• Korean Journal of Adult Nursing
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• v.22 no.6
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• pp.663-675
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• 2010

Purpose: The purpose of this study was to explore the life experiences of patients with a severe Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease (COPD). Methods: The data were collected through in-depth interviews of six patients suffering from severe COPD. The interviewed data were audio-recorded and transcribed verbatim and checked for accuracy. The Giorgi method of phenomenology was used for analyzing data. Results: Eight themes forming the, units of meaning, were: Repeated and Unpredictable Suffering of Dyspnea, Confidence Loss/Exhaustion Life due to non-efficient breathing, Gradually Deprived Liberty, Absolute Being to Sustaining my life, Source of Burden but Significant Person I am in the Family, Endless Tug-of-War-Capability/Endeavor to Breath, Longing for my Life, and Dead-end of breathing. Conclusion: The study results provide an in-depth understanding of life experiences of patients suffering from severe COPD. The findings will be useful to nurses caring for this population.

• Proceedings of the Korean Institute of Information and Commucation Sciences Conference
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• 2009.05a
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• pp.899-902
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• 2009

As computer network and wireless technology continue to grow rapidly, a wide range of remote application has been applied to medical field such as remote medical consulting and remote patient monitoring. This research aims to design RF telecommunication-based healthcare application to collect and manage patient's physiological data, and describe the overall procedure of experiment. MySQL database is designed to record patient's physiological data including temperature, blood pressure and heart rate and save information about medical behaviors such as doctor's prescription for patients. Therefore, users approved by healthcare application can query patient's data and collected data can be used to reorganize data for clinical test. As a result, temperature and humidity of patient's room which must be checked frequently can be processed automatically through ubiquitous sensor network. The information entered from mobile phones or web is saved in database, ensuring systematical management through computer. Moreover, patient's family members can easily access hospital data, improving their experience with medical service.

• Archives of Plastic Surgery
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• v.44 no.5
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• pp.428-433
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• 2017

Background Candidate characteristics for hand surgery fellowship training remains unknown, as very little data is available in the literature. This study aims to provide information on the criteria that are employed to select candidates for the hand surgery fellowship match. Methods A 38-question survey was sent in April 2015 to all Accreditation Council for Graduate Medical Education recognized hand surgery fellowship program directors (n=81) involved in the U.S. match. The survey investigated factors used for the selection of applicants, including medical school, residency training, research experience, fellowship interview, and candidate characteristics. A 5-point Likert scale was used to grade 33 factors from "not at all important" (1) to "essential in making my decision" (5); or for five controversial factors from "very negative impact" (1) to "very positive impact in making my decision" (5). Results A total of 52% (42 out of 81) of responses were received from hand surgery fellowship program directors. The most important influential factors were interactions with faculty during interview and visit ($4.6{\pm}0.6$), interpersonal skills ($4.6{\pm}0.5$), overall interview performance in the selection process ($4.6{\pm}0.6$), professionalism and ethics ($4.6{\pm}0.7$), and letters of recommendation from hand surgeons ($4.5{\pm}0.7$). Factors that have a negative impact on the selection process include visa requirement ($2.1{\pm}1.2$), graduate of non-plastic surgery residency program ($2.4{\pm}1.3$), and graduate of a foreign medical school ($2.4{\pm}1.1$). Conclusions This study provides data on hand surgery fellowship directors' perception on the criteria important for fellowship applicant selection, and showed that interview-related criteria and letters of recommendation are the important factors.

• Journal of Digital Convergence
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• v.18 no.11
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• pp.409-415
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• 2020

Objective: This study is a descriptive research study aimed to identify the needs of self-reinforcement education by applying IPA(Important-Performance-Analysis) techniques to develop the health care empowerment programs for the elderly with hypertension. Methods: The subjects of this study were 128 elderly people with hypertension over 65 years of age in areas A and B, and data were collected from 6 researchers and research assistants from May 11 to June 26, 2020. The collected data were analyzed by frequency analysis, descriptive statistics, and t-test. Results: Although the question with the highest education demands were 'I try to get my health care providers to my preferences for my treatment.' and with the greatest difference between importance and performance is the question 'I take my commitment to my treatment seriously'. Conclusion: From the results of this study, it is considered that a strategy that reflects the components of educational needs and healthcare empowerment is necessary when developing healthcare empowerment programs for the elderly with hypertension.

• Journal of Society of Preventive Korean Medicine
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• v.21 no.2
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• pp.79-94
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• 2017

Objectives : The elderly in South Korea are the poorest among OECD countries in 2015. The aim of this study was to explore the health and life of the low-income elderly living in vulnerable areas in a metropolitan city. Methods : Data were collected through in-depth individual interviews with 7 participants from October to November 2015 and analyzed through Colaizzi's phenomenological methodology. The participants were interviewed for over 60 minutes in each person. Results : 7 categories were identified from 17 subcategories: "My life history: sick body," "Living with a sick body," "My poor but precious life," "A sense of distance from the hospital," "Narrowed area of my life," "Thankful for help," and "The village where I have lived my destiny." There is a lack of medical accessibility, mobility, and economic independence for low-income seniors. In addition, full-fledged redevelopment comes to them as violence. Conclusions : The health and life of the low-income elderly in vulnerable areas are products of many social factors, reaffirming the importance of social health.

• Clinical and Experimental Reproductive Medicine
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• v.24 no.3
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• pp.369-375
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• 1997

Studies were conducted to determine the efficiency of decondensation protocols. Sperm obtained from seven normal donors was immediately washed after liquefaction and then decondensed using the method of West et al. (1989) and my original protocol. My optimized protocol entailed mixing 1 ml aliquots of semen with 4 ml phosphate buffered saline (PBS). Following centrifugation, pellets were resuspended in 1 ml PBS containing 6 mM EDTA. After centrifugation, pellets were resuspended in 1 ml PBS containing 2 mM dithiothreitol at $37^{\circ}C$ for 45 min. Following mixing with 2 ml PBS and centrifugation, pellets were resuspended by vortexing. While vortexing, 5 ml of fixative were gently added. Slide preparation was accomplished using the smear method and it was stored at $4^{\circ}C$. When comparing these protocols, the degree of sperm decondensation and head swelling was monitored by measuring nuclear length, area, perimeter, and degree of roundness using FISH analysis software. Apparent copy number for chromosome 1 and, separately, for the sex chromosomes was determined by FISH using satellite DNA probes for loci DIZ1, DXZ1 and DYZ3. Sperm treated by my decondensation protocol showed significant increases (p<0.05) in length, area, perimeter, and degree of roundness. There was a significant decrease (p<0.05) in the frequency of nuclei displaying no signal but no change in the frequency of nuclei with two signals in samples decondensed by my protocol. My data suggested that decondensation using my original protocol may lower the frequency of cells with spurious "nullisomy" due to hybridization failure without inducing spurious "disomy" resulting from increased distances between split signals.

• Journal of the Korea Institute of Information and Communication Engineering
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• v.14 no.8
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• pp.1799-1808
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• 2010

Recently the increasing collaborative research requires the remote medical and clinical data sharing and access of external institutions. In this paper, an interoperability framework between Grid and PACS using Web services is proposed and implemented in order to provide flexible and efficient medical data management. The Digital Imaging and Communications in Medicine(DICOM) standard defines medical image data exchange and transfer between PACSs and image databases. However, medical data exchange between hospitals is limited within the trusted and static environments. Moreover, DICOM does not provide medical data management and the Grid middleware does not include standard toolkit to access DICOM data. To address this issue, a Web services-based Grid Service Mediator (WGSM) which provides PACS integration and medical image data management is developed. The WGSM consists of several service mediators such as compress mediator, GridFTP mediator, RFT mediator, MyProxy mediator, MDS mediator, and RLS mediator and others. The proposed Web services-based framework provides user authentication and secure data access between PACSs in collaborative environments. In particular, the WGSM allows ordinary users to access remote PACS data in a simple and efficient manner without any the knowledge about underlying Grid middleware.

• Journal of Korean Academy of Nursing
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• v.27 no.2
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• pp.389-400
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• 1997

This study examined the effects of group social support on the reduction of burden and increase in well-being of mothers of developmentally delayed children. The research used a one group pre-pose experimental design. The independent variable in the experiment was group social support. Two series of 4-weekly meetings for group social support were conducted by the researcher with the intention of developing a self-help group. The dependent variables were burden and well-being. Well-being was operationalized as physical symptoms and quality of life. Thirty mothers of developmentally delayed infants from the rehabilitation center of a medical center participated in the study. Data were collected by interviews and a self-administered questionnaire. The mean age of the subjects was 29.9 years. Changes of the dependent variables between pre and post tests were compared using the t-test. Even though there was a slight improvement in the scores for the dependent variables, they were not statistically significant. The items, "I resent my baby". "I feel angry about my interactions with my baby", "I feel guilty in my relationship with my baby" showed a significant decrease in burden score and were statistically significant. Symptoms of loneliness, constipation, anxiety, restlessness were less and feeling of happiness was greater after participation in the group social support, than on the pretest. The mothers showed emotional instability and frustrations during the group sessions but their reactions in general were positive. Emotional support, stress management and information provided were identified as the most valuable content of the sessions. However, participation was not active due to the mother's denial, delayed acceptance and /or avoidance of their infants' problems. It can be seen that group social support for the mothers with developmentally delayed children should be provided after infancy when the mothers have time to accept their children's conditions and are ready to receive support. The use of comprehensive instruments which measure burden in both families and mothers needs to be developed for future research.

• Journal of Korean Academy of Nursing
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• v.53 no.1
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• pp.115-128
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• 2023

Purpose: This study aimed to understand the experiences of women under 40 years of age with gynecologic cancer. Methods: Semi-structured individual in-depth interviews were conducted with 14 Korean female patients aged 21~39 years with gynecologic cancer. The data were analyzed using Corbin and Strauss' grounded theory approach, including open coding, context analysis, and integrating categories. Results: Grounded theory analysis revealed nine categories and a core category of 'the journey to find my life after losing the life as a typical woman.' The categories that emerged as the conditions are 'Unwelcomed guest, cancer,' 'Completely devastated life as an ordinary woman,' 'Uncertain future,' 'Losing my physical characteristics as a woman,' and 'Life tied with treatments.' The actions/interactions were 'Decrease of interpersonal relationships,' 'A lonely battle to overcome alone,' and 'The power to overcome hardships.' The consequence was 'Live my own life.' Conclusion: This study contributes to the development of a substantive theory of the experience of gynecologic cancer in young women, which has been on the rise in recent years. The study's results are expected to be used as a basis for providing nursing care to help young women with gynecologic cancer adapt to their disease.

• Asian Pacific Journal of Cancer Prevention
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• v.14 no.5
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• pp.3305-3308
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• 2013

Background: The role of inflammation in prostate diseases is suggested by the presence of inflammatory cells within the prostate in benign prostatic hyperplasia (BPH) and prostate cancer (PCa) patients. In addition, bacterial and viral infection may lead to chronic and recurrent inflammation of the prostate. The human papillomaviruses (HPVs) are a family of sexually transmitted viruses which have been implicated in the aetiology of cervical cancer and several other malignancies. This study evaluated the frequency of HPV infection in individuals with prostatic disease in Iran. Materials and Methods: The study included formalin fixed paraffin- embedded tissue samples of 196 primary prostate cases, including 29 PCa and 167 BPH samples. HPV DNA was purified and amplified through MY09/MY11 and GP5+/GP6+ primers with nested PCR. All patients were interviewed using a questionnaire to collect demographic information. Results: Nested PCR showed that HPV DNA was found in 17.2 percent of PCa samples and 4.8 percent of BPH samples (not significant). Conclusions: Our data do not support a significant role of HPV infection in prostatic disease in Iranian patients, but demographic data indicated a probable association between presence of HPV DNA and risk of inflammation in prostate tissue which might lead to prostate carcinoma. Further studies are required to elucidate any roles of HPV infection in prostatic disease.