• Journal of Korean Public Health Nursing
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• v.35 no.1
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• pp.89-103
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• 2021

Purpose: This study examined the factors associated with depression among Korean graduate students. Specifically, personal (self-efficacy, stress), environmental (violence experience, economic state, and relationship conflict), and behavioral (health behavior) factors were analyzed. Methods: This study used a cross-sectional study design. One hundred and fifty participants currently enrolled in graduate programs were recruited. Google Drive was used for online data collection. Descriptive statistics, correlational analyses, and hierarchical regression analysis were conducted. Results: First, 52% of the participants were male, with an average age of 28.05(±3.19). Master's students comprised the largest proportion (63.3%). Approximately about 38.7% were engineering majors. Second, approximately 27.3% had depressive symptoms; and 7.3% had major depression. Third, there was a significant correlation between personal, environmental (financial burdens), and behavioral factors. Fourth, hierarchical regression analysis revealed a lower depression level to be associated with a higher self-efficacy level and health behavior. In contrast, a higher depression level was related to violence experience. Conclusion: The government should press on establishing rules on the prevention and regulation of violence in universities, and impose strong disciplinary measures to root out the problem. In addition, universities must pay attention to the mental health of graduate students and establish systems to manage them.

• Journal of Oriental Neuropsychiatry
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• v.35 no.2
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• pp.153-162
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• 2024

Objectives: Among OECD countries, South Korea has been having the highest suicide rate since 2018, with 24.1 deaths per 100,000 people reported in 2020. The objectie of this study was to examine the use of generative artificial intellicence (AI) chatbots to train third-year Korean medicine (KM) students in conducting suicide risk assessments for patients with depressive disorders to train students for their clinical practice skills. Methods: The Claude 3 Sonnet model was utilized for chatbot simulations. Students performed mock consultations using standardized suicide risk assessment tools including Ask Suicide-Screening Questions (ASQ) tool and ASQ Brief Suicide Safety Assessment. Experiences and attitudes were collected through an anonymous online survey. Responses were rated on a 1~5 Likert scale. Results: Thirty-six students aged 22~30 years participated in this study. Their scores for interest and appropriateness (4.66±0.57), usefulness (4.60±0.61), and overall experience (4.63±0.60) were high. Their evaluation of the usability of artificial intelligence chatbot was also high at 4.58±0.70 points. However, their trust in chatbot responses (Q12) was lower (3.86±0.99). Common issues related to dissatisfaction included conversation disruptions due to token limits and inadequate chatbot responses. Conclusions: This is the first study investigating generative AI chatbots for suicide risk assessment training in KM education. Students reported high satisfaction, although their trust in chatbot accuracy was moderate. Technical limitations affected their experience. These preliminary findings suggest that generative AI chatbots hold promise for clinical training, particularly for education in psychiatry. However, improvements in response accuracy and conversation continuity are needed.

• The Korean Journal of Pain
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• v.28 no.3
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• pp.169-176
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• 2015

This review has focused on important but less visible aspects of fibromyalgia (FM) with respect to the high impact of this disorder on patients and societies. FM is a common but challengeable illness. It is characterized by chronic widespread pain, which can be accompanied by other symptoms including fatigue, sleep disturbances, cognitive dysfunction, anxiety and depressive episodes. While our understanding of this debilitating disorder is limited, diagnosis and treatment of this condition is very difficult, even in the hands of experts. Due to the nature of disease, where patients experience invalidation by medical services, their families and societies regarding the recognition and management of disease, direct, indirect and immeasurable costs are considerable. These clinical and economic costs are comparable with other common diseases, such as diabetes, hypertension and osteoarthritis, but the latter usually receives much more attention from healthcare and non-healthcare resources. Present alarming data shows the grave and "iceberg-like" burden of FM despite the benign appearance of this disorder and highlights the urgent need both for greater awareness of the disease among medical services and societies, as well as for more research focused on easily used diagnostic methods and target specific treatment.

• Korean Journal of Biological Psychiatry
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• v.13 no.4
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• pp.219-225
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• 2006

Depression has been causing huge direct and indirect losses to people's health because of its high prevalence, various clinical patterns, drug reaction and diverse courses different among individuals, but its treatment has not been systematic but dependent on individual clinicians' experience and knowledge. To correct this problem, it has been highly necessary to develop clinical guidelines defined as "systematically developed statements to assist practitioners' and patients' decisions about appropriate healthcare for specific clinical circumstances." Currently, countries throughout the world are making efforts to establish evidence-based guidelines among different levels of guidelines and to evaluate and test them. Although such efforts have been unsatisfactory in Korea because of several constraints including lack of high-quality RCT, the Korean Depression Clinical Practice Guideline has started to develop evidence-based guidelines, which are established through strictly designed processes. Thus, the present study purposed to review methods adopted in the development processes and to present the processes of developing the evidence-based guidelines clearly and transparently.

• Journal of Hospice and Palliative Care
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• v.24 no.3
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• pp.135-143
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• 2021

End-of-life patients experience physical, mental, social, and existential distress. While medical personnel provide medication and care to alleviate patients' distress, listening to and interacting with patients remains essential for understanding their psychological condition. The most important tool, though difficult to implement in practice, is end-of-life discussion (EOLD). EOLD has been shown to have positive effects on end-of-life treatment choices, achievement of patients' life goals, improvements in the quality of life of patients and their families, and the prevention of depression and complicated grief among bereaved family members. EOLD is not often undertaken in clinical practice, however, due to hesitancy among medical personnel and patients for various reasons. In order to conduct an EOLD, the patient's judgment, psychiatric illnesses such as delirium and depression, and psychological issues such as the side effects of psychotropic drugs, denial, and collusion must be evaluated. Open and honest conversation, treatment goal setting, the doctor's familiarity with the patient's background, and attentiveness when providing information are important elements for any dialogue. Meaning-centered psychotherapy was developed to alleviate the existential distress of cancer patients, and its application may promote EOLD. The future development of meaning-centered psychotherapy in practice and in research is expected to further promote EOLD.

• Journal of Korean society of Dental Hygiene
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• v.22 no.6
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• pp.503-512
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• 2022

Objectives: This study aimed to study the association between unmet dental treatment and depression in the dental area of the elderly. Methods: The data was from the 7th period of the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey. Multiple logistic regression analysis was performed to evaluate the relationship between depression and unmet dental treatment when confounding factors such as income quintile and smoking were considered. Statistical software, SAS 9.4 version was used. Results: After correcting all confounding factors, the analysis showed that the experience of unmet dental treatment was 2.73 times more likely among depressed men and 2.52 times more likely among depressed women (p<0.05). Conclusions: The results of this study suggested that we should consider that depression in the elderly can affect unmet dental treatment regardless of gender.

• Journal of Music and Human Behavior
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• v.4 no.2
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• pp.1-17
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• 2007

Huge growth in developmental level, new accomplishment, and The period of adolescents is not only the transition stage but also improvement of academic level. In this level of stage, adolescents have difficulties in development, so they show psychological abnormality such as stress and depression. They could develop mental disorder such as depression or anxiety if they do not overcome the abnormality. According to the situation of the insufficiency of the decent program for adolescents' mental health in the current society, we are strongly requested to develop the psycho-therapeutic program for them. Therefore, in this study, we examined the effect of the musical activities as blues music structure on the improvement of the Self-Efficacy in the female middle school students who have depressive tendencies as well as what they experienced through the activities. The 3 participants were selected out of 70 students in the first year at the "D" middle school in Seoul by being tested with Child Depression Inventory(CDI) and Self-Efficacy Scale(SES). The musical activities were built with 3 steps. Of which, the first one was the introduction to each other, the formation of rapport, and induction of their interests to the musical activities through blues. The second one was letting participants learn the blues music structure by practice and play assigned music(including improvisation) during later 5 sessions with different difficulties at each session. The third one was giving them opportunities to play a music out of the acquired ones during the session or creative music by their own, which results in maximizing musical activities and an acquired experience. As a result, first of all, the scores of CDI test of 3 participants in 10 time sessions showed slight changes, suggesting the negative correlation between CDI and SES even though changes were not big differences. Secondly, the scores of SES test of 3 subjects in 10 time sessions were all changed and especially preference for tasking was significant. Thirdly, the scores of SES for musical playing test of 3 participants in 10 time sessions were all changed and especially preference for musical tasking was significant shown. Finally, according to answers of 3 participants in 10 time sessions for the after questionnaire on musical activities, participants experienced affirmative self-confidence and positive emotion. Taken together, it was suggested that musical activities using blues music structure could be promising therapeutic intervention method.

• Journal of agricultural medicine and community health
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• v.40 no.4
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• pp.221-227
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• 2015

Objective: This study assessed whether both physical disability and perceived dependence relate to depression or whether perceived dependence in personal care activities, household activities, community mobility and recreational activities is an intermediate step in the relationship between physical disability and depressive symptoms. Methods: Data come from a cross-sectional survey of 209 women, aged 55 or older, with osteoarthritis (OA). Mediation analyses occurred in four step and included logistic regression analyses as outlined by Baron & Kenny. Results: The results from step 1 showed that greater difficulty with each domain of physical disabilities was significantly related to greater perceived dependence. In step 2, greater perceived dependence was significantly associated with greater depressive symptoms in all domains. Step 3 analyses showed that greater physical disabilities in each domain were significantly associated with depression. The final step testing mediation indicated that personal care activities, household activities and community mobility were fully mediated by perceived dependence. That was, once dependence was taken into account, the relationship between physical disabilities and depression was no longer significant. Partial mediation was found for dependence and recreational activity limitations. Conclusion: It is important to take into account the experience of perceived dependence as a mediator in understanding the relationship between disability and depression in the domains of personal care, household, and community mobility. To conclude, these findings point to the importance of taking into account an individual's reaction to their disability rather than just focusing on the severity of disability.

• Journal of Korean Academy of Nursing
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• v.29 no.4
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• pp.766-779
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• 1999

The purpose of this study was to investigate the relationship between the burden on families who live with an elderly person suffering from senile dementia, and the degree of their depression. There were 400 participants in this study, staying in the Seoul and Kyonggi areas from August 1, 1997 to February 28, 1998. Among the group, 100 participants took care of their patient at home, and another 300 participants left 100 patient at a day-care center, 100 sanatorium for senile dementia(asylum for helpless elderly people), 100 an infirmary for elderly people. Eventually 242 subjects out of the 400 were selected for the data analysis. The Zarit (1980) tool was employed to measure the degree of burden and Zung's(1965) “Self-Rating Depression Scale” was employed for the data analysis. The data was analyzed, and the percentage, t-test, ANOVA and Person's Correlation Coefficient were calculated. The results are as follows : 1. The average degree of burden that care-giving families felt was 49.13, which is somewhat high. 2. The average degree of depression that care -giving families felt was 51.95, which is relatively high. 3. The degree of burden was directly affected by the relation with the patient(F＝2.48, P＜.05), and the socio-economic status of the family(F＝5.17, P＜.05). Its also affected by the patient's educational status(F＝2.17, P＜.05). 4. The degree of depression of the family was significantly dependent on sex(t＝-2.05, P＜.05), age (F＝2.99, P＜.05), the relationship with the patient(F＝3.65, P＜.01), socio-economic status (F＝7.74, P＜.001), occupation(t＝2.82, P＜.01), health status(F＝4.42, P＜.01), and the place of residence(F＝4.30, P＜.01), The patient characteristics was significantly dependent on his/her educational status(F＝3.85, P＜.01), the period of suffering from senile dementia(F＝2.47, P＜.05), and smoking habit(F＝6.17, P＜.001). 5. The relationship between the degree of burden and that of depression reads r＝0.43, which is statistically positive correlation in the high significant level. Upon analyzing the entire summation, most care-givers for elderly patients suffering from senile dementia lack time in caring for themselves. They also experience chronic fatigue and mental discomfort caused by the isolation from society, curtailment of certain activities, a sense of responsibility for their patients, and limits of their endurance in taking care of their patients over time. In conclusion, this study emphasizes the necessity for the following propositions : 1. In order to measure the degree of burden that Korean care-giving families undergo, a new tool must be developed on the basis of Korean culture. 2. An educational program based on the demands that care-giving families undergo must be developed, and its clinical effect also has to be examined.

• Korean Journal of Psychosomatic Medicine
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• v.29 no.2
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• pp.136-143
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• 2021

Objectives : The coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) outbreak is a global medical crisis imposing particular burden on public sector employees. The aim of this study was to investigate the psychiatric distress among public sector workers amid the COVID-19 pandemic. Methods : We conducted a cross-sectional study with 531 public sector workers in Gwangmyung city who completed Korean versions of the Perceived Stress Scale (PSS), Patient Health Questionnaire-9 (PHQ-9), and Impact of Event Scale-Revised-Korean (IES-R-K). Results : The results revealed more than moderate levels of stress (85.2%), depressive symptoms (22.2%), and posttraumatic stress symptoms (38.8%). PSS total score was significantly correlated with PHQ-9, IES-R-K total scores as well as IES-R-K subscale scores. Total scores on the PSS, PHQ-9, and IES-R-K were all inversely correlated with age. Conclusions : COVID-19-related workers experience considerable stress and depressive symptoms, with self-rated stress correlating significantly with depression scores. Age may serve as a protective factor against occupational stress and burnout. These findings highlight the need for adequate psychiatric screening and intervention for public sector workers.