• 대한인간공학회지
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• 제32권4호
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• pp.397-403
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• 2013

Objective: This article aims to report the results of ergonomic evaluation of some university laboratories. Background: Laboratory researchers are at risk for musculoskeletal injuries during routine laboratory procedures. However, little attention has paid to the working conditions of laboratory researchers, especially in Korea. Method: A checklist and questionnaire was developed and used to analyze the work conditions of 27 laboratories of chemistry, biology and pharmacy. Results: It was found that glove box, clean bench, and computer workstation are better than microscopy, and fume hood tasks, from ergonomic point of view. Conclusion: No domestic guideline is available for ergonomic intervention of laboratories. Further attention and studies are anticipated to improve the working conditions of laboratories.

• Safety and Health at Work
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• 제15권1호
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• pp.17-23
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• 2024

Background: The present study aimed to analyze several aspects of the working conditions and health status of platform workers in the Republic of Korea, such as ergonomic and emotional hazards. We also compared the health status of the platform workers with that of the general population. Methods: A total of 1,000 platform workers participated in this survey from August 7 to August 17, 2022. The participants included 400 designated drivers, 400 food-delivery drivers, and 200 housekeeping managers. A face-to-face survey with a structured questionnaire was conducted by researchers who had received specific instructions. The focus of the survey extended to the work environment, encompassing factors such as workplace violence, as well as physical, chemical, and ergonomic hazards. Health-related data for the previous year were also collected, covering a range of issues such as hearing problems, skin problems, musculoskeletal symptoms, headaches, injuries, mental health issues, and digestive problems. Subsequently, we compared the health symptom data of the responders with those of the general population in the Republic of Korea. Results: Platform workers, including designated drivers, food-delivery drivers, and housekeeping managers, existed in the blind spot of social insurance, facing frequent exposure to physical and chemical hazards, ergonomic risk factors, and direct or indirect violence. The prevalence of health problems, including musculoskeletal symptoms, general fatigue, and depressive symptoms, in each occupational group was statistically higher than that in the general population after standardization for age and gender. Conclusion: The results revealed unfavorable working environment and inferior occupational health of platform workers compared with those of the general population.

• 보건교육건강증진학회지
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• 제7권2호
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• pp.1-14
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• 1990

This papaer discusses the recent tendencies of health approach in the developed countries and suggests the strategy of health approach in order to cope with the changing environmental conditions of Korea in 2000's. In 2000's, Korea will have the environmental conditions and health problems similar to those of the developed countries at present. The American and European developed countries have shown the integrative approach trend by the interdisciplinary cooperation based on the holistic health conception, for example, as in the behavioral medicine, with the active drive of the medical self care movement and the national health preactice movement. The basic solution to the 2000's main health problems such as high morbidity of chronic diseases and high medical expenditure is to decrease the health need through the health promotion, disease prevention and early. ditection and early treatment of disease. The above actions need to induce the public to change their health behavior in the desirable direction through the national health practice movement and the health self care movement. The succeed of the movements depends upon how to use effectively the mass media, health and administrative organizations, schools, industrial and medical insurance organizations with the strong government support of health and preventive policies and programs.

• 한국보건간호학회지
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• 제28권2호
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• pp.200-210
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• 2014

Purpose: This research is conducted in order to compare health status, health behaviors, and health care utilization between immigrant women and domestic women in South Korea. Methods: Research subjects comprised of 62 immigrant women living in a rural area of South Korea' extracted from a survey and health examination conducted during a period from 1st of August in 2013 to 8th of November in 2013 and 214 domestic women extracted from primitive data from the Korea National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey in 2011. Student t-test, Chi-square test, Mann-Whitney U test, and logistic regression were performed using the SPSS18.0K program for analysis. Results: Results of comparison between immigrant women and domestic women, showed no difference in obesity, hypertension, dyslipidemia, anemia, hepatitis B, previous history of tuberculosis, and history of decayed, missing, and filled teeth however, more immigrant women had experienced decayed, missing, and filled teeth compared to domestic women (p<0.001). Conclusions: Compared to domestic women, Iimmigrant women were more likely to have poor dental health conditions. Therefore, greater efforts is needed in order to solve poor dental health conditions for women.

• 대한간호학회지
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• 제27권2호
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• pp.341-352
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• 1997

The study was to examine the relationships among health promoting lifestyle, level of anxiety, and perceived health status and to reveal those variables. affecting health promoting lifestyle in Korean immigrants in the United States. The subjects were 425 adults chosen from Korean religious and social organizations located in New York from April 25th through July 5th. 1996. Data analyses were conducted by using Pearson correlation coefficients, t-test, ANOVA, and stepwise multiple regression. The results were as follows : Health promoting lifestyle was significantly different according to age, religion. occupation, and the length of residence in the US. Those insured and those with no chronic conditions revealed a significantly higher score in health promoting lifestyle. Significant differences in the level of anxiety were found according to education, marital status, occupation, family income, and the length of residence. Those with no chronic conditions experienced a significantly lower level of anxiety. In the subscales of the health promoting lifestyle profile, self-actualization and interpersonal relationship revealed higher scores, whereas the scores of stress management, health responsibility, and exercise were lower. Those subjects whose perceived health status was very good, showed the lowest level of anxiety and the highest score on the health promoting lifestyle profile. Negative correlations were observed between the health promoting lifestyle profile and the level of anxiety, and between the perceived health status and the level of anxiety. Health promoting lifestyle was significantly predicted by the level of anxiety(22.0%), age(2.0%), health insurance(1.1%), respectively.

• 간호행정학회지
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• 제3권1호
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• pp.119-133
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• 1997

Continuing shift service of clinical nurses can be not only the cause of occupational dissatisfaction by being connected with the change of circadian rhythm and the burden of duties to be applicable to such changes. But also of inviting the lowering of nursing quality by being affected to the resignation of the nurses as the threat to the health of the nurses. This study has selected 500 nurses at random under non-probability sampling who have been serving by shift in 7 general hospitals which have over 400 sickbeds for the purpose of cross-sectional survey design from Sep. 7 through 20, 1996. Standardized modification of the CMI has been used which was designed for Koreans with Cornell Medical Index developed by Broadman and his fellow workers as the study device. The structure of the device was composed of 35 questions on physical appeal(Chronbach's ${\alpha}=8507$) and 22 questions of mental appeal(Cronbach's ${\alpha}=.8166$ totalling 57 questions. The collected data has been computerrized by using SPSS. General character, present symptom, perceived symptom and others are sought by practical number and percentage, and the health condition comparison followed by general characters was conducted by t-test and ANOVA. The post test was by Duncan's test by the level of p<.05. 1) The items of the answer that they have the physical symptom presently by 50% or over of the nurses were as "Do you often have spells of severe dizziness", "Are your eyes often red or inflamed", "Does press or pain in the head often make like miserable", "Are your ankles often badly swollen", "Do pains in the back make it hard for you to keep up with your work". 2) The items of the answer by over 50% of the nurses as the mental symptom at present were "do you fell bad when criticized?", "Do you get angry when everything is against your will?", "do you get angry when ordered to do this and that?", "do you feel uneasy by such a trifle thing?", "do you tremble or are you freightened by sudden sound?". The mental and physical symptoms which have appeared presently in connection with the shift service have been agreed with each other. But the physical condition has been worse than the mental one. 3) In the physical health conditions followed by demosociological character, there were the significant differences by sex, religion and place of residence(p<.05), and in the mental health conditions, there were the significant differences by age, marital status, residence place and the required time for attending hospital(p<.05). 4) There was significant difference by the degree of satisfaction about the duty in both the physical and mental health conditions. In short, the higher the degree of duty satisfaction, the better the health conditions. 5) There were the significant difference according to the times of night duty and whether they take the drug or not or the kinds of the drugs in the physical health conditions related with the characters of night shift. Mental health conditions in the night shift case showed significant differences according to their taking drug or not or the kinds of the drugs(p<.05). I can confirm that the nurses have been affected continuously by the shift service mentally and physically. The maintenance of the physical and mental health of the nurses and its promotion are very important problem to guarantee the quality nursing in the performance of the nursing service continuously and effectively, so the hospital should make every effort to improve the duty conditions by finding out the causes affecting to their health. In the nursing management viewpoint, I think that elevating the satisfaction degree about the duty would be a great help to the promotion of physical and mental health conditions. But what is most important is that the nurses themselves should take care of themselves in maintaining the good conditions in their service in the hospital.

• Journal of Biosystems Engineering
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• 제32권4호
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• pp.256-262
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• 2007

Image processing systems have been used to measure the plant parameters such as size, shape and structure of plants. There are yet some limited applications for evaluating plant colors due to illumination conditions. This study was focused to present adaptive methods to analyze plant leaf color regardless of illumination conditions. Color patches attached on the calibration bars were selected to represent leaf colors of lettuces and to test a possibility of health monitoring of lettuces. Repeatability of assigning leaf colors to color patches was investigated by two-tailed t-test for paired comparison. It resulted that there were no differences of assignment histogram between two images of one lettuce that were acquired at different light conditions. It supported that use of the calibration bars proposed for leaf color analysis provided color constancy, which was one of the most important issues in a video color analysis. A health discrimination equation was developed to classify lettuces into one of two classes, SOUND group and POOR group, using the machine vision. The classification accuracy of the developed health discrimination equation was 80.8%, compared to farmers' decision. This study could provide a feasible method to develop a standard color chart for evaluating leaf colors of plants and plant health monitoring system using the machine vision.

• Safety and Health at Work
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• 제8권4호
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• pp.343-346
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• 2017

Background: Long working hours adversely affect worker safety and health. In 2004, Korea passed legislation that limited the work week to 40 hours, in an effort to improve quality-of-life and increase business competitiveness. This regulation was implemented in stages, first for large businesses and then for small businesses, from 2004 to 2011. We previously reported that average weekly working hours decreased from 2006 to 2010, based on the Korean Working Conditions Survey. Methods: In the present study, we examine whether average weekly working hours continued to decrease in 2014 based on the 2014 Korean Working Conditions Survey. Results: The results show that average weekly working hours among all groups of workers decreased in 2014 relative to previous years; however, self-employed individuals and employers (who are not covered by the new legislation) in the specific service sectors worked > 60 h/wk in 2014. Conclusion: The Korean government should prohibit employees from working excessive hours and should also attempt to achieve social and public consensus regarding work time reduction to improve the safety, health, and quality-of-life of all citizens, including those who are employers and self-employed.

• 여성건강간호학회지
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• 제27권3호
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• pp.180-195
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• 2021

Purpose: This study aimed to summarize the current evidence on the effects of nonpharmacological interventions on psychological health outcomes for women with high-risk pregnancies due to conditions such as preeclampsia, gestational diabetes, or preterm labor. Methods: The following databases were searched from January 2000 to December 2020: PubMed, Ovid Embase, CINAHL, Web of Science, DBpia, RISS, and KISS. Two investigators independently reviewed and selected articles according to the inclusion/exclusion criteria. RoB 2 and the ROBINS-I checklist were used to evaluate study quality. Results: Twenty-nine studies with a combined total of 1,806 pregnant women were included in the systematic review and meta-analysis. Psychological health improvements were found in women with preeclampsia (Hedges' g=-0.67; 95% confidence interval [CI], -0.91 to -0.44), gestational diabetes (Hedges' g=-0.38; 95% CI, -0.54 to -0.12), and preterm labor (Hedges' g=-0.73; 95% CI, -1.00 to -0.46). The funnel plot was slightly asymmetrical, but the fail-safe N value and the trim-and-fill method showed no publication bias. Conclusion: Nonpharmacological interventions for women with high-risk pregnancies due to conditions such as preeclampsia, gestational diabetes, and preterm labor can improve psychological parameters such as anxiety, stress, and depression. Nurses can play a pivotal role in the nursing management of pregnant women with high-risk conditions and apply various types of nonpharmacological interventions to meet their needs in uncertain and anxious times during pregnancy.

• International Journal of Advanced Culture Technology
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• 제7권2호
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• pp.13-18
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• 2019

Comorbidity isthe simultaneous presence of two chronic diseases or conditions in a patient. As part of a larger research study, the aims of this study were to explore comorbid conditions in intensive care unit (ICU) patients and to compare the comorbidity across different demographic groups, and to determine what comorbid health problems coexisted in the patients with hospital-acquired pressure injury (HAPI). The average number of comorbid conditions was 6.4 with range from 0-20 in the ICU patients. African American patients had significantly more comorbid health problems than other race/ethnicity groups. Asian and Hispanic female patients showed higher comorbidity than male patients across age. The patients with HAPIs had significantly more comorbid health problems than the patients without HAPIs -- the average numbers were almost two-fold. We found comorbid health problems that existed with HAPI in ICU patients. 'Other diseases of lung' and 'Disorders of fluid, electrolyte, and acid-base balance' were most frequently coexisting health problems in the ICU patients with HAPI. Exploratory plots are helpful to discover patterns or hypotheses relevant to clinical management in critical care. Inclusion of patients' comorbid health problems to ICU HAPI risk assessment may be helpful. Identification of patients at a high risk for the development of HAPI and the early preventative interventions can help reduce length of stay as well as costly complications.