• Journal of the Korean Society of Food Culture
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• v.28 no.3
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• pp.246-260
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• 2013

This study examines the awareness of traditional Korean food culture among immigrant housewives in multicultural families, with the aim of introducing educational plans suitably designed for them. Our survey shows that Korean traditional holidays most well-known to the immigrant housewives are New Year's Day and Chusuk. Sambok and Chusuk are at the top in terms of preference. Samgyetang, Ddukguk, and Ogokbab are among the best known festive food to immigrant housewives for holidays such as New Year's Day, Jeongwol Daeboreum, Sambok, Chusuk, and Dongji; Samgyetang is the most preferred food, followed by Ddukguk and Patjuk. In addition, a vast majority of immigrant housewives who have ever attended Korean traditional cuisine education programs found the need for such an experience, with the score of 4.16 out of 5. In addition, the survey shows the order in which the immigrant housewives want to learn: the recipe of Korean food (53.5%), followed by table setting and manners (16.5%) and then nutrition (15%). The recipe of interest for most respondents is the one concerning daily food (69.5%). And more than half of the respondents prefer cooking practice as a desirable educational method. The difficulties that they have when attending such an educational course are usually inability to understand the language, difficulty in identifying the ingredients (seasonal), and lack of cultural understanding. The most preferred educational method is direct lecture (71.5%), followed by written materials such as books and newspaper (10.5%) and the Internet (9.5%). Finally, strategies for promoting traditional food culture are suggested as following: developing educational resources (31.5%), making various educational programs more available (25%), narrowing the cultural gap (22%), and improving the educational environment (21.5%). Therefore, this study proposes that there is a need to develop and diffuse Korean traditional food culture first, and then provide many immigrant housewives with a variety of educational programs. It is expected that these efforts will solve the problems caused by cultural differences in the early stage of international marriages and eventually contribute to the harmony in multicultural families.

• Journal of the Korean Society of Food Culture
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• v.26 no.1
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• pp.17-29
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• 2011

As the public is already aware, baby food has a significant effect on a baby's physical and mental health. It is also very important because choice of baby food forms proper eating habits, which will affect health in the future. In particular, recognition of appropriate baby food by the mother or the primary care provider is even more important. Although many studies have been conducted on this matter for domestic housewives, no studies have been conducted on married immigrant housewives whose numbers are increasing every year. A survey was conducted on the recognition and current situation of baby food preparation by mothers living in Gangwon Province with children 6 to 36-months-old. The purpose of the study was to research the level of understanding of baby food by immigrant housewives given that they were raised in different environments with different eating habits and child raising norms. And additional purpose was to provide proper educational material and direction for choosing appropriate baby food. The results showed significant differences depending on the nationality and age of the mother. Moreover, the results showed an insufficient understanding of baby food but a high desire for education, as mothers did not receive enough support from society. Therefore, necessary education should be provided systematically after mothers fully learn to communicate in Korean. These mothers need continuous attention and support, so they can settle in this country as wives, daughters-in-law, and mothers. Moreover, the needed professional education should be provided so that the mothers can learn traditional Korean eating habits and understand differences in the culture and environment between countries. As the selection of baby food forms the basis of future eating habits and the foundation for good health, proper education should be available to establish healthy intercultural families.

• Women's Health Nursing
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• v.17 no.2
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• pp.99-108
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• 2011

Purpose: The purpose of this study was to compare the levels of stress, social support, and marital satisfaction between married immigrant women living in urban areas and women living in rural areas to identify ways to improve their mental health. Methods: Two hundred married immigrant women were recruited from multicultural familysupport centers located in Daejeon City and Chungcheong Province. From July, 2009 to January, 2010, data were collected using self- administered questionnaire. Study instruments were scales for acculturative stress, housewives life stress, support from spouse, and marital satisfaction. Results: Urban married immigrant women had lower levels of acculturative stress and higher levels of support from spouse and more positive marital satisfaction compared to rural women. Both groups reported similar levels of stress in life as a housewife. Factors influencing marital satisfaction in both group were lower levels of acculturative and housewives life stress, higher levels of support from spouse, and living with parents-in-law. Conclusion: Rural married immigrant women may have more problems in adjusting to Korean culture and marriage compared to urban women. Therefore, to improve the physical and psychological wellbeing and marital adjustment of married immigrant women, development of nursing strategies according to area of residence is needed.

• Journal of Home Health Care Nursing
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• v.15 no.2
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• pp.75-81
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• 2008

Purpose: We analyzed the health care and health status of immigrant women married to Koreans in our community. Methods: We recruited 204 women who live in S Cityfrom 1st August to 30th September, 2008. A cross-sectional descriptive survey was done using a questionnaire through interviews and physical assessment by visiting nurses. Results: The average age of the subjects was 29.8 and most of them were housewives. Sixteen percent of them obese as measured by BMI. Moreover, most participants (86%) did not exercise at all. Over 13% complained of physical discomfort that was left untreated, and only 50% participated in cancer screening. Conclusions: Young, obese immigrant women require further health care monitoring. Caregivers also should ask about physical discomfort and cancer screenings. However, caregivers should do so in a culturally sensitive manner. In addition, the government should support cancer detection programs for immigrant women.

• Journal of the Korea Academia-Industrial cooperation Society
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• v.13 no.2
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• pp.678-684
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• 2012

The purpose of this study is to figure out and establish the basic data that can help improve management of oral healthcare for the international marriage migrantwomen. In this sense, we surveyed questions on 237 women out of 1,300 immigrant women, who have participated the program in operation by multi-cultural household supporting center, in a fashion of face-to-face investigation and on-the-spot direct cavity inspection simultaneously from May 1th to October 31th, 2010. Collected data were electro-statistically computerized under SPSS 17.0 program and analyzed with frequency analysis, recurrence analysis and logistic regression analysis respectively. Foundings were revealed as follows; On the nationality base, show the data in the ratio of 38.8% for Vietnamese, 29.1% for Philippine, 12.2% for Chinese and 6.8% for Japanese respectively. Current oral cavity status shows in the ratio of 60% with carious tooth symptoms, 40% without carious tooth symptom. Philippine women have irregular sets of tooth in many a case. (i.e., in short of numbers of teeth, due to removing individual tooth.) Japanese ladies are indicated to have less irregular sets of tooth, in comparison with that of the other immigrants from overseas. And lastly, high-income immigrant women in general were found having less numbers of unhealthy sets of tooth. Getting older, it appears that decayed tooth symptom is on the tendency of getting less in the field of dentistry circles. Immigrant ladies living with husbands under higher education background usually are found living a life in the less ratio of having toothache. A full-time immigrant housewives, however, are living everyday life in more times of suffering with tooth disease.

• Journal of Digital Convergence
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• v.12 no.8
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• pp.501-513
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• 2014

The purpose of this study was to examine experiences of caring parents-in-law in Korea among daughters-in-law who are currently caring their parents-in-law while living with them, or have experienced such care-giving, and who have been married for at least 5 years. Daughters-in-law this study deals with are from three countries: Korean women, Chinese and Japanese women who immigrated to Korea by getting married with Korean husbands. To find out those women who can express their experiences clearly, this study used an intentional sampling method where this study asked the Multicultural Family Support Center to recommend five Chinese and five Japanese housewives who matched the following qualifications: those who have experiences of caring their parents-in-law at home, who have lived in Korea for at least five years, and who had no difficulty in expressing their opinions in Korean language. Korean married women were recommended by the neighbors. This study conducted in-depth interviews to those 15 housewives from Korea, china, and Japan. Before doing the interview, this study gave explanation of the contents and aims of this study to those interview participants over phone, and got the written consent from each of the women. To analyze the interview data, Colaizzi's phenomenological method was used. The emergent themes identified in the findings were as follows: 'positive perception of traditional nature of filial duty', 'help and encouragement by those who are nearby', 'exhausting marriage life', 'Korean family culture that is hard to adapt to', and 'unreasonable male-focused patriarchal culture.'

• Journal of Korean Academy of Nursing
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• v.23 no.2
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• pp.299-315
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• 1993

Koreans are one of the fastest growing immigrant groups in America. Stress responses and stressors among this large cultural minority has been rarely been studied by nursing researchers. Adjusting to life in foreign country produces a great deal of stress. Differences in culture, language, expectations and social behavior can lead to misunderstandings between health care providers and clients. These misunderstandings are not well accounted for in health assessment. This study investigated the relationship between life events or / and daily activities as a stressor and the symptoms of stress among a sample of Korean immigrants in America. The symptoms of stress scale (SOS) was used to identify stress responses and open-ended questions were used to identify life events and daily activities considered by the respondents to be stressful. A simple random sample of 283 subjects was selected from the Directory of the Korean Society of Chicago, New York, Los Angeles, Philadelphia and Seattle. Demographically, the subjects ranged in age from 20 to 69 years, and the percentage of women and men was approximately 50% each. Almost ninety percent of the subjects were highly educated, 17% owners of business, 19% white collar professionals, 14% employed in sales or as skilled /unskilled labor, 27% as housewives and students and 3％ had no occupation. The total group SOS mean was 0.8042 ; the SOS men for man was 0.7371, and for women was 0.8713. The stress response of this subject group was high, -the stress response of women higher than that for men. In an earlier study(June, 1992) with another sample, the total mean SOS score was similar to this one. The main stressful life events or / and daily activities were, in order, economic problems (N=97), interpersonal problems (N=68), children care problems (N=258), health problems (N=49), communication problems (N=42), family problems (N=38), worry about future career (N=36), and religious problems (N=25). There was a significant difference in the SOS means between the group that expressed life events or / and daily activities to be stressful and the group that did not. Interpersonal relationships and economic and family problems were stressors for those who complained about peripheral manifestations. cardiopulmonary symptoms, central-neurological symptoms, gastrointestinal symptoms, muscle ten-sion, habitual patterns, depression, anxiety, emotional irritability and cognitive disorganization. In summary, interpersonal relationships and economic and family problems influenced stress response manifestations. Income, the number of people in the family, the year of immigration. the level of education, and marital status were related to physiological and psychosocial stress responses.