• Journal of Preventive Medicine and Public Health
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• v.39 no.5
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• pp.397-403
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• 2006

Objectives: We estimated the asthma-related health care utilization and costs in Korea from the insurer's and societal perspective. Methods: We extracted the insurance claims records from the Korea National Health Insurance claims database for determining the health care services provided to patients with asthma in 2003. Patients were defined as having asthma if they had ${\geq}$2 medical claims with diagnosis of asthma and they had been prescribed anti-asthma medicines, Annual claims records were aggeregated for each patient to produce patient-specific information on the total utilization and costs. The total asthma-related cost was the sum of the direct healthcare costs, the transportation costs for visits to health care providers and the patient's or caregivers' costs for the time spent on hospital or outpatient visits. Results: A total of 699,603people were identified as asthma patients, yielding an asthma prevalence of 1.47%. Each asthma patient had 7.56 outpatient visits, 0.01 ED visits and 0.02 admissions per year to treat asthma. The per-capita insurance-covered costs increased with age, from 128,276 Won for children aged 1 to 14 years to 270,729 Won for those aged 75 or older. The total cost in the nation varied from 121,865 million to 174,949 million Won depending on the perspectives. From a societal perspective, direct health care costs accounted for 84.9%, transportation costs for 15.1 % and time costs for 9.2% of the total costs. Conclusions: Hospitalizations and ED visits represented only a small portion of the asthma-related costs. Most of the societal burden was attributed to direct medical expenditures, with outpatient visits and medications emerging as the single largest cost components.

• Pediatric Gastroenterology, Hepatology & Nutrition
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• v.16 no.4
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• pp.225-232
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• 2013

Children with abnormal liver function can often be seen in outpatient clinics or inpatients wards. Most of them have respiratory disease, or gastroenteritis by virus infection, accompanying fever. Occasionally, hepatitis by the viruses causing systemic infection may occur, and screening tests are required. In patients with jaundice, the tests for differential diagnosis and appropriate treatment are important. In the case of a child with hepatitis B virus infection vertically from a hepatitis B surface antigen positive mother, the importance of the recognition of immune clearance can't be overstressed, for the decision of time to begin treatment. Early diagnosis changes the fate of a child with Wilson disease. So, screening test for the disease should not be omitted. Non-alcoholic fatty liver disease, which is mainly discovered in obese children, is a new strong candidate triggering abnormal liver function. Muscular dystrophy is a representative disease mimicking liver dysfunction. Although muscular dystrophy is a progressive disorder, and early diagnosis can't change the fate of patients, it will be better to avoid parent's blame for delayed diagnosis.

• Child Health Nursing Research
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• v.7 no.4
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• pp.494-510
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• 2001

As a family respond to any stressful situation as a whole system, cancer diagnosis of a child, as a serious life event, could be emotional shock to destroy homeostasis of the family system. A family has a resilient capacity to adjust and adapt to stressful events. Previous studies have been focused on family stress and adaptation, but little attention has been given to family value as one of resilient factors. The data for model testing were collected from July 18, 2000 to August 30, 2000 and the analysis included 309 parents of children who are diagnosed as cancer, 18 or less years of age, and treated either hospitalized or at the outpatient clinics. The data analysis utilized SAS 6.12 and LISREL 8 for descriptive statistics, correlation, cluster analysis, factor analysis, and LISREL. The study findings are as follows. 1) Monthly income (γ=-0.28, t=-5.81) was the most important factor to explain family strain along with family support (γ=-0.11, t=-2.43), severity of children's illness (γ=0.26, t=5.22), and family stressor (γ=0.22, t=4.62). All of these factors together explained 40％ of variance in family strain. 2) Among general family value, the relationship with the parents (γ=0.28, t=4.89) and relationship with the children (γ=0.20, t=3.60) showed positive effects to family value for cancer children, while relationship with the spouse (γ=-0.19, t=-3.22) and the age of the cancer children (γ=-0.11, t=-2.21) showed negative effects. These predictors together explained 22％ of variance in family value for cancer children. 3) Family hardiness was explained mostly by family strain (γ=-0.53, t=-8.65) along with direct negative effects of family persistency and indirect negative effects of severity of children's illness, family stressor, relationship with the spouse, and the children's age. Family value for cancer children was the most important predictor with positive effect (γ=0.44, t=6.76) along with indirect effects of monthly income, relationship with the parents, relationship with the children, support from family and significant others, and confidence with the health professionals. 51％ of variance in family hardiness was explained by all of these predictors. 4) The most important predictor for family adaptation was family stressor (γ=-0.50, t=-6.85) with direct and indirect negative effects along with the severity of children's illness (γ=-0.27, t=-5.21). However, family value for cancer children showed compromised total effect (γ=-0.13, t=-1.99) with negative direct effects (γ=-0.28, t=-3.43) and positive indirect effects (γ=0.14, t=3.01). Similarly, confidence with the health professionals also showed compromised total effect (γ=0.09, t=1.99) with positive direct effects and negative indirect effects. Family hardiness showed the biggest positive direct effects while other factors such as monthly income, family stressor, family persistence, support of family and significant others, relationship with the parents, relationship with the children, and relationship with the spouse, and children's age showed indirect effects only. 39％ of variance in family adaptation was explained by all of these predictors.

• The Journal of the Korea Contents Association
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• v.17 no.11
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• pp.491-500
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• 2017

Recently, there are many children's hospitals which medical facilities are need to be improved in China. Except medical facilities, the environmental element-children's emotional security and mental development-were often been ignored. The waiting space is a place for the formation of the impression of hospital and the important space of spatial constitution for emotional security. It is necessary to provide a friendly environment for children. Previous studies showed there are three factors that affected healing environment in children's hospitals' waiting space: physical, psychological and conduct. The result showed that Chinese children's hospitals performed better in physical factor, but lack of psychological and conduct factor based on the case study of 6 children's hospitals in Beijing. In order meet the needs of patients and protectors better, the main purpose of this study is provide the suggestion for improving the healing environment from the perspective of design.

• Journal of the Korean Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry
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• v.14 no.1
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• pp.103-111
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• 2003

Objectives：BPI was developed for assessing young children's perceptions. Using an interactive techniques for interviewing children, the BPI blends structured and clinical interviewing technique. Present study was to evaluate the reliability, validity and the clinical utility of Berkeley Puppet Interview(BPI) for young children aged 4 to 7. Methods：Subjects consisted of 37 children(boy20, girl 17) between the age of 4 and 7 who visited the child-psychiatry outpatient division of children's hospital in Seoul and Chungju. The measures used in this study BPI-S(symptomatology) and BPI-PC(parent-child relationship). BPI was translated into Korean by three clinical psychologists. To examine the reliability, Chonbach's alpha were calculated and to examine the validity, correlation coefficients were calculated on BPI-S & K-CBCL. Results：BPI-PC's Cronbach's alpha was 0.86 and BPI-S's Cronbach's alpha was 0.74. Correlation between the internalizing scale of BPI-S and that of K-CBCL was 0.477 and correlation between the internalizing scale of BPI-S and the externalizing scale of K-CBCL was -0.431, suggesting the validity of BPI-S. Conclusion：These results show that BPI-S & BPI-PC may be useful tool for young children's diagnostic interview.

• Child Health Nursing Research
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• v.7 no.2
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• pp.179-190
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• 2001

The purposes of the study were to develop an instrument for family value and to identify the relationships of family value, family hardiness, and family adaptation by appling the family value scale to family with cancer children. The study was conducted in three phases. 1) A survey was conducted from July 20 to August 20, 1999 and 18 items of general family value scale was modified from the data of 153 fathers and 164 mothers. 2) In-depth interviews were made with 29 parents of cancer children from April 20, 1998 to May 20, 1999 to develop family value scale with cancer children, and 12 statements were developed. 3) The final survey was conducted from July 18, 2000 to August 30, 2000 and the data from 309 parents of children who are diagnosed as cancer, 18 or less years of age, and treated either hospitalized or at the outpatient clinics were analyzed to identify the relationships of the concepts. The data analysis utilized SAS 6.12 and LISREL 8 for descriptive statistics, correlation, and Regression for path analysis. The study findings are as follows. The psychometric testing of general family value scale was Cronbach's alpha = 0.78. The reliability of the family value scale with cancer children showed the reliability as Cronbach's alpha = 0.73. Demographic characteristics showing significant correlations were cancer children's age, period of illness, period after completing treatment, mother's age, mother's education level, monthly income, payment type, confidence with health professional, and severity of children's illness. The correlation coefficients among major variables showed that family stressor was positively related with family strains(r=0.33, p<.001), and negatively related with family hardiness(r=-0.21, p<.001). Family strains was negatively related with family hardiness(r= -0.41, p<.001) and family adaptation(r=-0.46, p<.001). Correlations of family hardiness was positive with family value with cancer children(r=-0.31, p<.001), and negative with general family value(r=-0.16, p<.01). Family hardiness was positively related with family adaptation(r=0.35, p<.001). The causal relationship between study variables showed that family strains predicts general family value(γ=0.12, t=2.02), family value with cancer children predicts family hardiness(γ=0.31, t=6.30), family strains predicts family hardiness(γ=-0.40, t=-7.70), family value with cancer children predicts family adaptation(γ=-0.23, t=-4.11), and family hardiness predicts family adaptation(γ=0.43, t=7.78).

• Clinical and Experimental Pediatrics
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• v.54 no.3
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• pp.137-140
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• 2011

Testicular adrenal rest tumors (TARTs) are considered to be formed from aberrant adrenal tissue that has become hyperplastic because of elevated adrenocorticotropic hormone (ACTH) in male patients with congenital adrenal hyperplasia (CAH). A 6-year-old boy presented with testicular enlargement and pubic hair. He was diagnosed with CAH complicated by precocious puberty. However, he was not followed-up. At the age of 17, he visited the outpatient clinic because of testicular enlargement and short stature. His right and left testicles were $10{\times}6$ cm and $7.5{\times}4.5$ cm, respectively. His height was 155.1 cm (standard deviation score (SDS), -2.90). The diagnosis of CAH due to 21 hydroxylase deficiency was confirmed by mutation analysis of CYP21A2. Histological examination of the testes showed large, polygonal, eosinophilic cells with round nuclei and prominent nucleoli, which were suggestive of TARTs. He was treated with dexamethasone for 3 weeks and tumors regressed. Subsequently, dexamethasone was replaced by prednisolone and $9{\alpha}$-fludrocortisone; thereafter, the reduced testis size has been maintained.

• Clinical and Experimental Pediatrics
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• v.51 no.2
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• pp.122-128
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• 2008

Roughly one third of medical problems in children are related to the musculoskeletal system. Most of these problems are common and can be precisely diagnosed. For these problems, nonoperative treatment or reassurance can be given by the pediatrician. Occasionally, a problem needs surgical treatment, but a precise diagnosis must be made. There is little agreement about what types of orthopedic problems a primary care pediatrician should understand in order to effectively care for children. Many pediatric residencies lack an organized teaching curriculum that effectively covers these topics or that includes a required pediatric orthopedic rotation. In this article the authors delineate pediatric orthopedic problems that require recognition and urgent surgical treatment and are relatively common, but have different treatment options (observation, conservative treatment, and surgery) depending on their natural history. Whenever possible, the diagnosis should be made before a decision to refer is made. An accurate diagnosis allows the pediatrician to discuss the natural history of the condition properly. Referral to the wrong specialty can needlessly generate expensive tests and further delay in treatment or generate inappropriate treatment. The parents can be reassured rather than waiting to hear the same information from another physician. In particular, orthopedic problems are known to generate pressure from the parents to seek specialty consultation for reassurance. It is important to communicate to the specialist that the reason for the referral is for parental reassurance rather than for further work-up or treatment. After a proper diagnosis, communication directly between the pediatrician and the appropriate specialist can often avoid an unnecessary referral, and avoid unnecessary tests. The authors reviewed our experience at our outpatient clinic over last 1 year and found that it is useful to classify conditions as common or uncommon, and whether they require surgical or nonsurgical treatment. Many conditions fall in between. The following is a discussion of some of these more important or common conditions.

• The Journal of Korean Physical Therapy
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• v.20 no.1
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• pp.49-56
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• 2008

Purpose: Lack of a valid prognosis of gross motor development in children with cerebral palsy (CP) and the absence of longitudinal data on which to base an opinion in Korea have made it difficult to plan treatment and counsel prognosis issues accurately. The purposes of this study were to examine whether the Gross Motor Function Classification System (GMFCS) is valuable to prognostication about gross motor progress in children with CP in Korea. Methods: Medical records of 61 patients were retrospectively reviewed that visited outpatient department and were diagnosed as CP. Various information was surveyed including CP type, visual acuity, cognitive function, motor acquisition age, ambulatory status, development curves of Gross Motor Function Measure (GMFM) according to each of the 5 level of GMFCS. All of them were compared with other studies. Also the gross motor development curves and the maximum GMFM score derived from this study were compared with the Palisano's report and the Rosenbaum's report. Results: Based on a total of 494 GMFM assessments provided by this study, the 5 distinct motor development curves and the maximum GMFM score were created. These observations is corresponding with the Palisano's and the Rosenbaum`s Development curves. Conclusion: The 5 distinct motor development curves (GMFCS) that were created by Palisano's and Rosenbaum's study is useful in Korea, providing parents and clinicians with a means to plan interventions and to judge progress over time.

• Journal of the Korean Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry
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• v.23 no.4
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• pp.181-187
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• 2012

Objectives:The objective of this study was to examine the perinatal and developmental risk factors of attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) diagnosed with a structured interview among Korean children. Methods:The current study included 924 children (6-15 years) recruited from schools in five Korean cities or a child psychiatry outpatient clinic of Seoul National University Children's Hospital. The parents of the children completed the structured diagnostic interview for attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder, as well as questionnaires on perinatal and developmental risk factors. Results:Preterm delivery, severe maternal stress during pregnancy, change in primary care taker during the first three years, postpartum depression, and delayed first sentence showed a significant association with ADHD diagnosis. Conclusion:These findings suggest that perinatal and developmental factors contribute to development of ADHD in Korean children. Conduct of future research using a prospective design is needed in order to identify the causal relationship between observed risk factors and development of ADHD.