• The Korean Journal of Elementary Counseling
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• v.7 no.1
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• pp.205-226
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• 2008

The purpose of the study you have seen is to verify the effectiveness of existing quantitative research and to put the Empathy Training Program to practical use for participating children. From looking into this, the changes in empathic understanding that came to light in relationships between teacher and children and children and children are sure to have that effect. For this work, I established the following subject of inquiry: What kind of changing processes can be seen in the empathic understanding of participating children in the Empathy Training Program? To resolve the above line of inquiry, six female sixth grade elementary school students were chosen and they progressed through twelve sessions of the Empathy Training Program. The children were given a sentence completion exam, recognition work, neat writing exam and a school adaptation exam both before and after participation in the program, making data for analysis. To analyze, first, participants had one or two meetings of forty to fifty minutes each. Progress through the program's curriculum was recorded and through the repeating and copying method, to be sure participating children's empathic understanding was revealed, empathic language and behavior was routinely chosen. Next, according the above criteria I looked into visible changes of the participating children's empathic expressions, classifying and analyzing changes in empathic understanding and six instances of common changes in the emphatic understanding of the participants relationships were analyzed and put together. Next I will summarize the findings we have seen in this research: First, if we look into changes in common empathic understanding from the beginning, using the criteria of empathic language, each individual showed understanding at the beginning and passed and progressed through stages of care, insight and emotional expressions. Second, when we looked at the criteria of empathic behavior from the beginning to the end, one's line of vision and ability to concentrate one's attention was connected. Next, the act of nodding one's head looked like a brief nod at first but at the end, it was not just a simple nod but rather they could feel deep empathy. The condition and substance of the facial expression was seen to match and at the very end the child was expressive and stretched out arms to hold and pat the other person and the act of holding hands could also be seen. Among lots of empathic behavior the final stage was shown by half of the children. Third, from the first stage to the last stage there were many cases revealed. The more the children went the more complete their empathic language became. Their vocabulary increased and became more diverse with empathic actions. Also, when comparing actions and expressions from the beginning with the end, visible expressions became more natural and sincere at the end. The result of the research we have seen is that through receiving experience of empathic understanding, participating children showed a sense of self-confidence and they looked to make peaceful expressions while not being aggressive or defensive about problems. In addition, from understanding empathic expressions, participating children's relationships felt closer. This outcome within this group in this case will be applied and the formation of empathic understanding can be used by the children internally to solve their own problems, acquire close relationships with their teachers and others. It will also contribute to smooth classroom management.

• Korean Journal of Hospice Care
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• v.2 no.1
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• pp.21-40
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• 2002

Cancer is the second leading cause of the death in Korea. Family caregivers of dying patients manifest many psychological and physical symptoms of stress, and they often seek for informational support from health care providers. Unfortunately, however, few systematic studies identify the actual effect of such support on family caregivers. This study, thus, intends to evaluate the effect of informational support for hospice care. One group pretest-posttest design was used, employing the stress-coping model by Cohen and Wills as a conceptual framework. This research was conducted from July 1 to November 15, 1998, initially with 32 subjects sampled from hemato-oncology department of two general hospitals in Seoul, but reduced to 18 at the end due to the untimely death of patients or caregiver's refusal during the course of study. Informational supports were programmed to provide the family caregivers with 8 times of education and counseling as well as 24-hour hot-line for 4 weeks. A booklet that explains the various problems of hospice care was also prepared and distributed to all subjects. Data were collected by using self-report questionnaires and reviewing medical records. The tools used in this study were based on the Weinert's PRQ-II(scale of perceived social support), Spielberger's state anxiety inventory, and CES-D. Also included in the data collection were the general characteristics of family caregivers and patients, and the pain intensity and the performance status of patients. The data were analyzed with descriptive statistics, Wilcoxon sign rank test and paired t-test using SPSSWIN program. The results of the study were as follows: 1.The perceived social support of family caregivers was not significantly increased with informational support for hospice care(t=1.64, one tailed p=.060). 2.The anxiety of family caregivers was significantly reduced following informational support for hospice care(t=3.48, one tailed p=.002). 3.The depression of family caregivers was significantly reduced following informational support for hospice care(t=-2.18, one tailed=.022). 4.The pain intensity of patients with terminal cancer was significantly reduced following informational support for hospice care(t=-2.41, two tailed p=.027). The results suggest that the informational support provided to family caregivers of patients with terminal cancer reduced not only their anxiety and depression but also the pain intensity of patients. Further study is necessary to consolidate the conceptual framework of this study with expanded number of subjects. Nevertheless, it was certain that the informational support program for hospice care was very helpful to both caregivers and patients. Thus, the informational support program is strongly recommended for the hospitals which have no hospice unit yet.