• Archives of Plastic Surgery
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• v.50 no.4
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• pp.398-408
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• 2023

Background Carpal tunnel syndrome can be treated with corticosteroid injections (CIs) and surgery. In this systematic review, the influence of previous CI on different postoperative outcomes after carpal tunnel release is evaluated. Methods A systematic literature search using several databases was performed to include studies that examined patients diagnosed with carpal tunnel syndrome who received preoperative or intraoperative CIs. Results Of 2,459 articles, 9 were eligible for inclusion. Four papers reported outcomes of preoperative and four outcomes of intraoperative CIs. One study evaluated patients who received both intraoperative and preoperative corticosteroids. Conclusion Intraoperative CIs are associated with reduced postoperative pain after carpal tunnel release and support earlier recovery of the hand function that can be objectified in a faster median nerve conduction speed recovery and lower Boston Carpal Tunnel Questionnaire (BCTQ) scores. Using preoperative CIs did not lead to enhanced recovery after carpal tunnel release, and both preoperative and intraoperative CIs might be predisposing factors for infections.

• The Journal of Korean Medicine
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• v.44 no.4
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• pp.193-207
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• 2023

Objectives: The purpose of this study was to evaluate the effectiveness and safety of traditional herbal medicine as a stand-alone treatment group through major English databases due to the lack of RCTs in Korea, and to provide a review of the herbal interventions used. Methods: Using four databases (Pubmed, EMBASE, OASIS, RISS), combination of words such as "Coronavirus" "RCT" "Herb" "Decoction" "TCM" were used. RCTs using herbal medicines to treat coronavirus were searched. Final 4 studies were selected by two authors according to inclusion and exclusion criteria. Results: A total of 1,435 patients were studied. The Chinese herbs used in the treatment group were Shengmai Yin, JingYinGuBiao granules, Jinhua Qinggan granules, and Bufei Huoxue capsules. The intervention group showed greater attenuation of pneumonia lesions on CT. Also, improvement in 6-min walk distance (6MWD), and negative conversion rate in treatment group were reported. Furthermore, scores on the Fatigue Assessment Inventory (FAI) were lower in the herbal group than in the placebo group. The median time to recovery of COVID-19 related symptoms was shorter in TCM group compared to the control group. Reported adverse effects were diarrhea, liver dysfunction, and excessive menstruation, and two papers did not mention side effects in detail. Conclusion: Herbal medicine alone can increase the conversion rate of viral negativity and relieve COVID-19 related symptoms without significant adverse effects.

• Journal of Intelligence and Information Systems
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• v.22 no.3
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• pp.71-89
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• 2016

Sentiment analysis is used for identifying emotions or sentiments embedded in the user generated data such as customer reviews from blogs, social network services, and so on. Various research fields such as computer science and business management can take advantage of this feature to analyze customer-generated opinions. In previous studies, the star rating of a review is regarded as the same as sentiment embedded in the text. However, it does not always correspond to the sentiment polarity. Due to this supposition, previous studies have some limitations in their accuracy. To solve this issue, the present study uses a supervised sentiment classification model to measure a more accurate sentiment polarity. This study aims to propose an advanced sentiment classifier and to discover the correlation between movie reviews and box-office success. The advanced sentiment classifier is based on two supervised machine learning techniques, the Support Vector Machines (SVM) and Feedforward Neural Network (FNN). The sentiment scores of the movie reviews are measured by the sentiment classifier and are analyzed by statistical correlations between movie reviews and box-office success. Movie reviews are collected along with a star-rate. The dataset used in this study consists of 1,258,538 reviews from 175 films gathered from Naver Movie website (movie.naver.com). The results show that the proposed sentiment classifier outperforms Naive Bayes (NB) classifier as its accuracy is about 6% higher than NB. Furthermore, the results indicate that there are positive correlations between the star-rate and the number of audiences, which can be regarded as the box-office success of a movie. The study also shows that there is the mild, positive correlation between the sentiment scores estimated by the classifier and the number of audiences. To verify the applicability of the sentiment scores, an independent sample t-test was conducted. For this, the movies were divided into two groups using the average of sentiment scores. The two groups are significantly different in terms of the star-rated scores.

• Journal of Korean Academy of Nursing
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• v.22 no.4
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• pp.526-551
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• 1992

The purpose of this study was to identify the commonalities of various nursing interventions and effective intervention methods in each intervention through analysis and synthesis of many accumulated research papers. The study analyzed the effects of various nursing interventions on anxiety and /or stress. For this purpose, 64 experimental studies with randomized or nonequivalent control group pre-test-posttest design were selected from journals of medical and nursing schools, the Korean Nurse, the Korean Nurses' Academic Society Journal, the Cetnral Journal of Medicine, the New Medical Journal, the Nurse Monthly, and from theses and dissertations conducted from 1970 to 1991. The selected studies nor classified according to three characteristics : 1) the research samuel, 2) types and methods of nursing interventions, and 3) statistical tests. The following analysis was done : 1) Confirmation of the accuracy of data drawn from each study by paired review, 2) Estimation of the homogenity of pre-test scores of the dependent variable between control and experimental groups warranted the effect size of post-scores, 3) If the homogenity of pre-test scores did not warrant, the change scores from pre-test to post-test were used to estimate the effect size, 4) Use of the effect size of each study among homogenious studies was tested for each intervention method, such as relaxation, information, and touch and /or support. Finally, for the studies not showing homogenity, an ANOVA test was used to identify patterns for each intervention. Some findings are summarized as follow : The effect sizes for relaxation and information were greater than those for touch and /or supportive technique. Studies using random assignment had greater effect sizes than nonrandomized sample studies using the same intervention. For healthy people, group education was more effective than individual teaching. However, for patients, relaxation and touch and /or supportive techniques given on individual basis were more effective than when given in a group situation. Measuring anxiety and stress by biological indicators was less effective than by self-report. Budzynski's relaxation method was the most effective. The more frequently the techniques applied, the larger the effect size. On the bases of these findings, the following recommendations were made : 1. A combination of information, relaxtion, and touch-supportive techniques should be used for greater effect in reducing the level of anxiety and /or stress. 2. Information is the first choice of intervention to reduce the level of anxiety and /or stress of healthy People : other interventions may be added depending on the conditions of the subjects.

• Journal of the Korean Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry
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• v.27 no.1
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• pp.39-47
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• 2016

Objectives: The aim of this study was to examine the association between current suicidal or violent behavior and deficits of specific neurocognitive variables in child and adolescent inpatient samples diagnosed with mood disorder. Methods: A retrospective review of the charts of mood disorder patients hospitalized at Samsung Medical Center between April 2004 and April 2015 was conducted. Child and adolescent patients aged between 10 and 18 years old and those who finished neurocognitive function testing during their hospitalization were included. Among them patients whose full scale IQ was between 85 and 115 were selected (N=111). Participants were first divided into two age-groups-group Y ($10{\leq}age{\leq}15$, N=54) and group O ($16{\leq}age{\leq}18$, N=57)-because neurocognitive function test tools were different according to age [Wechsler Intelligence Scale for Children (WISC) for 10 to 15-year-old patients, Wechsler Adult Intelligence Scale (WAIS) for 16 to 18-year-old patients]. They were then divided according to their suicidal or violent behavior-non suicidal/violent group (NG), suicidal group (SG), violent group (VG), and both suicidal/violent group (BG). The Child Behavior Checklist (CBCL) was checked for measurement of participants' behavior and the Gordon Diagnostic System was checked for measurement of their attention efficiency. Kruskal-Wallis Test and Tukey test was used to determine the differences in neurocognitive function between groups. Results: O-SG patients showed lower scores on the comprehension subscale of WAIS-III than O-NG patients (${\chi}^2=8.454$, p=.015). O-VG patients showed lower scores on the block design subscales of WAIS than O-SG patients (${\chi}^2=7.496$, p=.024). Y-VG patients showed higher scores in aggressive behavior, externalizing problems, and total problems scores of CBCL. Conclusion: This study showed relationship between specific neurocognitive deficits and suicidal or violent behavior. These relationships were significant in relatively older adolescents.

• Health Policy and Management
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• v.17 no.3
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• pp.1-25
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• 2007

Relative value scales introduced in 2001 remarkably improved health insurance fee schedule, but current relative value scales have many problems. In the beginning the government intended to introduce 'resource based relative value scales(RBRVSs)' like USA, but political adjustment of RBRVS studied in 19.17 weakened the relationship between relative value scale and resource consumption. So unbalance of health insurance fees are existing till now. Also relative value was not divided to physician work and practice expense, and malpractice fee was not divided separately. To correct the unbalance of current relative value scales, the refinement project of health insurance relative value scales started in 2003. The project team divided relative value scales into three components, which are physician work, practice expense, malpractice fee. Physician work was studied by professional organizations like Korean medical association. To develop the practice expense relative value, project team organized clinical practice expert panels(CPEPs) composed of physicians, nurses, and medical technicians. CPEPs constructed direct expense data like labor costs, material costs, equipment costs about each medical procedures. The practice expense relative values of medical procedures were developed by the allocation of the institution level direct & indirect costs according to CPEPs direct costs. Institution level direct & indirect costs were collected in 21 hospitals, 98 medical clinics, 53 dental clinics, 78 oriental clinics, and 46 pharmacies. The malpractice fee relative values were developed through the survey of malpractice related costs of hospitals, clinics, pharmacies. Putting together three components of relative values in one scale, the final relative values were made. The final relative values were calculated under budget neutrality by medical departments, that is, total relative value score of a department was same before and after the revision. but malpractice fee relative value scores were added to total scores of relative values. So total score of a department was increased by the malpractice fee relative value score of that department This project failed in making 'resource based' relative value scales in the true sense of the word, because the total relative value scores of medical departments were fixed. However the project team constructed the objective basis of relative value scale like physician's work, direct practice expense, malpractice fee. So step by step making process of the basis, the fixation of total scores by the departments will be resolved and the resource based relative value scale will be introduced in true sense.

• Information Systems Review
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• v.23 no.1
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• pp.69-91
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• 2021

Credit Bureaus in Korea commonly use financial transaction information of the past and present time for calculating an individual's credit scores. Compared to other rating factors, the repayment history information accounts for a larger weights on credit scores. Accordingly, despite full redemption of overdue payments, late payment history is reflected negatively for the assessment of credit scores for certain period of the time. An individual with debt delinquency can be classified into two groups; (1) the individuals who have faithfully paid off theirs overdue debts(Normal Repayment), and (2) those who have not and as differences of creditworthiness between these two groups do exist, it needs to grant relatively higher credit scores to the former individuals with normal repayment. This study is designed to analyze the factors of normal repayment of Korean financial debt delinquents based on credit information of personal loan, overdue payments, redemption from Korea Credit Information Services. As a result of the analysis, the number of overdue and the type of personal loan and delinquency were identified as significant variables affecting normal repayment and among applied methodologies, neural network models suggested the highest classification accuracy. The findings of this study are expected to improve the performance of individual credit scoring model by identifying the factors affecting normal repayment of a financial debt delinquent.

• Anxiety and mood
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• v.13 no.2
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• pp.53-59
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• 2017

Reliable and valid diagnostic screening tools in the primary care setting enable accurate estimation of depression in individuals at risk or in need of treatment, and provide patients with an opportunity to receive optimal treatments. Although there have been extensive studies on screening tools for depression used in domestic mental health settings, there is little consideration and lack of a thorough review of the diagnostic validity of screening tools. In the current review, we selected 13 representative screening tools for depression which were evaluated in a total of 19 validation studies conducted in Korea. We summarized DSM-5 target domains, diagnostic indices, sensitivity, specificity, cut-off scores, and diagnostic validity information for each tool. Finally, the depression measurement expert group was constituted to evaluate the current status of screening tools for depression, and their recommendations for a new screening tool were summarized. This study was conducted as part of the Mental Health Technology Development project to develop the Korean screening tool for depression (K-DEP).

• The Journal of Churna Manual Medicine for Spine and Nerves
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• v.15 no.1
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• pp.65-74
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• 2020

Objectives : This study aimed to evaluate the randomized controlled clinical trials (RCTs) analyzing the effectiveness of Chuna manual therapy (CMT) for benign prostatic hyperplasia (BPH). Methods : Among the literature published until May 2020, a literature search was carried out using 10 electronic databases using related keywords to identify all RCTs that applied CMT for the treatment of BPH. The Cochrane risk of bias tool was used to assess the methodological quality of each RCT. Results : Five RCTs met our inclusion criteria and were included in the analysis. These studies showed that CMT had no positive results compared to herbal medication. However, positive results were shown in terms of an increased efficacy rate, reduced international prostate symptom scores, and increased maximum flow rate when CMT was combined with acupuncture or herbal medication. Conclusions : Based on the analysis, this review has limited evidence of CMT being beneficial in the treatment of BPH. Therefore, further investigation is required using well-designed RCTs to support the effectiveness of CMT and to obtain higher evidence.

• Women's Health Nursing
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• v.21 no.4
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• pp.284-296
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• 2015

Purpose: The aim of this study was to provide basic data on the intervention for depression program development and application by analyzing the depression intervention studies for women that were published in Korea Journal (2000~2014). Methods: The research method used was the integrative review. Nine studies were reviewed from the Nursing Articles and National Assembly Library of which 41 studies were from 126 research papers that met the inclusion criteria and analyzed using MINORS (Methodological Index for Non-Randomized Studies) and according to general characteristics. Results: There were non-equivalent control group pre-post test design (78%) in research design. 44% of articles in sample size were 14~26 participants and measuring tools were used CES-D (29%), BDI (I & II, 22%), GDSSF-K (22%). In quality of research according to MINORS, most of the papers got 2 scores except for the items of sample size calculation standard. Even though the similar intervention program were reported, the results could not compare because of diverse contents, duration, methods, and measuring tool with intervention program. As the results, aroma, massage, and counseling programs seemed to have significant effects of depression alleviation. Conclusion: The standard tailored program and measuring tool for depression alleviation of women was needed to develop.