• The Korean Journal of Health Service Management
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• v.6 no.1
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• pp.77-86
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• 2012

Objective of the study represents experiences of medical utilization of Psychiatric Outpatients. This research draws on information obtained from the 2008 National-wide sampling study of the Korean Healthcare Panel(KHP) conducted. The results of our study suggest the significance of variables such as the gender(p<.001) in the social demographical characteristics, the medical security type(p<.016), medical institution utilization(p<.012) treatment type(p<.004) in the utilization factors. In the case of medical utilization cost, the financial support factor(p<.018) showed a significant relationship. Depending on the particularities of gender, medical security type, financial support, medical institution utilization, treatment type were determined through a multiple logistics regression analysis. Gender showed that, among Psychiatric outpatient age of 30-59 level was 5.358 times and 60 years and older, their the second medical examination level was 4.490 times higher than Psychiatric outpatients under the age of 29. Health insurance type showed for the others medical allowance was 6.712 times higher than job health insurance and the other treatment was 0.395 times lower than drug treatment. Psychiatric outpatients utilization are rooted in the thoughts and factor levels of the Psychiatric patients and must be understood from the Psychiatric outpatients's perspective. The point is not only to gauge the patients research during Psychiatric medical utilization. The important of social community mental healthcare services levels goes beyond the goal of enhancing healthcare.

• The Journal of Korean Medicine Ophthalmology and Otolaryngology and Dermatology
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• v.29 no.4
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• pp.131-141
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• 2016

Objectives : The purpose of this study is to understanding the patients thought of Korean Medical treatment and to suggest an improvement in utilization of Korean Medicine treatment about atopic dermatitis. Methods : We had investigate atopic dermatitis online community by classifying the post by treatment type, feature type of the information and by content to know the patients latest tendency. And then compare the result to understand the patients thought of Korean Medical treatment. Results : Most of the post was experiential information and about 67% of the post was about symptom and treatment. Especially there had lot of interest about there treatment information and self-treatment. By contrast Korean Medical treatment type has lower rate then other type of treatment about symptom and treatment and the information was not specific. This result may influence on utilization of Korean Medical treatment. Conclusions : To solve this problem patients needs easy access to Korean Medical treatment and more information about there treatment.

• Journal of Preventive Medicine and Public Health
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• v.21 no.1 s.23
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• pp.47-60
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• 1988

The monthly ambulatory treatment days in newly detected hypertension group and known hypertension group were analyzed. The population was identified through the records of screening examination given by Korea Medical Insurance Corporation during the period from April to July, 1986. From the records of screening examination, 11,614 hypertensive patients were identified. By random sampling,959 patients were selected : among them, 544 fell under the category of known hypertension group and the other 415 fell under the newly detected hypertension group. The monthly ambulatory treatment days of these patients during the period from the April, 1985 to September, 1987 were analyzed in order to compare the exents of medical care utilization as well as to define and analyze the determinants responsible for the ambulatory treatment days between the two groups. The following results were obtained. 1) In the known hypertension group, no statistically significant changes in the ambulatory treatment days was observed after, in comparision to before, the screening examination. However, in the newly detected hypertension group the medical care utilization increased after the screening examination because of hypertension. 2) The ambulatory treatment days for hypertension of the known hypertension was statistically significant and higher than that of the newly detected hypertension group after screening examination. 3) There was no statistically significant change in the ambulatory treatment days in association with diseases other than hypertension in either group before and after the screening examination. 4) There was no statistically significant variable responsible for ambulatory treatment days in the known hypertension group. However, the income was a statistically significant variable in the newly detected hypertension group. 5) After the screening examination, the variables determining the ambulatory treatment days were the age of the patient and the diastolic blood pressure in the known hypertension group. These variables responsible for 2.02% of the total ambulatory treatment days. In the newly detected hypertension group, the income was a statistically significant variable which was responsible for 2.10% of total ambulatory treatment days. The above results satisfied the hypothesis that there would be no significant changes in the ambulatory treatment days before and after the screening examination in the known hypertension group. Also the hypothesis that there would be no significant change in the exents of medical care utilization for the diseases other than hypertension before and after the screening examination in either group was satisfied Also the medical care utilization was significantly higher in the known hypertension group than the newly detected hypertension group after the screening examination. This finding satisfied the hypothesis. This study was limited by the lack of considering fully the variables reponsible for the clinical symptoms of hypertension as well as for the individual characteristics. Thus, the result of this study are not fully adequate to define the determinants responsible for the exents of medical care utilization. In the future studies on medical rare utilization, additional variables should be considered.

• Korean Journal of Health Education and Promotion
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• v.29 no.2
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• pp.1-12
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• 2012

Objectives: Several practice guidelines recommended both medication and behavior modification to control hypertension. The objective of this study was to analyze ambulatory care utilization pattern and related factors. Methods: A retrospective cohort study was conducted among 45,267 new users who initiated treatment with hypertensive drugs in 2003. Korean National Health Insurance Claims Data was used to study the medical care utilization behavior and related factors after treatment initiation for up to four years. Taking prescription was considered as medical care utilization. Results: More than 20% of patients discontinued visiting physicians for prescription after initiating antihypertensive drug therapy. The average number of institutions visited by patients was about 1.3 annually. Clinic was the most frequently visited institution by patients. In GEE analysis, probability of continuous visit one institution after initiating antihypertensive drug treatment increased in patients who were women, old, have comorbidity, visited clinic or hospital mainly in previous year. Conclusions: Young hypertensive male patients who have no major comorbidity showed high possibility to discontinue medical service utilization. It is necessary to educate these targeted patients about importance of hypertension management in early stage after treatment initiation.

• The Journal of Internal Korean Medicine
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• v.38 no.3
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• pp.336-352
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• 2017

Objective: This study investigated the perception, utilization, and satisfaction (in the general population), of the common cold treatment at the Korean Medical Clinic, to provide basic information for the development of Korean medicine clinical practice guidelines for the common cold. Method: A questionnaire was developed that consisted of questions about the general perception, utilization status, degree of satisfaction, willingness to use, and the improvement of the common cold treatment at the Korean Medical Clinic. An online survey was conducted using this questionnaire. Results: Three-hundred subjects responded to the survey. The results of the analysis were as follows. 1. 73.7% of the subjects recognized the common cold treatment at the Korean Medical Clinic. 2. 72% of the subjects had a positive perception of Korean medicine for common cold treatment. The major reason for the positive perception was the expectation about improving immunity and preventing recurrence. 3. Only 20% of the subjects had visited the Korean Medical Clinic for common cold treatment. The expensive cost was the major reason for not visiting the Korean Medical Clinic for common cold treatment. 4. The ratio of subjects who were willing to visit the Korean Medical Clinic for common cold treatment was 70%. 5. The expansion of health insurance coverage (67.7%), the activation of public relations (54.7%), and the development of a new herb medicine preparation that was easy to take (43.3%) were found to be necessary for improving the Korean medical service for common cold treatment. Conclusion: In spite of high recognition and positive perception, actual utilization of common cold treatment at the Korean Medical Clinic was relatively low. Multifaceted efforts are necessary to enhance the competitiveness of Korean medical service for treatment of the common cold.

• The Journal of Korean Medicine
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• v.37 no.1
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• pp.41-52
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• 2016

Objectives: There are no studies which have investigated the health related quality of life(HRQOL) about stroke patients according to the medical care utilization behavior by longitudinal analysis. The purpose of this study is to analyze the quality of life(QOL) and quality adjusted life years(QALYs) of stroke patients of western and combined treatment group by longitudinal analysis. Methods: A retrospective cohort study was conducted among 37 new patients who initiated diagnosis with stroke in 2009 from Korea Health Panel Data. We analyzed the HRQOL of stroke patients and calculated the QALYs after medical use initiation for up to 3 years according to the medical care utilization behavior. Results: Overall, the quality of life of stroke patients was lowered somewhat from 0.8431 to 0.7864 in 2009~2012. Western treatment group was appeared slightly declined in from 0.8527 to 0.8231 and combined treatment group was shown to be falling from 0.8173 to 0.6875. The QALYs of total patients were calculated 2.3654 and western treatment group were 2.4436, combined treatment group were 2.1542 during the 4 year period. The difference of QALYs between two groups was 0.2894 QALYs. Conclusions: Although there was a small difference in QALYs of the two groups, it is not certain that the difference is come from medical care utilization behavior. Further studies should be needed to confirm the relation of the medical care utilization behavior and quality of life by considering severity of the stroke.

• Journal of Society of Preventive Korean Medicine
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• v.19 no.3
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• pp.45-55
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• 2015

Objective : The aim of this study was to survey the present utilization of pattern identification(PI) in the clinical field among Korean Medicine Doctors. Method : This survey was conducted from Oct. 1 to Oct. 31, 2014 by face-to-face interview using structured questionnaire. The subjects were 400 korean medicine doctors who worked in hospitals or clinics. The questionnaire consisted of two sections - a demographics section(i.e., sex, age, clinical experience, place of work, residence and so on) and the main research section(i.e., the PI utilization rate, the utilization of PI systems, the utilization of PI in the clinical domain and in the treatment domain, the correlation between utilization PI and so on). Results : This study revealed that subjects used the PI to 66.7% of their patients on average. The utilization rate of PI in patients was significantly higher for female physicians than for male physicians, for physicians worked in clinics than for physicians who worked in hospitals and for physicians with more than 10 years clinical experience than for physicians with less than 10 years clinical experience. In the utilization of PI systems, Visceral PI was most as 92.0%. There were significant difference on the PI utilization rate according to utilization of Meridian and Collateral PI, Triple Energizer PI, Defense, Qi, Nutrient and Blood PI, Six-Meridian PI and Six Excesses PI. As a result of analysing the PI utilization rate by clinical domain and in the treatment domain, the Treatment and the Drug Treatment showed the highest values. Among utilized PI systems, the correlation coefficients between Defense, Qi, Nutrient and Blood PI and Triple Energizer PI showed the highest value, but the correlation coefficients between Sasang Constitutional Medicine with the each PI showed substantially lower value. Conclusion : The results of this study demonstrate that usage of PI was higher than usage of U code(in KCD) usage in clinical field. we suggested that additional studies on using PI and developing more appropriate standardized tool should be conducted to widen scope of PI's utilization.

• Journal of Society of Preventive Korean Medicine
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• v.23 no.2
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• pp.25-42
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• 2019

Objectives : The purpose of this study was to identify factors that affect the utilization of Korean medicine (KM) among children with cerebral palsy (CP) and explore a processing model of decision-making by their parents. Methods : We conducted an individual in-depth interview with 21 mothers of children with CP who were recruited during the observational study. A grounded theory of Strauss and Corbin was used for qualitative analysis. Thus, collected data were classified into open coding including 121 concepts, 27 sub-categories and 7 categories. Results : The central phenomenon of the process of using KM for children with CP is 'KM as an optional treatment not essential'. Therefore there are many obstacles to starting KM treatment and it is easily interrupted for various reasons, unlike general rehabilitation treatment. However, if the patient experiences the therapeutic effect, the parents want to continue KM treatment. They try to provide treatment as much as possible if they can afford it. The parents give priority to general rehabilitation treatment and value the information and experience provided by the caregivers in similar situation as well as expert opinions. Conclusions : To expand and generalize KM treatment for children with CP, efforts to change interventional conditions such as treatment effect, treatment cost, treatment compliance, and convenience of treatment based on the understanding of the strategy used by the parents in KM utilization.

• Resources Recycling
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• v.24 no.4
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• pp.61-66
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• 2015

Cyanidation has been used worldwide to recover gold from primary ore or concentrate. The use of cyanide is however becoming an emerging issue because of the toxic residue and wastewater made from the process. The cyanide-containing wastewater should be treated properly, obeying the environmental standard and regulations. In the present article, the domestic and international uses, regulations, and treatment technologies of cyanide in gold mining were investigated as a feasibility study to develop a cyanide treatment process as well as the cyanidation process. A biological cyanide treatment process to develop a zeroemission gold recovery and wastewater treatment process was also briefly introduced.

• Journal of Korean Public Health Nursing
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• v.24 no.2
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• pp.323-335
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• 2010

Purpose: This study identified sociodemographic characteristics, health status, health care utilization and related factors of Asian immigrant women in Korea. Methods: Data were collected from 465 immigrant women from China, Vietnam, the Philippines, and other Asian countries using standardized questionnaires. Descriptive statistics and $X^2$-test were performed utilizing SPSS version 17. A p-value <.05 was considered statistically significant. Results: Subjects had relatively good subjective health. The most prevalent conditions were, in order, anemia, gastrointestinal diseases, gynecological diseases, and depression. Subjects utilized mostly hospitals or clinics when sick. There were significant relationships between health care utilization and factors including residence, time since immigration and economic status. The rate of non-treatment in hospitals or clinics was 30.1% during the previous year, with significant relationships between non-treatment and factors including time since immigration and economic status. The major reasons for non-treatment were the burden of hospital expenses followed by communication difficulty. Conclusion: Public health efforts should be targeted to Asian immigrant women to improve their health status and support health care utilization.