• Journal of Society of Preventive Korean Medicine
• /
• v.10 no.1
• /
• pp.109-121
• /
• 2006

The purpose of this study was to determine factors influencing patient satisfaction with medical services in hospital, which is classified into environmental aspect, human services and procedural services. Based on the results of literature review, the study focused on effects of social-demographical factors on patient satisfaction. The environmental aspect of medical care services included medical equipment and facilities, hygiene, ventilation, heating and air-conditioning, waiting and resting space, ward space and parking facilities. Procedural service included registration process, bill payment, waiting time after registration, examination and prescription as well as appointment process. Human services consisted of physicians listening to stories of patients, examination duration, physicians' explanation and physicians' service. As for nurses, explanation about disease, examination procedure and results, kindness and nursing care were evaluated. Services provided by other staff members were also evaluated. Patient satisfaction, defined as individual attitude toward medical service as a whole, was measured using a questionnaire. A total of 700 in-or out-patients were surveyed in 6 hospitals with more than 300 beds in North Gyeongbuk Province. 1. The level of patient satisfaction varied with characteristics of patients. Male patients and those in their 30s had a low level of satisfaction. Dissatisfaction level was positively related to education level but negatively related to economic condition. 2. As for patient satisfaction with medical service providers and other employees in hospital, satisfaction level with physician's explanation about treatment was higher. But dissatisfaction levels with treatment duration and the lack of explanation about examination procedures were high, calling for improvement. Dissatisfaction level with nursing care was high, calling for training of nurses for better service. Given the low level of satisfaction with human services, hospital employees need to be trained to improve their service. 3. It Was found that administrative service was also a significant factor influencing patient satisfaction in addition to medical service. It is therefore important for hospitals to provide patients with prompt and convenient procedural service. 4. Environmental factors such as medical equipment and amenity facilities also affected patient satisfaction. Thus environmental condition, procedural service and human service are all important to improve medical service in hospital. In summary, procedural service was the most significant factor for patient satisfaction. The level of satisfaction in patients was also affected by human service and environmental condition. It is therefore necessary to take patient-oriented approach in providing medical service in an effort to improve patient satisfaction. The finding of a lower level of satisfaction with human service signifies the need for training of healthcare providers and other hospital employees for better services. The introduction of advanced management programs is also needed to improve procedures that patients go through in hospitals.

• Women's Health Nursing
• /
• v.25 no.3
• /
• pp.239-257
• /
• 2019

Purpose: To analyze the job of nursing unit managers working at women's hospital, using DACUM (developing a curriculum), DACUM is a method for analyzing job-focused competency. Methods: This study involved a descriptive survey. A DACUM workshop was held to define women's hospital nursing unit managers' role and identify their duties and tasks. For the workshop, a committee was formed consisting of 5 women's hospital nursing unit managers. Finally, after validation, the developed contents were made into a survey asking about nursing unit manager's duties and tasks. Results: Sixteen duties and 83 tasks were identified on the DACUM chart. The importance, difficulty, and frequency of the tasks were ranked in terms of A, B, and C, with A being the highest degree. Eight tasks received A's all in importance, difficulty, and frequency of performance. The 8 tasks were: 'taking over', 'taking care of seriously ill patients on handover', 'ward rounding', 'analyzing and resolving demands identified during handover and patient tour', 'reporting patient status during rounding', 'promoting breast-feeding', 'uterine contraction, and training for breast-feeding'. The duty with the biggest determinant coefficient (DC) was 'patients complaint management' (DC=7.09). Based on tasks, the one with the biggest DC was 'solving patient and patient guardian's complaints' (DC=7.53), followed by 'making infection control guidelines' (DC=7.5). Conclusion: When expanding the nursing staff of the hospital, women's hospitals nursing unit managers also need to use administrative functions as intermediaries to focus on the operation management of the entire hospital rather than direct nursing to suit their role.

• Quality Improvement in Health Care
• /
• v.29 no.2
• /
• pp.2-14
• /
• 2023

Purpose: This study aimed to identify strategies to enhance the competencies of patient safety coordinators in Korea. Methods: Fourteen participants from nine hospitals were interviewed between May and November 2022. Qualitative content analysis was used to analyze the data. Results: As for the strategies to enhance patient safety management competency, 3 themes and 11 sub-themes were derived. The first theme was 'Having individual competence as a patient safety coordinator', and the sub-themes were 'Communication skills with members', 'Flexible thinking from multiple perspectives', and 'Preparing for administrative work competencies that they had not experienced as a nurse.' The second theme was 'Responding strategically to promote improvement activities', and the sub-themes for it were 'Multi-angle approach to the problem', 'A careful approach so as not to be taken as criticism in the field', 'Increasing the possibility of improvement activities through awareness', 'Activating the network between patient safety coordinators', and 'Expanding learning opportunities through patient safety case analysis.' The third theme was 'Obtaining support to facilitate patient safety activities', and the sub-themes for this were 'Improving staff awareness of patient safety', 'Providing a training course for nurse professional of patient safety', and 'Expanding the manpower allocation standard of patient safety coordinators.' Conclusion: This study explored personal competencies such as document writing and computer utilization capabilities, focused on ways to improve the field of patient safety management, and emphasized the need for organizational and political support.

• Journal of Korean Academy of Nursing
• /
• v.30 no.5
• /
• pp.1156-1169
• /
• 2000

The study was aimed at developing an independent hospice center model that would be best suited for Korea based on a literature review and the current status of local and international hospices. For the study, five local and six international hospice organizations were surveyed. Components of the hospice center model include philosophy, purpose, resources (workers, facilities, and equipment), allocation of resources, management, financial support and hospice team service. The following is a summary of the developed model: Philosophies for the hospice center were set as follows: based on the dignity of human life and humanism, help patients spend the rest of their days in a meaningful way and accept life positively. On the staff side, to pursue a team-oriented holistic approach to improve comfort and quality of life for terminally ill persons and their families. The hospice center should have 20 beds with single, two, and four bed rooms. The center should employ, either on a part-time or full-time basis, a center director, nurses, doctors, chaplains, social workers, pharmacists, dieticians, therapists, and volunteers. In addition, it will need an administrative staff, facility managers and nurses aides. The hospice should also be equipped with facilities for patients, their families, and team members, furnished with equipment and goods at the same level of a hospital. represented by a center director who reports to a board and an advisory committee. Also, the center director administers a steering committee and five departments, namely, Administration, Nursing Service, Social Welfare, Religious Services, and Medical Service. Furthermore, the center should be able to utilize a direct and support delivery systems. The direct delivery system allows the hospice center to receive requests from, or transfer patients to, hospitals, clinics, other hospice organizations (by type), public health centers, religious organizations, social welfare organizations, patients, and their guardians. On the other hand, the support delivery system provides a link to outside facilities of various medical suppliers. In terms of management, details were made with regards to personnel management, records, infection control, safety, supplies and quality management. For financial support, some form of medical insurance coverage for hospice services, ways to promote a donation system and fund raising were examined. Hospice team service to be provided by the hospice center was categorized into assessment, physical care, emotional care, spiritual care, bereavement service, medication, education and demonstrations, medical supplies rental, request service, volunteer service, and respite service. Based on the results, the study has drawn up the following suggestions: 1. The proposed model for a hospice center as presented in the study needs to be tested with a pilot project. 2. Studies on criteria for legal approval and license for a hospice center need to be conducted to develop policies. 3. Studies on developing a hospice charge system and hospice standards that meet local conditions in Korea need to be conducted.

• Korea Journal of Hospital Management
• /
• v.7 no.3
• /
• pp.44-62
• /
• 2002

Advanced surgical technology demands more precise, meticulous, and time-consuming procedures. In addition, the patient's preference of tertiary health providers makes over crowding of the University Hospitals. Therefore, it has been necessary to maximize utilization of the operating room of such hospitals to accommodate these requirements. This study, targeting 1,302 surgical cases performed in 22 operating rooms at a university hospital in Seoul from October 8 to November 1, 2001, analyzed reasons for delay, and factors that caused delayed use of operating rooms. This study also assessed that the rate of operating room use would increase if the sources for possible reform were improved. 1. Among total of 1,302 cases of surgery, the incidence of surgeries in which there were no time delays and no factors for delay were discovered is 71.4% or 930 cases: the incidence in which surgeries were delayed was 28.6% or 372 cases. 2. As results of logistic regression for delay, procedures involving women were delayed 1.4 times more frequently than those of men. Compared to Department A, Department B was 1.8 times more likely to be delayed, and Department H was 0.4 times less likely to be delayed. Regional anesthesia was 2.4 times more likely to be delayed than general anesthesia, and surgeries that PCA was applied were 0.6 times less likely to be delayed than those when it was not. Surgeries performed on the Thursday were 1.7 times more likely to be delayed than those performed on the Monday. Compared to surgeries performed between 07:00-07:59, those performed between 08:00-08:29 were 4.3 times higher. 3. The reasons for delay were related to surgeon, surgical department, patient, anesthesia, administrative system, sick ward, and support services. Among these, 5,755 minutes for 276 delayed cases could be resolved easily, and resolving delays of 3,320 minutes for 131 cases would be more difficult. Among the causes for delay that could be improved, delays due to patient's transfer and surgeon's factor were the most common, 21.6% and 17.4% respectively. 4. If resolvable delays are improved, pre-anesthesia room is administered, and regional anesthesia and PCA are done ahead of time, use of emergency operating rooms will increase, we can increase overall utilization by 4.09%, we will save 744 minutes a day, we can reduce the time the operation room is used after 4 PM by 35%, and we can resolve the operation cancellations due to insufficient operating rooms. For the increase in the use of operating rooms, we need to maximally decrease the delays that could be improved, by allocating block time based on used totals hours of elective cases, giving accurate information on surgery schedule, voluntary cooperation by staff participating in surgeries in reducing delay time, and the hospital management's will to improve delay.

• Journal of Korean Academy of Nursing
• /
• v.8 no.1
• /
• pp.1-15
• /
• 1978

The Purpose of this study is to examine closely the causes influenced upon the comfort and recovery of the woman delivered of a child in the hospital at the same time to understand environmental status of hospitals in order to promote mother's health recovery, and to improve hospital environment by emphasizing the meaning of environment and health before the medical staff and hospital administrative authority. In the method of servery of the research, 165 post paestum patients have been randomly selected who were accommodated and delivered their babies at OB(obstetric ) & GY (Gynecologic) unit the 7 general hospitals for the period of 6 December 1976 through 17 December 1976. As for the survey, it has been used of Questionnaire where we have 65 items in the respect of personal environment in the hospital such as trusting nurse, ability, reliability, kindness and etiquette of nurse and tile character of nurse the relationship with patients the other respect of physical environment included 9f temperature, moisture. air-ventilation lightening noise, cleanness. facilities, and the third realm being of mother's hearth ground to have the following conclusion 1. The feature of the collected personnel they are from OB or GY sects of from OB unit of the other 5 hospitals except the two general hospitals of the college or school Otherwise the rate of the patients to nurses would be 9 : 1. As for the nurses'ground it would be appeared of 20-25 years of age as the 76%. either 3 year course or 4 year course in the education would be each 50% and less than 2 year experience case would record as of 60 %. In the respect of hospital physical environmental status, there we have two hospitals without any thermometers, on the other han4 nowhere there's hygrometer, otherwise, the lightening is normal or over than normal As for the structure of noise protection the corridors're, generally speaking worse than rooms, nerver hueless, there's no ventilating system in the hospitals. The rooms'repainted in white and yellow, light green white, or green color. The patient's clothing were in green pink blue, light green or in white co for. There're not anything special in both decoration and equipments. Most of them used tall beds except in one hospital 2. To the extent of perception of patient's hatch 9round and hospital environment it is presented that they perceived nurse's ability in highest in total human variable, though perceived kindness or etiquette in the lowest otherwise, comparatively high in total average. 3. In the respect of physical environment it is highest perceived of lightening terms, otherwise, lowest perceived of air ventilation and total average became lowest than the one of the original record 4. To ages, in the respect of hatch ground rather old aged mother than the younger one has perceived that nurse would be trusting, in good service character, able, at the same time, liable, Otherwise, in physical environment regardless of age, they perceived lightening in high and remarkably lower in ventilation As a result of the examination of the difference in hospital environment to each age it is appeared of statistical difference at 5% level of ability in the personal environment otherwise little difference as for physical environment 5. In the respect of perceiving level to educational standard it is highly perceived of personal environment for higher ranking group rather than lower group in the educational standard. In case of physical environment it is highly perceived for lower level group rather than higher level group in educational background. The variables which have statistical significance at 5% level are from trusting kindness, etiquette and total kindness, etiquette and total all significance at 5% level are from trusting, kindness, etiquette and total human environment variable in personal environment, otherwise, there's little difference in the physical environment. 6. The perceiving level due to times of admission and accommodation at the hospital would be cleared out as gradual higher perception both physical and personal environment in the hospital. At 5% significant level of the ventilation condition in physical environmental variable it is presented of meaningful difference otherwise, there we have little difference both in Personal variable and other one. 7. In accordance with living standard, the perception degree of personal environment in tee hospital would be inclined to increase to higher living standard on the other hand, in case of the physical environment, the perception level world increase to lower living standard At 5 % level, the trustuariable and total scores in the personal eicuironmectal variable there appeared a meaningful/ significant difference otherwise, there presented little difference both in physical environmental and other variable to the living standard 8. Pertaining to family unit, the mother of an independent family unit perceived highly in all respect of the personal and the physical environment in the hospital rather than the woman of succeeding family unit. At 5 % level there appeared a difference in the respect of kindness and etiquette both in personal environment variable, on the other hand, there hardly marked a difference between other variable and physical environmental one. 9. The degree of perception to comforting level has little connection with a statistical difference the age, educational level hospital admitting times, living standard or family unit. 10. The most effective variable to mother's comforting level will be nurse's ability, reliability, trusting manner, and total physical environment variable in order.

• Journal of Korean Academy of Nursing
• /
• v.19 no.2
• /
• pp.212-222
• /
• 1989

When the head nurse who is pivotal in the nursing service administration of the hospital performs efficiently as a first-line manager, the effectiveness of the nursing unit, which includes the quality of nursing care, the jab satisfaction of staff members, and the cohesiveness of staff members is increased. With this point of view in mind, the researcher carried out a study to determine the actual work (the content of the work, the work process, the role of the head nurse, the activity media, and the purpose of the work) of the head nurse in a university hospital in Korea. In addition, this study was also carried out for the purpose of preparing an ideal model for the work of the head nurse. The research subjects were 39 head nurses. This included all the head nurses in two university hospitals except those who were working in outpatient care, operating rooms, central supply, nursing administration, in-service education and emergency care. Data were collected from September 24th to October 21th, 1987 and April 4th to 12th, 1988. A work activity record on which the head nurse recorded directly in a chronological narrative form, was used as the research instrument. The 234 work activity records, 39 head nurse's continuous recording over 6 days(from Monday to Saturday) were collected and analysed. The results were as follows ; 1. With regard to the work content for the total daily work of the head nurse, 45.2% of the activities were managerial activities but 58.1% of the head nurse' s time was spent in direct patient care. 2. With regard to the work process of the head nurse, specifically the location, the size and membership of groups contacted, the results were as follows : 1) Of the total daily work activities 92.4% were carried out in the nursing unit and this occupied 84.5% of total daily work time. Direct patient care was generally performed on the nursing unit and managerial work was performed in other areas. 2) Of the total daily work activities, 73% was with one or more persons and 51.2% of total daily work time was spent in groups. 3) A total of 51 persons, working in different capacities were contacted. These included 21 persons giving patient care, 19 persons working in nursing unit management, and 7 persons working in human resource management. 3. With regard to the head nurse's role in work activity, 53.3% of total daily work activities involved the informational role, 26.9%, the interpersonal role and 19.9%, the decisional role. With regard to time, 57.7% was spent in the informational role, 23.9%, in the interpersonal role and 18.3%, in the decisional role. When the head nurse performed managerial work, she gave nearly equal emphasis to all three roles when she gave direct patient care the informational role was increased. 4. With regard to the activity media, the number of unscheduled activities accounted for 27.1% of the activities, scheduled activities, 24.3%, desk work activity, 22.1%, rounds, 12.5% and telephone calls, made or received, 14.0%. In daily total work time managerial work related to desk work and scheduled activities were high, ranging from 29.8% to 29.9% but for direct patient care time, scheduled activities and unscheduled activities were high, ranging from 23.6％ to 35.3%. 5. With regard to the purpose of the work performed, 54.4% of the total daily work was concerned with the team and 41.4% was concerned with the agency. The managerial work was concerned mainly with the team and the direct patient care was concerned mainly with the patient. When the frequency of an activity and time were compared no significant difference was found between the days for which the work was recorded for any of the variables : the work content, the work process, the work role, the activity media and purpose of the work. On the basis of this study the following are proposed as an ideal model for head nurse work in Korea : The managerial work should be increased to 70%. The decisional role activities should be increased to 40%. Twenty percent of the work activity should be allocated to agency, community and profession. It is believed that this model for the head nurse's work can contribute to guidelines for job description development. Finally, educational programs, organizational and structural devices, and administrative support are needed for the proper function of the head nurse in this proposed model.

• Health Policy and Management
• /
• v.14 no.1
• /
• pp.65-88
• /
• 2004

In general, empowerment is defined as the motivational concept of autonomy and self-efficacy. Recently, the concept of empowerment is applied to improve organizational staff's job satisfaction and organizational commitment in many organizations. Empower-ment in service organizations, i.e., hospitals, has certainly generated more publicity than any other organizations. The objectives of this study are, first, to measure the degree of hospital employees' empowerment using Spreitzer(1995)'s empowerment theory, second, to analyze the causal relationship of organizational and job characteristics, a degree of empowerment, and organizational performance(job satisfaction and organizational commitment), and third, to offer the strategy for the improvement of job satisfaction and organizational commitment. Spreitzer insists that the empowerment is composed of 4 dimensions(meaning, competence, self-determination, and impact). And he argues that various work-related characteristics is a direct cause of empowerment and the indirect cause of job satisfaction and organizational commitment, mediated by the empowerment latent variable. In order to perform this study, data were collected by self-administered questionnaires from hospital employees working in administrative department of 3 university hospitals in Inchon and Kyunggi-Do region. The number of cases is 181(response rate; 86%). The Collected data were analyzed with SPSS Ver. 10.0 and AMOSV Ver. 4.0. First, to test validity of variables, the factor analysis was used. Second, to test reliability, Cronbach's alpha coefficients was calculated. Cronbach's alpha of empowerment variable is 0.8323 showing that there's no problem in regard to the internal consistency. Also the Cronbach's alpha of other variables are 0.8301 of the degree of perceived control, 0.6705 of job characteristics, O.8787 of compensation, 0.9254 of job satisfaction, and 0.8389 of organizational commitment, respectively. Among the questions of job characteristics, two survey questions are deleted due to lowering the reliability. Third, to test multicollinearity and correlation of variables, the correlation analysis was performed. There was no problem of multicollinearity. Finally structural equation modelling (SEM) analysis was conducted to find the causal relationship of organizational and job Characteristics, empowerment, job satisfaction and organizational commitment. The 16 variables are included for the SEM analysis. The major results of this study are as follows: First, in the case of model fitness, the condition of x$^2$ statistic(92.187) is not fully satisfied, but the indices of GFI(0.912), AGFI(0.863), NFI(0.917) and CFI(0.928) are partially satisfied, which needs to upper 0.90. Second, in the result of hypotheses testing, all hypotheses are accepted and have a positive effect in 95% or 99% confidence interval(P<0.05 or P<0.001) except the effect of compensation variable on empowerment(P=0.082). Third, in regard to the direct, indirect, and total effect of variables, the direct effect of perceived control, task characteristics, and compensation on job satisfaction are 0.728, 2.264, 0.328 and on organizational commitment are 0.094, 1.411, 0.418, respectively. Also the indirect effect of perceived control, task characteristics, and compensation on job satisfaction are 0.311, 0.196, 0.028 and on organizational commitment are 0.210, 0.132, 0.019, respectively. Thus, these findings imply that various work-related factors are direct effect of empowerment and indirect effect of result variables, job satisfaction and organizational commitment. Also These results showed that the workplace empowerment is significant mediating factor of employee's job satisfaction and organizational commitment.

• Journal of Korean Academy of Nursing
• /
• v.11 no.2
• /
• pp.23-32
• /
• 1981

The purpose of the study was to evaluate the educational content which had been given by midwifery training program. It was hoped that this result would help. It was sponsored by com-munity health worker plan effective health education. College of Nursing Ewha Womans University and The Korean Nurses Academic Society during the November 19 thru 24, 1979. It was carried out on July through on September 1980, and involved 22 community health workers. The results were as follows: 1. Most of the community health workers came from Seoul ＆ Pusan areas and have been working at the hospitals. There were 31.82% of Head Nurses, 27.2% of Staff Nurses, 22.73% Nurse Supervisons, 13.6% of Nurse Directors and 4.5％ of educational coordinator for Nurses. These participant had nurse-midwifery lincences by 63.64%. None of there had just midwifery lincences. 2, Age structures of the study population shows 31.82% of whom are.26-30 years and 22.73% of whom are 36. 40 years of age. This shown that seniority proportion is higher than the younger. There are 31.82% of 1-5 years, 27.27% of 6-10 year and 11-15 years, respectively by work career. 3. There are 54.55% of the institutions have opened their own midwifery training course for their nursing staff members. Because of lack of the facilities, shortage of instructors, and problems of administrative process. 4. According to the institution which opened for midwifery training courses, the participant was responsible for “midwifery”“Infant care”“MCH”“practice of midwifery”“Nursing adjustment”and“F. P.”5. During the midwifery couse, there were 8 institution who used the textbook and 4 institution who did not. Least of there referned to content matinals which was given by the sponsored. 6. There are 7 insititues who kept their training courses with other professional helps such as physicians., professiors and nurses. Some problems are pointed out by respondents such as“conflict with residents”“poor suportive administration”and“lake of manpower”. 8. The participant showed that they learned new knowledge as trends during this programs for there quality work so it need (one or twice times) a year. But they suggested that it needed more emphasis on the“maternal health care”and“role of the nurse-midwifery”. 9. The analysis of the results are as follows within the 6 areas which are given by the sponsored: There are highest ranks between“basic theory & family planning”“role of midwifery & nursing practice”. In the prenatal care the highest rank ware related to“health risk”on“idenify of risk symtoms”. In the health care areas which related to delivery, the responsers were related to“general conditions”or“high risk criteria”. In the health care area which related to high risk maternity care. In the neonatal health care, the highest rank was related to”health assessment of normal infant”. In the infant health care the responses was related to“abnormal symptoms”and“risk symptoms”. Actually, the participants show that they are more interested in“role of midwifery”“health assessment”and “high risk maternity care”are which emphasised on health promotion, health maintenance & disease preventive. 1) The midwifery training program need higher education for midwifery on a regular basis. 2) Within the open institution of midwifery training program, the nurses must be supported by their own institution and administry of social welfare must give systematic support. Also non-open institution must be open very soon. 3) All health workers including the residents & other workers, must cooperate for their phased common good of impovement of the maternity health. 4) Administration agonies & education institutions must provide the curriculum facilitis and administration systems which are needed for training of nurse-midwifery.

• Journal of East-West Nursing Research
• /
• v.8 no.1
• /
• pp.113-125
• /
• 2003

This study is a descriptive investigation into the image of nurses, and attempted to help to advance the profession of nursing and to provide basic data for developing strategies to improve the image of nurses. The Subject of this study was a group of 380 persons from a K Medical Centre in Seoul, including the hospital patients and their guardians, as well as the doctors, assistants and hospital administrative staff. The data have been collected from the 10th to the 30th of May, 2003. We have developed a research tool of 40 questions divided into three categories using a tool developed by Kim, H.J and KIm, H.O.(2001) verifying its construct validity. The reliability of the tool was Cronbache's ${\alpha}=.97$, and by categories, Cronbach's ${\alpha}=.86$ for service image, Cronbach's ${\alpha}=.96$ for professional image and Cronbache's ${\alpha}=.90$ for social image. The collected data have been analysed according to the purpose of this study using SPSS WIN 11.0 for real number, percentage, factors analysis, multiple regression analysis, ANOVA and $x^2$-test, and the results are as follows: 1) There was a significant difference in the image of nurses by job series of the subjects; from patients and guardians for 4.01 to doctors 3.62, assistants 3.54 and staff members 3.41 (F=36.14, p=.000). As well, there was a significant difference in service, professional and social image categories according to the position of the subjects ($F=20.36{\sim}42.35$, p=.000). 2) The main factors that affect on formation the nurse's imaging came by direct experiences with nurses at hospitals for 81.3%, by looking at the every life of the nurses that the subjects personally know for 15.5%, by mass media for 1.6% and by the accounts from the others for 1.6%. 3) 78.4% of the subjects considered that the image of nurses on mass media is described better than for real, 8.2% believed that the image is described worse than for real, and only 13.2% of the subjects perceived that the image of nurses on mass media corresponds the image of nurses in actual life. 4) 74.5% of the subjects said that they got a better image of nurses after their hospitalization while 2% got a worse one and 23.5% said to have had no changes, and the period of hospitalization had no relevance to the image of nurses (X2=5.04, P=.489). However, while 16.8% of the subjects who spent less than one week in hospital said that they got a better image of nurses, 27.5% of those who spent longer than four weeks got a better image of nurses. 5) There was a significant difference in the total image points of nurses by the patients and their guardians according to the period of hospitalization; 4.14 for 1 to 2 weeks, 4.07 for 2 to 4 weeks, 4.02 for 4 weeks and longer and 3.80 for less than a week (F=3.40, P=.019). Upon the results stated above, I should like to propose as below: 1) An investigative enquiry is needed to improve the image of nurses as though being a nurse is very hard and difficult. 2) A continuous monitoring in mass media is needed to create a positive image of nurses.