• Korean Journal of Psychosomatic Medicine
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• v.8 no.2
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• pp.212-227
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• 2000

This study was designed to testify the reliability and validation on the Korean version of the Social Adaptation Self-rating Scale(SASS) which was developed from Bose et al. for the evaluation of social motivation and behavior of depressed patients in 1997. Interests for the social world, those of social functioning, of patients were involved in the addition of new measure of disturbance. And those were distinct from abnormalities of thought, mood and symptoms of patients with major depression. As the previous reports there were several evidences that treatments may be less likely to be effective if the system they act on is dysfunctional. Thus, a better social situation favoured better outcome. As a matter of fact, however, those reports were developed in the course of the evaluation of interpersonal therapy(IPT) and cognitive therapy. Accordingly the conversed question -whether pharmacological therapy with antidepressants can impact on social functioning in addition to addressing the core features of illness- has been addressed. To date, anyhow, it is accepted that enhancement of social functioning may be a therapeutic principle in its own right and illness rarely divorced from social context. In terms of those concepts the introduction of an assessment of social functioning into pharmacotherapeutic studies of depression has been welcomed and might be a potent instrument for evaluating the relative pharmacoeconomic benefits of different treatments. Despite of many scales which were applied for the evaluation of symptoms in the patients with depression, however, the scale for the evaluation of social functiong has not been introduced in Korea yet. Thus, this study was designed to introduce the concepts of social functioning in the patients with depression and to testify the reliability and validation on Korean version of SASS. This Korean version of SASS was submitted to a reliability and validation procedure based on the data from healthy general population survey in 291 individuals and 40 patients with major depression. Cronbach a was 0.790 in total subjects group and the correlation of test-retest was statistically significant(y=0.653, p<0.0l). Thus, the Korean version of SASS might be shown to be valid and reliable. The results of multivariate analyses allowed the identification of 3 principle factors(factor 1 = intersts in social activities, factor 2 = active interpersonal relationship, factor 3 = selfesteem) in normal group, however, it could be counted as only one factor in the depression group because nearly total items of SASS were involved in factor 1. In the view of these results, the Korean version of SASS may be useful additional tool for the evaluation of social functioning in depression.

• Journal of People, Plants, and Environment
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• v.23 no.2
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• pp.245-254
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• 2020

Patients diagnosed with cancer face mental problems such as alienation, isolation, anxiety about death and fear, recovering from psychological difficulties. In this study, a forest healing program was provided for cancer patients to recover from psychological stress, depression, social isolation and self-esteem caused by cancer and changes in salivary cortisol through psychological and emotional recovery were measured. From September 19 to November 28, 2017, a forest healing program composed of a total of 10 sessions, two hours per session was provided for 12 cancer patients in the Forest of Taegyo located in Yongin. Psychological tests were performed with Social Adaptation Self-evaluation Scale (SASS), Korean-version Perceived Stress Scale (PSS) and Beck Depression Inventory (BDI) and the collected data were analyzed with the SPSS 18.0. The salivary cortisol level was measured along with the psychological tests and were analyzed by a specialized testing agency. The results of the analysis showed that the pre- and post-assessment score of SASS was 29.17 and 25.92, respectively, and that the pre- and post-assessment score of PSS was 30.50 and 23.92, respectively. The pre- and post-assessment score of BDI was 41.00 and 34.83, respectively, which showed significant differences. In addition, the pre- and post-assessment level of saliva cortisol was 3.13 and 1.68, respectively, showing a significant decrease. In short, the forest healing program was found to be effective in reducing physiological changes caused by social isolation and stress due to the emotional and psychological difficulties that the subjects who were diagnosed with cancer and were recovering from it have. In the future, it will be necessary to develop and implement a forest healing program by conducting a forest healing requirement survey on cancer patients.