• Perspectives in Nursing Science
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• v.6 no.1
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• pp.77-83
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• 2009

The number of nurses per bed at acute-stage hospitals is quite low in Korea compared with other OECD countries. In order to prevent the degradation of the quality of inpatient nursing services due to insufficient nurse staffs, the national health insurance introduced the differentiated nursing care fee system. This did not work as a motive for inducing the employment of nursing staff due to insufficient cost compensation. Because of insufficient nursing staff, family members have to stay with the patient or patients have to hire a personal care attendant. This increases the burden and cost to families. For the activation of hospitals without guardians, there should be policies for raising additional nursing staff such as standardizing jobs among nursing staff, particularly between nurses and nursing assistants, setting adequate standards of staffing in nursing according to medical service, substantiating the cost of nursing under the differentiated nursing care fee system, improving the medical fee system of hospitals without guardians including health insurance payment, supplying nursing staff stably through improving their working conditions such as providing child rearing services and salary increase, clarifying the qualification of personal care attendants working at acute.stage hospitals, developing indexes for assessing the quality of nursing care services, and monitoring for the management of uniform quality.

• Journal of Neurocritical Care
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• v.11 no.2
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• pp.71-80
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• 2018

Nutritional assessment and support are often overlooked in the critically ill due to other urgent priorities. Unlike oxygenation, organ dysfunction, infection, or consciousness, there is no consensus of indicators. Making it difficult to evaluate the effectiveness of an intervention. Nevertheless, appropriate nutritional support in the critically ill has been associated with less morbidity and lower mortality. But, nutritional support has been considered an adjunct, for body weight maintenance and to help patients during the inflammatory phase of illness. Thus, it has been assigned a lower priority, compared to mechanical ventilation or hemodynamic stability. Recent findings have shown that nutritional support may prevent cellular injury due to oxidative stress and help strengthen the immune response. Large-scale randomized trials and clinical guidelines have shown a shift from nutritional support to nutritional therapy, with an emphasis on the importance of protein, minerals, vitamins, and trace elements. Nutrition is also important in neurocritically ill patients. Since there are few studies or recommendations with regard to the neurocritical population, the general recommendations for nutritional support should be applied.

• Child Health Nursing Research
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• v.28 no.2
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• pp.154-165
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• 2022

Purpose: This study aimed to analyze the concept of transfer anxiety in parents of children transferred from pediatric intensive care units to general wards. Methods: The hybrid model by Schwarz-Barcott and Kim was used to analyze the characteristics of transfer anxiety in parents of children transferred from pediatric intensive care units to general wards. Results: Transfer anxiety was defined by the following attributes: 1) stress concerning the adaptation process, 2) concern about the child's condition worsening due to the parent's caregiving, and 3) involuntary changes in daily life due to the treatment. Transfer anxiety has the following antecedents: 1) uncertainty; 2) a lack of knowledge about the illness, medical devices, and caregiving; and 3) a lack of social support. It resulted in 1) caregiver burden, 2) a decrease in the capacity for coping with caregiving, 3) delays in the child's physical and psychological recovery, and 4) decreased quality of life. Conclusion: It is necessary to develop an assessment scale that considers the attributes of transfer anxiety in parents of children transferred from pediatric intensive care units to general wards. Furthermore, an effective nursing intervention should be developed to reduce transfer anxiety.

• Journal of the Korean Home Economics Association
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• v.48 no.9
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• pp.55-68
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• 2010

Various family-friendly policies have been put into place for working mothers, but their paid and household workloads have not decreased. Many women have experienced career interruptions due to care work, so possible solutions to the problem of care work are needed. The purpose of this study was to explore the possibility of applying the social enterprise model to care work. Definitions, types, and development processes in social enterprise in several nations were discussed for the purpose of this study. Second, problems of care work in Korean households and national support for them are surveyed. Public institutions' contributions in child-care and family elder care and the alternatives for solving problems thereof were discussed. Third, several principles and advantages of applying social enterprise models to care work were suggested. Finally, this study discussed what a healthy family support center can do to reduce the workload of a household through social enterprises. This center can be a testing place that supports care work by various means from small volunteering groups to social enterprise according to profit level.

• Korean Parent-Child Health Journal
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• v.13 no.1
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• pp.17-25
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• 2010

Purpose: This study was conducted to investigate the recognition on center-based child care health programs for parents with ill children. Methods: Cross-sectional descriptive study with convenient sampling method was used and 136 parents were recruited from two university hospital outpatient departments and hospitalized wards, and they completed a structured questionnaire. Results: Majority (57.4%) of parents experienced a leaving work early or being absent from their work due to children's illness. Most dissatisfying factors in child care centers were child health management. Most of parents agreed on the need for a center-based child care health program, and wanted a better management of health care by health professionals in child care centers. Conclusion: These results support that there is a great demand for center-based child care health programs. These special programs are needed for reducing a child rearing burden for working mothers and overcoming the low birthrate in Korea. Health-care programs in child-care settings can help parents meet the health needs of their children while reducing absenteeism from work, thereby contributing to job stability. These results suggest discussions of the related policy with child care centers responsible and national health and educational authorities.

• Journal of Korean Academy of Nursing Administration
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• v.4 no.2
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• pp.351-361
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• 1998

The purpose of this study was to explore whether there is a point within the range of physical impairment after which the cost of home care exceeds the cost of nursing home care among the elderly who require long-term care. The provision of long-term care for the elderly is a major health policy issue, in part due to the aging of the American population and dramatic increase in health care costs. The framework for this study was guided by Pollak's(1973)model of costs of alternative care settings for the elderly. This study used a retrospective, descriptive correlational design. Physical impairment was measured by the modified Index of Activities of Daily Living(Katz et al. 1963). Cost of care was measured by the average cost per patient per day. The sample for this study included 67 patients receiving long-term care at home from the Long-term Home Health Care Programs (LTHHCPs) and 67 patients receiving long-term care in nursing homes. Data were collected on patient characteristics. including activities of daily living and cognitive impairment. and on the number of physician visits. emergency room visits. and hospitalization from the patient records. For each patient. Medicaid cost data for home care services/or nursing home services were collected from the financial department of each home care agency or nursing home. The living costs and informal care costs were estimated for home care patients. The results indicated that the home care sample and the nursing home sample were similar in terms of gender. ethnic background. and marital status. The elderly patients in the home care sample were: however. younger and less physically impaired than those in the nursing home sample. The hypotheses of this study were supported: For elderly persons with physical impairment scores below 12(possible range of 0 to 14), cost of care was lower in home care than in the nursing home care setting. However, for elderly persons with physical impairment scores above 12. the cost of care was higher in home care than in the nursing home care setting. Thus. in this sample for elderly patients with extreme physical impairment, the cost of home care exceeded the cost of nursing home care.

• Korean Journal of Health Education and Promotion
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• v.15 no.2
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• pp.217-233
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• 1998

This paper analyzed four different perspectives on health care reform in Korea in terms of the basic values, formulated problems and reform plans, implementation methods, and supporting groups. The medical security plan was insisted by social security specialists and social activists focusing on the integration of medical insurance coops in order to enhancing equity and right of the people. However, its perspective was limited to promoting security instead of reforming health care system. The government proposed the health care reform plans in 1994 and in 1997, focusing on promoting efficiency by remedying many problems in health care delivery system. However, its implementation was not successful due to the lack of organizational and financial supporters. Recently, two opposite proposals were issued. The market reform plan paid attention to revitalizing the market function to promoting efficiency by allowing hospitals to treat private patients instead of applying the medical insurance regulation. The government reform plan focused on intensifying governmental planning and intervention in the health care sector in order to removing inefficiency and promoting equity with the supports of social activists and labor unions. Finally, this paper proposed an alternative plan to promote harmonious social relationship between actors in the health care system.

• Journal of Korean Academy of Nursing Administration
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• v.17 no.2
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• pp.180-188
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• 2011

Purpose: This study was done to evaluate the operating status of community-based home health center for revitalization of the centers. Method: In this study performance data including organization plan and service utilization plan were evaluated according process theory. Target of evaluation was the community-based home health care center. Results: The vulnerable part of the organization was the information system and financial resources. The home health center introduced PDA (Personal Digital Assistants) in 2005, however home health care nurses did not make full use of it. This service received full support from Seoul city and local government and there were no other sources of income. The vulnerable part of service utilization was service expansion and standardization due to vulnerability of organizational aspects. Conclusions: The home health care center provides high quality services to underprivileged people. In the future, these services should be provided with equity for continuous health care for this population.

• Health Policy and Management
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• v.11 no.3
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• pp.31-45
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• 2001

With an economic development and epidemiologic transition, the burden of disease due to chronic diseases and accidents is increasing. However, in most of developing countries, long-term care facilities are not available, therefore acute care facilities should provide both acute and long-term care services. It is also true in Korea. The demand for long-term care services needs to be estimated to establish the adequate supply system of health resources. This article introduces the reclassification methodology of inpatients' healthcare utilization to acute and long-term care services. All discharged patients from hospitals for one month were analyzed. The distribution of inpatients' hospital days were fitted to Chi-squared distribution by ICD disease categories, and they were grouped in five clusters. For each cluster, the lower and upper limit of classification criteria to acute and long-term care services were chosen. Summarizing all hospital days corresponding to acute and long-term care respectively, 24 to 28 percent of inpatient services fumed out to be long-term care services. The study results are consistent with those of the existing studies. They can be used practically in the allocation of long-term care resources.

• Journal of Families and Better Life
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• v.32 no.2
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• pp.27-40
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• 2014

The purpose of this study is to examine the motive of participating in the care work, the overall cognition survey for the care work and the infant care practice areas required in the care work for the child care helpers who activate in the care work, and search for methods of specializing infant care and care experiences on the results. Results of study showed that firstly, middle- or the late middle-age women participated in the care worker recognized care work as productive labor to create economic value and that secondly, the child care helpers' recognition degree of self-development and job satisfaction through performance of care work was wholly high level and that there was will of participation in training for self-development but actual participation rate was low due to restrictions by general conditions. Thirdly, the infant care practice areas and their particular contents that the child care helpers recognized in the care work necessary were highly shown in the whole. The requested level of education for safety management, play guidance, humanity guidance for infant and child was high. Point to discuss is that occupation stability and occupation image must be raised through the public job-hunting system for the child care helpers. In addition, a tailor-made education support suitable for the child care helpers' career stage is needed. Education support by the performance of infant care practice area and the educational requirements must be provided to major rearers to ensure that they can function as behavioral and emotional supporters. Finally, a support system for continuous self-management.