• Title/Summary/Keyword: outcome measures

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A study on the Regulatory Environment of the French Distribution Industry and the Intermarche's Management strategies

  • Choi, In-Sik;Lee, Sang-Youn
    • The Journal of Industrial Distribution & Business
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    • v.3 no.1
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    • pp.7-16
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    • 2012
  • Despite the enforcement of SSM control laws such as 'the Law of Developing the Distribution Industry (LDDI)' and 'the Law of Promoting Mutual Cooperation between Large and Small/medium Enterprises (LPMC)' stipulating the business adjustment system, the number of super-supermarkets (SSMs) has ever been expanding in Korea. In France, however, Super Centers are being regulated most strongly and directly in the whole Europe viewing that there is not a single SSM in Paris, which is emphasized to be the outcome from French government's regulation exerted on the opening of large scale retail stores. In France, the authority to approve store opening is deeply centralized and the store opening regulation is a socio-economic regulation driven by economic laws whereas EU strongly regulates the distribution industry. To control the French distribution industry, such seven laws and regulations as Commission départementale d'urbanisme commercial guidelines (CDLIC) (1969), the Royer Law (1973), the Doubin Law (1990), the Sapin Law (1993), the Raffarin Law (1996), solidarite et renouvellement urbains (SRU) (2000), and Loi de modernisation de l'économie (LME) (2009) have been promulgated one by one since the amendment of the Fontanet guidelines, through which commercial adjustment laws and regulations have been complemented and reinforced while regulatory measures have been taken. Even in the course of forming such strong regulatory laws, InterMarche, the largest supermarket chain in France, has been in existence as a global enterprise specialized in retail distribution with over 4,000 stores in Europe. InterMarche's business can be divided largely into two segments of food and non-food. As a supermarket chain, InterMarche's food segment has 2,300 stores in Europe and as a hard-discounter store chain in France, Netto has 420 stores. Restaumarch is a chain of traditional family restaurants and the steak house restaurant chain of Poivre Rouge has 4 restaurants currently. In addition, there are others like Ecomarche which is a supermarket chain for small and medium cities. In the non-food segment, the DIY and gardening chain of Bricomarche has a total of 620 stores in Europe. And the car-related chain of Roady has a total of 158 stores in Europe. There is the clothing chain of Veti as well. In view of InterMarche's management strategies, since its distribution strategy is to sell goods at cheap prices, buying goods cheap only is not enough. In other words, in order to sell goods cheap, it is all important to buy goods cheap, manage them cheap, systemize them cheap, and transport them cheap. In quality assurance, InterMarche has guaranteed the purchase safety for consumers by providing its own private brand products. InterMarche has 90 private brands of its own, thus being the retailer with the largest number of distributor brands in France. In view of its IT service strategy, InterMarche is utilizing a high performance IT system so as to obtainas much of the market information as possible and also to find out the best locations for opening stores. In its global expansion strategy of international alliance, InterMarche has established the ALDIS group together with the distribution enterprises of both Spain and Germany in order to expand its food purchase, whereas in the non-food segment, it has established the ARENA group in alliance with 11 international distribution enterprises. Such strategies of InterMarche have been intended to find out the consumer needs for both price and quality of goods and to secure the purchase and supply networks which are closely localized. It is necessary to cope promptly with the constantly changing circumstances through being unified with relevant regions and by providing diversified customer services as well. In view of the InterMarche's positive policy for promoting local partnerships as well as the assistance for enhancing the local economic structure, implications are existing for those retail distributors of our country.

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Surgical Option for Sufficient Safety Margine in Locally Advanced Type II Cardia Cancer - Left Colon Interposition (국소 진행된 Type II 분문부 선암의 절제연 확보를 위한 수술 방법: 좌측 대장 간치술)

  • Yoon, Ho Young;Kim, Hyoung-Il;Lee, Sang Hoon;Kim, Choong Bai
    • Journal of Gastric Cancer
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    • v.8 no.2
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    • pp.97-103
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    • 2008
  • Purpose: Radical surgery is the standard therapy for patients with resectable cardia cancer. In the case of type II disease with esophageal invasion, a transhiatal extended radical total gastrectomy is needed or a gastroesophagectomy through an abdomino-thoracotomy, depending on the extent of the esophageal invasion. We analyzed the indications and outcome of left colon interposition as an esophageal substitution. Materials and Methods: Between 1 January 1994 and 31 December 2006, 10 patients underwent left colon interposition after gastroesophagectomy through an abdomino-thoracotomy or the tanshiatal approach for type II cardia cancer at the Department of surgery, Yonsei University College of Medicine. The outcomes of these patients were reviewed and compared, with those who underwent a Roux-en-Y, by gender and age matched analysis, retrospectively. Results: There were nine males and one female with a mean age of 52.5 (range, 16~72). The operation time was $449.00{\pm}87.39minutes$. The mean distance between the proximal resection margin and the cancer was $6.56{\pm}3.65cm$; the maximum size of the tumor was $9.90{\pm}3.97cm$. These measures differed significantly from patients who underwent Roux-en-Y. The patients had a double primary cancer in the cardia and esophagus. There were no events of colon necrosis. However, a pneumothorax occurred in one patient (10%) and a proximal anastomotic stricture occurred in one patient. There were no reports of heartburn, regurgitation, thoracic or epigastric fullness, and one patient even gained weight, 16 kg. Conclusion: Colon interposition after esophagogastrectomy was safe and effective and should be considered as an additional surgical option for locally advanced type II cardia cancer patients with esophageal invasion.

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Clinical outcomes of implant supported fixed-hybrid prostheses in the fully edentulous arches (완전무치악 환자에서 고정성 임플란트 하이브리드 수복물의 임상성적)

  • Huh, Yoon-Hyuk;Yi, Yang-Jin;Kwon, Min-Jung;Kim, Young-Kyun;Cha, Min-Sang
    • The Journal of Korean Academy of Prosthodontics
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    • v.51 no.3
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    • pp.183-189
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    • 2013
  • Purpose: The aim of this study was to evaluate clinical outcomes of implant supported fixed-hybrid prostheses (FHP) in the fully edentulous arches. Materials and methods: Patients in this retrospective study were restored with fixed-hybrid prostheses supported by 4 to 6 implants and functioned more than 1 year of loading. Outcome measures were marginal bone change of implant related with sex, anatomical location (maxilla vs. mandible), opposing teeth, loading time of patients, tilting of posterior implant by Mann- Whitney U test and cantilever length of superstructure by regression analysis, and complication rates. Significance level was set P<.05. Results: A total number of 84 implants (16 restorations) placed in 16 patients were observed for 28 months and mean marginal bone loss was $0.53{\pm}0.39mm$. There were no differences of marginal bone loss according to sex, anatomical location (maxilla vs. mandible), opposing teeth, loading time of patients (P>.05), and cantilever length was not significantly related with a marginal bone loss of implant next to cantilever (P>.05). Complication was shown in 11 patients and veneer fracture and dislodging of artificial teeth were most prevalent. Conclusion: Within the limitations of this study, although marginal bone loss of FHP was very little, complication rates were high. Irrespective of tilting of most posterior implants, marginal bone loss of most posterior implants next to cantilever was less than those of the other implants positioned anteriorly. Cantilever length (<17 mm) did not affect a marginal bone loss of most posterior implants.

Context Prediction Using Right and Wrong Patterns to Improve Sequential Matching Performance for More Accurate Dynamic Context-Aware Recommendation (보다 정확한 동적 상황인식 추천을 위해 정확 및 오류 패턴을 활용하여 순차적 매칭 성능이 개선된 상황 예측 방법)

  • Kwon, Oh-Byung
    • Asia pacific journal of information systems
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    • v.19 no.3
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    • pp.51-67
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    • 2009
  • Developing an agile recommender system for nomadic users has been regarded as a promising application in mobile and ubiquitous settings. To increase the quality of personalized recommendation in terms of accuracy and elapsed time, estimating future context of the user in a correct way is highly crucial. Traditionally, time series analysis and Makovian process have been adopted for such forecasting. However, these methods are not adequate in predicting context data, only because most of context data are represented as nominal scale. To resolve these limitations, the alignment-prediction algorithm has been suggested for context prediction, especially for future context from the low-level context. Recently, an ontological approach has been proposed for guided context prediction without context history. However, due to variety of context information, acquiring sufficient context prediction knowledge a priori is not easy in most of service domains. Hence, the purpose of this paper is to propose a novel context prediction methodology, which does not require a priori knowledge, and to increase accuracy and decrease elapsed time for service response. To do so, we have newly developed pattern-based context prediction approach. First of ail, a set of individual rules is derived from each context attribute using context history. Then a pattern consisted of results from reasoning individual rules, is developed for pattern learning. If at least one context property matches, say R, then regard the pattern as right. If the pattern is new, add right pattern, set the value of mismatched properties = 0, freq = 1 and w(R, 1). Otherwise, increase the frequency of the matched right pattern by 1 and then set w(R,freq). After finishing training, if the frequency is greater than a threshold value, then save the right pattern in knowledge base. On the other hand, if at least one context property matches, say W, then regard the pattern as wrong. If the pattern is new, modify the result into wrong answer, add right pattern, and set frequency to 1 and w(W, 1). Or, increase the matched wrong pattern's frequency by 1 and then set w(W, freq). After finishing training, if the frequency value is greater than a threshold level, then save the wrong pattern on the knowledge basis. Then, context prediction is performed with combinatorial rules as follows: first, identify current context. Second, find matched patterns from right patterns. If there is no pattern matched, then find a matching pattern from wrong patterns. If a matching pattern is not found, then choose one context property whose predictability is higher than that of any other properties. To show the feasibility of the methodology proposed in this paper, we collected actual context history from the travelers who had visited the largest amusement park in Korea. As a result, 400 context records were collected in 2009. Then we randomly selected 70% of the records as training data. The rest were selected as testing data. To examine the performance of the methodology, prediction accuracy and elapsed time were chosen as measures. We compared the performance with case-based reasoning and voting methods. Through a simulation test, we conclude that our methodology is clearly better than CBR and voting methods in terms of accuracy and elapsed time. This shows that the methodology is relatively valid and scalable. As a second round of the experiment, we compared a full model to a partial model. A full model indicates that right and wrong patterns are used for reasoning the future context. On the other hand, a partial model means that the reasoning is performed only with right patterns, which is generally adopted in the legacy alignment-prediction method. It turned out that a full model is better than a partial model in terms of the accuracy while partial model is better when considering elapsed time. As a last experiment, we took into our consideration potential privacy problems that might arise among the users. To mediate such concern, we excluded such context properties as date of tour and user profiles such as gender and age. The outcome shows that preserving privacy is endurable. Contributions of this paper are as follows: First, academically, we have improved sequential matching methods to predict accuracy and service time by considering individual rules of each context property and learning from wrong patterns. Second, the proposed method is found to be quite effective for privacy preserving applications, which are frequently required by B2C context-aware services; the privacy preserving system applying the proposed method successfully can also decrease elapsed time. Hence, the method is very practical in establishing privacy preserving context-aware services. Our future research issues taking into account some limitations in this paper can be summarized as follows. First, user acceptance or usability will be tested with actual users in order to prove the value of the prototype system. Second, we will apply the proposed method to more general application domains as this paper focused on tourism in amusement park.

A Comparative Study of Two Different Heel Lancet Devices for Blood Collection in Preterm Infants (미숙아에서 채혈을 위한 발뒤꿈치 천자시 두 종류 천자 기구의 비교)

  • Lim, Hyo-Bin;Rhu, Mi-Joo;Jung, Ji-Mi;Jeon, Ga-Won;Sin, Jong-Beom
    • Neonatal Medicine
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    • v.17 no.2
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    • pp.239-244
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    • 2010
  • Purpose: To evaluate two different heel lancet device in terms of pain response and success of the procedure in the preterm infants undergoing heel puncture. Methods: 100 preterm infants undergoing capillary blood gas analysis or capillary bilirubin monitoring underwent heel puncture, were randomly allocated to blood sampling from the heel with either a conventional manual lancet or an automatic incision device. Primary outcome measures included the Premature Infants Pain Profile (PIPP) score, total duration of procedure, number of heel puncture and number of bruise. The pain response was evaluated using PIPP score and the effectiveness was evaluated using three criteria: total duration of blood sampling, number of puncture, bruising of the heel or ankle. Statistical analysis was performed using the SPSS ver. 13.0 program. Difference between the groups were analysed with t test (continuous variables) and the Chi square test or Fisher test (categorical variables). Results: The mean PIPP score was 4.91 for the automatic lancet group compared with 5.84 for the conventional manual lancet group (P=0.0255).The number of pain scores above 7 during blood collection did not differ between two groups (P=0.2167). The procedure took less time to perform in the automatic lancet group (mean, 30.69 seconds) than in the conventional lancet group (mean, 48.92 seconds) (P<0.0001). Conclusion: This study demonstrated that the automatic lancet device causes less pain and a shorter procedure time than the conventional manual lancet in preterm infants undergoing heel puncture. On the basis of these results the automatic lancet device is very useful method for blood collection in preterm infants by heel puncture.

A Study on the Service Quality Improvement by Kano Model & Weighted Potential Customer Satisfaction Index (Kano 모델 및 가중 PCSI를 통한 서비스품질 개선에 관한 연구)

  • Kim, Sang-Cheol
    • Journal of Distribution Science
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    • v.8 no.4
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    • pp.17-23
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    • 2010
  • The Banking industry is expanding rapidly. To keep the competitive advantages, participating companies concentrate their resource to provide the distinguishable services by increasing the service quality. This study is to find that how three kinds of service quality(process, output, and service environment) affect on the customer satisfaction. In this paper, WPCSI (Weighted Potential Customer Satisfaction Index) was developed using Kano model and PCSI. Kano's model of service quality classification was used to improve customer satisfaction, customer satisfaction index was calculated. Customer satisfaction index was calculated using the existing potential for improving customer satisfaction index (PCSI Index) to complement the limitations of the weighted potential improve customer satisfaction index (WPCSI) were used. Analysis using PCSI improve the quality of service levels may be useful in assessing. However, this figure is a marginal degree of importance on customers and quality characteristics have been overlooked but has its problems. A service provided to customers with some important differences depending on the interpretation of the scope for improvement is to be classified. In other words, the level of customer satisfaction and the satisfaction of the current difference between the comparison factor for the company to provide information about the priority of the improvement was not significant. Companies are also considered important that the customer does not consider the uniform quality of service provided can be fallible. In this study, the weighted potential to improve it improve customer satisfaction index (WPCSI) proposed a new customer satisfaction index. This is for customers to recognize the importance of quality characteristics by weighting factors, to identify practical and improved priority to provide more useful information than has been. Weighted potentially improve customer satisfaction index (WPCSI) presented in this study by the customers aware of the importance of considering the quality factor is an exponent. The results, 'Employees' working ability', 'provided the desired service level', 'staff to handle this task quickly enough' to the customer of the factors had significant effects on satisfaction are met. On the other hand 'aggressiveness on the product description of employees', 'service environment as a whole, beautiful enough to' meet and shows no significant difference between satisfaction. But 'aggressiveness on the product description of employees' and reverse (逆) were attributable to the quality. Small dogs and overly aggressive products that encourage the customer dissatisfaction that can result in widening should be careful because the quality factor can be said. As a result, WPCSI is more effect to find critical factors which can affect customer satisfaction than PCSI. After that, we discuss effects and advantages of customer satisfaction using WPCSI. This study, along with these positive aspects, the limitations are implied. First, this study directly to the bank so that I could visit any other way for customers, utilizing the Internet or mobile to take advantage of the respondents were excluded from the analysis. Second, in survey questionnaires can help improve understanding of the measures will be taken. In addition to the survey targeted mainly focused on Seoul, according to a sample, so sampling can cause problems is the viscosity revealed intends.

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The Clinical and Cost Effectiveness of Medical Nutrition Therapy for Patients with Type 2 Diabetes Mellitus (제2형 당뇨병환자에서 임상영앙치료의 임상적 효과와 비용효과 연구)

  • Cho, Youn-Yun;Lee, Moon-Kyu;Jang, Hak-Chul;Rha, Mi-Yong;Kim, Ji-Young;Park, Young-Mi;Sohn, Cheong-Min
    • Journal of Nutrition and Health
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    • v.41 no.2
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    • pp.147-155
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    • 2008
  • Medical nutrition therapy (MNT) is considered a keystone of medical treatment of chronic diseases. However, only few studies have evaluated medical and economical outcome of MNT. The study was performed on the patient with type 2 diabetes mellitus to evaluate the effect of clinical and cost-effective outcomes of MNT. Subjects from two general hospitals were randomly assigned to two different groups; One receiving basic nutritional education (BE) (n = 35), and the other receiving intensive nutritional education (IE) (n = 32) for a 6-month clinical trial. The group which received BE had a single visit with a dietitian, while the other group which received IE had an initial visit with a dietitian addition to two visits during the first 4 weeks of the study periods. Anthropometric parameters, blood components, and dietary intake were measures at the beginning of study period and after 6 month. Cost-effective analysis included direct labor costs, educational materials and medication cost difference during 6 months. After 6 month, subjects from IE group showed significant reduction of body weight (p <0.05) and systolic blood pressure (p <0.05), whereas BE group did not show any significant changes. Result from biochemical indices showed glycated hemoglobin concentration was significantly reduced by 0.7% (p <0.05) only in the IE group. The ratio of energy intake to prescribed energy intake decreased significantly in both groups (p <0.05). Mean time taken for a dietitian to educate the subject was 67.9 ${\pm}$ 9.3 min/person for BE group, while 96.4 ${\pm}$ 12.2 min/person for IE group. Mean number of educational materials was 1.9 ${\pm}$ 0.7/person for BE group and 2.5 ${\pm}$ 0.7/person for IE group. Change in glycated hemoglobin level along the 6 month period of study can be achieved with an investment of \88,510/% by implementing BE and \53,691/% by implementing IE. Considering the net cost-effect of blood glucose control and HbA Ic, IE which provides MNT by dietitian had a cost efficiency advantage than that of BE. According to this study, MNT provided by dietitian had a significant improvements in medical and clinical outcomes compared to that of BE intervention. Therefore, MNT protocol should be performed by systemic intensive nutrition care by dietitian in clinical setting to achieve good therapeutic results of DM with lower cost.

A Study on the Development of an Instrument for Knowledge Contribution Assessment (조직 구성원의 지식기여도 평가 도구 개발에 관한 연구)

  • Na, Mi-Ja;Kym, Hyo-Gun
    • Information Systems Review
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    • v.6 no.2
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    • pp.113-135
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    • 2004
  • This paper defines appraisal items and weights of the items for the purpose of developing an appraisal instrument that objectively measures employee's effectiveness of knowledge contribution. Deductive research is used for the development of appraisal items and delphi method for the development of weights of the items. In the deductive research the term, "effectiveness of knowledge contribution" is first defined. Then knowledge contribution activities are classified as "dimension of explicit contribution" and " dimension of tacit contribution" due to the characteristics of knowledge. Each dimension is divided again by components. The dimension of explicit contribution is divided according to the content of knowledge, and the dimension of tacit contribution is divided according to the extent of tacitness of knowledge contribution. The total components of dimensions are 7. The dimension of explicit contribution is composed of factual knowledge and procedural knowledge. The factual knowledge is made up of "procedural knowledge outcome" and "other factual knowledge". The procedural knowledge is made up of "procedural knowledge manual" and "lessons-learned procedural knowledge". The dimension of tacit contribution is composed of "agency", "model" and "Q&A". The basic framework for measuring 7 components of knowledge contribution is quantitative and qualitative approach. This paper is premised on the assumption that the outcomes of employee's knowledge contribution activities are recorded in the knowledge management systems in order to evaluate them objectively. The appraisal items are defined as follows: at the dimension of explicit contribution, in quantitative approach, "the upload number" or "performance number", and in qualitative approach, other employee's "referred number" and other employee's "content and format satisfaction evaluation"; at the dimension of tacit contribution, "demanded number of performance" After the development of appraisal items by the deductive method, delphi method was used for the analysis of the weights of the items with the total degree of knowledge contribution, 100. This research does not include the standard marks of the appraisal items. It is because when companies apply this appraisal instrument, they could use their own standard appraisal marks of the appraisal items considering their present situations and companies' goals. Through this almost desert-like research about the appraisal instrument of employee's knowledge contribution effectiveness, it proposes a cornerstone in the research field of appraisal instrument, which provides a standard for employee's knowledge contribution appraisal, and appraisal items that make organizational knowledge to be managed more systemically in business sites.

The Forest Experience Program and Improvement of Depression, Anxiety, and Self-concept in Adolescents (산림 체험 프로그램이 청소년의 우울감, 불안감, 자아상에 미치는 영향)

  • Chang, Jisoon;Kim, Nam Young;Lee, Suk Hee;Kim, Bongseog
    • Journal of Korean Society of Forest Science
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    • v.104 no.1
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    • pp.127-132
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    • 2015
  • Aim of this study was to investigate the influence of forest experience program on depression, anxiety, and self concept in adolescents living in urban area. A total of 47 adolescents living in Seoul, South Korea were recruited for the study and participated in a series of forest experience programs that the Korea National Park Service had developed. Before and after applying the program, their depression, anxiety, and self concept were evaluated using Children's Depression Inventory (CDI), Revised Child Manifest Anxiety Scale (RCMAS), and Offer Self Image Questionnaire-Revised (OSIQ). The outcome measures were analyzed using paired-t tests. CDI score was significantly reduced after the program (before:$12.41{\pm}8.34$, after:$8.65{\pm}9.48$). Excluding 16 participants whose scores of Lie Scale in the RCMAS were more than 8 on the analysis, the total RCMAS score showed significant reduction after the program (before:$14.87{\pm}7.30$, after:$10.81{\pm}7.81$). There was no significant difference in the total score of the total self-image scale in the OSIQ. However, the Self-confidence (SC) which was used as subscale of the OSIQ was significantly higher after the program (before:$29.94{\pm}3.71$, after:$38.11{\pm}6.45$), and the Idealism scale (I) in the OSIQ increased significantly after the program (before:$21.03{\pm}3.80$, after:$23.17{\pm}3.89$). On our analysis, the forest experience program showed considerable positive effects on depression and anxiety in adolescents. This result leads the postulation that the program might be helpful for adolescents to adapt to their surrounding experiences and to achieve improvement in interpersonal relationship.

Comparison of Level of Participation and Quality of Life in Stroke Patients and the Healthy Elderly (뇌졸중 노인과 정상 노인의 참여수준 및 삶의 질 비교)

  • Lee, Juyeon;Lee, Chun-Yeop;Yoon, Tae-Hyung;Kim, Tae-Hoon
    • The Journal of Korean society of community based occupational therapy
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    • v.9 no.1
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    • pp.47-56
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    • 2019
  • Objectives : This study was to compare the level of activity participation(instrumental activities, leisure activities, and social activities of living) and quality of life for elderly people with and without stroke, and to analyze the correlation between the level of activity participation and quality of life in their scores on measures. Methods : The Korean Activity Card Sort(K-ACS) was conducted among 25 elderly people with stroke and 25 elderly people without stroke living in Busan, and their level of activity participation and quality of life were evaluated using the The Medical Outcome Study 36-item Short Form Health Survey(SF-36). Results : Elderly people with and without stroke both showed a significant difference in the retained level of activity participation, instrumental activities of daily living, leisure activities, social activities, and the SF-36 score. The scores of the elderly people with stroke for the retained level of activity participation and instrumental activities of daily living in the Korean Activity Card Sort had a significant correlation with the SF-36 score, whereas leisure activities and social activities did not show a significant correlation with the SF-36 score. Among the elderly people without stroke, there was a significant correlation between scores for the retained level of activity participation, leisure activities, and social activities of living in the Korean Activity Card Sort and the SF-36 score, but there was no significant correlation between instrumental activities of daily living and the SF-36 score. Conclusion : The level of activity participation and quality of life could be considered to correlate with one another, and an intervention to improve the activity participation of elderly people with stroke would help to enhance their quality of life.