that the current ethics education should be developed and evaluated in more realistic manner.

• Journal of Korean Public Health Nursing
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• v.32 no.1
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• pp.96-108
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• 2018

Purpose: This study the mediating effects of marital intimacy the relationship between depression and marital satisfaction of infertile women. Methods: 165 infertile women visiting a hospital in Gyeonggi-do and Busan, Korea from January 2016 to April 2016. The data was analyzed the SPSS WIN 22.0 program. Results: Depression, marital satisfaction, and marital intimacy averaged $1.51{\pm}.32$ (range of scale 0~3), $3.50{\pm}.56$ (range of scale 1~5), and $3.74{\pm}.65$ (range of scale 1~5), respectively. Depression had a negative correlation with marital satisfaction (r=-.361, p<.001) and marital intimacy(r=-.183, p<.001). Marital intimacy also had a positive correlation with marital satisfaction (r=.637, p<.001). Marital intimacy partial mediating effects between depression and marital satisfaction (${\beta}=.591$, p<.001). Conclusion: the intimacy of couple can alleviate the causal consequences that lead to a decrease in the marital satisfaction due to depression. Therefore, healthcare providers for infertile women should screen depressed women and help support infertile women from negative values for marriage depression. In addition, it is necessary to include interventions for maintaining and enhancing the intimacy of couples during infertility treatment.

• Phonetics and Speech Sciences
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• v.5 no.1
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• pp.27-38
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• 2013

Healthcare providers in Korea are using conservative pharmacological treatment for Alzheimer's disease (AD) to delay the progress of the disease or to mitigate its behavioral and neurological symptoms. However, there is a growing need for interventions using practical non-pharmacologic treatment, as the effects of pharmacological treatments has faced limitations. This research provided a cognitive rehabilitation program to 3 AD patients and used a multiple baseline design across subjects to examine the effects. Performing reality orientation therapy (ROT) for 1 cycle (4 weeks) resulted in a slight increase in accuracy and responsiveness on an orientation task, mainly with patients with mild cases of AD. Also, in the sub-domain of the Korean-Mini Mental Status Examination performed to examine changes in cognitive ability, there were minimal changes in place orientation. In functional communication, however, there were no significant differences before and after the intervention. In conclusion, we found that ROT was an effective intervention for improving accuracy and responsiveness in the orientation of patients with mild cases of AD. In future studies, the effect of non-pharmacological interventions can be evaluated more reliably by examining the interaction effects of sample size, length of the intervention, outcome measurements, and pharmacological intervention.

• Journal of Sensor Science and Technology
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• v.19 no.1
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• pp.17-24
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• 2010

This paper describes a real time reliable monitoring method and analysis system using wrist type oximeter for ubiquitous healthcare service based on IEEE 802.15.4 standard. Photoplethysmograph(PPG) is simple and cost effective technique to measure blood volume change. In order to obtain and monitor physiological body signals continuously, a small size and low power consumption wrist type oximeter is designed for the measurement of oxygen saturation of a patient unobtrusively. The measured data is transferred to a central PC or server computer by using wireless sensor nodes in wireless sensor network for storage and analysis purposes. LabVIEW server program is designed to monitor stress indicator from heart rate variability(HRV) and process the measured PPG to accelerated plethysmograph(APG) by appling second order derivatives in server PC. These experimental results demonstrate that APG can precisely describe the features of an individual's PPG and be used as estimation of vascular elasticity for blood circulation.

• The Korean Journal of Health Service Management
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• v.7 no.2
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• pp.69-79
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• 2013

The purpose of this research is study how housewives dispose unused medications in a household and produce basic research data that can be used to establish efficient recycling and handling of unused medications. Data collection was done using proportional sampling and survey was done in February, 2011. The unused medications in household consist of "tablets(58.4%)", "ointment(31.3%)" and "eyewash(22.7%)". The main way of disposing unused medications was "standard garbage bag(74.1%)". The ideal way of disposing unused medications was "returning to the pharmacy(57.9%)". Only 39.2% of people recognize about unused medications disposal system. In order to establish recycling and treatment of unused medications, it is necessary to create laws and regulations related to unused medications and allocate budget to actively promote the program to public. Most importantly, we must induce doctors and pharmacies to participate in the campaign and there should be laws to require them to explain to their patients how to recycle and treat unused medications when they give prescription and make preparation to them.

• Quality Improvement in Health Care
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• v.17 no.1
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• pp.69-78
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• 2011

Objectives : The purpose of this study was to determine whether the published AMI report card could reduce in-patient mortality, 7-day after discharge mortality, and length of stay (LOS). Methods : Interrupted time-series intervention analysis was used to evaluate the impact of the report card for AMI care quality in November 2005 in terms of risk-adjusted in-patient mortality, risk-adjusted 7-day after discharge mortality, and DRGs case-mix LOS using the claim data of Health Insurance Review and Assessment Service. Results : Public disclosure of AMI care quality decreased risk-adjusted in-patient mortality and DRGs case-mix LOS by 0.00050% per month and 0.042 days per month respectively, however there was no effect on risk-adjusted 7-day after discharge mortality. Patterns of effect of public disclosure on AMI outcomes were a fluctuating pattern on risk-adjusted mortalities and a pulse impact for 1 month on DRGs case-mix LOS. Conclusions : We found the public disclosure of AMI care quality had decreasing effects on risk-adjusted in-patient mortality and DRGs case-mix LOS, but the size of the effect was marginal.