• Journal of Ginseng Research
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• v.33 no.2
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• pp.115-126
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• 2009

To evaluate the efficacy and safety of red ginseng on women's health-related quality of life (QOL) and sexual function. A randomized, double-blind, placebo-controlled, crossover clinical study was performed. The main efficacy was measured using the Female Sexual Function Index (FSFl) and the 36-Item Short-Form Health Survey (SF-36). Twenty-four healthy, married women aged 30-45 years with FSFl scores below 25 were randomly divided into two groups: the red-ginseng group (N=12) and the placebo group (N=12). During the first six-week period (Study 1), each group was given red ginseng or placebo twice a day. Before the start of the second six-week period (Study 2), a crossover design was chosen with a two-week break (washout period). Interchanging the two groups after the washout period, red ginseng and placebo were given to each group. The outcomes were measured before and after each six-week period. Overall, 23 participants completed the study. In Study 1, the changes relative to the baseline in the FSFl total score were 22.50% and 22.99% for red ginseng and placebo, respectively. In Study 2, the relative changes were 8.14% for red ginseng and 6.29% for placebo. The results showed a greater improving trend in Study 1 with respect to all of the participants' sexual functions, but no significant difference was found between the groups (P=0.9567). After taking red ginseng, all the participants exhibited an improving trend in the desire domain of FSFl, but no significant difference was shown. In the measurement of SF-36, no significant difference was likewise shown. After taking red ginseng, though, all the participants exhibited an improving trend in the physical functioning (PF) domain of SF-36, with no significant difference. Moreover, there was no significant adverse event related to red ginseng. The QOL and sexual function of the study participants in the red-ginseng group were mostly improved, but no statistically significant effect of red ginseng was shown. It is supposed that this result was partly due to the affirmative impression of red ginseng in Korea. Thus, it is anticipated that a long-term clinical trial will show a significant effect of red ginseng on the QOL and sexual function.

• Journal of Korean Public Health Nursing
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• v.29 no.2
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• pp.312-324
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• 2015

Purpose: This study addressed the relationship among nutritional risk, stress, and health related quality of life for older women with a foreign daughter-in-law. Methods: A descriptive research design was used for this study. The subjects of this study were 112 older women with a foreign daughter-in-law all of whom were over 65 years and living in D city. Personal interview was used for data collection. Nutritional risk, stress, and health related quality of life were measured using Nutrition Screening Initiative (NSI), Family Inventor of Life Events and Changes (FILE), and Medical Outcome Study (MOS) Short-form 36-Item Health Survey (SF-36), respectively. Results: Older women with a foreign daughter-in-law showed negative correlation between quality of life related health and nutritional risk, stress and age, and positive correlation between Activities of Daily Living (ADL); 46% of variance in health related quality of life of older women with a foreign daughter-in-law was explained by nutritional risk, ADL, stress and occupation. Conclusion: Based on the results of this study, we suggested that specialized programs should be established to help in development of social relationship networks for older women who have a foreign daughter-in-law.

• Journal of Korean Academy of Nursing
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• v.37 no.3
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• pp.313-323
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• 2007

Purpose: Health-related quality of life (HRQOL) in patients with cardiovascular disease in Korea has rarely been studied, mostly due to the lack of a psychometrically validated disease-specific instrument. The purpose of this study was to develop and validate a cardiovascular specific-HRQOL questionnaire (CD-QOL). Method: The CD-QOL was developed and validated as follows; item generation, pilot study, and psychometric tests. Patients were recruited from three-university hospitals. The patients were asked to complete the preliminary questionnaire comprising the content-validated items, SF-36, and CES-D. The NYHA and KASI classifications were used to classify the functional performance of the patients. The data was analyzed using correlation, factor analysis, multidimensional scaling, multitrait/multi-item matrix, ANOVA, and Cronbach's alpha. Result: Preliminarily, thirty-nine items were generated. Factor analysisextracted a five-factor solution with a total of twenty-two items. One item was deleted based upon the MDS. The remaining items were moderately correlated with the subscales of the SF-36 and associated with depression measured with the CES-D. The mean scores of patients in NYHA and KASI class I were significantly higher than those in NYHA and KASI class II or/and III, which suggested patients with better functional performance were likely to have a better HRQOL. Cronbach's alphas of the total and subscales were all greater than 0.70. Conclusion: The CD-QOL is a easily applicable instrument with excellent psychometric properties of content, criterion, factorial, convergent, and known-groups validity, and internal consistency reliability in Korean patients with cardiovascular disease.

• Journal of Korean Academy of Nursing
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• v.33 no.3
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• pp.365-375
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• 2003

Purpose: This study was aimed to investigate the health related quality of life and related factors of organ transplant recipients. Method: The participants were 188 people who had liver(86), kidney(81), or heart(24) transplanted. Data on the demographic characteristics, transplantation-related characteristics, symptom frequency or discomfort measured by Transplant Symptom Frequency and Symptom Distress Scale by Lough et al(l987), and health related quality of life measured by SF-36(version 2) were collected. Result: Overall health related quality of life score was 492.1 for 100scoring and, 344.9 for norm based. Physical functioning showed the highest quality of life score (77.5) and vitality showed the lowest(51.l). The kidney transplanted showed the highest quality of life (504.4) and the heart transplanted showed the lowest(426.7) Quality of life was related with occupation(p=.016) and symtom discomfort(p < .0001). Conclusion: The health related quality of life of transplated patients was lower than the norm of American. Further studies need to be done to identify the norm of Korean and to investigate the effect of releving symptom discomfort on the increasing the health related quality of life.

• Research in Community and Public Health Nursing
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• v.18 no.2
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• pp.232-241
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• 2007

Purpose: The aim of this study was to explore the health-related quality of life of caregivers for demented elders. Method: The subjects of this study were 170 pairs of demented elders and their caregivers. Socio-demographic characteristics of the demented elders and the caregivers, Barthel index and SF-36 were used in this study. Data analysis procedure included t-test, ANOVA, Pearson correlation coefficient, and hierarchical multiple regression. Results: The score of overall health-related quality of life (HRQoL) was 288.62 in norm-based scoring. The major factors that affect HRQoL of the demented elders' caregivers were burden, the age of the caregiver, ADL and gender of the demented elder, and these factors explained 34.5% of HRQoL. Conclusion: The factors significantly affecting the caregivers' HRQoL were burden, the age of the caregiver and ADL. The effective social support system should be considered in respective nursing interventions to decrease the level of burden and to increase HRQoL in demented elders' caregivers. Further studies and efforts will be needed to investigate preceding factors of burden and HRQoL.

• Journal of Korean Academy of Nursing
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• v.37 no.3
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• pp.324-333
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• 2007

Purpose: The purpose of this study was to develop and evaluate a quality of life scale for Korean patients with cancer (C-QOL). Methods: The C-QOL was developed and validated as follows, item generation, pilot study, and psychometric tests. A total of 337 patients diagnosed with stomach, liver, lung, colon, breast, or cervix cancer were recruited. The patients were asked to complete the preliminary questionnaire comprising the content-validated items, the SF-36, and the ECOG performance status. The obtained data was analyzed using descriptive statistics, factor analysis, multidimensional scaling (MDS), multitrait/multi-item matrix, ANOVA, t-test, and Cronbach's alpha. Results: Preliminarily twenty-six items were generated through content validity and a pilot study. Factor analysis and MDS extracted a total of 21 items with a 5-point Likert-type scale (C-QOL). The C-QOL included five subscales: physical status (6 items), emotional status (6 items), social function (3 items), concern status (2 items), and coping function (4 items). The C-QOL established content validity, construct validity, item convergent and discriminant validity, known-groups validity, reliability, and sensitivity. Conclusion: The Newly developed C-QOL is an easily applicable instrument which established psychometric properties and reflected Korean culture. It is recommended for further study to examine the responsiveness of the C-QOL using a longitudinal research design.

• Korean Journal of Adult Nursing
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• v.25 no.1
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• pp.13-23
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• 2013

Purpose: The purpose of this study was to investigate the factors that influence health-related quality of life in patients with atrial fibrillation. Methods: The subjects were 150 outpatients with atrial fibrillation who visited the cardiology clinic of a university hospital in U city. The instruments used for this study were Mhel Uncertainty in Illness Scale (MUIS), Center for Epidemiologic Studies-Depression Scale (CES-D), State Trait Anxiety Inventory (STAI), and the Short-Form-36 Health Survey (SF-36) Korean version II. The date were analyzed by ANOVA, Pearson-correlation coefficient, and hierachial multiple regression using SPSS/WIN 18.0. Results: The mean score of physical health-related quality of life (PCS) was $38.92{\pm}6.22$ and mental health-related quality of life (MCS) was $41.49{\pm}5.71$. Physical and Mental health-related quality of life had the significant correlations with uncertainty, anxiety and depression. In multiple regression analysis, physical health-related quality of life was significantly influenced by duration of disease, NYHA class, uncertainty. Mental health-related quality of life was significantly influenced by family income, NYHA class, anxiety and depression. Conclusion: These results suggest that these influencing factors should be consider in developing the nursing interventions to improve the healthrelated quality of life in patients with atrial fibrillation.

• Journal of Korean Academy of Nursing
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• v.41 no.3
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• pp.354-363
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• 2011

Purpose: The purpose of this cross-sectional study was to examine the relationship between characteristics of severe ALS patient-caregiver couples and health related quality of life (HRQoL) in family caregivers. Methods: The participants in this study were 89 pairs of ALS patients using ventilators and a family caregiver. The characteristics of the ALS patients and caregivers, Korean-Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis Functional Rating Scale-Revised, Zarit Burden Interview and SF-36 were measured in this study. The data were collected from August 2008 to April 2009. Descriptive statistics, Pearson correlation coefficients, and canonical correlation were used for data analysis. Results: The physical component summary and mental component summary of the HRQoL score for family caregivers were $147.49{\pm}31.63$ and $129.09{\pm}35.83$, respectively. HRQoL for caregivers was related to characteristics of the ALS patient-caregiver couples, such as patient's gender, caregiver's age, gender, marital status, daily time spent in caregiving and burden with one significant canonical variable. The significant variate showed that the lower the age, the time spent in caregiving and the burden of caregivers, the higher the HRQoL of caregivers. Conclusion: The support systems for caregivers considering caregiver characteristics such as demographics and burden should be implemented to improve the HRQoL of caregivers.

• Korean Journal of Adult Nursing
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• v.16 no.2
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• pp.191-201
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• 2004

Purpose: Many studies have shown that regular exercise produces positive effects on health. The purpose of this study was to examine the differences of health-related quality of life by stage of exercise and the interaction effect of age, sex and stage of exercise. Method: A total of 1266 participants were interviewed with structured questionnaire. Stage of exercise was assessed with a single item and respondents were classified with respect to exercise intention and behavior. Health-related quality of life was measured with SF-36 Health Survey Questionnaire. Result: Health-related QOL were found to be different by stage of exercise. The subjects who were reached maintenance stage showed significantly higher scores on physical functioning, bodily pain, general health perception, mental health, role limitation due to emotional problems, social functioning, and vitality than those in preparation, contemplation, and precontemplation stage. In addition a significant interaction effect between stage of exercise and age was found on physical functioning, bodily pain, general health perception, mental health, and vitality. Conclusion: Perceived health-related QOL varies with stage of exercise. This finding suggests that health is related to both intention and behavior of exercise. Therefore it is important to consider cognitive-motivational and behavioral stage of change for developing exercise programs.

• Journal of Korean Academy of Nursing
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• v.38 no.3
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• pp.437-444
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• 2008

Purpose: This study aimed to identify the relationships among physical symptoms, activities of daily living, and health-related quality of life (HRQoL) in community-dwelling older adults. Methods: A stratified random sampling method was conducted to recruit participants from May 10 to August 17, 2007. Physical symptoms were measured using the Physical Health Questionnaire (PHQ), activities of daily living using the Late-Life Functional and Disability Instrument (LLFDI), and HRQoL using the Medical Outcomes Short-Form Health Survey (SF-36) in 242 community-dwelling elderly Korean people. Results: The HRQoL correlates with the physical symptoms (r=-.31) and the function component (r=.59). Of the two disability parts of the LLFDI, the limitation dimension correlates higher (r=.57) with HRQoL than the frequency dimension (r=.42). The HRQoL is significantly associated with the function component, and disability limitation in capability which explained 44.4% of variance in physical health. Conclusion: These results may contribute to a better understanding of physical symptoms, activities of daily living, and HRQoL in community-dwelling older adults. Therefore, health programs for prompting older adult's health should be planned based on results of the study.