• Journal of Global Scholars of Marketing Science
• /
• v.19 no.3
• /
• pp.5-16
• /
• 2009

Corporate social responsibility (CSR) activities have been shown to be potential factors that can improve corporate image and increase the ability of corporations to compete. However, most previous studies related to CSR activities investigated how these activities influence product and corporate evaluation, as well as corporate image. In addition, some researchers treated consumers' perceptions of corporate motives as moderator variables in evaluating the relationship between corporate social responsibilities and consumer response. However, motive-based theories have some weaknesses. Corporate social responsibility activities cause two motives(egoistic vs. altruistic) for consumers, but recently, Vlachos et al. (2008) argued that these motives should be segmented. Thus, it is possible to transform the original theory into a modified theory model (persuasion knowledge model, PKM). Vlachos et al. (2008) segmented corporate social responsibility motives into four types and compared the effects of these motives on customer loyalty. Prior studies have proved that CSR activities with positive motives have positive influences on customer loyalty. However, the psychological reasons underlying this finding have not been determined empirically. Thus, the objectives of this research are twofold. First, we attempt to determine why most customers favor companies that they feel have positive motives for their corporate social responsibility activities. Second, we attempt to measure the effects of consumers' reciprocity when society benefits from corporate social responsibility activities. The following research hypotheses are constructed. H1: Values-driven motives for corporate social responsibility activities have a positive influence on the perceived reciprocity. H2: Stakeholder-driven motives for corporate social responsibility activities have a negative influence on the perceived reciprocity. H3: Egoistic-driven motives for corporate social responsibility activities have a negative influence on perceived reciprocity. H4: Strategic-driven motives for corporate social responsibility activities have a negative influence on perceived reciprocity. H5: Perceived reciprocity for corporate social responsibility activities has a positive influence on consumer loyalty. A single company is selected as a research subject to understand how the motives behind corporate social responsibility influence consumers' perceived reciprocity and customer loyalty. A total sample of 200 respondents was selected for a pilot test. In addition, to ensure a consistent response, we ensured that the respondents were older than 20 years of age. The surveys of 172 respondents (males-82, females-90) were analyzed after 28 invalid questionnaires were excluded. Based on our cutoff criteria, the model fit the data reasonably well. Values-driven motives for corporate social responsibility activities had a positive effect on perceived reciprocity (t = 6.75, p < .001), supporting H1. Morales (2005) also found that consumers appreciate a company's social responsibility efforts and the benefits provided by these efforts to society. Stakeholder-driven motives for corporate social responsibility activities did not affect perceived reciprocity (t = -.049, p > .05). Thus, H2 was rejected. Egoistic-driven motives (t = .3.11, p < .05) and strategic-driven (t = -4.65, p < .05) motives had a negative influence on perceived reciprocity, supporting H3 and H4, respectively. Furthermore, perceived reciprocity had a positive influence on consumer loyalty (t = 4.24, p < .05), supporting H5. Thus, compared with the general public, undergraduate students appear to be more influenced by egoistic-driven motives. We draw the following conclusions from our research findings. First, value-driven attributions have a positive influence on perceived reciprocity. However, stakeholder-driven attributions have no significant effects on perceived reciprocity. Moreover, both egoistic-driven attributions and strategic-driven attributions have a negative influence on perceived reciprocity. Second, when corporate social responsibility activities align with consumers' reciprocity, the efforts directed towards social responsibility activities have a positive influence on customer loyalty. In this study, we examine whether the type of motivation affects consumer responses to CSR, and in particular, we evaluate how CSR motives can influence a key internal factor (perceived reciprocity) and behavioral consumer outcome (customer loyalty). We demonstrate that perceived reciprocity plays a mediating role in the relationship between CSR motivation and customer loyalty. Our study extends the research on consumer CSR-inferred motivations, positing them as a direct indicator of consumer responses. Furthermore, we convincingly identify perceived reciprocity as a sub-process mediating the effect of CSR attributions on customer loyalty. Future research investigating the ultimate behavior and financial impact of CSR should consider that the impacts of CSR also stem from perceived reciprocity. The results of this study also have important managerial implications. First, the central role that reciprocity plays indicates that managers should routinely measure how much their socially responsible actions create perceived reciprocity. Second, understanding how consumers' perceptions of CSR corporate motives relate to perceived reciprocity and customer loyalty can help managers to monitor and enhance these consumer outcomes through marketing initiatives and management of CSR-induced attribution processes. The results of this study will help corporations to understand the relative importance of the four different motivations types in influencing perceived reciprocity.

• Asia pacific journal of information systems
• /
• v.18 no.4
• /
• pp.27-55
• /
• 2008

Due to the increasing and intensifying competition in the Internet shopping market, it has been recognized as very important to develop an effective policy and strategy for acquiring loyal customers. For this reason, web site designers need to know if a new Internet shopping mall(ISM) will be accepted. Researchers have been working on identifying factors for explaining and predicting user acceptance of an ISM. Some studies, however, revealed inconsistent findings on the antecedents of user acceptance of a website. Lack of consideration for individual differences in user ability is believed to be one of the key reasons for the mixed findings. The elaboration likelihood model (ELM) and several studies have suggested that individual differences in ability plays an moderating role on the relationship between the antecedents and user acceptance. Despite the critical role of user ability, little research has examined the role of user ability in the Internet shopping mall context. The purpose of this study is to develop a user acceptance model that consider the moderating role of user ability in the context of Internet shopping. This study was initiated to see the ability of the technology acceptance model(TAM) to explain the acceptance of a specific ISM. According to TAM. which is one of the most influential models for explaining user acceptance of IT, an intention to use IT is determined by usefulness and ease of use. Given that interaction between user and website takes place through web interface, the decisions to accept and continue using an ISM depend on these beliefs. However, TAM neglects to consider the fact that many users would not stick to an ISM until they trust it although they may think it useful and easy to use. The importance of trust for user acceptance of ISM has been raised by the relational views. The relational view emphasizes the trust-building process between the user and ISM, and user's trust on the website is a major determinant of user acceptance. The proposed model extends and integrates the TAM and relational views on user acceptance of ISM by incorporating usefulness, ease of use, and trust. User acceptance is defined as a user's intention to reuse a specific ISM. And user ability is introduced into the model as moderating variable. Here, the user ability is defined as a degree of experiences, knowledge and skills regarding Internet shopping sites. The research model proposes that the ease of use, usefulness and trust of ISM are key determinants of user acceptance. In addition, this paper hypothesizes that the effects of the antecedents(i.e., ease of use, usefulness, and trust) on user acceptance may differ among users. In particular, this paper proposes a moderating effect of a user's ability on the relationship between antecedents with user's intention to reuse. The research model with eleven hypotheses was derived and tested through a survey that involved 470 university students. For each research variable, this paper used measurement items recognized for reliability and widely used in previous research. We slightly modified some items proper to the research context. The reliability and validity of the research variables were tested using the Crobnach's alpha and internal consistency reliability (ICR) values, standard factor loadings of the confirmative factor analysis, and average variance extracted (AVE) values. A LISREL method was used to test the suitability of the research model and its relating six hypotheses. Key findings of the results are summarized in the following. First, TAM's two constructs, ease of use and usefulness directly affect user acceptance. In addition, ease of use indirectly influences user acceptance by affecting trust. This implies that users tend to trust a shopping site and visit repeatedly when they perceive a specific ISM easy to use. Accordingly, designing a shopping site that allows users to navigate with heuristic and minimal clicks for finding information and products within the site is important for improving the site's trust and acceptance. Usefulness, however, was not found to influence trust. Second, among the three belief constructs(ease of use, usefulness, and trust), trust was empirically supported as the most important determinants of user acceptance. This implies that users require trustworthiness from an Internet shopping site to be repeat visitors of an ISM. Providing a sense of safety and eliminating the anxiety of online shoppers in relation to privacy, security, delivery, and product returns are critically important conditions for acquiring repeat visitors. Hence, in addition to usefulness and ease of use as in TAM, trust should be a fundamental determinants of user acceptance in the context of internet shopping. Third, the user's ability on using an Internet shopping site played a moderating role. For users with low ability, ease of use was found to be a more important factors in deciding to reuse the shopping mall, whereas usefulness and trust had more effects on users with high ability. Applying the EML theory to these findings, we can suggest that experienced and knowledgeable ISM users tend to elaborate on such usefulness aspects as efficient and effective shopping performance and trust factors as ability, benevolence, integrity, and predictability of a shopping site before they become repeat visitors of the site. In contrast, novice users tend to rely on the low elaborating features, such as the perceived ease of use. The existence of moderating effects suggests the fact that different individuals evaluate an ISM from different perspectives. The expert users are more interested in the outcome of the visit(usefulness) and trustworthiness(trust) than those novice visitors. The latter evaluate the ISM in a more superficial manner focusing on the novelty of the site and on other instrumental beliefs(ease of use). This is consistent with the insights proposed by the Heuristic-Systematic model. According to the Heuristic-Systematic model. a users act on the principle of minimum effort. Thus, the user considers an ISM heuristically, focusing on those aspects that are easy to process and evaluate(ease of use). When the user has sufficient experience and skills, the user will change to systematic processing, where they will evaluate more complex aspects of the site(its usefulness and trustworthiness). This implies that an ISM has to provide a minimum level of ease of use to make it possible for a user to evaluate its usefulness and trustworthiness. Ease of use is a necessary but not sufficient condition for the acceptance and use of an ISM. Overall, the empirical results generally support the proposed model and identify the moderating effect of the effects of user ability. More detailed interpretations and implications of the findings are discussed. The limitations of this study are also discussed to provide directions for future research.

• Asia Marketing Journal
• /
• v.14 no.2
• /
• pp.157-176
• /
• 2012

Brand switching data frequently used in market structure analysis is adequate to analyze non- durable goods, because it can capture competition between specific two brands. But brand switching data sometimes can not be used to analyze goods like automobiles having long term duration because one of main assumptions that consumer preference toward brand attributes is not changed against time can be violated. Therefore a new type of data which can precisely capture competition among durable goods is needed. Another problem of using brand switching data collected from actual purchase behavior is short of explanation why consumers consider different set of brands. Considering above problems, main purpose of this study is to analyze market structure for durable goods with consideration set. The author uses exploratory approach and latent class clustering to identify market structure based on heterogeneous consideration set among consumers. Then the relationship between some factors and consideration set formation is analyzed. Some benefits and two demographic variables - age and income - are selected as factors based on consumer behavior theory. The author analyzed USA automotive market with top 11 brands using exploratory approach and latent class clustering. 2,500 respondents are randomly selected from the total sample and used for analysis. Six models concerning market structure are established to test. Model 1 means non-structured market and model 6 means market structure composed of six sub-markets. It is exploratory approach because any hypothetical market structure is not defined. The result showed that model 1 is insufficient to fit data. It implies that USA automotive market is a structured market. Model 3 with three market structures is significant and identified as the optimal market structure in USA automotive market. Three sub markets are named as USA brands, Asian Brands, and European Brands. And it implies that country of origin effect may exist in USA automotive market. Comparison between modal classification by derived market structures and probabilistic classification by research model was conducted to test how model 3 can correctly classify respondents. The model classify 97% of respondents exactly. The result of this study is different from those of previous research. Previous research used confirmatory approach. Car type and price were chosen as criteria for market structuring and car type-price structure was revealed as the optimal structure for USA automotive market. But this research used exploratory approach without hypothetical market structures. It is not concluded yet which approach is superior. For confirmatory approach, hypothetical market structures should be established exhaustively, because the optimal market structure is selected among hypothetical structures. On the other hand, exploratory approach has a potential problem that validity for derived optimal market structure is somewhat difficult to verify. There also exist market boundary difference between this research and previous research. While previous research analyzed seven car brands, this research analyzed eleven car brands. Both researches seemed to represent entire car market, because cumulative market shares for analyzed brands exceeds 50%. But market boundary difference might affect the different results. Though both researches showed different results, it is obvious that country of origin effect among brands should be considered as important criteria to analyze USA automotive market structure. This research tried to explain heterogeneity of consideration sets among consumers using benefits and two demographic factors, sex and income. Benefit works as a key variable for consumer decision process, and also works as an important criterion in market segmentation. Three factors - trust/safety, image/fun to drive, and economy - are identified among nine benefit related measure. Then the relationship between market structures and independent variables is analyzed using multinomial regression. Independent variables are three benefit factors and two demographic factors. The result showed that all independent variables can be used to explain why there exist different market structures in USA automotive market. For example, a male consumer who perceives all benefits important and has lower income tends to consider domestic brands more than European brands. And the result also showed benefits, sex, and income have an effect to consideration set formation. Though it is generally perceived that a consumer who has higher income is likely to purchase a high priced car, it is notable that American consumers perceived benefits of domestic brands much positive regardless of income. Male consumers especially showed higher loyalty for domestic brands. Managerial implications of this research are as follow. Though implication may be confined to the USA automotive market, the effect of sex on automotive buying behavior should be analyzed. The automotive market is traditionally conceived as male consumers oriented market. But the proportion of female consumers has grown over the years in the automotive market. It is natural outcome that Volvo and Hyundai motors recently developed new cars which are targeted for women market. Secondly, the model used in this research can be applied easier than that of previous researches. Exploratory approach has many advantages except difficulty to apply for practice, because it tends to accompany with complicated model and to require various types of data. The data needed for the model in this research are a few items such as purchased brands, consideration set, some benefits, and some demographic factors and easy to collect from consumers.

• Journal of the Korean Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry
• /
• v.13 no.1
• /
• pp.15-23
• /
• 2002

Knowledge regarding the resilience factors and risk factors of the childhood trauma on the developental trajectory is in its infancy due to the lack of prospective follow-up studies in the childhood trauma and limited understanding of the complex reciprocal interactions between childhood trauma, develop-ent and various aspects of children's environment. These difficulties in the conceptual framework and research methods in the childhood trauma are partly reflected in the inconsistencies, even controversies, of the results in the childhood trauma researches. Despite these difficulties, common aspects of the risk factors and resilience of the childhood trauma on the development can be identified from the previous studies. The resilience to the negative outcome on the development by childhood trauma includes：sex female before puberty, male after puberty or infancy), high socioeconomic status, no organic problem, easy temperament, no previous experience with early loss or separation, younger age at the trauma, better problem solving capacity, high self-esteem, internal locus of control, high coping skills, ability to identify interpersonal relationships, ability to play, sense of humor, having capable parents, having a warm relaionship with at least one of the parents, high education and participating in the organized religious activities. These commonalities of the results suggest that risk and resilient factors of the childhood trauma are interdependent, each factor has multiplicity in the impacts on the children's development according to the developmental stage of the child, family and children's other environment, trauma and stressor have diverse effects according to their intensity and risk and resilience factors could have synergistic or antagonistic effects to each other. To develop comprehensive understanding on the relationship between childhood trauma and developmental psychopathology, risk and resilience factors and to develop effective and efficient prevention and intervention, research on the effect of the stress on the neurodevelopment, on the individual differences of the response to the trauma including genetic factors and constitution, and on the brain plasticity should be accompanied in the future.

• Journal of the Korea Academia-Industrial cooperation Society
• /
• v.14 no.5
• /
• pp.2293-2303
• /
• 2013

Objective: This study aims to determine whether national patient safety indicators (PSIs) can be calculated. Methods: Using PSI criteria from Organization for Economic Co-Operation and Development (OECD) Health Technical Papers 19 based on the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ), PSIs were identified in the Korean National Hospital Discharge In-depth Injury Survey (KNHDIIS) database for 875,622 inpatient admissions between 2004 and 2008. Logistic regression was used to estimate factors of variations for PSIs. Results: From 2004 to 2008, 3,084 PSI events of 8 PSIs occurred for over 80 thousands discharges. Rates per 1,000 events for decubitus ulcer (PSI3, 4.88), foreign body left during procedure (PSI5, 0.05), postoperative sepsis (PSI13, 1.32), birth trauma-injury to neonate (PSI17, 7.92) and obstetric trauma-vaginal delivery (PSI18, 32.81) are all identified between ranges from maximum to minimum of OECD rates, respectively. However, rates per 1,000 events for selected infections due to medical care (PSI7, 0.22), postoperative pulmonary embolism or deep vein thrombosis (PSI12, 0.90) and accidental puncture or laceration (PSI15, 0.71) are below the minimum of OECD range. 7 PSIs except PSI 18 showed statistically significant relationship with number of secondary diagnoses. When adjusting patient characteristics, there are statistically significant different rates according to bed size or location of hospitals. Conclusion: This is the first empirical study to identify nationally number of adverse events and PSIs using administrative database. While many factors influencing these results such as quality of data, clinical data and so on are remain, the results indicate opportunities for estimate national statistics for patient safety. Furthermore outcome research such as mortality related to adverse events is needed based on results of this study.

• Journal of Korean Medical classics
• /
• v.12 no.2
• /
• pp.92-109
• /
• 1999

They say Y$\breve{o}$k'ak(易學) is the root of Oriental studies. This means philosophy, astronamy, geography, medicine, music, numbers are all based on Yin-Yang, and Five phases theory of Y$\breve{o}$k'ak. Nowadays studies are very much specialized but as we go back to old times, we cannot dearly set these studies apart. All the studies can be comprehensively understood with Y$\breve{o}$k'ak(易學). The original purpose of Y$\breve{o}$k'ak is to predict future with highly symbolized signs, Sang-Su(象數). However you cannot fully understand Y$\breve{o}$k'ak without knowing the principle of change in Sang-Su itself. We have to keep thinking about how we should further study Y$\breve{o}$k'ak, treat diseases with Sang-Su, and how Sang-Su can be used in medicine. As a previous step to this process, I will consider relationship of Y$\breve{o}$k'ak and medicine in this paper. This study will help us to set the goal and method in studying medicine. Conclusions of this paper are following: 1. The purpose of understanding a subject is to understand the principle of the subject. The principle of every subject can be turned into principle of changes in the universe. This principle is not affected by time nor space. It is only seen through the changes of subjects. 2. The reason we cannot easily understand the principle is that we have biased mind. How we should overcome this is through developing virtue, and by keep inspecting things over and over. 3. We see the outcome of changes inside but we should not neglect the principle. Therefore we see the principle through Sang. Sang is in between Principle(理) and Things(物), thereby has characteristics of both. Which means it is much like Principle but specific Things is related and it is much like Things but it is not easily understood. 4. There are various kinds of Sang. Mind-Sang(心象) is an image that comes before expressing it with symbols or words. When it is expressed in symbols or words, it is no longer considered as same Sang. Sang in symbol are Kwaesang(卦象), Hyosang(爻象) and Sang in words is Kyesa(卦辭). The characteristic of all these Sang is that it cannot be explained through the logics. 5. If we call Sanghak as the study with Sang, the method is same as that of understanding the principle. The fundamental purpose of Sanghak is to understand the principle of things and then apply this principle to the practical world so that the world can be a better place. So I would say Sanghak is the study of a saint and a ruler. 6. Since the object of medicine is human being who are the mixture of Principle and Ki, we can use Sang which is also related to both Principle and Ki. Actually terms we use in Oriental medicine are not easily understood without the knowledge of Sanghak. 7. When we diagnose a patient, we are looking for Sang that comes from the body inside. When we do the treatment, we cannot neglect the original change that's happening in our body. Therefore studying Sang is a necessary step to do the full diagnosis and treatment. 8. The method of studying medicine is first to get rid of biased mind, taking right Sang from various classics and then apply those Sang to actual situations.

• Journal of Intelligence and Information Systems
• /
• v.17 no.1
• /
• pp.127-138
• /
• 2011

The core service of most research portal sites is providing relevant research papers to various researchers that match their research interests. This kind of service may only be effective and easy to use when a user can provide correct and concrete information about a paper such as the title, authors, and keywords. However, unfortunately, most users of this service are not acquainted with concrete bibliographic information. It implies that most users inevitably experience repeated trial and error attempts of keyword-based search. Especially, retrieving a relevant research paper is more difficult when a user is novice in the research domain and does not know appropriate keywords. In this case, a user should perform iterative searches as follows : i) perform an initial search with an arbitrary keyword, ii) acquire related keywords from the retrieved papers, and iii) perform another search again with the acquired keywords. This usage pattern implies that the level of service quality and user satisfaction of a portal site are strongly affected by the level of keyword management and searching mechanism. To overcome this kind of inefficiency, some leading research portal sites adopt the association rule mining-based keyword recommendation service that is similar to the product recommendation of online shopping malls. However, keyword recommendation only based on association analysis has limitation that it can show only a simple and direct relationship between two keywords. In other words, the association analysis itself is unable to present the complex relationships among many keywords in some adjacent research areas. To overcome this limitation, we propose the hybrid approach for establishing association network among keywords used in research papers. The keyword association network can be established by the following phases : i) a set of keywords specified in a certain paper are regarded as co-purchased items, ii) perform association analysis for the keywords and extract frequent patterns of keywords that satisfy predefined thresholds of confidence, support, and lift, and iii) schematize the frequent keyword patterns as a network to show the core keywords of each research area and connecting keywords among two or more research areas. To estimate the practical application of our approach, we performed a simple experiment with 600 keywords. The keywords are extracted from 131 research papers published in five prominent Korean journals in 2009. In the experiment, we used the SAS Enterprise Miner for association analysis and the R software for social network analysis. As the final outcome, we presented a network diagram and a cluster dendrogram for the keyword association network. We summarized the results in Section 4 of this paper. The main contribution of our proposed approach can be found in the following aspects : i) the keyword network can provide an initial roadmap of a research area to researchers who are novice in the domain, ii) a researcher can grasp the distribution of many keywords neighboring to a certain keyword, and iii) researchers can get some idea for converging different research areas by observing connecting keywords in the keyword association network. Further studies should include the following. First, the current version of our approach does not implement a standard meta-dictionary. For practical use, homonyms, synonyms, and multilingual problems should be resolved with a standard meta-dictionary. Additionally, more clear guidelines for clustering research areas and defining core and connecting keywords should be provided. Finally, intensive experiments not only on Korean research papers but also on international papers should be performed in further studies.

• Journal of Chest Surgery
• /
• v.39 no.8 s.265
• /
• pp.579-587
• /
• 2006

Background: Preoperative risk analysis for Fontan candidates is still less than optimal in that patients with apparently low risks may have poor surgical outcome; prolonged pleural drainage, protein losing enteropathy, pulmonary thromboembolism and death. We hypothesized that low pulmonary vascular compliance (PVC) is a risk factor for prolonged pleural effusion drainage after the Fontan operation. Material and Method: A retrospective review of 96 consecutive patients who underwent the Extracardiac Fontan procedures (median age: 3.9 years) was performed. Fontan risk score (FRS) was calculated from 12 categorized preoperative anatomic and physiologic variables. PVC $(mm^2/m^2{\cdot}mmHg)$ was defined as pulmonary artery index $(mm^2/m^2)$ divided by total pulmonary resistance $(W.U{\cdot}/m^2)$ and pulmonary blood flow $(L/min/m^2)$ based on the electrical circuit analogue of the pulmonary circulation. Chest tube indwelling time was log-transformed (log indwelling time, LIT) to fit normal distribution, and the relationship between preoperative predictors and LIT was analyzed by multiple linear regression. Result: Preoperative PVC, chest tube indwelling time and LIT ranged from 6 to 94.8 $mm^2/mmHg/m^2$ (median: 24.8), 3 to 268 days (median: 20 days), and 1.1 to 5.6 (mean: 2.9, standard deviation: 0.8), respectively. FRS, PVC, cardiopulmonary bypass time (CPB) and central venous pressure at postoperative 12 hours were correlated with LIT by univariable analyses. By multiple linear regression, PVC (p=0.0018) and CPB (p=0.0024) independently predicted LIT, explaining 21.7% of the variation. The regression equation was LIT=2.74-0.0158 PVC+0.00658 CPB. Conclusion: Low pulmonary vascular compliance is an important risk factor for prolonged pleural effusion drainage after the extracardiac Fontan procedure.

• Clinical and Experimental Pediatrics
• /
• v.49 no.1
• /
• pp.29-33
• /
• 2006

Purpose : The aim of this study was to analyze the results and contributing factors of catch-up growth in very low birth weight infants(VLBWI) at the corrected age of 2 years. In addition, we looked for a relationship between the catch-up growth and the development by the bayley scales of infant development II(BSID II). Methods : A retrospective analysis by evaluating medical records was done for the 76 VLBWI whose follow-up was possible up to a corrected age of 2 years, out of the 114 who had been treated in the neonatal intensive care unit during the January of 2000 to December of 2001 at Samsung Cheil Hospital. Based on the Standard Korean Infant's Growth Curve, the catch-up growth group was defined over the 10th percentile of weight at 2 years as the corrected age and the failed catch-up growth group was defined under the 10th percentile. We investigated the clinical factors and courses of each group and compared the scores of the BSID II. Results : The catch-up growth group of the VLBWI was 51 infants and the failed catch-up growth group was 25 infants. In comparison with maternal clinical factors, use of antenatal steroids was significantly higher in the catch-up growth group. In comparisn with clinical factors and courses of VLBWI, two clinical factors were significantly different between the two groups : birth weight and intrauterine growth retardation(IUGR). Numbers of delayed development were increased in the failed catch-up growth group but statistically significant differences could not be observed. Conclusion : The catch-up growth of the VLBWI was affected by the use of antenatal steroids, birth weight and IUGR. No significant differences regarding neurodevelopmental outcome were observed between the catch-up and failed catch-up growth groups.

• Clinical and Experimental Pediatrics
• /
• v.46 no.3
• /
• pp.259-264
• /
• 2003

Purpose : We have performed an analysis on patients who received Rastelli operation in our institute and reviewed their progress postoperatively. Various factors with suspected relationship to the outcome have been considered to help in future treatment and follow-up. Methods : We analyzed retrospectively 43 patients who either received Rastelli operation in Yonsei University Cardiovascular Center from March 1995 to April 1997 or who received post-procedural cardiac catheterization and follow-up echocardiography in the out-patient department after the procedure. Results : No statistically valid relationships were found between the age of the patient, their body weight, preoperative pulmonary arterial index and pressure, presence of pulmonary branchial stenosis and postoperative results. Cases with atrioventricular concordance showed lower age and body weight, and discordant cases exhibited lower ejection fraction 3 days postoperatively. Upon follow up, lower NYHA score was seen in patients with severe residual stenosis. In the group that received cardiac catheterization after the procedure, residual stenosis and right ventricular pressure measurement in echocardiography showed good correlation with the catheterization data. Conclusion : In cases where conduit insertions of the right ventricular outflow tract are required to achieve total correction in complex cardiac deformity, early operation does not seem to provide a clear risk to the patient. In patients with atrioventricular discordance, careful postoperative observation of the ventricular function seems to be needed. Also, echocardiography appears to be a sound method in follow-up of patients after the correctional procedure.