• Korean Journal of Clinical Pharmacy
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• v.32 no.1
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• pp.27-36
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• 2022

Background: Medication-related problems (MRPs) frequently occur during the discharge period. Elderly patients, particularly, are at high risk for these problems due to polypharmacy and the use of potentially inappropriate medications. The purpose of this study was to build and implement collaboration between general hospital and community pharmacies to address MRPs among high-risk elderly patients before/after discharge. Methods: This retrospective study was conducted between June and December of 2020. The inclusion criteria were patients with aged ≥65 years; residents of Jeonju; discharged from Jeonbuk National University hospital; either on medication of exceeding 10 medications (or high-risk medications) after hospitalization through the emergency room, or having severe illness. Patients received medication reconciliation and counselling by hospital pharmacists before discharge and home-visit pharmaceutical care as follow-up by community pharmacists after discharge. Results: Twenty-two patients agreed to home-visit pharmaceutical services. Fifteen and 11 patients completed the first and second home-visit pharmaceutical care service, respectively. Forty-two MRPs were identified in 15 patients. The types of high-frequency MRPs were incorrect administration of drug, adverse drug reactions, medication non-compliance, drug-drug interactions, lifestyle modifications, and expired medication disposal. After consultation with the pharmacist, 34 out of 42 MRPs were resolved. Conclusions: Transitional care for high-risk elderly patients before and after discharge was successfully built and implemented through a collaboration between general hospital and community pharmacies. This study suggests that home-visit pharmaceutical services may have positive effects on the safe use of drugs during the transition period; however, additional research is needed to expand on these findings.

• Journal of Korean Society of Environmental Engineers
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• v.35 no.1
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• pp.45-56
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• 2013

This study was suggested as fundamental data to control medical materials remained in Nakdong range gauge. The level of Iopromide detected in Nakdong mainstream was $0.0015{\sim}0.37{\mu}g/L$, Mefenamic acid $0.0087{\sim}0.056{\mu}g/L$, Diclofenac $N.D.{\sim}0.01{\mu}g/L$, Atenolol $N.D.{\sim}0.024{\mu}g/L$, Propranolol $N.D.{\sim}0.0038{\mu}g/L$, Lincomycin $0.0005{\sim}0.038{\mu}g/L$, and Trimethoprim $N.D.{\sim}0.0083{\mu}g/L$. At sewage disposal plant in the region, most of them were detected high levels of density. Especially, the level of Iopromide was found the highest up to $5.38{\mu}g/L$. At livestock wasted water disposal plant, the level of lincomycin was detected the highest figure of $477{\mu}g/L$. As a result, medical materials from Nakdong River mainstream got increasing the concentration due to inflow from sewage disposal plant in Gumi and River Geumho in Daegu, which affects residential and industrial areas significantly. Therefore, to control medical materials remained in Nakdong River efficiently, Geumho River and sewage disposal plants shall be continuously monitored and managed, which is recommendable.

• The Korean Journal of Pain
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• v.37 no.1
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• pp.41-50
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• 2024

Background: Recognizing the seriousness of the misuse and abuse of medical narcotics, the South Korean government introduced the world's first narcotic management system, the Narcotics Information Management System (NIMS). This study aimed to explore the recent one-year opioid prescribing patterns in South Korea using the NIMS database. Methods: This study analyzed opioid prescription records in South Korea for the year 2022, utilizing the dispensing/administration dataset provided by NIMS. Public data from the Korean Statistical Information Service were also utilized to explore prescription trends over the past four years. The examination covered 16 different opioid analgesics, assessed by the total number of units prescribed based on routes of administration, type of institutions, and patients' sex and age group. Additionally, the disposal rate for each ingredient was computed. Results: In total, 206,941 records of 87,792,968 opioid analgesic units were analyzed. Recently, the overall quantity of prescribed opioid analgesic units has remained relatively stable. The most prescribed ingredient was oral oxycodone, followed by tapentadol and sublingual fentanyl. Tertiary hospitals had the highest number of dispensed units (49.4%), followed by community pharmacies (40.2%). The highest number of prescribed units was attributed to male patients in their 60s. The disposal rates of the oral and transdermal formulations were less than 0.1%. Conclusions: Opioid prescription in South Korea features a high proportion of oral formulations, tertiary hospital administration, pharmacy dispensing, and elderly patients. Sustained education and surveillance of patients and healthcare providers is required.

• Journal of Service Research and Studies
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• v.14 no.2
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• pp.48-68
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• 2024

Due to the global pandemic aftermath of the coronavirus, the importance of health care is being emphasized more socially. Due to the influence of these changes, domestic pharmaceutical companies have introduced regular drug delivery services, that is, drug and health functional food subscription services. Currently, this market is continuously growing. However, these regular services are causing new environmental problems in which the number of waste drugs increases due to the presence of unused drugs. Therefore, this study proposes a service that not only promotes health management through regular medication adherence to reduce the amount of pharmaceutical waste but also aims to improve awareness and practices regarding proper medication disposal. As a preliminary survey for service design, a preliminary survey was conducted on 51 adults to confirm their perception of drug use habits and waste drug collection. Based on the Honey Comb model, a guideline for service design was created, and a prototype was produced by specifying the service using the preliminary survey results and service design methodology. In order to verify the effectiveness of the prototype, a first user task survey was conducted to identify the problems of the prototype, and after improving this, a second usability test was conducted on 49 adults to confirm the versatility of the service. Usability verification was conducted using SPSS Mac version 29.0. For the evaluation results of the questionnaire, Spearmann Correlation Analysis was conducted to confirm the relationship between frequency analysis and evaluation items. This study presents specific solutions to the problem of waste drugs due to the spread of drug subscription services.

• Journal of Radiation Industry
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• v.9 no.4
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• pp.217-221
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• 2015

When reactor coolant leaks occur due to cracks of a steam generator's tube, radioactive materials contained in the primary cooling water in nuclear power plant are forced out toward the secondary systems. At this time the secondary water purification resin in the ion exchange resin tower of the steam generator blowdown system is contaminated by the radioactivity of the leaked radioactive materials, so we pack this in special containers and store temporarily because we could not dispose it by ourselves. If steam generator tube leakage occurs, it produces contaminated spent resins annually about 5,000~7,000 liters. This may increase the amount of nuclear waste productions, a disposal working cost and a unit price of generating electricity in the plant. For this reasons, it is required to develop a decontamination process technique for reducing the radioactive level of these resins enough to handle by the self-disposal method. In this research, First, Investigated the structure and properties of the ion exchange resin used in a steam generator blowdown system. Second, Checked for a occurrence status of contaminated spent resin and a disposal technology. Third, identified the chemical characteristics of the waste radionuclides of the spent resin, and examined ionic bonding and separation mechanism of radioactive nuclear species and a spent resin. Finally, we carried out the decontamination experiment using chemicals, ultrasound, microbubbles, supercritical carbon dioxide to process these spent resin. In the case of the spent resin decontamination method using chemicals, the higher the concentration of the drug decontamination efficiency was higher. In the ultrasound method, foreign matter of the spent resin was removed and was found that the level of radioactivity is below of the MDA. In the microbubbles method, we found that the concentration of the radioactivity decreased after the experiment, so it can be used to the decontamination process of the spent resin. In supercritical carbon dioxide method, we found that it also had a high decontamination efficiency. According to the results of these experiments, almost all decontamination method had a high efficiency, but considering the amounts of the secondary waste productions and work environment of the nuclear power plant, we judged the ultrasound and supercritical carbon dioxide method are suitable for application to the plant and we established the plant applicable decontamination process system on the basis of these two methods.

• Asian Oncology Nursing
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• v.4 no.2
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• pp.154-165
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• 2004

Purpose : To provide basic data for establishing the policy of safe handling of cytotoxic drugs and for building training materials and clinical guidelines for nurses handling cytotoxic drugs. Methods: 255 nurses in Seoul and 257 nurses in D metropolitan area participated in the study. Questionnaires were based on the safe handling guideline for cytotoxic drugs issued by OSHA and ONA. Results: Nurses in Seoul scored higher in the cognition for safe handling guidelines of cytotoxic drugs in preparation, administration. as well as total score compared with nurses in D metropolitan area. The practical score also showed higher in nurses in Seoul in administration, disposal and total score. But both groups showed low level of practical score. The answers why they could not follow the guideline for cytotoxic drugs were "don't have", "busy", and "don't know", etc Conclusion: Handling of the cytotoxic drug is very common and important. The study findings suggest that hospitals especially in D metropolitan area should educate the nurses and supply equipments for safe handling of cytotoxic drugs. Thus, repetitive and continual education of all nurses including experts is needed. In addition, it is necessary to supply enough protective equipment for preventing exposure to the cytotoxic drugs.

• Journal of the Korean Society of School Health
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• v.17 no.1
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• pp.1-12
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• 2004

Purpose : this study purposed to investigate school nursing phenomena in Korea by applying ICNP, the international standard nursing classification system developed by ICN, and to compare school nursing phenomena at elementary, middle and high schools. Method : The subjects of this study are 110 nursing teachers from 82 elementary schools, 16 middle schools, and 12 high schools. In the survey, subjects were asked to score the degree to which phenomena and characteristics of Korean school nursing, identified in previous research, on a 5 point scale. Questionnaires were distributed and recovered by mail and email. The period of data collection was 6 months from July to December 2003. The general characteristics of schools and nursing teachers were represented with frequencies and percentages, the phenomena and characteristics of school nursing with the mean score of the questions, and the phenomena school nursing by school grade with ANOVA and Duncan's posterior analysis. Results : 1) As for the characteristics of schools according to school nursing phenomena related to human behavior, the mean score of questions on inadequate stress management was highest at 3.24 points followed by the score on inadequate weight control (3.23), inadequate eating habits (3.22), the risk of spine disorders (2.68), inadequate emergency management (2.62), inadequate response to sex -related problems (2.19), and smoking and drug use (1.85). 2) As for the characteristics of schools according to school nursing phenomena related to human function, the mean score of questions on oral health management was highest at 3.11 points followed by the score on the risk of digestive system disorder (2.87), improper eyesight management (2.81), the risk of respiratory system disorders (2.75), lack of sexual identity (2.52), and inadequate contagious disease control (2.12). 3) As for the mean score according to school nursing phenomena related to environment, the score of the risk of accidents in classroom was highest as 2.68 points followed by the score of the risk of accidents around the school (2.65), maladjustment to school (2.62), the risk of accidents outside the classroom (2.43), inadequate learning environment (1.83), the risk of exposure to socially and physically harmful environment factors (1.82), and inadequate waste disposal (1.77). 4) This study tested the mean scores of questions corresponding to each school nursing phenomenon in order to see if there is a difference in the school nursing phenomenon among elementary, middle and high schools, and performed Duncan's posterior comparison for school nursing phenomena. A significant difference was found at p<.1. According to the results, school nursing phenomena found to be significantly different among elementary, middle and high schools was smoking and drug use (p<.05), which appeared more problematic in high school than in elementary school. phenomena such as inadequate eating habits, inadequate weight control, inadequate response to sex-related problems and inadequate waste disposal were also found to be statistically different at p<.1; however, according to the result of Duncan's posterior comparison, no difference was found among groups in improper eating habits and improper response to sex-related problems, and a significant difference was found between middle and high schools in inadequate weight control and inadequate waste disposal. Conclusion: Based on the results of this study, it is necessary to plan school health projects focused on the characteristic school nursing phenomena that had high scores and to develop and execute school healthe projects in accordance with the characteristics of elementary, middle and high schools. Considering that the scores of school nursing phenomena related to human behavior are high, it is necessary to introduce school health promotion projects in a systematic way.

• YAKHAK HOEJI
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• v.53 no.6
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• pp.334-341
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• 2009

Aging society and aged society are determined by the component ratio of the elderly to the whole population; aging society is defined as a society whose ratio of the elderly population is less than 7%, and it is called aged society when the ratio is over 14%. Korea's aging process is so fast and unprecedented over the world according to many statistical data and investigations. The purpose of this study was to provide guidance and basic data to educate the elderly for the proper use of medication and health functional food. This study was carried out on 80 subjects of age 65 or older in Cheong Jusi in Choogncheongbuk-do. They answered questionnaire that was prepared for this study. The data were collected from August 4, 2008 to August 18, 2008. The collected data were analyzed by using the SPSS 12.0OK (for window) program and Microsoft EXCEL. The following is a summary of the results of this study. First, in the aspect of purchasing, the majority of respondents bought OTC drugs and health functional food for health and illness prevention. Purchasing places of drugs were diverse. Second, in the aspect of taking drugs, the older answerers were, the higher the number of drugs being taken was. Third, in the aspect of proper storage of drugs, most respondents have no specific spaces. Finally, regarding recognition of drug abuse and disposal, most people have little awareness or have no idea.

• Genomics & Informatics
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• v.13 no.2
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• pp.53-59
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• 2015

In developing countries threat of cholera is a significant health concern whenever water purification and sewage disposal systems are inadequate. Vibrio cholerae is one of the responsible bacteria involved in cholera disease. The complete genome sequence of V. cholerae deciphers the presence of various genes and hypothetical proteins whose function are not yet understood. Hence analyzing and annotating the structure and function of hypothetical proteins is important for understanding the V. cholerae. V. cholerae O139 is the most common and pathogenic bacterial strain among various V. cholerae strains. In this study sequence of six hypothetical proteins of V. cholerae O139 has been annotated from NCBI. Various computational tools and databases have been used to determine domain family, protein-protein interaction, solubility of protein, ligand binding sites etc. The three dimensional structure of two proteins were modeled and their ligand binding sites were identified. We have found domains and families of only one protein. The analysis revealed that these proteins might have antibiotic resistance activity, DNA breaking-rejoining activity, integrase enzyme activity, restriction endonuclease, etc. Structural prediction of these proteins and detection of binding sites from this study would indicate a potential target aiding docking studies for therapeutic designing against cholera.

• The Korean Society of Law and Medicine
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• v.13 no.2
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• pp.11-38
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• 2012

The Supreme Court stand in the position in specific lawsuit that it doesn't allow the discretionary not covered service, but recently in revocation suit of fine disposal that is imposed on medical fee of leukemia patient, it altered the existing adjudgement and admitted the discretionary not covered service exceptionally. It put forward the allowable condition roughly in that case. According as this alteration, it has become more important to embody the allowance conditions of exceptions. The Supreme Court presented three things, which are procedural condition, medical condition and subscriber's agreement. Concerning procedural condition, several present conciliation procedures are as follows: medical care benefit arret request, relative value conciliation etc, prior request on anti-cancer drug among chemicals which exceed acceptance criteria, request of non benefit object on common drugs. To be granted the existence of those system, there should be no obstacle to use that. Even if it were so, we should take circumstances into consideration; individual situation is unescapable concerning substance and urgency of the discretionary not covered service, process of the procedure, time required etc. Regarding medical condition, safety and effectiveness will be verified through evaluation procedures of new medical skill. About the necessity, the Supreme Court made clear through a sentence that it allow the discretionary not covered service, in case that needs to treat a patient out of the standard of medical benefit. Strict interpretation is right and it answer the purpose of the sentence that the supreme court permit the discretionary not covered service, exceptionally. We need to differentiate medical necessity and medical validity. Subscriber's agreement should holds true if it entails full explanation, and if it is preliminary, explicit and individual. On this account, it should be difficult to admit that someone agree effectively when he call for the affirmation that he is recipient of medical care. Reasonable expense needs to be a part of review whether the agreement is valid. Meanwhile If we adjust system of medical expense and eventually reorganize a fee for consultation payment system (Fee-for-service controlled by item to DRG (Diagnosis Related Groups)), controversial area of the discretionary not covered service will be decreased and that will guarantee the discretion of the doctor.