• Anxiety and mood
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• v.18 no.2
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• pp.80-91
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• 2022

Objective : Hospital workers' mental health has deteriorated because of the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic. The purpose of this study was to investigate the impact of the prolonged COVID-19 pandemic on the mental health of hospital workers and its determinants. Methods : Two surveys were conducted among employees working in a hospital that received COVID-19 patients from the early phase of the pandemic in South Korea. Data on demographics, perceived threat, workplace evaluation, resilience, and mental health status were collected using the Korean General Health Questionnaire-20 in the initial phase (February 2020) and during the third wave of COVID-19 (December 2020) for 467 and 545 workers, respectively. The mental health of hospital workers in the two phases was compared, and the risk and protective factors during the third wave were investigated. Results : The proportion of patients in the psychiatric high-risk group increased from 2.8% in the initial phase to 11.4% during the third wave. The perceived threat, workplace evaluation, and resilience of respondents deteriorated. Risk factors for mental health during the third wave included the perceived threat items of job stress, loss of control, and considering resignation. Protective factors included presence of children, workplace satisfaction, and hardiness in resilience. Conclusion : Hospital workers' mental health deteriorated as the pandemic progressed. General stress and tension such as job stress, loss of control, considering resignation rather than COVID-19-specific stress had negative effects on mental health of hospital workers. Therefore, care for work stress itself can be helpful to maintain the mental health of hospital workers. Also, governance to improve workplace satisfaction or hardiness in resilience can be a potential protective factor for hospital workers' mental health during the prolonged pandemic.

• Korea Journal of Hospital Management
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• v.9 no.4
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• pp.87-100
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• 2004

The main objective of this paper is to investigate the burnout state, coping types, and their relationship with organizational citizenship behavior, and based on the investigation, to provide some reference materials for effective management of burnout and appropriate methods of coping. For this purpose, employees of Korean Red Cross Blood Center were selected as the subject of the research. Data for empirical analysis were obtained through mail survey using structured and self-administered questionnaire for 282 employees of five Red Cross Blood Centers across the nation. Following is the summary of the results: 1) Degree of organizational citizenship behavior was higher among the married, the forties in age, and the employees whose major reason for choosing to work at the Center was 'to help other people.' On the other hand, degree of burnout was higher among the single but lower among the forties in age and the employees who chose to work at the Center because of suitable abilities and interests. As for the types of coping, problem-oriented coping method was more frequently used by the married, older, relatively more-educated and higher-grade employees. 2) Among the three kinds of burnout, 'achievement burnout' was found to have the greatest influence on the organizational citizenship behavior, negatively affecting organizational citizenship behavior as a whole and all of its components except for 'sportsmanship.' Next was 'impersonality burnout,' which also had negative effect on organizational citizenship behavior as a whole, and altruism, conscientiousness and sportsmanship among the components. Finally, 'emotion burnout' appeared to have positive effect on altruism and courtesy but negative effect on sportsmanship. 3) Among the various types of coping, 'problem-oriented' and 'positive perspective' coping methods were found to positively influence overall organizational citizenship behavior, whereas 'stress dissolution' had negative effect. These results imply that special management, counselling and education are needed for sociodemographic groups with high burnout to utilize problem-oriented and positive perspective coping methods which are considered to have desirable effects in coping with burnout problems. In addition, some methods should be devised to prevent and manage the 'achievement burnout' that was found to have great negative influence on organizational citizenship behavior.

• Korean Journal of Health Education and Promotion
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• v.24 no.2
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• pp.29-44
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• 2007

Objectives: The administrative employees of government were analyzed on their levels of fatigue symptoms to reveal the various factors related to them. Methods: The self-administered questionnaires were performed, during the period between Dec. 5th, 2005 and Jan. 31st, 2006, to 1,005 individuals in the service of general administration located in Daejeon Metropolitan City. The survey items included subjects' socio-demographic and job-related characteristics, health-related behavior, degree of job demand, job autonomy, social support in work, type A behavior pattern, locus of control, sense of self-esteem, and degree of fatigue. The study results were analyzed and the authors came to the following major findings, by univariate and multiple regression analysis with degree of fatigue dependent variables and other variables independent. Results and Conclusions: The study results indicated that the level of fatigue symptoms is so complicatedly influenced by variable factors as well as job-related characteristics such as socio-demographic characteristics, rank in work, or job career, to a greater extent, by job specifications and personality traits(type A) like whether performing health-related behavior or not, job demand, job autonomy, social support in work, or sense of self-esteem. Thus the effective strategy for stress reduction among governmental employees requires additional programs focusing on innovated job specifications and managed personality trait.

• Journal of Preventive Medicine and Public Health
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• v.52 no.3
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• pp.161-169
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• 2019

Objectives: The objective of the present study was to validate a shortened transformational leadership (TL) scale (12 items) comprising core TL behaviour and to test the associations of this shortened TL scale with depressive symptoms. Methods: The study used cross-sectional data from 1632 employees of the overall workforce of a middle-sized German company (51.6% men; mean age, 41.35 years; standard deviation, 9.4 years). TL was assessed with the German version of the Transformational Leadership Inventory and depressive symptoms with the Hospital Anxiety and Depression Scale (HADS). The structural validity of the core TL scale was assessed with confirmatory factor analysis. Associations with depressive symptoms were estimated with structural equation modelling and adjusted logistic regression. Results: Confirmatory factor analysis and structural equation modelling showed better model fit for the core TL than for the full TL score. Logistic regression revealed 3.61-fold (95% confidence interval [CI], 2.20 to 5.93: women) to 4.46-fold (95% CI, 2.86 to 6.95: men) increased odds of reporting depressive symptoms (HADS score >8) for those in the lowest tertile of reported core TL. Conclusions: The shortened core TL seems to be a valid instrument for research and training purposes in the context of TL and depressive symptoms in employees. Of particular note, men reporting poor TL were more likely to report depressive symptoms.

• Korean Journal of Occupational Health Nursing
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• v.7 no.1
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• pp.83-96
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• 1998

The study was conducted to analyze employees' and employers' awareness of occupational health programs for the purpose of evaluating the effectiveness of the program employed in small-scale enterprises (SSE). The 400 SSE that have under 50 employees and have been supported by the Government were selected for mail survey, and 120 employers and 318 employees of 183 factories returned the questionnaires. The results are as follows; 1) 33.8% of employees were not aware of the fact that their factories have been supported by Government, and 69.1% of employees did not know who was the monitor of that program. Only 147% of employees and 35.5% of employers agreed that the supported program reflected their opinions well. 2) 45.1% of employees participated in health education classes more than once. But only 15.6% of them considered the classes as very helpful. 21.1% of employers were much aware of health education schedule, and 44.2% reported that it was helpful for the prevention of occupational diseases. 3) 68.8% of employers were aware of the possibility of occupational diseases that could occur in their factories. And 36.5% of employers reported that some criteria were used for job reallocation to their employees. But only 9.7% of employees were assigned new job based on the result of health status examination. 4) 65.6% of employees were aware of the periodic evaluation for work environment, and 43.3% knew the evaluation results. Among participated SSE, 5.9% have a planning department for improving work environment, and 46.2% actually carried out the program for improving work environment. The findings showed that the employers and employees of SSE had insufficient knowledge of the occupational health program that have been employed in their workplace. It is essential to lead more active participation of employers and employees in their occupational health programs so as that the programs are to improve their health status as well as work environment more effectively.

• The Korean Journal of Health Service Management
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• v.6 no.3
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• pp.53-66
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• 2012

The main purpose of this research is to gain full understanding of how well people are aware and prepared for after retirement. To reach the goal to learn more about the upcoming aging society, professionals from variety of medical fields were employed as subjects to this research. In order to get a detailed result, and to provide an ideal suggestion, the research was conducted with 406 professional workers from 31 different medical institutions as its subjects. Obtained results were summarized as follows. First, in terms of government policies in the field, the idea of long term recuperation insurance gained more support than the belief that the public annuity is a sufficient economic countermeasure. Second, there is a causal relation between the economical preparation for retirement and the reason why people do not prepare for their after retirement. The more one feel short of money, the more one is obtuse towards the necessity of preparing for retirement, the more ignorant one is about preparing for retirement, the higher the chance that there will be no preparation done for his/her after retirement.

• Korea Journal of Hospital Management
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• v.20 no.1
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• pp.1-12
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• 2015

This study aims to examine the effect of a change of leadership on internal environment and organization effectiveness and suggest measures on effective organizational management by analyzing a change of leadership before and after 2nd generation management. There was analysis of a difference of leadership type, organizational structure, organizational culture, management resources, job satisfaction, and organizational commitment between the period of the founders and the period of 2nd generation successors by collecting data from employees of 6 hospitals in Seoul. Also there was analysis of the effect of a change of leadership on internal environment and organizational effectiveness. According to the analysis, it was demonstrated that the factor affecting job satisfaction during the period of the founder was complexity of organizational structure, and there were no factors affecting organizational commitment. In contrast, during the period of the 2nd generation successors, it was revealed that transformational leadership, centralism of organizational structure, and human resources of management resources affect job satisfaction, and transformational leadership, complexity of organizational structure, hierarchical culture of organizational culture, and human resources of management resources affect organizational commitment. Further, after the succession from the founders to 2nd generation successors, as transformational leadership increased, job satisfaction rose, and as developmental culture was reinforced and human resources increased, organizational commitment was heightened. Furthermore, as transformational leadership increased and developmental culture was reinforced, organizational commitment was heightened. Namely, as transformational leadership was reinforced resulting from the succession to 2nd generation, employees' job satisfaction and organizational commitment increased, with circumstances aiming for the actual change.

• Quality Improvement in Health Care
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• v.22 no.1
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• pp.41-57
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• 2016

Objectives: This study aimed to investigate how many healthcare professionals experienced near misses, what types of near misses occurred most often, and healthcare professionals' opinions about near misses at one university hospital in Korea. Methods: The authors developed a questionnaire including 26 core types of near misses and 4 questions about preventability and reporting barriers. The survey was conducted from Oct. 31st to Nov. 18th 2011, about 3 weeks, using a self-administrated questionnaire that was administered to 697 healthcare professionals (registered nurses, pharmacists, technicians, and nurses aides) who worked at a university hospital. Medical doctors and employees working in the department of administration were excluded. Results: About half of hospital workers experienced at least one or more near misses during the past one year. The drug dispensing process was the most common subcategory of near misses. Among the 26 items, patient falls was highest. Over 95% of respondents reported that the near miss they experienced was preventable. Also, more than half of respondents did not report the near miss and the main reason for omission was fear of blame. Conclusion: Regarding patient safety issues, a near miss is a very significant factor because it can be a potential adverse event. Therefore, we should grasp the size of the problem through tracking and analyzing near misses and should make an effort to reduce them. To do so, we should check whether our reporting system is well designed and functioning.

• Korean Journal of Psychosomatic Medicine
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• v.29 no.2
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• pp.136-143
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• 2021

Objectives : The coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) outbreak is a global medical crisis imposing particular burden on public sector employees. The aim of this study was to investigate the psychiatric distress among public sector workers amid the COVID-19 pandemic. Methods : We conducted a cross-sectional study with 531 public sector workers in Gwangmyung city who completed Korean versions of the Perceived Stress Scale (PSS), Patient Health Questionnaire-9 (PHQ-9), and Impact of Event Scale-Revised-Korean (IES-R-K). Results : The results revealed more than moderate levels of stress (85.2%), depressive symptoms (22.2%), and posttraumatic stress symptoms (38.8%). PSS total score was significantly correlated with PHQ-9, IES-R-K total scores as well as IES-R-K subscale scores. Total scores on the PSS, PHQ-9, and IES-R-K were all inversely correlated with age. Conclusions : COVID-19-related workers experience considerable stress and depressive symptoms, with self-rated stress correlating significantly with depression scores. Age may serve as a protective factor against occupational stress and burnout. These findings highlight the need for adequate psychiatric screening and intervention for public sector workers.

• Korea Journal of Hospital Management
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• v.6 no.1
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• pp.85-106
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• 2001

Since physical damages caused by passive smoking had been widely recognized, the Korea parliament enacted the National Health Promotion Law on September, 1995. The law specified nonsmoking areas in all public facilities, including hospitals. But this law is not strictly enforced. The benefits of a nonsmoking policy can not be expected by the public. Even though hospitals should preserve a smoke-free-environment, most of hospitals are not under full controls against smoking. The purpose of this study is to identify factors related to smoking in general hospitals. Field study and surveys were simultaneously performed at study hospitals in Busan. 9 of 24 general hospitals were selected and survey was performed for 10 days by investigators during January of 2000. Nine hospitals had nonsmoking regulations, but only 8 hospitals had designated nonsmoking areas. Two hospitals among those hospitals had a nonsmoking committee. Patients' smoking rate was 35.0%, while hospital employees' smoking rate was 22.5%. The smoking rates of physicians, nurses, administrators and medical technicians were 45.38%, 0.85%, 31.73% and 40.70%, respectively. In the question of the severity of damages caused by passive smoke, only 29.2% of the smoking group considered smoking as a serious health risk, while 69.4% of non-smoking group did. Christian employee showed lower smoking rate compared to other employee did. Even though physicians should educate patients and other professions about smoking, physicians' smoking rate (45.4%) was higher than other professions. As a consequence, this study insists that general hospitals should enhance their nonsmoking policy and implement any practical policy for smoking free hospital environment.