• Health Policy and Management
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• v.30 no.4
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• pp.479-492
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• 2020

Background: As the prevalence of hypertension is increasing in Korea, the government is seeking policy actions to manage patients with hypertension more efficiently. In this paper, we aimed to identify factors associated with the use of medical care at hospitals among outpatients with hypertension. Methods: We analyzed a total of 15,040 cases of 3,877 outpatients with hypertension obtained from the Korea Medical Panel database from 2010 to 2016. The dependent variable was whether a patient with hypertension visited a hospital or not; and independent variables were the patient's various socio-demographic, health-related, and heath-status characteristics. We conducted a generalized linear mixed model analysis with logit link for all the cases and then conducted it stratified by gender. Results: As a result of a multivariable analysis, women were less likely than to visit at a hospital (odds ratio [OR], 0.44; 95% confidence interval [CI], 0.32-0.61) and people aged 65 years and older than those aged less than 65 years (OR, 0.71; 95% CI, 0.57-0.89). Residents in Busan, Ulsan, and Gyeongnam were more likely than those in than Seoul, Gyeonggi, Incheon, and Jeju to visit a hospital (OR, 1.40; 95% CI, 1.05-1.86). The likelihood of visiting a hospital was high in people belonging to a group of: the highest level of annual household income (OR, 1.73; 95% CI, 1.30-2.29); Medical care aid recipients (OR, 1.94; 95% CI, 1.34-2.83); people having three or more complex chronic diseases (OR, 1.59; 95% CI, 1.19-2.11); people having diabetes (OR, 1.81; 95% CI, 1.41-2.32); or people having ischemic heart disease or cerebrovascular disease (OR, 6.80; 95% CI, 5.28-8.76). Also, we found that factors associated with the use of medical care at hospitals among outpatients with hypertension differed between genders. Conclusion: A variety of factors seem to be associated with the use of medical care at hospitals among outpatients with hypertension. Future research needs to find a way to help patients with hypertension visit an appropriate medical institution between clinics and hospitals.

• Journal of Industrial Convergence
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• v.20 no.6
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• pp.83-92
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• 2022

This study is to investigate the factors affecting post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) symptoms among hospital nurses during the COVID-19 pandemic in Korea. Cross-sectional, descriptive design is used in this study. Data collection was completed through an online self-administered survey from December 2020 to January 2021 among 180 registered nurses dealing with COVID-19 patients at hospitals. This survey includes socio-demographic questions, including a 22-item PTSD questionnaire, a 14-item type D personality questionnaire, a 25-item resilience questionnaire, and a 23-item Social Support Scale questionnaire. 56.1% of the subjects in this study were at risk of PTSD. In the high-risk group for PTSD, resilience and social support were lower than those in the low-risk group for PTSD. But there was no statistically significant difference in both variables (resilience t=0.21, p=.836, social support t=1.07, p=.287). However, education (OR = 2.23, p= .041) and type D personality (OR = 3.67, p < .001) were significant factors for PTSD symptoms. The results of the study can be utilized to recognize PTSD in nurses by identifying factors influencing PTSD during epidemics such as COVID-19, and to apply management systems such as psychological programs to help overcome them.

• Journal of Environmental Health Sciences
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• v.48 no.6
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• pp.324-330
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• 2022

Background: Lung injuries due to exposure to humidifier disinfectants (HDs) were reported in 2011 in South Korea. As a result of the government's epidemiological investigation and toxicity test study, it was found that HDs caused health damage such as lung disease. Objectives: The purpose of this study was to classify HD exposure ratings and analyze the affecting factors that could identify the relationship with lung disease. Methods: Exposure assessment for HDs was conducted using a questionnaire during face-to-face interviews with the applicants. Ratings of high exposure (Class 1) and low exposure (Class 2) were cross-tabulated with clinical ratings (acceptable and unacceptable). Logistic regression analysis was carried out by setting the clinical rating of lung disease as a dependent variable and the socio-demographic and exposure characteristics obtained through the questionnaire as independent variables. Results: The concentration in air of polyhexamethylene guanidine (PHMG) was 71.96±107.47 ㎍/m³, and the exposure concentration was 15.21±23.28 ㎍/m³ . The exposure rating was overestimated with 97.1% of affected subjects having high exposure using margin of exposure (MOE), but only 9.9% matching the clinical class. In the overestimated group, it could be explained by the fact that the exposure time was long and the subjects had already recovered from damage symptoms. As a result of logistic regression analysis, ten variables were found to be significant influencing factors. Conclusions: A new exposure rating could be calculated based on the MOE, and factors affecting lung disease could be estimated through comparative evaluation with the clinical rating.

• 한국노년학
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• v.30 no.4
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• pp.1311-1327
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• 2010

This study was conducted to identify the relationship between depression and subjective/objective health status, and to examine predicting factors on depression in the elderly in Korea. This study was a secondary analysis using the data of Korea National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey(VI-1) 2007. A total of 939 data from the subjects ≥60 years who completed health-related survey were used for analysis. Data were analyzed using SAS (version 9.1) PC program. Depression was identified in the 20.3% of the older subjects. Multiple logistic regression analysis showed that women (OR=2.04), senior high school graduation (OR=0.27) and lowermiddle household income (OR=2.83) were significant associating factors(p<0.05). After adjustment for socio-demographic factors, hypertension (OR=1.93) and asthma (OR=3.32) as objective health status, and stress (OR=7.27), limited activity in daily living due to fracture or joint injury (OR=6.59) and poor self-rate health (OR=1.64) as subjective health status were found as factors predicting depression in the elderly(p<0.05). According to the type of health status, the subjects who had chronic disease or perceived poor physical health were 5.94 times more likely to have disposition to depression than the subjects who had no chronic disease or perceived good physical health (p=0.001). These findings suggest that preventive education and intervention focus on preventing and managing chronic diseases such as hypertension, asthma, fracture and joint injury should be needed to decrease depression in the elderly.

• Journal of Animal Science and Technology
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• v.49 no.6
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• pp.871-880
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• 2007

This study was conducted to investigate the relationship between the socio-demographic factors and the Korean consumers’ palatability evaluation and to collect the sensory information for development of prediction palatability model of Hanwoo beef. Ten cuts〔Abjin (short plate), Bosup (top sirloin), Cheggt (striploin), Dngsim (loin), Guri (chuck tender), Hongduke (eye of round), Moksim (chuck roll), Sulgit (bottom round), Udoon (top round), Yangi (brisket)〕 were separated from 10 Hanwoo bulls beef(～24 months old) and prepared with the same manner for 3 different cooking methods such as boiling, grilling and roasting. The cooked beef samples were served to 650 consumers recruited from Seoul, Joongbu, Honam and Youngnam locations and evaluated tenderness, juiciness, flavor and overall acceptability. The living location, age, gender, occupation, eating habit and cut were significantly related with the sensory properties when bull beef were cooked as boiled cooking(p<0.05). In grill cooking, only occupation, income and cut had the significant effect on the overall acceptability of Hanwoo bull beef(p<0.01). When bull beef were cooked as Korean traditional roast cooking, consumer’s sensory properties were significantly different by the living location, age, occupation, income, eating habit of consumers and cut(p<0.05). Also, results from the principal component analysis showed that palatability scores of Korean consumers were decided with different contribution scores of tenderness, juiciness, flavor and overall acceptability of cut depending on cooking methods. In conclusion, Korean consumers’ palatability for Hanwoo bull beef were related with the socio-demographic factors and the sensory results were different by cut and cooking methods.

• 한국노년학
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• v.31 no.3
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• pp.505-526
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• 2011

The purposes of this paper were to examine the level of knowledge of and attitudes toward the elderly and investigate the differences in the level of knowledge of and attitudes about the elderly by selected socio-demographic factors and aging related factors in Korea and the United States. The research subjects were 1129 college students attending 10 schools in Korea and the United States(840 Korean students in 5 schools, located in Seoul City, Gyeonggi-Do, Chungcheong-Do in Korea and 289 American students in 5 schools located in the State of New York of the United States). They were interviewed, using the structured questionnaire, and the data were analyzed by SPSS 15.0 for Windows. The research questionnaire was composed of Fact on Aging Quiz Part 1(FAQ 1) developed by Palmore(1998), Semantic Differential Scale development by Sanders et al., and several socio-demographic and aging related variables. The results indicated that, first, the level of knowledge of the elderly for Korean students was 12.51/25 and for American students was 11.57/25, resulting that the knowledge level of the elderly in Korea was higher than that of the United States. In addition, the results of students' knowledge differences between korea and the United States showed that Korean students showed high ratio of correct answer in 9 questions while American students showed high ratio of correct answer in only 4 questions, resulting that Korean students have higher knowledge than American students. Second, the level of attitudes toward the elderly for Korean students was 77.54 and for American students was 70.07 in 20-140 points, resulting that the attitude level of the elderly among American students were more positive than that of Korean students. The results of students' attitudes differences between Korea and the United States showed that Korean students responded positive tendency in only one question while American students responded positive tendencies in 14 questions, resulting that American students were more positive attitudes toward the elderly than that of Korean students. Third, there is a significant correlation between the knowledge of and attitudes toward the elderly in both Korean and American students. Based on these results, implications for policy, practice, and research were further discussed.

• Korean Journal of Adult Nursing
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• v.13 no.1
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• pp.40-52
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• 2001

The ratio of the elderly population is rapidly growing due to socio-economic development and better medical services. As the average life-span of the Korean elderly becomes longer, the proportion of the elderly is increasing. Therefore, the elderly need to sustain a high quality of life. However, all these factors, such as sensory loss, decreased endurance, mobility limitation, and a loss of independence, act to diminish the quality of life among the elderly. It is necessary for elders to adapt themselves to aging, to maintain their physical functions and especially, it is important to keep their independence in activity of daily living and self care. Therefore, this study was designed to identify the degree of activity in daily living and exercise of a self-care agency and to investigate the relationship between activity of daily living and self-care agency. Also, this research aimed to contribute to nursing interventions that maintain and promote quality of life of the elderly and to enable themselves to live independently. The subject of this study were 160 elders, over age 65, who were sampled in C city. Data were collected by observation and questionnaires from May,1999 to December, 1999. The measurement tools were Barthel Index(1979), Lawton & Brody(1969) for activity of daily living and Kearney & Fleischer(1979) for self-care agency. Data were analyzed by SAS PC+ package and included descriptive analysis, t-test, ANOVA, Pearson correlation coefficient, and Cronbach's alpha. The conclusions of this study are summarized as follows; 1. The mean of ADL and IADL was 96.09 and 16.38, respectively. The score described activity of daily living among the elders in C province as moderate. Particularly, in the items of IADL, the item of medication was the highest score. 2. The mean for exercise of self-care agency was 76.48, a moderate degree. 3. The degree of ADL and IADL according to demographic characteristics was significantly different statistically in pocket money, the presence of disease, perceived health status and in occupation, pocket money, family type, the presence of disease, and perceived health status, respectively. 4. The dagree of selt-care agency according to demographic characteristics was significantly different statistically in gender, education level, economic status, and pocket money. 5. There was a significant positive correlation between activity in daily living and self-care agency. Based on these results, further research is suggested to discover the variables influencing the activity of daily living and self-care agency to develop nursing strategies for improving self-care and activity of daily living among the elderly.

• Korea journal of population studies
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• v.34 no.1
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• pp.129-157
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• 2011

This study attempts to analyze the effect of level of education on the attitudes toward immigrants or foreign workers. More specifically, we examine whether there is significant difference in the effects of the level of education and global mind on the attitude among three East Asian countries (South Korea, Japan, and Taiwan), controlling other socio-demographic factors in relation to increase in immigrants and foreign workers. Using EASS data, we employs sequential logit model to the general attitudes toward immigrant workers into the weighted sum of transition probability within each educational level. One major finding is that there is clear and significant difference in the relationship between the level of education and the attitudes toward foreign workers among three countries. In general, while Japanese and Taiwanese tend to have more open-minded attitudes toward foreign workers as they have higher level of education, Koreans are opposite case that they are little bit more hostile toward to foreign workers with higher level of education. Especially, there is strong positive effect of education on the attitude in Taiwanese case. Another finding is that while there is strong resistance against increase in migrant population in Korea and Taiwan, Japanese respondents want current level of foreign population to remain in the similar level. Our findings imply that there is no one converging pattern of relationship between the level of education and the positive attitudes toward foreign workers which can be applied to any country. Therefore, this paper suggests that unique political, social, and cultural characteristics of each country should be considered to better understand the effect of education on the attitude toward immigrants and foreign workers. Also, we conclude that systematic comparative-demographic analyses should be utilized to provide more comprehensive picture of how difference in educational level affects the attitude toward immigrants and foreign workers.

• Journal of the Korea Academia-Industrial cooperation Society
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• v.20 no.11
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• pp.446-457
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• 2019

The purpose of this study was to analyze the association between family members and adolescent boys smoking. The data were evaluated by frequency analysis, 𝑥² test and logistic regression analysis using 27,276 people who responded to the 14th(2018) Korean Youth Risk Behavior Survey. Among male students, the nonsmoking rate was 91.5% and the smoking rate was 8.5%(2.5% of occasional smoking and 6.0% of frequent smoking). The study results showed that the smoking status of male students was varied significantly according to the number of smokers among the family members(p<0.001). Meanwhile, smoking based on the characteristics of socio-demographic factors was affected by grades, school records, economic status, and parents' educational background(p<0.001). Smoking by health factors showed a significant difference in alcohol consumption, suicidal thoughts, depression experiences, stress recognition, frequency of breakfast consumption, level of fatigue after sleep, and subjective perception of health(p<0.001). Male smokers were more likely to smoke when two family members smoked than only one(p<0.001). These results confirmed that smoking in boys was affected by the smoking status of family members and suggested that the smoking cessation program of family smokers can be effective in designing smoking cessation prevention and smoking cessation projects.

• Journal of the Korea Academia-Industrial cooperation Society
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• v.14 no.8
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• pp.3794-3803
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• 2013

The purpose of this study was to find out the relationships between emotional labour and depressive symptoms among nurses in university hospitals. Subjects were 514 nurses working at three university hospitals in Daejeon City, and the survey was a structured self- administered questionnaire based from April 1 until May 31 2012. As a results, the level of depressive symptoms by the subjects emotional labour level was significantly higher in the group with higher total average points of the emotional labour than the lower group, As for the correlation between the level of depressive symptoms and emotional labour factors, the depressive symptoms points showed significant positive correlation with the total points of the emotional labour. As a result of hierarchical multiple regression, age, leisure time, coffee consumption, subjective health status, physical burden of work, sense of satisfaction at work, fit to the job and emotional labour were selected as significant variables and related variables effecting the level of depressive symptoms. These variables' descriptive power was 39.4%, especially, it can be seen that 11.0% descriptive power increased by putting the emotional labor variables. The results above imply that there is significant relation between emotional labor and depressive symptoms and various variables such as socio-demographic characteristics, health-related behavior factors and job-related factors. Also, it can be seen that the emotional labour and depressive symptoms showed significant positive correlation. Therefore, the development and implementation of a program to control emotional labor appropriately should be required for lowering the level of depressive symptoms.