• The Journal of Information Technology
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• v.9 no.1
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• pp.21-32
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• 2006

Acrophobia is a symptom of feeling an abnormal fear of heights. Medications or cognitive-behavior methods have been mainly used to treat the acrophobia. In these days the virtua1 reality technology has been applied to treat such an anxiety disorders. In this thesis, an telemedicine assistant system for treatment of acrophobia using biomedical signals and virtual reality technique is proposed. I made two virtual reality simulations for treatment of acrophobia and telemedicine system for communication between doctor and patient using personal computer. A virtual environment provides patient with stimuli which arouses phobia, and exposition to such environment makes him have ability to overcome the fear. Recently, the patient can take diagnosis from a medical doctor in distance with the telemedicine system. Multimedia conference service, on-line questionary, signal transfer system are needed to configure such system. Virtual reality simulation system that composed of position sensor, head mount display, and audio system, is also included in this telemedicine system. I added virtual environment update system to this virtual reality telemedicine system for treatment of acrophobia. Former acrophobia treatment systems use only patient's score of the questionary to appraise. The new system developed in this thesis uses not only patient's score of the questionary but also biomedical signals such as HR, GSR amplitude, GSR RT to increase the objectivity and quantitativity. The experimental results show that HR and GSR amplitude are useful for decision of acrophobia. We will apply this system to the acrophobia patient in distance and be able to offer better medical treatment for mental illness in near future.

• Journal of the Korea Academia-Industrial cooperation Society
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• v.10 no.9
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• pp.2492-2500
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• 2009

This study was carried to examine overall psychopathological patterns of the Vietnam Civil War Veterans(Agent Orange patients)and Korean Civil War veterans(wounded soldier) using Rorschach tests. Test protocols of were compared with those of twenty Vietnam Civil War Veterans group and twenty-one Korean Civil War veterans. Rorschach protocols were administrated, scored, analysed according to the Exner's comprehensive system. Specifically, each Rorschach variable was divided into 3 clusters(e.g., core section, response determinants, and several special indices. The results of t-tests between the Vietnam Civil War Veterans group and the Korean Civil War veterans showed that Vietnam Civil War Veterans group were characterized as 1)cognitive rigidity, 2) ineffective problem solving, 3)emotional represion, 4)hypervigilance, 5)anxiety and 6) depressive tendency. These patterns suggest that still Vietnam Civil War Veterans experience the past trauma and lasting psychological seguela. Other implications and limitations of this study were discussed.

• Journal of Korea Entertainment Industry Association
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• v.14 no.6
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• pp.171-179
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• 2020

This study was conducted to explore the experience of emotional change among senior citizens aged 65 and older experienced COVID-19 social situation. COVID-19 not only directly affects the elderly as a high-risk infectious disease, it also causes social isolation and depression caused by social distinctions, decreased cognitive skills, and worsened chronic diseases, and has indirect effects. As a result of the study, one component and four sub-components were derived, and the components were emotional changes. As the elderly experienced COVID-19, fear of spreading, fear of increasing the number of deceased and dead, and social distance I experienced depression, tightness, and anticipation for ending due to self-control. No matter how hard you try 'technical prevention', without 'psychological prevention', the anxiety of the elderly will inevitably increase. In this study, mediators for negative emotions experienced by the elderly are provided by providing accurate information to prevent the spread of fear caused by COVID-19 and proving emotional support programs such as 'psychological prevention' as well as 'technical prevention'. I think it will be necessary.

• Journal of Korean Academy of Nursing
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• v.52 no.6
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• pp.608-623
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• 2022

Purpose: This study aimed to evaluate the effects of a combined biofeedback and brief emotion regulation (C-BABER) program for sexually abused adolescents. Methods: This study employed a non-equivalent control group pretest-posttest design. The participants included 26 sexually abused adolescents from eight Sunflower Centers of South Korea-with 13 in the experimental group and 13 in the control group. The experimental group received four sessions of the individual C-BABER program, each lasting 60 minutes. Results: Compared with the control group, sexually abused adolescents in the experimental group exhibited significant score differences in traumatic symptoms, including depression (Z = - 2.24, p = .025), dissociation (Z = - 2.21, p = .027), anxiety (Z = - 2.02, p = .044), and posttraumatic stress (Z = - 2.01 p = .045); and impulsivity, including positive urgency (Z = - 3.35, p = .001) and negative urgency (Z = - 2.28, p = .023). Additionally, the experimental group exhibited significant score differences in meta-mood, including emotional attention (Z = - 2.45, p = .014), emotional clarity (Z = - 2.30, p = .021), and emotional repair (Z = - 2.28, p = .022); and emotional regulation modes, including emotional suppression (Z = - 2.65, p = .008) and cognitive reappraisal (Z = - 1.98, p = .047). Regarding bio-attention, significant changes were identified in the experimental group for the bio-attention rate and attention maintenance time in the posttest compared to the pretest (p = .001). Conclusion: The C-BABER program for sexually abused adolescents is effective in decreasing traumatic symptoms and impulsivity, and in improving meta-mood, emotional regulation mode, and bio-attention. Therefore, we recommend providing sexually abused adolescents the C-BABER program to help them regulate their emotions and effectively adapt to their lives.

• Journal of Yeungnam Medical Science
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• v.40 no.1
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• pp.49-57
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• 2023

Background: Several previous studies have reported that quality of life (QoL) in hemodialysis patients affects mortality. However, the 36-item Short Form Health Survey, which has been used mainly in previous studies, is complicated in terms of questionnaire composition and interpretation. This study aimed to identify the impact of QoL on mortality in hemodialysis patients using an easier and simpler diagnostic tool. Methods: This retrospective study included 160 hemodialysis patients. QoL was evaluated using the World Health Organization Quality of Life Questionnaire-Brief version (WHOQOL-BREF). Psychosocial factors were evaluated using the Hospital Anxiety and Depression Scale, Multidimensional Scale of Perceived Social Support, Montreal Cognitive Assessment, and Pittsburgh Sleep Quality Index. We also evaluated medical factors, such as dialysis adequacy and laboratory results. Results: The mean hemodialysis vintage was 70.7±38.0 months. The proportion of patients who were elderly was higher in the mortality group than in the surviving group, and the Charlson Comorbidity Index score was also higher in the former group. Of the four domains of the WHOQOL-BREF, the physical health and psychological scores of the mortality group were significantly lower than those of the survival group. When the score in the physical health domain or psychological domain was ≤10, the 10-year mortality rate after hemodialysis initiation increased by approximately 2.3- and 2-fold, respectively. Conclusion: QoL may have a significant effect on mortality in patients undergoing hemodialysis. The WHOQOL-BREF is an instrument that can measure QoL relatively easily and can be used to improve the long-term prognosis of patients undergoing hemodialysis.

• The Korean Journal of Pain
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• v.36 no.1
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• pp.84-97
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• 2023

Background: The concept of high-impact chronic pain (HICP) has been proposed for patients with chronic pain who have significant limitations in work, social life, and personal care. Recognition of HICP and being able to distinguish patients with HICP from other chronic pain patients who do not have life interference allows the necessary measures to be taken in order to restore the physical and emotional functioning of the affected persons. The aim was to reveal the risk factors and predictors associated with HICP. Methods: Patients with chronic pain without life interference (grade 1 and 2) and patients with HICP were compared. Significant data were evaluated with regression analysis to reveal the associated risk factors. Receiving operating characteristic (ROC) analysis was used to evaluate predictors and present cutoff scores. Results: One thousand and six patients completed the study. From pain related cognitive processes, fear of pain (odds ratio [OR], 0.92; 95% confidence interval [CI], 0.87-0.98; P = 0.007) and helplessness (OR, 1.06; 95% CI, 1.01-1.12; P = 0.018) were found to be risk factors associated with HICP. Predictors of HICP were evaluated by ROC analysis. The highest discrimination value was found for pain intensity (cut-off score > 6.5; 83.8% sensitive; 68.7% specific; area under the curve = 0.823; P < 0.001). Conclusions: This is the first study in our geography to evaluate HICP with measurement tools that evaluate all dimensions of pain. Moreover, it is the first study in the literature to evaluate predictors and cut-off scores using ROC analysis for HICP.

• Journal of The Korean Society of Integrative Medicine
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• v.11 no.2
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• pp.77-86
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• 2023

Purpose : This study systematically assessed 9 emotion-function programs for schizophrenic individuals that have been implemented over the past 10 years in Korea and abroad, with the objective of providing clinical grounds and data for further programs. Methods : This study identified 2,558 studies from among those registered in the RISS, KISS, EMbase, PubMed and Scopus databases from 2013 to September 2023, using 'schizophrenia' AND 'emotion' AND ('program' OR 'therapy') as keywords. Of the 2,558 studies retrieved from electronic databases, 602 duplicate papers were excluded. After this process, 1,915 papers that did not meet the study's inclusion and exclusion criteria were excluded based on their titles and abstracts. Following a review of the texts of the remaining 41 papers, nine papers were finally selected, excluding 32 papers according to the selection and exclusion criteria. Results : Programs for the emotional function of patients with schizophrenia have continued to be researched. The results of an evaluation on the quality of the selected literature confirmed that a majority of the reviewed items were "uncertain", confirming that there was a risk of bias. The interventions for emotions included art, cognitive-behavioral, and physical programs, of which art programs were frequently applied. Most of the interventions were implemented in hospitals. The dependent variables for evaluating emotions included emotional expression, depression, anxiety, and positive emotions, and among them, emotional expression was used most frequently. Accordingly, the Berkeley expressivity questionnaire was commonly used as an evaluation tool. Conclusion : This study is significant for intending to analyze domestic and overseas programs for the emotions of patients with schizophrenia, thereby proposing the direction for planning and applying interventions in clinical settings. In follow-up studies, it will be necessary to develop a protocol that confirms interventions according to the settings and patient characteristics of programs and expands the scope of literature reviews.

• Korean Journal of Culture and Social Issue
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• v.24 no.4
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• pp.637-655
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• 2018

The purpose of this study was to examine the mediating effects of paranoid tendency and social isolation in relationship between covert narcissism and Tajin Kyofusho(TKS). We administered self-report questionnaires to 334(163 male, 171 female) undergraduate students. Path analysis conducted using structural equation modeling. Path analysis indicated that the overall model fitted the data well. Analysis showed that paranoid tendency and social isolation sequentially mediated relationship between covert narcissism and TKS. The finding suggest that we could focus on covert narcissistic personality, paranoid cognitive process, and behavioral social isolation to understand and intervene TKS.

• Journal of Biomedical Engineering Research
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• v.45 no.4
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• pp.162-172
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• 2024

To analyse the overall research trends in digital therapeutics, this study conducted a quantitative bibliometric analysis of articles published in the last 10 years from 2014 to 2023. We extracted bibliographic information of studies related to digital therapeutics from the Web of Science (WOS) database and performed publication status, citation analysis and keyword analysis using R (version 4.3.1) and VOSviewer (version 1.6.18) software. A total of 1,114 articles were included in the study, and the annual publication growth rate for digital therapeutics was 66.1%, a very rapid increase. "health" is the most used keyword based on Keyword Plus, and "cognitive-behavioral therapy", "depression", "healthcare", "mental-health", "meta-analysis" and "randomized controlled-trial" are the research keywords that have driven the development and impact of digital therapeutic devices over the long term. A total of five clusters were observed in the co-occurrence network analysis, with new research keywords such as "artificial intelligence", "machine learning" and "regulation" being observed in recent years. In our analysis of research trends in digital therapeutics, keywords related to mental health, such as depression, anxiety, and disorder, were the top keywords by occurrences and total link strength. While many studies have shown the positive effects of digital therapeutics, low engagement and high dropout rates remain a concern, and much research is being done to evaluate and improve them. Future studies should expand the search terms to ensure the representativeness of the results.

• Korean Journal of Psychosomatic Medicine
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• v.28 no.2
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• pp.143-154
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• 2020

Objectives : The purpose of this study was to examine cognitive and psychological characteristics of patients with military service suitability issues compared to the general psychiatric outpatients. Methods : 108 patients who visited psychiatric clinic center due to military service suitability issues and 80 general psychiatric patients were recruited from the Department of Psychiatry of university hospital. ANCOVA and chi-equare test were used to examine differences between two groups. Furthermore, we utilized paired t-test to compare the scrore within military group depending on when they performed the psychological assessment. Results : There were no significant differences between military group and general outpatient group in WAIS-IV scores. However, military group scored remarkably higher than control group on validity scales, F-r and Fp-r whereas they scored lower on validity scale, K-r. Furthermore, military group showed significantly higher on BDI and MMPI-2-RF, EID, RCd, RC2, RC3, COG, HLP, SFD, NFC, STW, SAVE, SHY, DSF, NEGE-r, INTR-r. As a result of comparison within the military group following the periods of assessment, military group did not show the significant differences on the overall scales of MMPI-2-RF. Conclusions : The present study showed that military group tends to report their psychological distress more exaggeratedly. In addition, they had significantly elevated not only emotional distress such as depression and anxiety but interpersonal problem. The implications and limitations were discussed along with some suggestions for the future studies.