• Asian Pacific Journal of Cancer Prevention
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• v.13 no.11
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• pp.5593-5597
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• 2012

Purpose: The aim of this study was to evaluate the effects of the group therapy on psychological symptoms and quality of life of patients with early stage breast cancer. Methods: This study was performed on 16 breast cancer patients who completed treatments. The total group therapy program involved a weekly session of 2-3 hours, for 16 weeks. The group therapy sessions were given to women in the oncology department by a clinical psychologist and also given training sections by the different professional teams. All the required assessments for the study were performed after and before 16 week group therapy intervention. Results: Initially we had taken 21 women but 16 participated in all therapy programs and submitted questionnaires. The mean age was 47.8 years. There were significant differences between before and after group therapy program. Anxiety, depression, and distress showed significant improvements. Hopelessness scale was detected at the border of significance. There was no change in sleep problems and quality of life. According to the analysis of correlation, considering the age factor and year of diagnosis, there was found no statistically significant relationship between anxiety, distress, depression, hopelessness, sleeplessness, and quality of life. Conclusions: This pilot study demonstrated that brief, predominantly group therapy is feasible for patients with breast cancer and, also it may be helpful to cope with emotional and physical distress.

• Korean Journal of Occupational Health Nursing
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• v.26 no.1
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• pp.10-18
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• 2017

Purpose: This study identified the prevalence of depressive symptoms and explored correlates of depressive symptoms among Korean women care-workers caring older adults living in community. Methods: A total of 465 participants were recruited for the study. Depressive symptoms was measured by the CES-D10 and distress was assessed using a single question given 5 Likert scale. Results: The prevalence of depressive symptoms and distress among care-workers were 32.5% and 32.0% respectively. Work environment safety, violence exposure experience, work-family conflict, weekly care work time, and poor health status were significantly associated with depressive symptoms. Only violence exposure experience and poor health status were associated with distress. Conclusion: Our findings suggest more attention on mental health of care-workers and their risky work condition such as violence.

• 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.

• The Korean Journal of Emergency Medical Services
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• v.23 no.1
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• pp.135-146
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• 2019

Purpose: The aims of this study were to identify the relationships among alcohol level, impact of event, occupational stress, and distress disclosure and to determine the influences on alcohol level among fire officials. Methods: Participants in this cross-sectional, descriptive study were 241 fire officials. Data were collected from June 2018 to July 2018 using self-reported questionnaires and were analyzed using IBM SPSS 22.0 software (IBM, Armonk, NY, USA). Results: The results revealed significant positive relationships between alcohol level and impact of event, and impact of event and occupational stress, and a negative relationships between occupational stress and distress disclosure. Regression analysis revealed that alcohol level accounted for 9.2% of the variance by gender, and impact of event(e.g., sleep problems and emotional numbness). Conclusion: These findings provide information that can be used in the development of mental health promotion programs for fire officials.

• Journal of Korean Public Health Nursing
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• v.32 no.3
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• pp.411-423
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• 2018

Purpose: This study was to form a healthy smartphone culture and serve as basic materials for developing smartphone addiction intervention program by understanding mental health and physical health of college students caused by smartphone addiction. Methods: The data collected from 261 college students at G and S city universities who understood the purpose of this study and consented to take part in the study were analyzed on mean, standard deviation, frequency, Chi square test and t-test using SPSS 20.0. Results: The result showed that the level of smartphone addiction was significantly different according to gender, age, type of college, satisfaction with college life and satisfaction with family life. The smartphone addiction risk group showed higher score in life stress, depression, social avoidance and distress than the general user group and the physical health was also higher in the risk group than the general user group. Conclusion: It is necessary to develop and apply customized intervention plan per each person's characteristics and level of addiction to prevent addiction and improve health condition from overuse of smartphone.

• Korean Journal of Social Welfare Studies
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• v.42 no.4
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• pp.5-34
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• 2011

There have been increasing incidents of natural and social disasters that claimed many lives and caused financial calamities worldwide, which call for an attention to mental health issues affecting disaster victims. This study reviewed the findings of the empirical research on the effects of disaster on the victims, the prevalence and determinants of the mental health problems. The disaster tends to disproportionately affect the socio-economically disadvantaged population and their mental health problems and recovery seemed to be heavily influenced by post-disaster experiences such as restoration of physical environment, prospect of economic recovery and resumption of normalcy in their lives, opportunities for participation in decision-making that affect their lives. Such findings suggest that the disaster mental health should shift from its traditional approach that focuses on short-term clinical interventions to alleviate acute mental distress for the victims to a public health approach that involve medical, social and economic interventions as well as community empowerment to prevent chronicity of the mental health problems and to improve the general quality of life of the individuals and the community adversely affected by the disaster. Implications for the social work research, policy making, education and practice were discussed.

• Anxiety and mood
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• v.15 no.2
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• pp.115-121
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• 2019

Objective : The purpose of this study was to investigate prevalence of psychiatric symptoms and determine predictors of emotional distress of military hospital surgical patients. Methods : This study examined 104 orthopedic patients admitted to the Armed Forces Military Hospital September-November 2018. For the study, every subject completed self-assessment inventories regarding depressive and anxiety symptoms (Hospital Anxiety and Depression Scale), sleep problems (Pittsburgh Sleep Quality Index), problematic alcohol and tobacco use (Cut off, Annoyed, Guilty, Eye-opener screening), and psychiatric history. We performed the Student's t-test and the chi-square test for the collected data to investigate the prevalence of psychiatric symptoms, including emotional distress. Logistic regression analysis was used to examine the risk factors related to emotional distress of hospitalized military personnel. Results : There were no significant differences in socio-demographic and psychiatric symptoms between soldiers and officers. The prevalence of depressive and/or anxiety symptoms (emotional distress) was 21.2% (n=21). In the logistic regression analysis, psychiatric history [Adjusted Odds Ratio (AOR)=18.99 ; 95% Confidence Interval (CI)=1.42-253.57 ; p=0.026] and low military life satisfaction (AOR=15.67; 95% CI=1.46-168.11 ; p=0.023) correlated with emotional distress. Conclusion : Soldiers admitted to the military hospital showed similar prevalence of emotional distress as those at general hospitals. Considering military circumstances, it is necessary to detect and intervene regarding soldiers with a psychiatric history and low military life satisfaction to promote mental health at military hospitals.

• Journal of the Korean Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry
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• v.2 no.1
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• pp.160-175
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• 1991

The purpose of this study is to investigate the parental marital relationships and the parent-child relationships of child psychiatric parents and its control group. This study was carried out two questionnaire instruments ; The marital satisfaction inventory(MSI) and the dyadic adjustment scale(DAS). The subjects are parents of the child psychiatric patients. A matched control group and parents of child psychiatric parents in Seoul area which were collected from July 1987 to September 1987, and classified into five subgroups : 1 Psychiatric disorder 2) Neurotic disorder 3) Tic disorder 4) Autistic disorder 5) Mental retardation. The results are as following ; 1) M.S.I scale scores of parents of patients group are lower than that of control group. 2) D.A.S scale score of parents of patients group is significantly lower than that of the control group(P<0.01). 3) The global distress scale(GDS) of the M.S.I. was most positively correlated with affective communication(AFC) and problem-sloving communication(PSC). 4) Female shoed more modern concept of role identification than male but tend to have heavier role assignment especially in child rearing practices which could be characterized by maternal domination. 5) Affective communication and sexual relationship between married couple and child rearing practices are influenced by their own family history of distress. 6) The marital global distress scale(GDS) score was highest in the parents of psychosis, the next in the parents of neurosis, autism, mental retardation, and tic disorder in descending order of severity. 7) The dyadic maladjustment score was highest in the parents of psychosis, the next in the parents of neurosis, tic, autism and mental retardation in descending order of severity. 8) Conflict in child rearing and parenting problems were particularly prominent in parents of the tic patients, and their marital relationship was not significantly disturbed. The above finding suggested that couple adjustment and marital dissatisfaction were closely related with child rearing problems and the children's disorder. So marital dissatisfaction and marital maladjustment seem to play a significant role in the genesis of psychosis and neurosis not much in autism and mental retardation.

• Journal of Korean Academy of Nursing
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• v.47 no.1
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• pp.98-109
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• 2017

Purpose: This aim of this phenomenological study was to describe and understand the experience of spiritual conflict in hospice nurses by identifying the meanings and structures of the experience. Methods: Participants were 12 nurses working for one year or more at hospice units of general hospitals in a metropolitan city and experiencing of spiritual conflict as hospice nurses. Over six months data were collected using individual in-depth interviews and analyzed with the method suggested by Colaizzi. Results: The experience of spiritual conflict in participants was organized into three categories, six theme-clusters, and 13 themes. The participants felt existential anxiety on death and a fear of death which is out of human control and skepticism for real facts of human beings facing death. They also experienced agitation of fundamental beliefs about life with agitation of the philosophy of life guiding themselves and mental distress due to fundamental questions that are difficult to answer. Also they had distress about poor spiritual care with guilty feelings from neglecting patients' spiritual needs and difficulties in spiritual care due to lack of practical competencies. Conclusion: Findings indicate the experience of spiritual conflict in hospice nurses is mainly associated with frequent experience of death in hospice patients. The experience of spiritual conflict consisted of existential anxiety, agitation of fundamental beliefs and distress over poor spiritual care. So, programs to help relieve anxiety, agitation and distress are necessary to prevent spiritual conflict and then spiritual burnout in hospice nurses.

• Anxiety and mood
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• v.13 no.1
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• pp.1-9
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• 2017

We reviewed the scientific literature on psychological effects of Chemical, Biological, Radiological, Nuclear, Explosive (CBRNE) disaster, which is one of the biggest threat to modern society. CBRNE disaster has the potential to cause specific physical symptoms and psychological distress in victims ; moreover, various toxic symptoms and carcinogenesis/mutation would be an important issue. Bioterrorism can cause localized outbreaks of infectious disease or pandemic disaster. Somatization as well as posttraumatic stress symptoms and depression are the characteristic psychological symptoms in CBRNE disaster's victims. CBRNE disasters could lead to large-scale public fear and social chaos due to the difficulties involved in verifying the extent of exposure and unfamiliar area to the common people. In the evacuation process, problems associated with adjustment and conflict between victims and residents should be considered.