• Journal of the Korea Academia-Industrial cooperation Society
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• v.13 no.4
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• pp.1690-1698
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• 2012

As alcohol use is one of the most important risk factors for injuries, this study was intended to clarify and evaluate any relationship between drinking patterns and the incidence rates/specific characteristics of injuries in adult populations, using a widely accepted tool, the Alcohol Use Disorders Identification Test (chronic alcohol drinking behaviors measurement, hereinafter the AUDIT) developed by the World Health Organization to help to assess the behaviors in a more accurate and reliable manner. This study used the data collected from the 2009 Korea National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (KNHANES), in which 7,511 of 7,893 adult participants aged ${\geq}19$ years answered the questions about injuries, and excluding 104 non-respondents, 6,258 of participants in the questionnaire survey of drinking patterns were finally analyzed. The incidence rates and specific characteristics of injuries as classified by the AUDIT categories (i.e., body regions, types and mechanisms) were assessed and estimated in terms of their relative risk using t-test, ANOVA, and logistic regression. SPSS 19.0 statistical package software was employed for statistical analyses. These analyses indicate that the incidence rates of overall injuries were significantly higher in male respondents than in female respondents. The risks of alcohol use related injuries were 8.3 times higher in male respondents than in female ones. Regarding educational background, high school graduates showed the highest rates in the AUDIT with significant difference from the other groups. The married group and the group of respondents having monthly income estimated at KRW 2.01 to 3 million also showed the highest rates in the AUDIT compared to the other groups, indicating statistically significant difference. Significantly increased in problematic drinkers and those with alcohol dependence, the incidence rate of injuries body regions was 0.0371 in the head/neck, and with respect to the AUDIT and the mechanisms of external causes of injuries, transport accidents ranked first, followed by slippage, others, crash and fall. In regard to the classified types of injuries, it was statistically significant in others (e.g., laceration, contusion, addiction, or penetrating wound). In conclusion, the mechanisms of external causes of injuries as well as injuries attributed to alcohol use are very important, and a strategy is required to reduce such the injuries in the manner of decreasing the frequency of drinking after motivation by professional counsellors.

• Korean Journal of Psychosomatic Medicine
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• v.16 no.1
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• pp.5-16
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• 2008

Several treatment programs putting mindfulness to practical use are being utilized in the various clinical settings as well as educational fields since 1980's. In this article, I studied several books and journals related with mindfulness and tried to show that mindfulness may have its neural circuits in the brain and can be utilized in the form of MBSR, MBCT, ACT, DBT not only to reduce stress and the symptoms of various psychosomatic conditions but to be applied to psychiatric illness such as, anxiety disorders, depressive disorders, and eating disorders, predicting its usefulness as a new psycho-social treatment.

• Sleep Medicine and Psychophysiology
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• v.10 no.2
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• pp.84-87
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• 2003

Drowsy driving is a major cause of automobile crashes and can lead to more serious injuries than other causes of traffic accidents. Factors increasing the risk of drowsy driving and related crashes include sleep loss, late night driving, untreated or unrecognized sleep disorders, use of sedating medications and consumption of alcohol. Young people, especially young males, shift workers, and people with untreated sleep apnea syndrome and narcolepsy are well known as the population groups at highest risk. To prevent drowsy driving and its consequences, getting adequate and quality sleep is both easier and much more successful than any remedial measure. Other helpful behaviors include avoidance of alcoholic beverages and limiting late night driving. Taking a short nap or consuming caffeine can make a short-term difference in driving alertness. In addition, information should be actively provided to the public about the importance of sleep disorders and their consequences. To reduce injuries and death caused by drowsy driving, it is a prerequisite to increase public awareness that drowsy driving can cause serious automobile crashes and has morbidity and mortality rates as high as those of drunk driving.

• Journal of Korean Academy of Nursing
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• v.50 no.3
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• pp.333-348
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• 2020

Purpose: The present study investigated the association between nurse staffing and health outcomes among psychiatric inpatients in Korea by assessing National Health Insurance claims data. Methods: The dataset included 70,136 patients aged 19 years who were inpatients in psychiatric wards for at least two days in 2016 and treated for mental and behavioral disorders due to use of alcohol; schizophrenia, schizotypal and delusional disorders; and mood disorders across 453 hospitals. Nurse staffing levels were measured in three ways: registered nurse-to-inpatient ratio, registered nurse-to-adjusted inpatient ratio, and nursing staff-to-adjusted inpatient ratio. Patient outcomes included length of stay, readmission within 30 days, psychiatric emergency treatment, use of injected psycholeptics for chemical restraint, and hypnotics use. Relationships between nurse staffing levels and patient outcomes were analyzed considering both patient and system characteristics using multilevel modeling. Results: Multilevel analyses revealed that more inpatients per registered nurse, adjusted inpatients per registered nurse, and adjusted inpatients per nursing staff were associated with longer lengths of stay as well as a higher risk of readmission. More adjusted inpatients per registered nurse and adjusted inpatients per nursing staff were also associated with increased hypnotics use but a lower risk of psychiatric emergency treatment. Nurse staffing levels were not significantly associated with the use of injected psycholeptics for chemical restraint. Conclusion: Lower nurse staffing levels are associated with negative health outcomes of psychiatric inpatients. Policies for improving nurse staffing toward an optimal level should be enacted to facilitate better outcomes for psychiatric inpatients in Korea.

• Proceedings of the Korean Society for Emotion and Sensibility Conference
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• 2009.05a
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• pp.101-104
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• 2009

This study investigated compensatory mechanisms in the brain during a verbal working memory task among people with Alcohol Use Disorders (AUD). A total of 21 college male students participated in the study: eleven AUD participants and 10 normal controls. Study participants were asked to complete the Korean version of the Wechsler Adult Intelligence Scale-III (K-WAIS-III) prior to the fMRI experiment. Verbal 0-back and 2-back tasks were used to assess brain activities of the participants' verbal working memory. Brain scanning was performed on Siemens SONATA 1.5T Scanner while participants were performing the 0-back and 2-back tasks. Within the AUD group, participants with greater dependency to alcohol (based on DSM-IV criteria) in the past 1 year showed lower mean score on the 'Similarities' of the K-WAIS-III (r=-0.63, p<0.05, N=11). The more participants experienced alcohol withdrawal symptoms in the past 1 year, the lower the score they received on the K-WAIS-III 'Picture Arrangement' (r=-0.69, p<0.05, n=11). The fMRI regression results showed that individuals who present greater degree of alcohol dependency symptoms are likely to show greater brain activation in the bilateral middle frontal gyri (BA 9) during the verbal working memory task. The degree of alcohol withdrawal symptoms were associated with increased brain activation in the left superior and middle frontal gyri (BA8), left precentral gyrus (BA 6), and left inferior parietal lobule (BA 40). The study findings showed that the degree of alcohol abuse/dependence and withdrawal symptoms were associated with decreased cognitive function and increased activations in brain regions particularly important for abstract reasoning (BA 9), central executive (BA 9), or spatial storage (BA 40) during a working memory task. Therefore, these results could support previous studies suggesting that the neural system of people with ADD may adopt a brain compensatory mechanism to maintain normal level of cognitive functions.

• Korean Journal of Health Education and Promotion
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• v.26 no.4
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• pp.71-81
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• 2009

Objectives: This study furthers the currents understanding of alcohol use disorders, stress, mental health status and suicide among Seoul citizens. This study is to identify differences according to socio-demographic variables and variables which affect stress, mental status and suicide for developing mental health programs. Methods: The study subjects using cluster-stratified sampling method were 1234 adults over 19 years old from 17 dong, S-Ku in Seoul City. A cross-sectional study with face-to-face interview was used to collect data. A questionnaire measuring socio-demographic variables, Symptom Checklist-90-Revised (SCL-90-R) and psychosocial wellbeing index-short form (PWI-SF) was utilized. Results: Three findings in this study were discussed: (1) The prevalence of problem drinking and alcohol dependence and AUDIT score were significantly higher among male, younger age, and high level of education and income; (2) AUDIT score were related with stress, all 9 symptoms of SCL-R and suicide plan; (3) Problem drinkers were more likely to have 2.5 times of anxiety, 3.0 times of hostility, and 2.4 times psychoticism than non alcohol problem drinkers. Alcohol dependence drinkers were more likely to have 1.9 times of high risk group of stress, 4.1 times of obsessive-compulsive, 4.7 times of anxiety, 5.5 times of hostility, and 2.3 times psychoticism than non alcohol dependence drinkers. Conclusion: The findings suggest that the future intervention of Mental Health programs should be carefully designed and tailored by socio-demographic variables.

• The Journal of the Korea Contents Association
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• v.21 no.5
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• pp.981-995
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• 2021

This study investigated the differences in sociodemographic variables, alcoholism recovery, quality of life, empowerment and self-esteem based on different abstinence periods of alcohol use disorder. The study population from seven different regions in nationwide were 207 individuals with alcohol use disorder who had been abstinent. According to previous studies, 207 individuals were classified into different abstinence periods: less than one year, more than one to five years, and more than five years. As a result, the sociodemographic variables affecting differences in groups were gender, age, marital status, and economic activity. In addition, the group that maintained abstinence from alcohol for more than one year showed significant differences in alcoholism recovery, quality of life, empowerment, and self-esteem than those that maintained abstinence from alcohol for less than one year. Regardless of abstinence periods, alcoholism recovery, quality of life, empowerment, and self-esteem showed significant positive correlations. Therefore, the results of this study identified the factors influencing long-term abstinence and effects and suggested the need for alcohol-dependent recovery programs or therapeutic interventions for individuals who abstained from alcohol use.

• Science of Emotion and Sensibility
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• v.22 no.4
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• pp.57-64
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• 2019

Anger is the most common emotional trigger causing relapses in individuals with alcohol use disorders (AUDs). The present study intended to investigate the autonomic nervous system (ANS) responses induced by anger in individuals with AUDs. The participants in this study included twelve individuals with AUDs and 14 non-frequent drinkers. Anger was induced in the participants via a 120-second film clip. Before the presentation of this audio-visual stimulus, the ANS responses of the participants were measured for 60 seconds to ascertain their resting state. Subsequently, the participants' ANS responses were measured again for 120 seconds when they were in an emotional state during the presentation of the clip. After the ANS measurements were taken, participants were asked to rate the type of emotion they had experienced as they viewed the film and to report its intensity. The results indicated that the levels of anger experienced by the AUD group were not significantly different from the emotion registered by the control group. However, the ANS responses induced in AUD participants when they were in an emotional state showed blunted skin conductance levels (SCL) and skin conductance responses (SCR) compared to the control group participants. Individuals with AUDs evinced lower emotional arousal than the participants of the control group. These results can help clinicians understand the psychological and physiological responses of individuals with AUDs to anger in order to design effective interventions that would reduce chances of anger and relapse.

• Anxiety and mood
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• v.5 no.2
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• pp.103-111
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• 2009

Objectives : We examined quality of life, psychosocial adjustments to illness, changes in sexual functioning, and prevalence of psychiatric disorders in AIDS patients compared to patients with chronic hepatitis B virus infection (CHB). Methods : Thirty-one men with AIDS and 50 men with CHB were enrolled. The Short-Form 12-Item Health Survey (SF-12), the Psychosocial Adjustment to Illness Scale (PAIS), and the Changes in Sexual Functioning Questionnaire short form (CSFQ-14) were administered. Results on these assessments were compared between the 31 AIDS patients and 50 CHB patients. The Structured Clinical Interview for DSMIV (SCID) was administered to determine the psychiatric diagnosis only for the AIDS patients. Results : The Physical Component Summary score (PCS) was lower in AIDS patients than in CHB patients (p<0.001). In the section examining sexual relationships, AIDS patients exhibited a lower level of adjustment (p<0.05) and had more changes in sexual function (p<0.05) than did CHB patients. Administration of the SCID to AIDS patients indicated that the lifetime prevalence of any psychiatric disorder was 56.7% ; 43.3% for mood disorders, 33.3% for alcohol use disorders, 26.7% for anxiety disorders, and 20% for adjustment disorder. Patients who had experienced any psychiatric disorder had more severe psychosocial distress (p=0.004) and evidenced a lower level of overall psychosocial adjustment (p=0.030) than patients who had not. Conclusion : We showed that AIDS patients have a high prevalence of psychiatric disorders, and that AIDS patients with psychiatric disorders were particularly low in levels of psychosocial adjustment. Thus, careful attention should be given to psychiatric aspects of AIDS patients emphasizing the early diagnosis and treatment of psychiatric disorders.

• 대한예방의학회:학술대회논문집
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• 2005.10a
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• pp.395-395
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• 2005