• Korean Journal of Health Education and Promotion
• /
• v.27 no.4
• /
• pp.51-59
• /
• 2010

Objectives: This study was designed to understand the association between the perceived social support and the quality of life among cancer patients. Methods: Questionnaire survey was conducted from July 10 to August 14 in 2008 among inpatients and outpatients visited Gangwon Cancer Center. Survey was done for 429 patients who were diagnosed as cancer longer than two years and 232 patients responded. We used Multidimensional Scale of Perceived Social Support(MSPSS) and Euro Quality of Life-5 Dimension(EQ-5D). Results: Prevalence of problem in Quality of life among cancer patients were as follows; 28.6% in mobility, 26.0% in pain or discomfort, 24.8% in anxiety or depression, 22.7% in usual activity, and 15.7% in self-care. Cancer patients with higher social support had significantly higher Quality of Life. Also more severe stage had significantly lower Quality of Life. Conclusion: Education, income, stage, and social support seemed influential to Quality of Life among cancer patients. Programs are necessary to promote social support for Quality of Life especially for cancer patients diagnosed as higher stage. Counseling and supporting can be useful not only for patients but also for families.

• Survey Research
• /
• v.9 no.1
• /
• pp.23-42
• /
• 2008

This study purports to examine the potential determinants of welfare attitudes of Korean Youth. In a sense, this study could be considered as exploratory since the independent variables for model are chosen in a somewhat arbitrary manner. The independent variables are mostly value orientation of Youth. The welfare attitude is measured by the question asking respondent's nonnative idea on the primary care-giver in the old age. Data has been collected by National Youth Policy Institute as a part of research project, named "Korean Youth Development Indicators". The analysis shows that the welfare attitudes of Korean youth is influenced. by a number of factors. such as parent's education, a proxy for the parents' SES, attitude toward equality. and state's responsibility in general. The author contends that although this is an exploratory kind of study, this study contributes not only to the research in the field, hut also to the welfare policy-makers by providing generalizable outcomes on the value and attitudes of Korean youth on welfare issues. After all, policy needs public supports to be sustained.

• Health Policy and Management
• /
• v.26 no.3
• /
• pp.233-241
• /
• 2016

Background: This study purposed to analyze and understand how spatial accessibility of patients influenced the number of outpatient visits for the internal medicine of a hospital. Methods: A hospital with 100 beds in Seoul, South Korea provided data from 2013 January 1 to 2013 June 30. Euclidean distance and road ares were used to represent the spatial accessibility. Patient level data and dong level data were collected and used in spatial analysis. Dong level data was converted into grid level ($500{\times}500m$) for the multivariate analysis. Hot-spot analysis and generalized linear model were applied to the data collected. Results: Hot-spots of outpatient visits were found around the study hospital, and cold-spots were not found. Number of outpatient visits was varied by the distance between patient resident and hospitals, and about 80% of total outpatient visits was occurred in within the 5 km from study hospital, and 50% was occurred in within 1.6 km. Spatial accessibility had significant influences on the outpatient visits. Conclusion: Findings provide evidences that spatial accessibility had influences on the patients' behaviors in utilizing the outpatient care of internal medicine in a hospital. Results can provide useful information to health policy makers as well as hospital managers for their decision making.

• Health Policy and Management
• /
• v.22 no.1
• /
• pp.65-84
• /
• 2012

Because of the rising healthcare costs, there is a growing need for developing efficiency indicators for medical resources use and measuring efficiency of healthcare providers and healthcare systems using them. In this study, we aimed to develop efficiency indicators for medical resources use by means of Delphi technique. We systematically reviewed the existing measures of medical resource use. Thirty nine indicators were selected as a candidates across the six domains: medical personnel, medical equipment, medical facilities, ethical management, resource efficiency, and drug use. To develop efficiency indicators with professional consensus, a 2-round Delphi survey was conducted among 29 professional experts. The following indicators were selected based on the Delphi survey results: adjusted number of the patient per day and level of the nurse number medical personnel in medical personnel domain; the number of the scan a professional physician and the quality of the scan in medical equipment domain; bed utilization rate in medical facility domain; drug price reported pharmaceutical price by medical institutions, medical fee billing transparency, and medical care appropriateness in ethical management domain; costliness index in resource efficiency domain; and utilization of high cost drug and items per prescription in drug use domain. The efficiency indicators could provide valid information about efficiency of healthcare providers and healthcare systems with respect to their resources use and facilitate policies to improve their efficiency.

• Health Policy and Management
• /
• v.28 no.3
• /
• pp.294-300
• /
• 2018

The development and management of epidemiology intelligence service (EIS) officer with more specialized competence to cope with and prepare for health threats, including pandemic of emerging and re-emerging infectious diseases, is a high priority policy issue in Korea. First of all, we need to establish the training goal of EIS officer. It is necessary to establish manpower training and management system with at least three tiers including quantitative and qualitative targets. Second, at least 50% of all EIS officer must secure a physician and secure expertise and competence for epidemic. Third, for the ultimate purpose of EIS officer, the establishment of a public health expert should expand the scope of epidemiologist's work to health and medical care, occupational environment, and various disasters. Fourth, it is essential to expand the epidemiologist training and education program to the level of advanced countries. Especially, the training course should be expanded at least twice of current times. Fifth, it is necessary to independently install and operate the 'EIS Officer Training Center' as a mid- and long-term goal. Stewardship and governance are secured with the organization, personnel, etc. that can fully manage the planning, management, and evaluation of the EIS system. In the future, it will be necessary to establish a systematic and phased operational base of education and training programs for EIS officer, and establish a sustainable implementation system for strategy development. In addition, it is urgent to revise the guidelines for training public health professionals and strengthening competencies, and for establishing professional educational institutions.

• Journal of Digital Convergence
• /
• v.13 no.5
• /
• pp.89-99
• /
• 2015

This study aims to develop a LOS(Length of Stay) bench-making system that can provide efficient by comparing the LOS management of other hospital and level evaluation for inducing the LOS to manage their own activities. The convergence LOS bench-making web program has been implemented to compare a variety of beds, regional group, followed reporting with excel files downloads by using the severity-adjusted LOS model of Korean National Hospital Discharge in-depth Injury Survey data. Features that are computed in real-time severity-adjusted LOS was also implemented. Trial operating results, bench-making system was confirmed efficient for management of LOS on the long-term care and group of disease in hospital from the staff or medical department, receive requests comparative statistics by area and disease group. Therefore the policy alternative on extension of severity-adjusted LOS is needed to utilized bench-making system on LOS.

• The Journal of the Convergence on Culture Technology
• /
• v.6 no.4
• /
• pp.591-598
• /
• 2020

Since COVID-19's 1st pandemic came in February 2020, the demand for telemedicine grew greatly that in most countries the deregulation for telemedicine policy have been implemented in more countries. Also in Korea, with the name of 'Non-face-to-face Treatment' telemedicine began to be approved. Telemedicine having strength in chronic disease management has been effective in more and more specialties along with the recent development of ICT that it is expected to contribute to the improvement of the quality of healthcare service and creation of new treatment model. On the contrary it may also exacerbate the distortion in the hospital healthcare service industry in Korea, which is the excessive tipping toward large hospitals. So the dual promotion policy approach in which the settlement of family doctors system extensively utilizing telemedicine for chronic disease management and the support for tertiary hospitals and hospitals focusing on treating foreign patients to provide quality service using telemedicine technology are pursued simultaneously are recommended.

• Journal of Families and Better Life
• /
• v.34 no.5
• /
• pp.1-19
• /
• 2016

This study attempted to assess the durability of the trend in increasing childcare time and to get some clues based on research findings to make efficient policy interventions in case there is a need to continue or reverse course for such trend. In doing so, a total of 9,668 diaries from the 2004, 2009, and 2014 Korean Time Use Survey were analyzed targeting parents with a preschooler as their eldest child. Parental time was regressed on parents' weekly work hours, mother's relative income, parents' education and gender role attitudes. Furthermore, increase in parental childcare time was decomposed into parts that were attributable to differences in the means and slopes of associated factors. Analytic results revealed that; parents' weekly work hours were associated with time spent on childcare from 2004 to 2014; the negative relationship between mother's relative earnings and her childcare time in 2004 and 2009 was reversed to a positive one in 2014; parent's education had stronger positive effects on father's than on mother's childcare time; parents' gender role attitudes had a weak association with childcare time; social and cultural changes such as decrease in work hours, higher education, more egalitarian gender role attitudes, and rise in women's wages contributed to the increase in parental childcare time, but in a different way for mothers and fathers. By taking into account the social and cultural context behind the changes, this study is able to provide a more constructive implications for childcare policy in Korea.

• Health Policy and Management
• /
• v.22 no.4
• /
• pp.597-627
• /
• 2012

As misalignments among images, identity, and legitimacy of health professionals and institutions have been on the rise, CEOs of health care organizations have been required to enhance organizational accountability. Despite the accumulation of literature on the conceptual discussions of accountability, only a few studies empirically investigated key barriers to accountability and its facilitators. To identify perception on accountability with key barriers and facilitators of organizational accountability, a semi-structured interview with 11 CEOs of Korean hospitals was conducted. A short survey was taken to get quantitative data on CEO's perception on organizational accountability. To CEOs, accountability was very complex and unfamiliar concept, but understood as physician's code of ethics by nature and basic principle of hospital management. CEOs thought accountability could be improved through ethical leadership, financial stability and learning climate of hospitals. Distrust of the government, which failed to provide economic incentives for hospitals to increase accountability activities, was emphasized as a serious barrier to hospital accountability. There was consensus among hospital CEOs as to the importance of accountability in management. However, there were concerns that, without policy instruments to motivate hospitals toward increasing community benefits as well as collective efforts among health professionals to rebuild moral climate for being accountable, greater accountability would not be achieved in hospitals.

• Women's Health Nursing
• /
• v.20 no.1
• /
• pp.14-28
• /
• 2014

Purpose: This study was to identify relationships of maternal psychosocial factors including mother's mood state, childcare stress, social support and sleep satisfaction with breastfeeding adaptation and immune substances in breast milk, especially secretory immunoglobulin A (sIgA) and transforming growth factor-beta 2 (TGF-${\beta}2$). Methods: Data were collected from 84 mothers who delivered full-term infants by natural childbirth. Structured questionnaires and breast milk were collected at 2~4 days and 6 weeks postpartum. Data were analyzed using descriptive statistics, Pearson's correlation, multiple linear regression, and generalized estimating equation (GEE). Results: Scores for the breastfeeding adaptation scale were significantly related with child care stress, mood state and social support. Mother's anger was positively correlated with the level of sIgA in colostrum (p<.01). Immune substances of breastmilk was significantly influenced by time for milk collection (p<.001) and the type of breastfeeding (sIgA, p<.001, TGF-${\beta}2$, p=.003). Regression analysis showed that breastfeeding adaptation could be explained 59.1% by the type of breastfeeding, childcare stress, the Profile of Mood States, emotional support and sleep quality (F=16.67, p<.001). Conclusion: The findings from this study provide important concepts of breastfeeding adaptation program and explanation of psychosocial factors by immune substances in breast milk. Future research, specially, bio-maker research on breast milk should focus on the ways to improve breastfeeding adaptation.