• Journal of Society of Preventive Korean Medicine
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• v.6 no.1
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• pp.1-14
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• 2002

The proportion and role of public sector in health care industry is very small in Korea. Asymmetric distribution of health care resources is one of the major health care concerns. This issue is so important that it raises a question of accessibility, availability, continuity of care and equity of rural area people's health care utilization. To solve these problems and to satisfy the basic demand of oriental medical service in rural areas, the oriental public health doctors were placed in rural health centers since 1998. The main objectives of this study are twofold: to measure the cognition and attitude of health center directors on the strategies for utilizing oriental public health doctors and to provide basic data for improving the health manpower management program. Data have been collected by way of the self-administrative questionnaires. Developing the questionnaire, the literature review on the previous studies and delphi method were carried out. The response rate was 38.7%. The results of this study are summarized as follows; 1. community people respond positively on the oriental medical service activity in health center. 2. In regard to workloads of oriental public health doctor, 'appropriate' was 81.1% and 'burdensome' was 18.2%, respectively. 3. The 94.0% of respondents thought that the oriental medical service will be continued. 4. To activate oriental medical service in health center, the sufficient budget and provision of aid workers is a necessity. 5. The 75.5% of health center directors respond positively on the allocation of oriental public health doctor to health sub-centers. 6. Health center directors agreed that oriental public health doctor should perform the clinical service as well as prevention and health promotion activity. These results recommend that oriental medical service in health center should be continued gradually, and oriental public health doctors working at health center perform their work efficiently. Undoubtedly, their activity should be more focused on health promotion and disease prevention than daily patient care. For achieving this objective, more support of governmental policy is essential for utilizing oriental public health doctor and better health of the rural area community people.

• Journal of the Korean Institute of Rural Architecture
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• v.8 no.2
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• pp.80-93
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• 2006

This purpose was to explore various directions of elderly service welfare space in village community center. Data were collected 3 types that floor plans of village community centers from 24 villages, interview data of these centers use and needs from 24 aged leaders or 96 elderly. The results were as followed: 1) The floor plans of more than 50% was type IV that was composed a basic spaces(entrance, living room, two rooms, kitchen), a toilet space, a heating system space and a storage space. This type was a current basis of the rural village community centers for elderlies. 2) Elderlies used the centers at winter or out of agricultural season, and visited these to pass the time and to promote friendship among them. 3) Also they went these to take a meal together and to save down personal heating expenses. Their needs for centers were a temporary share dwelling space at winter, a maintain social relationship throughout a health, a education and a side work activity, supplying health or sports facilities, and setting up toilet space. Therefore the current centers were needed to add functions of a temporary share dwelling, a energy saving heat system and a social promoting relationship, and so these could be represented to a elderly welfare service center in rural villages.

• Journal of Korean Academy of Rural Health Nursing
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• v.3 no.2
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• pp.116-125
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• 2008

• Journal of Korean Academy of Rural Health Nursing
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• v.3 no.2
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• pp.88-95
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• 2008

• Journal of Korean Academy of Rural Health Nursing
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• v.3 no.1
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• pp.34-43
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• 2008

Purpose: The purpose of this study was to suggest new direction for domiciliary care for elders provided by public institutions in rural areas. Method: The participants in the study were elders using one of 11 public health care institutions, of which 8 operated day care services exclusively, and 3 operated both day care and short-term respite care services. A survey was conducted using a structured questionnaire that included items on general characteristics of the service users, conditions of the services, personnel, financial status, facilities, and perception of the tasks of the staff. Result: The service content of the day care centers included Western and Chinese medical service, physical services, activities of ADL, nursing care services, meal services and transportation services. Domiciliary care centers provided a wide variety of health and social welfare service for elders. Personnel consisted of 3 to 8 staff for day care centers and 7 to 10 for domiciliary care centers. Both types of centers rely on financial support from local government for operation. The perception of the staff was the need for operation of these centers by public health facilities such as public health centers and sub-centers. Conclusion: The result suggest a need to activate the function of public institutions to provide domiciliary care for elders. For this new change, the role as a social support system must be developed.

• Journal of agricultural medicine and community health
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• v.32 no.1
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• pp.27-39
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• 2007

Objectives: The challenge of an increasing elderly population has coupled with everpresent social concerns in Korea. A major problem in health center for the frail older people is that medical, healthcare, and welfare services are often fragmented in terms of providers and settings without appropriate coordination. The purpose of this study was to investigate the need of health center-based integrated healthcare services and its related factors for the elderly. Methods: A total of 110 elderly people who had visited at a county Health Center were interviewed using a self-administered questionnaire from November to December, 2005. The questionnaire consists of five domains according to the Program of All-inclusive Care for the Elderly. Results: Respondents had high need (total mean score with the 5-point Likert-type sacle: 3.67) of health center-based integrated healthcare services including home visiting service (mean: 4.08), chronic disease care service (mean: 4.06), and transportation service (mean 4.05). According to the results of hierarchical multiple regression analysis, among three regression models the magnititude of the variance of full model that is explained by the need of welfare-domain service was significantly larger than two reduced model. Income was a significant variable in increasing the need of health care and welfare services. Conclusions: This study suggests that the health center-based integrated healthcare services for the elderly must be continuously developed and provided for the health promotion and improved the quality of life of the elderly who live in rural area in Korea.

• Journal of Korean Academy of Rural Health Nursing
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• v.18 no.2
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• pp.80-91
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• 2023

Purpose: The purpose of the study quantitatively investigates the experience of unmet healthcare service utilization by rural populations in vulnerable areas during the COVID-19 pandemic based on Andersen's behavior model. At the same time, this study attempts to describe the experiences of unmet healthcare service utilization among participants in vulnerable rural areas by analyzing qualitative contents through open-ended question. Methods: Data were collected from October to November 2022 using Qualtrix, a web-based survey platform. A total of 863 participants completed an online survey. Quantitative data were analyzed using 𝑥² test and logistic regression analysis. Qualitative data were analyzed using content analysis. Results: The factors affecting participants' unmet healthcare service utilization were type of residential area and underlying disease. The qualitative analysis identified; four categories and nine sub-categories. Conclusion: Based on these findings, it is necessary to develop a disaster nursing response model according to the type of residential areas and the number of people.

• Journal of agricultural medicine and community health
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• v.28 no.2
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• pp.1-14
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• 2003

Objectives: This paper introduces need and supply level of rural mental health care service and especially focuses on the evaluation for the community mental health programs of Public Health Centers(PHCs) in rural areas as the facilities for primary mental health care. Methods: We defined the need as prevalance rate and service utilization rate, for which reviewed the results of the epidemiological study of mental disorders using Korean Composite International Diagnostic Interview surveyed on a nationwide scale in 2001. Supply was appraised in terms of psychiatric beds and primary mental heath care facilities such as private psychiatric clinics, facilities for social rehabilitation, PHCs running community mental health programs. For this, we reveiwed a variety of annual reports related mental health published by Ministry of Health and Welfare. To evaluate the community mental health programs of PHCs in rural areas, we selected. randomly samples out of the 3rd community health plans including the contents of community mental health programs, which submitted by 89 rural counties and 44 cities mixed with rural areas, and used the program's guideline established by central government as a standard. Results: Prevalence rates of major psychiatric diseases such as schizophrenia, alcoholism, major depression, anxiety disorder were higher in rural area than in urban area and 8.9% of psychiatric patients in both areas stayed at homes contacted with mental health manpower more than one time during the last year. Psychiatric beds were sufficiently supplied, but urban area had less beds than rural area contrary to general health care service. Psychiatric clinics were supplied very insufficiently in rural areas and PHCs bridged the gap instead. However rural PHCs got less financial support for community mental health programs from higher positioned agencies than urban PHCs. Rural community health programs not supported hardly worked out. Conclusions: Central government should consider a special policy for rural primary mental health care, because private psychiatric clinics can't be introduced in rural areas due to demand-deficiency and the financial independence of rural counties was very vulnerable.

• The Journal of Korean Physical Therapy
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• v.21 no.4
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• pp.81-88
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• 2009

Purpose: This study examined the health status and physical therapy in elderly women in rural areas to provide basic data on the promotion of health and physical therapy management of elderly women in rural areas. Methods: The subjects were 110 elderly women. The data was collected through individual interviews, and the tool developed for this study was a structured questionnaire based on the literature. The reliability coefficient was 0.57 ~ 0.79(Chronbach' $\alpha$). Results: Village 1 made the most of an oriental medicine clinic and a neighborhood clinic, whereas village 2 mainly used a public health center. Arthritis/ neuralgia and high blood pressure/low blood pressure were the most common complaints in the two villages; a medical institution was used once a month by more than 50% of subjects. Most rural elderly women used physical therapy, and the prevalence of arthritis/neuralgia was high. The most common problem in the two villages was poor health. The improvement in mobility was higher in the more healthy women, who also had less need for treatment at a medical institution. Conclusion: Most rural elderly women were concerned about poor health and used physical therapy. Therefore, rural medical institutions need to pay attention to the medical service and preventive activity to reduce the incidence and severity of neuromuscular syndrome in rural elderly women.

• Korean Journal of Veterinary Service
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• v.42 no.3
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• pp.145-152
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• 2019

Canine vector-borne diseases (CVBDs) are transmitted by different groups of hematophagous arthropod vectors that are distributed worldwide and can cause significant health problems for dogs. The aim of this study was to investigate and compare the prevalence of selected CVBD pathogens in rural outdoor dogs based on prevention status. Between June 2017 and February 2019, blood samples were collected from 343 clinically healthy rural dogs composing two different groups: systematically managed dogs (SMD; n=92) and personally managed dogs (PMD; n=251). Vaccination and preventive medications were applied strictly following the programmed schedule for the SMD group; in contrast, in the PMD group, they were applied only when requested by the dog owners. Serological and molecular assessments showed that significantly more dogs in the PMD group were infected with B. gibsoni (P<0.001) and D. immitis (P=0.001) than those in the SMD group. These findings suggest that the regular use of preventive medications and environmental controlling efforts contribute to reducing the prevalence of CVBD pathogen infections. In addition, dogs infected with certain kinds of CVBD pathogens could remain asymptomatic, suggesting that continuous monitoring and periodic preventive treatment should be conducted even for clinically healthy dogs.