• Journal of Korean Public Health Nursing
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• v.1 no.1
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• pp.45-61
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• 1987

This Study was an attempt to estimate the optimum numbers of Operating Room Nursing Manpower by measuring the amount of service hours required by the patients in Operating Room in relation to the service amount actually provided by the nurses. The major concern of this study was placed on the measurement of Nursing Service Requirements by using the Operating Room (O. R) Patient Acuity System recently developed by M. M. Hart to classify the O. R. patients into four groups according to the degree of the complexity of operative procedure and some other elements which increase nursing activities in respect of patient care; Acuity IV group is the one requires nursing services most, on the other hand Acuity I requires least. nu sing The objectives of this study were as follows; 1. To analyze functions of the nursing personnel in O. R. by time unit and to estimate the average time a nurse can activate for productive functions. 2. To measure the actual amount of nursing times provided by nurses to the surgical patients. 3. To develop a patient classification system in order to measure the amount of Nursing services required by the patients. 4. To calculate an appropriate number of nursing manpower to meet the needs of the patients. In order to conduct the research both selected nurses and patients in 'S' University Hospital were Studied by utilizing the O. R. Patient Acuity System as well as the Classification Chart developed by Association of Operating Room Nurses (A. O. R. N) as a means of classifying functions of O. R. nurses. That is; Functions of the 10 selected O. R. nurses observed during the period of June 30 to July 4, 1986, whereas the amount of nursing services required by or provided to the 974 patients who had received surgeries during the period of June 9 to July 4, 1986. The results of this study were as follows; 1) The actual working hours per a nurse averaged 6.7 hours a day. 2) Each nurse's daily routine schedule consists of $71.4\%$ for Technical Functions, $16.1\%$ for Nonprodective Functions, $6.6\%$ for Assessment and Evaluation, $3.9\%$ for Overseeing and Supervision and the rest $2.0\%$ for Patient Preparation respectively. 3) Preoperative waiting time per a patient was 24.1 minutes on the average; for the first case was 10.7 minutes, whereas for the following cases was 32.0 minutes. 4) Total Operation time for the 974 patients during the period of observation for this study amounted to 2759.6 hours, weekly hour was equivalent to 689.9 hours, Whereas daily operation time averaged 130 hours. Meanwhile the average operation time per patient was 2.8 hours ; for the case of Acuity IV was 5.6 hours, 5. 1 hours for the case of Acuity III, 2.3 hours for Acuity II and 1.1 hours for Acuity I. 5) According to the O. R. Patient Acuity System, $64.5\%$ of the whole patients belonged to Acuity II, $23.7\%$ to Acuity III, 11. $3\%$ to Acuity IV and $0.7\%$ to Acuity I respectively. 6) Required amount of nursing times based on the preoperative waiting time and operation time was 7167.8 person hours, which showed that $5.5\%$ of them needed for preoperative nursing care, whereas the rest $94.5\%$ for intraoperative nursing care. In terms of the O. R. Patient Acuity System, $49.7\%$ of total nursing service requirements was needed for Acuity II patients, $27.4\%$ for Acuity III patients, $17.2\%$ for Acuity IV patients and $0.2\%$ for Acuity I patients. 7) The rate of the nursing services provided against the required nursing times was about $81.4\%$ on the average; some departments, like those of Plastic Surgery, Otolaryngology and Ophthalmology whose patients mostly belonged to Acuity II recorded hegher provision rate than average, whereas other departments of Thoracic Surgery. Neurosurgery and Orthopedic Surgery whose patients belonged to Acuity III and Acuity IV as well as Acuity II recorded lower provision rate than average. 8) Subsequently, required numbers of nursing manpower was 10.7 nurses additionally. Based on the above findings the following recommendations will be made; 1) this study recommends, develops. and adopts an accurate and realistic O. R. Patient Acuity System which can help measure the nursing service requirements objectively to elicit the rationales of allocation of nursing personnels. 2) this study proposes storongly place nurses who take the role of preoperative nursing care exclusively for the waiting patients in O. R. and shortening their waiting time by close communication between the designated O. R. and the ward.

• KDI Journal of Economic Policy
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• v.30 no.2
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• pp.129-155
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• 2008

The rate of antibiotics prescription for an acute airway infection significantly varies depending upon the diagnosis type, specialty, and the location of the hospital along with many other related factors. The objective of this study is to empirically investigate the possible relationship between the antibiotics prescription rates for an acute airway infection and the degree of competition in the hospital market regions of mainly the providers of primary medical care services such as clinics, internal medicines, pediatrics and otorhinolaryngology department. Using the data from Health Insurance Review and Assessment Service (HIRA) regarding the hospitals' antibiotics prescription rates for the acute airway infection and controlling for selected variables of demand and supply sectors, this study tries to figure out that the degree of competition in the hospital market, regardless of what type of competition indexes we employed, has a statistically significant effect on the variations of antibiotics prescription rate of the clinics in local areas. This result implies that as an economic consideration itself, the change in the degree of competition in the hospital market can play a crucial role influencing the treatment behaviors of the medical doctors. More specifically, this study reveals that as the degree of competition increases the antibiotics prescription rate goes up. This result means that if the market becomes more competitive in a specific region so that it might cause a reduction in doctor's income, doctors with rational decision-making process, recognize that the benefit created from inducing patients' seemingly unnecessary demand for medical care (income effect) would be higher than the costs associated with sustaining their targeted income (substitution effect). It is because that the doctors are more likely to prescribe antibiotics which create relatively higher margins than other medical care services in order to sustain their targeted income when the hospital market competition becomes tighter. Even though this study empirically confirms that antibiotics prescription can be affected by the economic incentives, it still raises following issues as limitations of the study: first issue is about the representativeness of the hospital regions segregated for this study, which might be weak in explaining whether these regions are mutually exclusive in reality. Patients actually consider the quality of services, transportation cost, time costs, and any other related factors choosing the doctors or hospitals, and in that sense, this study rules out 'border-crossing' in using the medical care services. Second issue arises in capturing the data of antibiotics prescription rate. Since we use the average rate for each medical institution, we cannot figure out the average rate for each patient so that we are not able to control for the variation of patients' medical conditions. It is because of the unavailability of data regarding each patient's medical condition from HIRA. Thirdly, since this study mainly analyzes the medical institutions providing primary care such as clinics, internal medicines, pediatrics, and otorhinolaryngology department, it is skeptical of whether those institutions can represent the hospital market in respective regions and truly reflect the degree of competition. It needs to extend the study areas and disease types as well as any micro data for future studies.

• Journal of the korean academy of Pediatric Dentistry
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• v.39 no.2
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• pp.206-225
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• 2012

General status of pediatric dentistry in Korea is to conduct vigorous academic activities and specialized medical care centering the Korean Association of Pediatric Dentistry (KAPD) that has about 1,000 pediatric dentists as members, pediatric dentistry departments of 11 Colleges of Dentistry, numbers of pediatric dentistry training institutions and private clinics specialized in children. From 1996, the accredited pediatric dentists were produced by the KAPD and from 2008, the state began to produce the accredited pediatric dentists. Since then, doctors with expertise in pediatric care had opened private clinics in addition to the university hospitals, it became the basis of a momentum to deepen the specialty of pediatric dentistry. The Dentistry community of Korea is going through rapid and profound changes recently, and the underlying reasons for such changes can be classified largely into a few categories: (1) Decreasing population and structural changes in population (2) Increase in numbers of dentists, (3) Changes in the pattern of dental diseases and (4) Changes in medical environment. In Korea, the children population in the age range of 0 ~ 14 years old had been decreased by 2 million in 2010 compared to that of 2000 due to reduction of birth rate. The current population of children in the age range of 0 ~ 4 years old in 2010 takes up 16.2% of the total population, but it is estimated that such percentage would decrease to 8.0% by 2050. Such percentage is largely behind the estimated mean global population of 19.6% by 2050. On the other hand, the number of dentists had been largely increased from 18,000 in 2000 to 25,000 in 2010. And it is estimated that the number will be increased to 41,000 by 2030. In addition, the specialized personnel of Pediatric dentistry had been shown as increased by 2.5 times during past 10 years. For the changes in the pattern of dental diseases, including dental caries, each df rate of 5 years old children and 12 years old children had been decreased by 21.9% and 16.7% respectively in 2010 compared to 2000. Each df Index also had been decreased by 2.5 teeth and 1.2 teeth respectively. The medical expenditure of Korea is less than that of OECD and more specifically, the expenditure from the National Health Plan is less than OECD but the expenditure covered by households is larger than OECD. These facts indicate that it is considered as requiring the coverage of the national health plan to be reinforced more in the future and as such reinforcement needs continuous promotion. In medical examination pattern of Pediatric dentistry, the preventive and corrective treatment were increased whereas the restorative treatment was decreased. It is considered that such change is caused from decrease of dental caries from activation of the prevention project at national level. For the restorative treatment, the restorations in use of dental amalgam, pre-existing gold crowning and endodontic treatment had been decreased in their proportion while the restorative treatment in use of composite resin had been increased. It is considered that such changes is caused by the change of demands from patients and family or guardians as they desired more aesthetic improvement along with socio-economic growth of Korean society. Due to such changes in dentistry, the pediatric dentistry in Korea also attempts to have changes in the patterns of medical examination as follows; It tends to implement early stage treatment through early diagnosis utilizing various diagnostic tools such as FOTI or QLF. The early stage dental caries so called white spot had been included in the subjects for dental care or management and in order to do so, the medical care guidelines essentially accompanied with remineralization treatment as well as minimally invasive treatment is being generalized gradually. Also, centering the Pediatric dentists, the importance of caries risk assessment is being recognized, in addition that the management of dental caries is being changed from surgical approach to internal medicinal approach. Recently, efforts began to emerge in order to increase the target patients to be managed by dentists and to expand the application scope of Pediatric dentistry along with through such changes. The interest and activities of Pediatric dentists which had been limited to the medical examination room so far, is now being expanded externally, as they put efforts for participating in the preventive policy making process of the community or the state, and to support the political theories. And also opinions are being collected into the direction that the future- oriented strategic political tasks shall be selected and researches as well as presentations on the theoretical rationale of such tasks at the association level.

• Research in Community and Public Health Nursing
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• v.15 no.1
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• pp.132-144
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• 2004

Purpose: The purpose of this study was to elucidate the effects of spiritual nursing intervention on the spiritual well being and depression levels of hospice patients. Method: The data for this study were collected from 62 patients who were admitted to the hospice care unit from July 28, 2002 to October 31, 2002 in D city K hospital. Subjects were 31 members of the experimental group and 31 members of the control group. It was devised with a nonequivalent control group pretest posttest design. The spiritual nursing intervention was given by using the therapeutic use of self. Scripture. prayer. Hymn and music. use of church community involvement and referrals to pastors according to the assessment of patients' spiritual needs for 3 weeks(total 12 times and 1 hour per each intervention). Sangsoon Choi (1990) and Jungho Kang(1996)'s spiritual well being scale. which was modified from Palautzian and Ellison (1982)'s spiritual well being scale, was used to investigate patients' spiritual well being. To investigate the level of depression. OkHyun Song(1977)'s Depression Scale, which was modified from Zung(1965)'s Depression Inventory, was used. Data were analyzed by $x^2$-test. t-test. and repeated measures ANOVA with SPSS/Win 10.0 program. Results: 1. The 1st hypothesis. 'total spiritual well being score in the experimental group, who received the spiritual nursing intervention, will be higher than the control group who did not receive the spiritual nursing intervention' was supported (F=6.28, p=0.015, Interaction: p=0.000). 2. The 1 lst sub hypothesis, 'religious well being score in the experimental group, who received the spiritual nursing intervention, will be higher than the control group who did not receive the spiritual nursing intervention' was supported(F=12.75, p=0.001 Interaction: p=0.000). 3. The 1 2nd sub hypothesis, 'existential well being score in the experimental group, who received the spiritual nursing intervention, will be higher than the control group who did not receive the spiritual nursing intervention' was supported(F=6.87, p=0.016, Interaction: p=0.000). 4. The 2nd hypothesis, 'depression level in the experimental group, who received the spiritual nursing intervention, will be lower than the control group who did not receive the spiritual nursing intervention' was supported (F=10.45, p=0.002, Interaction: p=0.000). Conclusion: From the above results, spiritual nursing intervention was an effective program to improve the spiritual well being state and decrease the depression levels of the hospice patients. In the future, with spiritual intervention. which the researcher developed, is applied in the nursing field, the hospice patients can have comprehensive well being including spiritual well being and die peacefully.

• 한국노년학
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• v.36 no.3
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• pp.633-648
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• 2016

This study focuses on the sleep pattern of the elderly people living in the community and its relationship to the occurrences of the depression and deterioration of the cognitive function. Our primary data is the raw data gathered by the Korean Ministry of Health and Welfare in 2008 in the National Senior Living Conditions and Well-being Needs Assessment Survey. The survey contained data from 12,087 people over 65 years of age living in the community. We have used the secondary data analysis method on this raw data to see if there exists correlation between age, gender, soundness of the sleep, total sleep time and the depression and the cognitive difficulties. Our study finds that the older a person is, the more trouble she has in sleeping. It also shows that too much sleep (in excess of 9 hours) and too little sleep (less than 6 hours) can both be linked to more occurrence of depression. Lack of restful sleep could also be linked to more frequent occurrence of depression and cognitive difficulties. Changes in the sleep pattern is not always pathological in elderly people. However, our study shows that it is important the primary health-care givers understand the role of sleep in elderly person's daily life. They should examine the elderly person's sleep pattern focusing on the quantity and the quality of sleep and develop programs suited for individuals to prevent and intervene sleep disorder.

• Journal of Nutrition and Health
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• v.52 no.4
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• pp.332-341
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• 2019

Purpose: Poor nutrition in hospitalized patients is closely linked to an increased risk of infection, which can result in complications affecting mortality, as well as increased length of hospital stay and hospital costs. Therefore, adequate nutritional support is essential to manage the nutritional risk status of patients. Nutritional support needs to be preceded by nutrition screening, in which accuracy is crucial, particularly for the initial screening. To perform initial nutrition screening of hospitalized patients, we used the Catholic Kwandong University (CKU) Nutritional Risk Screening (CKUNRS) tool, originally developed at CKU Hospital. To validate CKUNRS against the Patient-Generated Subjective Global Assessment (PG-SGA) tool, which is considered the gold standard for nutritional risk screening, results from both tools were compared. Methods: Nutritional status was evaluated in 686 adult patients admitted to CKU Hospital from May 1 to July 31, 2018 using both CKUNRS and PG-SGA. Collected data were analyzed, and the results compared, to validate CKUNRS as a nutrition screening tool. Results: The comparison of CKUNRS and PG-SGA revealed that the prevalence of nutritional risk on admission was 15.6% (n = 107) with CKUNRS and 44.6% (n = 306) with PG-SGA. The sensitivity and specificity of CKUNRS to evaluate nutritional risk status were 98.7% (96.8 ~ 99.5) and 33.3% (28.1 ~ 39.0), respectively. Thus, the sensitivity was higher, but the specificity lower compared with PG-SGA. Cohen's kappa coefficient was 0.34, indicating valid agreement between the two tools. Conclusion: This study found concordance between CKUNRS and PG-SGA. However, the prevalence of nutritional risk in hospitalized patients was higher when determined by CKUNRS, compared with that by PG-SGA. Accordingly, CKUNRS needs further modification and improvement in terms of screening criteria to promote more effective nutritional support for patients who have been admitted for inpatient care.

• Journal of Intelligence and Information Systems
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• v.25 no.3
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• pp.117-140
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• 2019

As the aging phenomenon accelerates and various social problems related to the elderly of the vulnerable are raised, the need for effective elderly care solutions to protect the health and safety of the elderly generation is growing. Recently, more and more people are using Smart Toys equipped with ICT technology for care for elderly. In particular, log data collected through smart toys is highly valuable to be used as a quantitative and objective indicator in areas such as policy-making and service planning. However, research related to smart toys is limited, such as the development of smart toys and the validation of smart toy effectiveness. In other words, there is a dearth of research to derive insights based on log data collected through smart toys and to use them for decision making. This study will analyze log data collected from smart toy and derive effective insights to improve the quality of life for elderly users. Specifically, the user profiling-based analysis and elicitation of a change in quality of life mechanism based on behavior were performed. First, in the user profiling analysis, two important dimensions of classifying the type of elderly group from five factors of elderly user's living management were derived: 'Routine Activities' and 'Work-out Activities'. Based on the dimensions derived, a hierarchical cluster analysis and K-Means clustering were performed to classify the entire elderly user into three groups. Through a profiling analysis, the demographic characteristics of each group of elderlies and the behavior of using smart toy were identified. Second, stepwise regression was performed in eliciting the mechanism of change in quality of life. The effects of interaction, content usage, and indoor activity have been identified on the improvement of depression and lifestyle for the elderly. In addition, it identified the role of user performance evaluation and satisfaction with smart toy as a parameter that mediated the relationship between usage behavior and quality of life change. Specific mechanisms are as follows. First, the interaction between smart toy and elderly was found to have an effect of improving the depression by mediating attitudes to smart toy. The 'Satisfaction toward Smart Toy,' a variable that affects the improvement of the elderly's depression, changes how users evaluate smart toy performance. At this time, it has been identified that it is the interaction with smart toy that has a positive effect on smart toy These results can be interpreted as an elderly with a desire to meet emotional stability interact actively with smart toy, and a positive assessment of smart toy, greatly appreciating the effectiveness of smart toy. Second, the content usage has been confirmed to have a direct effect on improving lifestyle without going through other variables. Elderly who use a lot of the content provided by smart toy have improved their lifestyle. However, this effect has occurred regardless of the attitude the user has toward smart toy. Third, log data show that a high degree of indoor activity improves both the lifestyle and depression of the elderly. The more indoor activity, the better the lifestyle of the elderly, and these effects occur regardless of the user's attitude toward smart toy. In addition, elderly with a high degree of indoor activity are satisfied with smart toys, which cause improvement in the elderly's depression. However, it can be interpreted that elderly who prefer outdoor activities than indoor activities, or those who are less active due to health problems, are hard to satisfied with smart toys, and are not able to get the effects of improving depression. In summary, based on the activities of the elderly, three groups of elderly were identified and the important characteristics of each type were identified. In addition, this study sought to identify the mechanism by which the behavior of the elderly on smart toy affects the lives of the actual elderly, and to derive user needs and insights.

• Journal of Hospice and Palliative Care
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• v.13 no.2
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• pp.98-108
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• 2010

Purpose: The purpose of this study was to identify the relationship between fatigue and quality of life (QOL) of Korean cancer inpatients. Methods: The data were collected from May to August 2007. Study subjects were recruited at D, Y and A university hospitals in Daegu and Kyungpook, Korea. The research instruments utilized in this study were fatigue (FACT-F) and quality of life (FACT-G) in Korean version 4. Data were analyzed with descriptive statistics, t-test, ANOVA, and Pearson correlation using SPSS Win 12.0 program. Results: Fatigue of subjects showed a significant difference according to the type of treatment, change in weight, performance status, exercise, and sleep. The QOL of subjects showed a significant difference according to the purpose of treatment, change in weight, performance status, exercise, and sleep. The mean score of fatigue was 22.48 and the mean score of QOL was 55.52. The fatigue was negatively related to QOL, physical well-being, emotional well-being, and functional well-being. Conclusion: The results suggest the needs for intervention in order to reduce fatigue and to improve QOL of cancer inpatients.