• Journal of Hospice and Palliative Care
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• v.19 no.1
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• pp.11-25
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• 2016

Purpose: The purpose of this study was to determine the factors that influence healthcare providers' attitude towards end-of-life care (EOLC) in the emergency department (ED) in hospital settings. Methods: From June 1 through June 30, 2014, a descriptive correlational study was performed with 41 doctors and 105 nurses stationed in the ED. Results: According to a regression model on the factors affecting healthcare providers' professional attitude towards EOLC, 28.1% of variance (F=15.185, P=0.000) was explained by awareness of death, gender and personal attitude towards EOLC. And 34.1% of the healthcare providers' personal attitude was related with awareness of death, experience of hospice education, occupations and professional attitude towards EOLC. Conclusion: This study demonstrated that attitude towards EOLC was influenced by awareness of death and personal characteristics. Healthcare providers in the ED should be provided with tailored training to improve their understanding of death. Also an educational program should be developed and provided to ED healthcare providers to improve their awareness of death.

• Journal of the Korean Applied Science and Technology
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• v.36 no.4
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• pp.1373-1384
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• 2019

This study is a descriptive research to analyze the factors affecting the care burden of dementia patients in the community. The data was collected from 223 dementia patients in the community for 10 days from November 30 to December 9, 2018. The results showed that there was a statistically significant difference in caring burden according to demographic characteristics according to the age group of the main caregivers, the relationship with dementia patients, the duration of caring for dementia patients, and the difficulty of caring for dementia patients. Had a negative correlation with dementia knowledge(r=-.145, p=.030). The factors affecting the care burden of dementia patients were as follows: dementia care period(β=.408, p=.006), difficulty in caring for dementia patients(β=-.307, p=.023), relationship with dementia patients(β=-.299, p=.013), and age group of primary caregivers of dementia patients(β=-.265, p=.007). Therefore, in order to alleviate the burden of caring for dementia patients in the community, a practical and continuous care intervention program is needed

• Journal of Hospice and Palliative Care
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• v.21 no.2
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• pp.65-74
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• 2018

Purpose: The aim of this study is to examine the relationships among hospice-palliative care (HPC) nurses' knowledge of delirium, self-efficacy and nursing performance. Methods: This study was participated by 174 nurses working in the HPC unit. The nurses were asked to fill out a questionnaire that was structured to measure their knowledge of delirium, a self-efficacy in clinical performance scale (SECPS) and nursing performance. Results: The mean score for knowledge was 32.83 out of 45, with correction rate of 73%. The mean score for self-efficacy was 7.08 out of 10. The mean score of nursing performance was 2.95 out of 4. Significant correlation was observed among the variables of knowledge (r=0.28, P<0.001), self-efficacy (r=0.51, P<0.001) and nursing performance. Conclusion: Nurses with high level of knowledge of delirium showed high level of self-efficacy, and consequently better HPC nursing performance. It is necessary to develop a training program on delirium considering nurses' needs of knowledge of the condition. The effectiveness of the training program should be also examined in future.

• The Journal of the Korea Contents Association
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• v.17 no.10
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• pp.667-685
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• 2017

The purpose of this study was to explore the meaning and essence of experience of family members as care-givers of terminally ill cancer patients at hospice wards. This study was based on the Giorgi phenomenological method, which describes the experiences about the family caregivers. We had in-depth interview with spouses and orthogonal families of nine terminally ill cancer patients. Results were drawn into 13 essential themes, 45 sub themes, and 122 main points. The essential themes are as follows: "cling of life", "bed-keeper", "sacrifice of care", "physical and mental exhaustion during care process","feeling of love and hatred", "avenge on a patient", "self-condemnation", "futility after exhaustion", "consolation of other caregivers", "utmost efforts in resignation", "freedom from suffering", "paradoxical blessing of cancer", "introspected revolution", and "preparation of a dignified death". Implications and limitations are discussed based on study results.

• Journal of the Korea Society of Computer and Information
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• v.28 no.12
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• pp.33-40
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• 2023

As South Korea enters the realm of an super-aging society, the demand for elderly welfare services has been steadily rising. However, the current shortage of welfare personnel has emerged as a social issue. To address this challenge, there is active research underway on elderly care robots designed to mitigate the social isolation of the elderly and provide emergency contact capabilities in critical situations. Nonetheless, these functionalities require direct user contact, which represents a limitation of conventional elderly care robots. In this paper, we propose a solution to overcome these challenges by introducing a care robot system capable of interacting with users without the need for direct physical contact. This system leverages commercialized elderly care robots and cameras. We have equipped the care robot with an edge device that incorporates facial expression recognition and action recognition models. The models were trained and validated using public available data. Experimental results demonstrate high accuracy rates, with facial expression recognition achieving 96.5% accuracy and action recognition reaching 90.9%. Furthermore, the inference times for these processes are 50ms and 350ms, respectively. These findings affirm that our proposed system offers efficient and accurate facial and action recognition, enabling seamless interaction even in non-contact situations.

• Journal of Hospice and Palliative Care
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• v.20 no.2
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• pp.111-121
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• 2017

Purpose: This study was performed to explore the current state of end-of-life (EoL) care education provided to new interns at two university hospitals. Methods: A questionnaire was given to incoming interns (N=64). The levels of acquired knowledge and experience of clinical observation were measured. Seven areas for self-assessment questions were identified and used to analyze the interns' attitudes towards EoL-related education and practice. Results: On average, participants learned five elements (nine in total) from EoL-related classes and two (seven in total) from clinical observation. The most frequently educated element was how to deliver bad news (96.9%) in the classroom setting and how to control physical symptoms (56.5%) in clinical observation. Less than 20% received training on EoL care communication, including discussion of advanced directives. Compared with participants who had no EoL training, those who had EoL training showed positive attitudes in all seven categories regarding overall satisfaction, interest and preparedness in relation to EoL-care classes and practice. Conclusion: Although interns are responsible for caring of dying patients, their EoL training in classroom and clinical settings was very insufficient. Further research should be conducted to establish an education system that provides sufficient knowledge and training on EoL care.

• Journal of Hospice and Palliative Care
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• v.18 no.1
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• pp.9-15
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• 2015

Education is essential for specialists in charge terminal care of cancer patients. In the second 10-year plan to conquer cancer under the Cancer Control Act, the Korean government announced a plan to train more hospice and palliative care (HPC) specialists based on quantitative HPC expansion. Specifically, the government aims to develop e-learning programs to foster social workers in HPC, following those offered to doctors and nurses. In HPC, social workers have served a vital role in helping patients overcome psychological and social issues. As professionals, they have carried out their responsibilities and played their part in the field to help HPC to take root and be institutionalized in Korea. To date, it has been difficult to obtain practical knowledge and skills for social workers due to the lack of systematic training program. Development of an e-learning program for social workers, as proposed in this study, should strengthen social workers in charge of terminally-ill cancer patients in terms of their identity, expertise, and practical skills in clinical setting and improve their access to education. We also hope the program to be further developed by the government by introducing an education system that offers refresher courses to guarantee social workers' continued expertise through.

• The Journal of Korean Academic Society of Nursing Education
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• v.23 no.2
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• pp.165-174
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• 2017

Purpose: This study was done to develop and to evaluate an integrative palliative care scale for cancer patients. Methods: The process included construction of a conceptual framework, generation of initial items, verification of content validity, selection of secondary items, preliminary study, and extraction of final items. The participants were 173 cancer patients in Daegu and Gyeongbuk. Item analysis, factor analysis, criterion related validity, and internal consistency were used to analyze the data. Results: Eighteen items were selected for the final scale, and categorized into 3 factors explaining 58.3% of total variance. The factors were labeled as social/environmental palliative care (9 items), psychological palliative care (4 items), and physical palliative care (3 items), and spiritually palliative care (2 items). The scores for the scale were significantly correlated with the quality of life of cancer patients. Cronbach's alpha coefficient for the 18 items was .88. Conclusion: The above findings indicate that the integrative palliative care scale has good validity and reliability when used for cancer patients.

• Journal of Hospice and Palliative Care
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• v.15 no.1
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• pp.36-39
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• 2012

Purpose: Cancer patients require emotional, financial and practical support as well as information/advice regarding their illness. This study aims to explore opportunities and barriers for the provision of the social support services in Australia and Korea. Methods: The survey was carried out by an email questionnaire for social workers in Australia and Korea, and collected data were analyzed using a thematic analysis by Braun and Clarke. Results: In Australia and Korea, various types of social support were available for cancer patients. However, social support for cancer patients should be better understood first in Korea, and more personalized support is needed in Australia. Conclusion: These findings will ultimately help to improve social support services for cancer patients in Korea an Australia, through grasping the current state and making up for the weak points.

• Journal of Hospice and Palliative Care
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• v.18 no.4
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• pp.276-284
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• 2015

Purpose: This study was performed to identify factors affecting terminal care performance of clinical nurses. Methods: The participants in this study were 175 nurses working in hospitals in Daegu and North Gyeongsang Province. Data were collected using a self-reported questionnaire and were analyzed with the IBM SPSS WIN 19.0 program. Results: Nurses' terminal care performance was significantly related with suffering experience, empathy ability and caring behaviors. Significant predictors for terminal care performance were their department, empathy ability and caring behaviors. These factors explained 43.52% of the variance in terminal care performance of clinical nurses. Conclusion: Our study results suggest that terminal care performance of clinical nurses can be strengthened by improving empathy ability and caring behaviors.