• Women's Health Nursing
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• v.25 no.3
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• pp.315-328
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• 2019

Purpose: The purpose of this study was to explore the components and nature of happiness in middle-aged women in Korea. Methods: Thirty middle-aged women living in metropolitan Seoul and Gyeonggi and Chungcheong provinces agreed to participate in this study. The data were collected through in-depth interviews with the participants in one-on-one settings. The data were analyzed qualitative using Colaizzi's method of phenomenology. Results: The three theme clusters were extracted from the raw data, along with 13 themes and 138 meaningful sentences and phrases. The three happiness theme clusters in middle-aged women were "live healthy for stability," "rule one's mind for harmony," and "activate hopes for self-esteem." The first theme cluster included healthy life, economic stability, physical youth, and positive thought. The second theme cluster included that harmonious family, ruling of mind, my position as invisible person in social relationships, and precious relationships to support. The last theme included the center of one's life is oneself, a sense of accomplishment, self-improvement, recognition of one's worth and rest for one self. The three theme clusters were associated with the existence, relatedness, and growth (ERG) of ERG areas, respectively. Conclusions: We conclude that the core components of happiness in middle-aged women are to live healthy and mind-ruled and activate hope. The nature of happiness is egocentric stability in middle-aged women. The results suggest that theme clusters might be used to develop a scale for measuring happiness in middle-aged women. This will be helpful to assess the psychosocial status of middle-aged women in Korea.

• Journal of Life Science
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• v.33 no.7
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• pp.574-585
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• 2023

Sarcopenia is a leading cause of increased medical and nursing care costs among the elderly. In Korea, preventive measures for sarcopenia are mostly targeted toward the general elderly population without specific diseases. However, it is also necessary to implement measures for elderly individuals living in nursing homes and hospitals, where the prevalence of sarcopenia is high. Currently, computed tomography and/or magnetic resonance imaging are considered standard diagnostic tools. However, their complexity and time-consuming nature make them unsuitable for clinical use. The exact pathophysiological mechanisms of sarcopenia are unclear, as they involve various molecular biological pathways, including decreased exercise, protein and nutrient intake, changes in testosterone and growth hormone, and inflammation. Sarcopenia symptoms can lead to several diseases, such as osteoporosis, fractures, dementia, diabetes, and cardiovascular disease. Vitamin B deficiency is a significant factor in sarcopenia induction, with B vitamins being directly involved in energy and protein metabolism and nerve function. Vitamin B deficiency can lead to neuromuscular and neurogenic disorders, which often overlap with sarcopenia. Suboptimal intake of B vitamins, malabsorption, and anorexia are common among the elderly. This study aims to provide information on the role of water-soluble B vitamins in preventing and controlling muscle mass loss and deterioration among the elderly with sarcopenia. In addition, we discuss the potential of myokines from the B vitamin family in modulating sarcopenia.

• Quality Improvement in Health Care
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• v.25 no.2
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• pp.16-25
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• 2019

Purpose:The healthcare system of South Korea is at the extreme of the dispersed system. Few regulations limit patients from directly visiting higher-level medical institutions for primary care sensitive conditions. As a result, similar to local clinics, general and tertiary teaching hospitals also provide diverse primary care services. Our study aimed to examine the general public's perceptions of their primary care performance. Methods: Face-to-face surveys were conducted with 1000 adults who were living in South Korea with the aid of a questionnaire that included the Korean Primary Care Assessment Tool (KPCAT). The KPCAT consists of five domains, which are the main indicators of primary care performance: first contact, comprehensiveness, coordination, personalized care, and family/community orientation. One-way analysis of variance and post hoc tests were used to compare the KPCAT scores across the three types of medical institutions. Results: Domain-wise analyses revealed two different patterns. With regard to first contact and its subdomains, the highest and lowest scores emerged for local clinics and tertiary teaching hospitals, respectively. However, the other four domain scores were significantly lower for local clinics than for the other two types of medical institutions. Conclusions: Local clinics were perceived to be medical institutions that are responsible for providing primary care. However, the general public perceived only one domain of their primary care to be superior to that of the other two types of medical institutions: first contact. National efforts should be taken to strengthen their other four domains of primary care by training their workforce and providing appropriate incentives.

• Journal of the Korean Institute of Rural Architecture
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• v.16 no.3
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• pp.27-36
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• 2014

The purpose of this study is to provide necessary information for the establishment of remodeling range needed first to support the future remodeling of rural housing. For this, this study examined landscape characteristics of rural housing such as an outer wall, a roof, a fence, and a gate which are main elements of forming the landscape of a rural village and rural residents' perception for remodeling. The results were as follows. The subject rural housing mostly had a timber structure and a masonry structure. Common roof types were a hip-and-gable roof and a gable roof. Frequent materials were a panel, a tile, and slate and common colors were primary colors such as reddish brown, black, and gray. A fence made of cement blocks and finished by a white paint was often found. A closed gate with iron frames was common. A standup kitchen and a flush toilet inside the house were common. The family members of rural residents were mostly two including a farmer husband and his wife. Elderly people of sixty and over were the most common. For residential environment satisfaction, a half of respondents were not unsatisfied with residential environment mostly due to an old house. Most respondents who were not satisfied with residential environment had high perception for the need of remodeling. The most commonly asked remodeling part was a roof, followed by a toilet, and an outer wall, indicating that the need of exterior remodeling was higher than that of interior remodeling. For a remodeling method, a total improvement was preferred. Although some rural village housing was improved by support of the government, local governments, or social groups, there are still many old houses. As this co-existence of improved houses and old houses hinders the landscape of rural village, it is necessary to give a support. But rural residents' requests should be first actively reflected to establish a guideline of supporting rural house remodeling.

• Journal of the Korean Institute of Rural Architecture
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• v.10 no.3
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• pp.51-58
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• 2008

The Youth Hostel in Korea, differently from that of other countries, has been introduced in order to attract School Excursion Group, and was developed as one of Youth Training Facilities. Youth Hostel as Youth Training Facility can be utilized as a healthy experiential space for youth education, as a stage for an international interchange, as a field for the lifelong education of various classes, and is also the Lodging Accommodation which is now highly appearing of the demand as a safe and educational lodging place to both individuals and family-unit tourists. The Purpose of this Research is aimed to provide the necessary fundamental materials to the planned forthcoming future Youth Hostel, after grasping of such present status as well as its structure and composition of space and spacial characteristic. Since Youth Hostel in Korea is managing on the center of the basis for youths and other groups, in order to compute the proper heads, it is required the scale-level which can accommodate all students in One-Unit Grade of a school at minimum. Accordingly, it seems that must be equipped with accommodating capacity of more than 300~400 persons. As because of recent quality-improvement in the portion of Youth Hostel Lodging, it is under planning with containing of the Sanitary Space at inside of lodging room, and Self-Cooking Space as well. In compliance with such various particulars, it looks that the lodging area should be at least more than $3.5m^2$ per a person.

• Journal of the Korean Society of Clothing and Textiles
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• v.12 no.3 s.28
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• pp.309-318
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• 1988

The purposes of this study were: 1) to develop specific AIO variables(clothing variables) based on clothing behavior studies, 2) to segment apparel market by clothing variables, 3) to discribe the profile of each segment with clothing variables, lifestyle variables and demographic variables, 4) to Suggest effective strategies on apparel market of women's clothing. The Likert Type clothing questionnaires measured 6 aspects of clothing (fashion, conformity-individuality, practicality, aesthetics, modesty and brand consciousness & status symbols) dealing with activities, interests and opinions. In addition, lifestyle variables were measured with general AIO statements. The questionnaires were administered to 563 young women (students, career women and homemakers) living in Seoul. The data were analysed by factor analysis, ctustering analysis, multiple discriminant analysis, one-way ANOVA ana Duncan's multiple range test. The results of the study were as follow: 1) 4 factors emerged from factor analysis of clothing variables. Factor 1: lower interest in modesty and higher interest in aesthics, Factor 2: brand consciousness and status symbols, Factor 3: conformity, Factor4 : fashion. 2) Lifestyle variables clustered into 3 factors. Factor 1: positive social activity, Factor 2: family-oriented type, Factor S: materialism. 3) By cluster analysis of the 4 factors of the clothing variables, the apparel market of women's clothing was categorised into 3 segments (innovative aesthetics seeker group, brand and status symbols conscious group, clothing unconscious group). 4) The above three segmented groups were also significantly discriminated by lifestyle and demosraphic variables. 5) On the basis of the findings, effective marketing strategies of women's clothing were suggested.

• Journal of the Korean Dietetic Association
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• v.18 no.1
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• pp.30-42
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• 2012

The purpose of this study was to provide basic materials and assistance for developing a nutritional education program targeting marriage immigrant women, and it was carried out on 86 female marriage immigrants living in the Gyeongbuk region. An average age of the female marriage immigrants who participated in this survey were 28.6 years, and their home countries were the Philippines (32.6%), Vietnam (29.1%), and so on. Exactly 59.3% of subjects had been married for 1~5 years, and 40.7% of the subjects had an education status of less than middle school graduation. The majority of them (65.1%) had one more children, and 51.2% of subjects were a part of a nuclear-family, with the husband's age between 40~49 years old (58.1%). Concern for nutrition label was significantly different according to number of children (P<0.01), period of marriage (P<0.001), and education level (P<0.05). It was demonstrated that a higher level of education was associated with a higher need to learn about nutritional information. Understanding nutritional facts and knowledge was significantly higher among the women with two children than no child (P<0.05), period of marriage >10 years than <1 year (P<0.01), and education level of college & university graduation than less than middle school (P<0.05). Sixty percent of the women surveyed participated in the education program of 'Korean language' as they were in their country, and the most preferred education program was 'Korean dietary life and culture' (39.5%). Regarding participation and educational method, the majority of subjects responded that they wanted to learn nutritional education in a cooking academy or school (52.9%) and public health center (34.1%).

• Nutrition Research and Practice
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• v.2 no.1
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• pp.26-34
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• 2008

This cross-sectional study assessed household food insecurity among low-income rural communities and examined its association with demographic and socioeconomic factors as well as coping strategies to minimize food insecurity. Demographic, socioeconomic, expenditure and coping strategy data were collected from 200 women of poor households in a rural community in Malaysia. Households were categorized as either food secure (n=84) or food insecure (n=116) using the Radimer/Cornell Hunger and Food Insecurity instrument. T-test, Chi-square and logistic regression were utilized for comparison of factors between food secure and food insecure households and determination of factors associated with household food insecurity, respectively. More of the food insecure households were living below the poverty line, had a larger household size, more children and school-going children and mothers as housewives. As food insecure households had more school-going children, reducing expenditures on the children's education is an important strategy to reduce household expenditures. Borrowing money to buy foods, receiving foods from family members, relatives and neighbors and reducing the number of meals seemed to cushion the food insecure households from experiencing food insufficiency. Most of the food insecure households adopted the strategy on cooking whatever is available at home for their meals. The logistic regression model indicates that food insecure households were likely to have more children (OR=1.71; p<0.05) and non-working mothers (OR=6.15; p<0.05), did not own any land (OR=3.18; p<0.05) and adopted the strategy of food preparation based on whatever is available at their homes (OR=4.33; p<0.05). However, mothers who reported to borrow money to purchase food (OR=O.84; p<0.05) and households with higher incomes of fathers (OR=O.99; p<0.05) were more likely to be food secure. Understanding the factors that contribute to household food insecurity is imperative so that effective strategies could be developed and implemented.

• Journal of the Korea Academia-Industrial cooperation Society
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• v.18 no.11
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• pp.166-175
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• 2017

This study examined children from two families exposed to domestic violence and had psychological counseling in July 2017 at KOVA, a support organization for crime victims. The subjects were exposed to family violence in excess of 10 years and was protected by the shelter with their mothers who had filed complaints with the local police. Victims of domestic violence often face difficulty in avoiding the source of aggression, and thus experience repetitive attacks. This research was conducted at the Buddhism Brain Research Facility, Seoul University, to identify and quantify the emotional characteristics of the affected children in which it is difficult to escape from their living conditions. Data was collected by BrainMaster, a 19-channel examination kit, and analyzed by NeuroGuide. As a result of analyzing the emotional characteristics of the affected children through Quantitative EEG and brain topographical map, we found an increase of slow wave and problems with abnormality of Alpha, High Beta in the left and right Frontal area asymmetry.

• Korean journal of food and cookery science
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• v.31 no.2
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• pp.162-174
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• 2015

The purpose of this study was to evaluate the current status of dietary habits and dietary life competency of elementary school parents, who are influential to the dietary life of their children and family. A survey was conducted with 362 elementary school parents living in Seoul and Gyeonggi province by using a self-administered questionnaire consisting of 53 questions on dietary habits, dietary life competency, home cooking frequency, and dietary education needs. The results were as follows: The scores of dietary habits and dietary life competency were 76.35 and 74.51 out of 100, respectively, suggesting a need for improvement. Parents with higher monthly income, demonstrated higher scores of both dietary habits and dietary life competency (p<0.001). As expected, female parents showed higher scores of dietary life competency than male parents (p<0.01). there was also a close relationship between the scores of dietary habits and dietary life competency (r=0.58). The parents with high scores for dietary habits and dietary life competency showed a significantly higher frequency of home cooking (p<0.001) compared to medium- or low-scored parents. Most parents answered that dietary education need to be started earlier, and that their main source of dietary life information was mass media. They also showed a preference for real experience and practice for dietary education. The above results showed that there is a close relationship between dietary habits and dietary life competency, and suggest that continuous education is necessary to improve the dietary habits and dietary life competency of elementary school parents. Because monthly income appeared to be the most influential socioeconomic factor for the parents' dietary habits and dietary life competency, continuous efforts on dietary education are necessary to reduce the score gaps in these categories.