• Pediatric Infection and Vaccine
• /
• v.14 no.1
• /
• pp.55-61
• /
• 2007

Purpose : Fever, the most common presenting symptom in pediatric clinics, has been believed to be a dangerous symptom by many parents. Proper recognition about fever will relieve unnecessary anxiety of parents and help them understand the course of the disease. Our objectives of this study were to investigate current parental recognition about fever and to compare these results with those described in 1992. Methods : Between May and July 2006, we questioned caregivers who visited the pediatric outpatient clinic in St.Paul hospital. The questionnaire consisted of 19 items asking about recognition, attitude and management of fever. Results : A total of 136 caregivers were interviewed. Compared with 10 years ago, there were no significant improvements in misconception about fever. Many caregivers (61%) had wrong information about a definition and the way to measure body temperature. There were still high concerns about febrile convulsion and brain damage from fever. Caregivers started treatment at the body temperature which actually needed no therapy. Conclusion : Parents were not aware that fever is just one of physiologic responses and has benefits, which led to unnecessary anxiety and treatment. This misconception has not been changed over the years. Pediatrician should inform parents that fever itself is not harmful and only rational reason for use of antipyretics is to relieve a discomfort of a febrile child. An educational interventions offered by pediatricians will be helpful for parents to have right attitude and understandings toward fever.

• Research in Community and Public Health Nursing
• /
• v.13 no.1
• /
• pp.89-97
• /
• 2002

Purpose: The purpose of this study is to explore the validity of the application of the Denver II developmental screening test to Korean children. This screening test. which was developed and standardized in United States. was designed to screen for developmental delay in Korea. and to compare the levels of development of Korean children with the development of children from the U.S. Method: Quota sampling. NP To facilitate field sampling. the age range used from 0 to 6 years old. was split into 10 different age groups. Sample size was estimated according to residence. 1.054 children were recruited from Seoul's metropolitan. urban and rural areas. NP To fill the quota established. the Recruitment and testing of children was done at public health centers, pediatric outpatient clinics of general hospitals and a child care center. The 25, 50, 75 and 90 percentiles were identified by using logistic regression analysis and were calculated as norms. The items in which the ages of both 50 and 90 percent passing differed more than 20 percent by the calculation was identified for comparison. NP Result: There were significant differences found in 45 items between Korean children and the children from the City of Denver as it relates to age differences. 90% of the sample passed items among 125 items from 4 sectors, e.g., personal- social. fine motor adaptive, language, and gross motor sectors. Korean children were found to be advanced in 9 items, whereas there were significant differences found in 38 items in our comparison of the two countries for age differences when 50% of sample pass items. Korean children were found to be advanced in 16 items. NP Conclusion: The result showed that there was a discrepancy in the developmental norms. It could be explained by the differences in the developmental environment. including child rearing patterns and ethnicity. Therefore, a restandardization of the Denver Screening Test is necessary as it relates to its application on Korean children. This restandardization is necessary in order to avoid both under and over-referrals of children with developmental abnormality. The modification of items in the language sector is especially suggested.

• Health Policy and Management
• /
• v.5 no.1
• /
• pp.31-58
• /
• 1995

The Korean government achieved the universal coverage of health insurance in July 1989, and concomitantly introduced a new measure of regulated health care delivery system in using medical care. There are three reasons why the government took the new health care delivery system. Firstly, there was ample room for improving the allocative efficiency in the use of medical facilities. And the second one was to constrain the dramatic increase of medical demand under health insurance. Thirdly, and the most important reason was to alleviate the patient crowdedness in big general hospitals, particularly tertiary hospitals. There are essentially two different ways to control the use of health care : one is to cut the demand for health care, and the other to regulate behaviors of providers through the use of incentives/disincentives, demand-side approach or supply-side approach. The objective of this study is to examine whether or not medical care utilization behaviors under health insurance scheme have been changed among medical facilities such as clinic, hospital, general hospital and tertiary hospital in comparison with those before and after the introduction, particularly whether the patient crowdedness in tertiary hospitals has been alleviated or not. In order to conduct this study, the insurance claim data during the period of January 1989 and July 1992 were analyzed by focusing on diagnosis of both inpatients and outpatients, and especially the fifteen most frequent diseases in ambulatory care and the seven most frequent diseases in hospitalizatio. In addition, the same analyses were made on the changes in medical care utilization by specialty department. This was because the five departments, such as family medicine, ENT, eye, dermatology and rehabilitation, were exempted from applying the regulated health care delivery system in tertiary hospitals. The study revealed that a remarkable alleviation effect in the crowdness was noted for tertiary hospitals. This effect was most conspicuous for the most frequent mild diseases of both inpatient and outpatient care. For example, the fifteen most frequent OPD care at tertiary facilities have decreased as much as by 40%, of which 34% belonged to the cut in initial visits. Meanwhile, the proportion of those who used general hospitals and private practitioner's clinics have increased due to the shift of patients. The cases from the five special departments were also decreased, but not so much as other departments. A problem was noted that, as time passed by, the decreasing tendencies of crowdness at tertiary hospitals due to the regulated system became slightly smaller. Therefore, through complementary remedies are needed for the future implementation.

• Korean Journal of Clinical Laboratory Science
• /
• v.51 no.3
• /
• pp.351-359
• /
• 2019

Neurocognitive testing commonly uses the MMSE (Mini-Mental State Examination) to evaluate the overall cognitive function of patients at outpatient clinics, but the MMSE has recently been extensively used in the SNSB II (Seoul Neuropsychological Screening Battery II) for making diagnoses. We retrospectively investigated the results of routine neurocognitive tests and the results of the blood tests of 120 elderly patients who had been referred to a South Central Medical Center from 2017 to 2018 and who had been examined at a public health center. These subjects' space-time capability was high on the sub-region of the global deterioration scale (GDS). GDS showed a significant increase as the Na decreased on the electrolyte analysis. The subjects' concentration, their language-based orientation for space and time, their memory, and their scores for the frontal lobe function on GDS showed statistically significant reductions (P<0.001) For the normal and abnormal groups according to the ALT and creatinine levels, the frontal/execute function areas showed statistically significant differences (P<0.001) as well as negative correlation between GDS and ALT (P<0.01). In conclusion, this study provides basic information to develop test items that are important for patient screening and diagnosis, and several routine blood chemistry factors provide basic information for diagnosing and assessing the status and progress of cognitively impaired patients.

• Child Health Nursing Research
• /
• v.7 no.2
• /
• pp.179-190
• /
• 2001

The purposes of the study were to develop an instrument for family value and to identify the relationships of family value, family hardiness, and family adaptation by appling the family value scale to family with cancer children. The study was conducted in three phases. 1) A survey was conducted from July 20 to August 20, 1999 and 18 items of general family value scale was modified from the data of 153 fathers and 164 mothers. 2) In-depth interviews were made with 29 parents of cancer children from April 20, 1998 to May 20, 1999 to develop family value scale with cancer children, and 12 statements were developed. 3) The final survey was conducted from July 18, 2000 to August 30, 2000 and the data from 309 parents of children who are diagnosed as cancer, 18 or less years of age, and treated either hospitalized or at the outpatient clinics were analyzed to identify the relationships of the concepts. The data analysis utilized SAS 6.12 and LISREL 8 for descriptive statistics, correlation, and Regression for path analysis. The study findings are as follows. The psychometric testing of general family value scale was Cronbach's alpha = 0.78. The reliability of the family value scale with cancer children showed the reliability as Cronbach's alpha = 0.73. Demographic characteristics showing significant correlations were cancer children's age, period of illness, period after completing treatment, mother's age, mother's education level, monthly income, payment type, confidence with health professional, and severity of children's illness. The correlation coefficients among major variables showed that family stressor was positively related with family strains(r=0.33, p<.001), and negatively related with family hardiness(r=-0.21, p<.001). Family strains was negatively related with family hardiness(r= -0.41, p<.001) and family adaptation(r=-0.46, p<.001). Correlations of family hardiness was positive with family value with cancer children(r=-0.31, p<.001), and negative with general family value(r=-0.16, p<.01). Family hardiness was positively related with family adaptation(r=0.35, p<.001). The causal relationship between study variables showed that family strains predicts general family value(γ=0.12, t=2.02), family value with cancer children predicts family hardiness(γ=0.31, t=6.30), family strains predicts family hardiness(γ=-0.40, t=-7.70), family value with cancer children predicts family adaptation(γ=-0.23, t=-4.11), and family hardiness predicts family adaptation(γ=0.43, t=7.78).

• Korean Journal of Health Education and Promotion
• /
• v.2 no.1
• /
• pp.56-80
• /
• 1984

The main objectives of the present study is to evaluate Physician's Health Education Activities by means of physician's direct response to the prepared questionnaire and patient's perception to the physician in the course of medical care. For the data collection, the present study was conducted from Aug. 16 to Oct. 7, 1983 for 739 patients and 91 physicians who were attended outpatient clinics of 5 general hospitals in Seoul. The major findings are summarized as follows: 1. Self-evaluation on Physician's Health Education Activities (1) In consideration of health education services for the patient, the data revealed that 9.9% of the sampled physician wanted to strength public health and preventive medicine lecture in the curricula at medical education. On the other hand, only 1.1% expressed that they wanted to make it short. (2) In consideration of the necessity of health education service, it was shown that 95.6% of physicians agreed to take it into consideration. Self expression for the practice of health education was placed on the 3.15 score when 5 point scale used. (3) To evaluate the degree of an explanation about medical care for the patient, Index score with 4 point scale was employed. The Index score for the first time was shown that scale was placed on 3.23 for 'diagnosis', 3.12 for 'progress of the disease', 3.11 for 'discription of procedure' and 3.02 for 'cause of the disease' respectively. In comparison of the physician's explanation about the status of disease for the first and the second visitors to clinic, they evaluated themselves as giving more detailed explanation for the second visitors rather than the first visitors. 2. Physician's Health Education Services evaluated by patients (1) To evaluate physician-patient communication at beginning time for taking history about disease, the Index score with 5 point scale was employed. The data on taking history have shown that the score placed on 3.07 for those patients who visited the first time and 2.53 for second visitors. And the score about listening from the patients was placed on 3.52 and 3.42 respectively. (2) The Index score with 5 point scale, as used before, was also employed to evaluate medical care services for the patient. The data evaluated by the patients was shown that the score placed on 4.21 for patient treatment in general, 4.58 for physician's credibility, and 3.6 for physician's kindness. However, approximately 80% of those who failed to understand physician's explanation was caused by highly sophisticated medical terminology. (3) According to the Index score with 4 point scale, to evaluate physician's explanation, the data was shown that the patient who visited the first time gave 2.51 for 'diagnosis', 2.35 for 'progress', 2.11 for 'cause of the disease' and so on. It is acknowledged on the whole that the patients who visited the second time have more satisfaction in physician's explanation about their disease, than those who visited the first time. 3. Comparison of self-evaluation of Physician's Health Education Activities and patient's perception. (1) There was communication barriers between physicians and patients in expressing some medical terminology. For example physician understood that they explained more than 50% of medical terminology into common words for the patient, but 30% of patient complained medical terminology used by physician. (2) Comparing the index score of health education practice recognized by patients and physicians for both first visit and revisit groups, it was shown that the Index score of health education activities evaluated by physicians themselves were slightly higher than the score evaluated by patients.

• Journal of Preventive Medicine and Public Health
• /
• v.26 no.3 s.43
• /
• pp.457-468
• /
• 1993

This study was conducted to investigate the repeat test rate for diagnosis at a tertiary hospital for the outpatients who were referred themselves to the hospital by the clinics and other medical facilities. The study population consisted of 498 patients who visited outpatient department of internal medicine, general surgery, orthopedic surgery and neurosurgery in the hospital between March 16 and April 11, 1992. This study was surveyed by the questionnaire about the tests for diagnosis at first level medical facilities, and then, was investigated by the medical record about the tests for diagnosis at a tertiary hospital. The proportion of test among the patients who utilized the first level medical facilities was 20.9% for the X-ray test, 10.6% for the urinalysis, 9.0% for the electrocardiogram, 3.4% for the computer tomogram and 6.4% for the ultrasonogram. At the tertiary hospital, the X-ray test was 45.2%, the liver function test was 24.1%, the urinalysis was 19.1%, and the electrocardiogram was 15.7%. The proportion of patients who possessed results of test for diagnosis at the first level medical facilities was 76.5% for the computer tomogram, and 31.3% for the ultrasonogram. As the repeat test rate between the first level medical facilities and the tertiary hospital, the thyroid function test was the first rank as 71.4%, the second rank was the routine CBC as 67.9%, and the third rank was the X-ray test as 64.4%. But among the patients that brought the result for tests at the first level medical facilities, the repeat test rate was as follow : the routine CBC was 75.0%, the liver function test was 72.1%, and the computer tomogram was 15.4%.

• Clinical and Experimental Pediatrics
• /
• v.45 no.4
• /
• pp.489-497
• /
• 2002

Purpose : The objectives of this study were to investigate the causes of chronic cough and to establish the appropriate diagnostic approach to chronic cough in children. Methods : One hundred and thirty two cases of chronic cough were prospectively evaluated. They visitors to pediatric chronic cough clinics at Kang-nam saint Mary's Hospital of Catholic University from August 2000 to July 2001 for 12 months. Careful history taking by questionnaire, physical examination, radiologic studies of chest and sinus, hematologic and immunologic studies, allergic skin tests, and methacholine challenge tests were performed. Color doppler(CD) ultrasonography were performed and compared with simultaneous 24 Hr. esophageal pH monitoring to diagnose gastroesophageal reflux disease(GERD). Results : Age distributions were demonstrated that nine in infants, 82 in early childhood, 38 in late childhood, and three in adolescence. Common causes of chronic cough were bronchial asthma in 40 cases, chronic sinusitis in 22 cases, GERD in seven cases, bronchial asthma combined with sinusitis in 28 cases, bronchial asthma combined with GERD in 14 cases, psychogenic cough in two. cases, foreign body in one case, chronic bronchitis in one case, and bronchiolitis in one case. Comparing with 24 Hr. pH monitoring, sensitivity, specificity, positive predictive value and negative predictive values of CD ultrasonography were 88%, 69%, 85 %, and 73% respectively. Conclusion : The most common causes of chronic cough in children were bronchial asthma, sinusitis and GERD in order. We suggest that CD ultrasonography can be used as a good, convenient screening method for patients with suspected GERD in outpatient settings.

• Pediatric Gastroenterology, Hepatology & Nutrition
• /
• v.11 no.2
• /
• pp.179-186
• /
• 2008

Purpose: Feeding problems are common for typically developing children and have negative effects on physical, behavioral, and cognitive development. The purpose of the current study was to examine factors related to childhood feeding problems for typically developing children via parental reports. Methods: The feeding questionnaire developed by the authors and the Childhood Eating Behavior Inventory (CEBI) were administered to 796 parents of children who recruited from 2 pediatric outpatient clinics (n=379) and community (n=417). Problem eaters (PE) were identified by parental report and frequency analysis was conducted for types of feeding problems and its severity, problem behaviors during mealtime, the feeding methods of the parents, and the need for treatment. Results: The CEBI scores were significantly different between the PE and non-problem eaters (NPE), which suggests that the parental reports were reliable. The younger children had more feeding problems than the older children. The most frequent and severe feeding problems were selective eating and longer mealtimes across all age groups. One-half of the children had more than one problem behaviors during mealtime. Most parents of PE used ineffective methods to deal with children's behaviors during meal time, such as cajoling, which was related to their increased level of stress. Many parents reported their children need professional help for the feeding problems. Conclusion: Feeding problems are prevalent among children, especially younger children. Children with feeding problems showed a number of problem behaviors during mealtime and parental coping methods appeared to be ineffective. The need for treatment was considerable, thus the characteristics of this population must be acknowledged for providing proper treatment and advice.

• Korea Journal of Hospital Management
• /
• v.22 no.3
• /
• pp.1-17
• /
• 2017

Purposes: Diabetes is a metabolic disorder that requires continuous care in order to prevent complications, as it can impose a critical burden on families and society due to various complications, including terminal renal failure, non-traumatic lower extremity amputation, and adult blindness. The usual sources of care are "specified private clinics, public health centers, or other facilities to visit when ill or when health-related advice is needed". These usual sources of care offer preventative services, have a high overall satisfaction rate in terms of public health care, and decrease the inpatient rates and medical costs of medical aid recipients. This study analyzed the current status of diabetic patients over 20 years of age based on their possession of a usual source of care, and the effects of this possession on the frequency of their medical service usage and its costs. Methodology: Based on data from the 7th Korea Health Panel, a Tobit analysis was used to analyze the different factors that can affect the frequency of medical service usage and its costs for diabetic patients with and without a usual source of care. Findings: The medical costs of diabetic patients with a usual source of care decreased in terms of inpatient, and the outpatient visits and inpatient costs of the group with a usual source of care in the form of a mainly-visiting doctor decreased more than those of the group with a mainly-visiting medical institution only. Practical Implications: Having a usual source of care can increase the treatment continuity, leading to reduced inpatient, and having a mainly-visiting doctor as the usual source of care further increases the treatment continuity. Based on these results, a new policy is needed to increase and strengthen diabetic patients? possession of a usual source of care.