• Journal of the Korea Academia-Industrial cooperation Society
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• v.12 no.3
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• pp.1234-1243
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• 2011

Our study was carried out to develop the severity-adjustment model for length of stay in hospital for community-acquired pneumonia so that we analysed the factors on the variation in length of stay(LOS). The subjects were 5,353 community-acquired pneumonia inpatients of the Korean National Hospital Discharge In-depth Injury Survey data from 2004 through 2006. The data were analyzed using t-test and ANOVA and the severity-adjustment model was developed using data mining technique. There are differences according to gender, age, type of insurance, type of admission, but there is no difference of whether patients died in hospital. After yielding the standardized value of the difference between crude and expected length of stay, we analysed the variation of length of stay for community-acquired pneumonia. There was variation of LOS in regional differences and insurance type, though there was no variation according whether patients receive their care in their residences. The variation of length of stay controlling the case mix or severity of illness can be explained the factors of provider. This supply factors in LOS variations should be more studied for individual practice style or patient management practices and healthcare resources or environment. We expect that the severity-adjustment model using administrative databases should be more adapted in other diseases in practical.

• Journal of Korean Ophthalmic Optics Society
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• v.5 no.1
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• pp.165-171
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• 2000

The purpose of this study is to determine the prevalence of cataracts in a rural area of Kyung-Buk province. Cataract is the main cause of blindness and visual impairment in the world. Recently, the number of age-related cataract surgeries has increased remarkably. In spite of such an increase in the number of patients, there are still many cataract patients with highly deteriorated visual function who have had no occasion to receive an ocular examination. In order to screen such patients the author assessed 636 individual(1272 eyes) aged 50 years or more who had wanted to be examined generally in two area. Chilgok and Munkyung, Kyung-Buk province using a simplified cataract screening system recently proposed by Sasaki et al. Kanazawa Medical University in Japan. The results obtained are as follows. The number of visual impairment patients in this study group was 493(77.5%). They were screened by cataract screening system. Primary screening examination detected 448 subjects to be suspected of cataract while the subsequent secondary examination narrowed this number of subjects to 308(48.4%). Final number of subjects to be diagnosed of cataract was 421(66.2%). The rate of incidence, according to the age, was 27.5% in the 50 year-olds age group, 62.5% in the 60's age group, 86.1% in the 70's age group and 94.3% in the 80's age group and upwards. This results concluded that cataract is the main cause of blindness and visual impairment and is an important public eye health care problem of aged population in rural Korea. Methods of tackling the cataract problem(both backlog and incident), and other eye health needs are recommended. The need to extend eye health service to the rural areas is emphasized.

• Journal of Nutrition and Health
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• v.44 no.2
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• pp.152-161
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• 2011

Koreans have undergone many changes in dietary patterns with economic growth. The purpose of this research was to examine changes in dietary patterns using data from the 1998, 2001, and 2005 Korean National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey. The study included 21,525 subjects (8,295 from 1998, 6,880 from 2001, and 6,350 from 2005) who were 20 years or older and who participated in a 24-h diet recall. The percentage energy intake from 22 food groups was calculated, and a cluster analysis was applied to identify dietary patterns. Two dietary patterns emerged; the first pattern was characterized by high intake of white rice, legumes, vegetables, kimchi, and seaweeds, the so-called "traditional" pattern (53%), whereas the other pattern was characterized by high intake of other grains, noodle dumplings, floured bread, pizza, hamburgers, cereals and snacks, potatoes, sugared sweets, nuts, fruits, meat·its products, eggs, fish, milk and dairy products, oils, beverages and seasoning, or the so-called "modified" pattern. The modified pattern comprised a higher proportion of younger aged, metropolitan residents with more education and higher incomes. However, the gender distribution was not significantly different. The modified pattern had a significantly higher intake of all nutrients except carbohydrates and had a higher proportion of energy from fat and protein. No association with a risk for metabolic syndrome was found for either dietary pattern. After age was standardized, the traditional pattern included 52% of the respondents in 1998, 54% in 2001, and 50% in 2005. However, the modified pattern was significantly more prevalent in the younger age group (20-29 yr), whereas the traditional pattern increased significantly in the older age group (${\geq}$ 65 yr). In conclusion, a secular trend was found for dietary pattern by age group, suggesting that it is necessary to monitor the changes in dietary pattern by age group and to develop appropriate dietary education and guidelines.

• Journal of agricultural medicine and community health
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• v.22 no.2
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• pp.253-263
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• 1997

농촌지역은 도시지역에 비하여 의료자원의 부족으로 보건의료자원의 이용 접근성이 낮다고 할 수 있다. 따라서 일부 농촌지역주민의 질병이환과 이환시 보건의료자원의 이용양상을 분석하는 것은 매우 의의가 있다고 하겠다. 본 연구방법은 포천군 주민의 보건의료자원의 이용과 치료원의 이용 양상을 분석할 목적으로 1995년 8월 4일~20일까지 1,200가구를 대상으로 가구 면접조사를 실시하였다. 분석대상 가구수는 1,019가구였으며 훈련받은 조사원에 의하여 조사되었으며 경기도 포천군 지역은 연세대학교 보건대학원 및 간호대학의 연구사업지역으로 본 분석 자료는 연세대학교 연구자료의 일부를 사용하였다. 연구 결과는 다음과 같다. 성별인구분포는 남자가 49.9%, 여자가 50.1%이고 연령별 분포는 60세 이상이 16.5%로써 전국의 노인인구 비율보다 높았다. 교육상태는 13년 이상 교육이수율이 남자가 여자보다 높았으나 전체 조사 대상 인구는 교육수준이 높았다. 가족 형태는 핵가족이 70.9%로써 농촌지역임에도 매우 높았다. 지난 15일간의 이환상태를 조사한 결과 급성이환율은 5.4%(54/1,000)이며 3개월 이상 만성이환율은 130/1,000으로 나타났다. 급성이환시 증상별 분포는 호흡기계질환이 36.4%, 소화기계가 20.9%, 여러 가지 복합 증상이 33.0%을 나타낸 반면 만성이환율은 관절염 및 류마티즘이 21.2%, 기타 골격계가 12.6%로서 높았다. 급성 이환시 의료이용양상은 포천군관내의 의료기관이용이 62.6%, 약국이용이 15.2%, 보건소 이용이 4.0%였으며 의료기관이 주요 이용자원이었다. 아무 조치를 취하지 않은 비율은 6.1%로서 높지 않았다. 즉 극성질환인 경우 전체이환자의 76.5%가 1회 방문으로 문제를 해결한 것으로 나타난 반면 나머지 23.5%가 2회 이상 의료자원을 이용한 것으로 나타났다. 3개월이상 만성이환자는 포천군관내 의료기관의 이용율이 56.3%, 관외의료관 이용이 19.3%인 반면 한방기관이용이 7.6%로서 급성이환시 한방이용비율인 4.0%보다 높았다. 1회 방문이 67.4%인 반면 2회 이상 보건의료자원을 이용한 비율이 33.6%로서 만성질환 이용시 보건의료자원의 이용 빈도가 높은 것으로 나타났다. 본 분석결과 포천군 주민의 주요 보건의료자원의 이용은 의료기관으로 나타났고 미치료율이 타농촌지역에 비하여 낮았으며 만성질환시 급성이환시보다 한방의료이용이 높았음을 나타났다.

• Asian Pacific Journal of Cancer Prevention
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• v.16 no.14
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• pp.5923-5931
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• 2015

Background: Registry data from four major public hospitals indicate trends over three decades from 1980 to 2010 in treatment and survival from colorectal cancer with distant metastases at diagnosis (TNM stage IV). Materials and Methods: Kaplan-Meier product-limit estimates and Cox proportional hazards models for investigating disease-specific survival and multiple logistic regression analyses for indicating first-round treatment trends. Results: Two-year survivals increased from 10% for 1980-84 to 35% for 2005-10 diagnoses. Corresponding increases in five-year survivals were from 3% to 16%. Time-to-event risk of colorectal cancer death approximately halved (hazards ratio: 0.48 (0.40, 0.59) after adjusting for demographic factors, tumour differentiation, and primary sub-site. Survivals were not found to differ by place of residence, suggesting reasonable equity in service provision. About 74% of cases were treated surgically and this proportion increased over time. Proportions having systemic therapy and/or radiotherapy increased from 12% in 1980-84 to 61% for 2005-10. Radiotherapy was more common for rectal than colonic cases (39% vs 7% in 2005-10). Of the cases diagnosed in 2005-10 when less than 70 years of age, the percentage having radiotherapy and/or systemic therapy was 79% for colorectal, 74% for colon and 86% for rectum (&RS)) cancers. Corresponding proportions having: systemic therapies were 75%, 71% and 81% respectively; radiotherapy were 24%, 10% and 46% respectively; and surgery were 75%, 78% and 71% respectively. Based on survey data on uptake of offered therapies, it is likely that of these younger cases, 85% would have been offered systemic treatment and among rectum (&RS) cases, about 63% would have been offered radiotherapy. Conclusions: Pronounced increases in survivals from metastatic colorectal cancer have occurred, in keeping with improved systemic therapies and surgical interventions. Use of radiotherapy and/or systemic therapy has increased markedly and patterns of change accord with clinical guideline recommendations.

• Health Policy and Management
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• v.26 no.4
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• pp.359-372
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• 2016

Background: The purpose of this study was to develop risk-adjustment models for acute stroke mortality that were based on data from Health Insurance Review and Assessment Service (HIRA) dataset and to evaluate the validity of these models for comparing hospital performance. Methods: We identified prognostic factors of acute stroke mortality through literature review. On the basis of the avaliable data, the following factors was included in risk adjustment models: age, sex, stroke subtype, stroke severity, and comorbid conditions. Survey data in 2014 was used for development and 2012 dataset was analysed for validation. Prediction models of acute stroke mortality by stroke type were developed using logistic regression. Model performance was evaluated using C-statistics, $R^2$ values, and Hosmer-Lemeshow goodness-of-fit statistics. Results: We excluded some of the clinical factors such as mental status, vital sign, and lab finding from risk adjustment model because there is no avaliable data. The ischemic stroke model with age, sex, and stroke severity (categorical) showed good performance (C-statistic=0.881, Hosmer-Lemeshow test p=0.371). The hemorrhagic stroke model with age, sex, stroke subtype, and stroke severity (categorical) also showed good performance (C-statistic=0.867, Hosmer-Lemeshow test p=0.850). Conclusion: Among risk adjustment models we recommend the model including age, sex, stroke severity, and stroke subtype for HIRA assessment. However, this model may be inappropriate for comparing hospital performance due to several methodological weaknesses such as lack of clinical information, variations across hospitals in the coding of comorbidities, inability to discriminate between comorbidity and complication, missing of stroke severity, and small case number of hospitals. Therefore, further studies are needed to enhance the validity of the risk adjustment model of acute stroke mortality.

• Tuberculosis and Respiratory Diseases
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• v.78 no.4
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• pp.326-335
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• 2015

Background: Asian dust is known to have harmful effects on the respiratory system. Respiratory conditions are also influenced by environmental conditions regardless of the presence of pollutants. The same pollutant can have different effects on the airway when the air is dry compared with when it is humid. We investigated hospital visits for chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) and asthma in relation to the environmental conditions. Methods: We conducted a retrospective study using the Korean National Health Insurance Service claims database of patients who visited hospitals in Chuncheon between January 2006 and April 2012. Asian dust, haze, mist, and fog days were determined using reports from the Korea Meteorological Administration. Hospital visits for asthma or COPD on the index days were compared with the comparison days. We used two-way case-crossover techniques with one to two matching. Results: The mean hospital visits for asthma and COPD were $59.37{\pm}34.01$ and $10.04{\pm}6.18$ per day, respectively. Hospital visits for asthma significantly increased at lag0 and lag1 for Asian dust (relative risk [RR], 1.10; 95% confidence interval [CI], 1.01-1.19; p<0.05) and haze (RR, 1.13; 95% CI, 1.06-1.22; p<0.05), but were significantly lower on misty (RR, 0.89; 95% CI, 0.80-0.99; p<0.05) and foggy (RR, 0.89; 95% CI, 0.84-0.93; p<0.05) days than on control days. The hospital visits for COPD also significantly increased on days with Asian dust (RR, 1.29; 95% CI, 1.05-1.59; p<0.05), and were significantly lower at lag4 for foggy days, compared with days without fog (RR, 0.85; 95% CI, 0.75-0.97; p<0.05). Conclusion: Asian dust showed an association with airway diseases and had effects for several days after the exposure. In contrast to Asian dust, mist and fog, which occur in humid air conditions, showed the opposite effects on airway diseases, after adjusting to the pollutants. It would require more research to investigate the effects of various air conditions on airway diseases.

• Nutrition Research and Practice
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• v.15 no.sup1
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• pp.32-40
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• 2021

BACKGROUND/OBJECTIVES: Considering the high number of deaths from coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) in Latin American countries, together with multiple factors that increase the prevalence of vitamin D deficiency, we aimed to determine 25-hydroxyvitamin D (25[OH]D) levels and its association with mortality in patients with critical COVID-19. SUBJECTS/METHODS: This was a prospective observational study including adult patients with critical COVID-19. Data, including clinical characteristics and 25(OH)D levels measured at the time of intensive care unit admission, were collected. All patients were followed until hospital discharge or in-hospital death. The patients were divided into those surviving and deceased patient groups, and univariate and multivariate logistic regression analyses were performed to determine independent predictors of in hospital mortality. RESULTS: The entire cohort comprised 94 patients with critical COVID-19 (males, 59.6%; median age, 61.5 years). The median 25(OH)D level was 12.7 ng/mL, and 15 (16%) and 79 (84%) patients had vitamin D insufficiency and vitamin D deficiency, respectively. The median serum 25(OH)D level was significantly lower in deceased patients compared with surviving (12.1 vs. 18.7 ng/mL, P < 0.001). Vitamin D deficiency was present in 100% of the deceased patients. Multivariate logistic regression analysis revealed that age, body mass index, other risk factors, and 25(OH)D level were independent predictors of mortality. CONCLUSIONS: Vitamin D deficiency was present in 84% of critical COVID-19 patients. Serum 25(OH)D was independently associated with mortality in critical patients with COVID-19.

• Journal of Dental Anesthesia and Pain Medicine
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• v.23 no.2
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• pp.101-110
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• 2023

Background: Dentists make various efforts to reduce patients' anxiety and fear associated with dental treatment. Dental sedation is an advanced method that dentists can perform to reduce patients' anxiety and fear and provide effective dental treatment. However, dental sedation is different from general dental treatment and requires separate learning, and if done incorrectly, can lead to serious complications. Therefore, sedation is performed by a limited number of dentists who have received specific training. This study aimed to investigate the proportion of dentists who practice sedation and the main sedatives they use in the context of the Republic of Korea. Methods: We used the customized health information data provided by the Korean National Health Insurance. We investigated the number of dental hospitals or clinics that claimed insurance for eight main sedatives commonly used in dental sedation from January, 2007 to September, 2019 at the Health Insurance Review and Assessment Service. We also identified the changes in the number of dental medical institutions by region and year and analyzed the number and proportion of dental medical institutions prescribing each sedative. Results: In 2007, 302 dental hospitals prescribed sedatives, and the number increased to 613 in 2019. In 2007, approximately 2.18% of the total 13,796 dental institutions prescribed sedatives, increasing to 3.31% in 2019. In 2007, 168 institutions (55.6%) prescribed N₂O alone, and in 2019, 510 institutions (83.1%) made claims for it. In 2007, 76 (25.1%) hospitals made claims for chloral hydrate, but the number gradually decreased, with only 29 hospitals (4.7%) prescribing it in 2019. Hospitals that prescribed a combination of N₂O, chloral hydrate, and hydroxyzine increased from 27 (8.9%) in 2007 to 51 (9%) in 2017 but decreased to 38 (6.1%) in 2019. The use of a combination of N₂O and midazolam increased from 20 hospitals (6.6%) in 2007 to 51 hospitals (8.3%) in 2019. Conclusion: While there is a critical limitation to the investigation of dental hospitals performing sedation using insurance claims data, namely exclusion of dental clinics providing non-insured treatments, we found that in 2019, approximately 3.31% of the dental clinics were practicing sedation and that N₂O was the most commonly prescribed sedative.

• Journal of dental hygiene science
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• v.4 no.3
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• pp.91-95
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• 2004

This study aims to analyze realities of oral health and related factors, and establish Structural Equation Modeling. The subjects of study were 9,340 elderly over age 65 who took the health examination(the first) for the local insured which National Health Insurance Corporation carried out in the survey area mentioned below from January 2002 to December 2002. The areas surveyed were 4 big cities including Seongbuk-ku, Seoul, 5 medium cities including Wonjusi, Gangwon-do, and 5 Counties including Yeong deok County, Kyeongbuk. Considering location and the scale of population, firstly, big unit areas(metropolitan city, province) were selected according to convenience, secondly, low unit areas(city, county, district) were selected randomly. The subjects were the elderly who took all tests including an oral examination and filled in the questionnaire. Major results from analysis are as follows: 1. Review of Composition Conception Validity As a result of analyzing composition conception validity of SEM including posture test, urine test, blood test, habits of eating, drinking and smoking, oral symptoms, and oral health status, using fit index such as GFI, CFI, TLI, and RMSEA, all were within fit range and composition conception validity was recognized. 2. As a result of analyzing SEM to find the relationship between each factor and oral health status, it was confirmed that all factors except urine test affected oral health status and the synthetic SEM to explain it could be established. In result, we could verify that the elderly of rural areas who had lesser experience of visiting a clinic and oral prophylaxis had a higher rate of caries, missing teeth, and denture need, and drinking and smoking negatively affected the rate of caries, periodontal, and missing teeth. Also, periodontal diseases were observed from 43.2% of the total elderly and much from the lower age. Most of oral disease can be prevented by right oral health behavior. Therefore through oral health professionals from each district public health center of the nation, oral health education for the elderly about right eating habits and oral health care should be carried out systematically and policy change to increase access to dental service is required lest that visiting a dental clinic should be impossible or oral health behaviors such as oral prophylaxis and denture wearing should be neglected by economic, geographical barriers. Also, to establish SEM to explain the relationship between oral health status and systemic health, more accurate test methods and effective index development should be preceded. Because items developed by National Health Insurance Corporation applied to this study without alteration, structuring a model had the uppermost limit. Continual study seems to be needed.