BACKGROUND: Group A streptococcus (Streptococcus pyogenes) is the most common cause of bacterial pharyngitis and an important cause of a variety of suppurative and nonsuppurative diseases. The molecular genetic analysis of group A streptococci in clinical isolates is rarely reported in Korea. In this study, molecular genetic analysis using serotyping and emm sequence analysis, testing the presence of the SpeA and SpeB gene, and the determination of an antimicrobial resistance pattern were investigated. METHODS: Sixty nine strains of S. pyogenes from clinical isolates in Korea during 1999-2002 were examined by T agglutination, serum opacity reaction, and emm sequence analysis. Also investigated were antimicrobial susceptibility and the frequency of SpeA and SpeB genes. RESULTS: The antibiotic resistance rates for S. pyogenes isolates were shown at 28.9% of erythromycin, 14.2% of ampicillin, 9.5% of chloramphenicol, and 6.3% of levofloxacin. However, all strains were susceptible to penicillin, vancomycin, and teicoplanin. By T agglutination typing, forty-one (59.4%) among sixty-nine isolates were identified as T28 (13%), T6 (13%), T1 (10%), T12 (8.7%), T4 (4%), T5/27/44 (4%), T3/B3264 (2.9%), T11/12 (1.4%), and TB3264 (1.4%). Thirty-five (50.7%) among sixty nine isolates were positive in serum opacity reaction. The SpeB gene showed positive in all strains but the SpeA gene in eleven (15.9%) strains. By emm gene sequence analysis, forty-seven (68.1%) CONCLUSIONS: Our data showed that antimicrobial resistance of clinical isolates to erythromycin were higher than those reported from the United States and Europe, and emm genotyping could be used for a reliable and efficient typing method.
Agglutination ; Ampicillin ; Chloramphenicol ; Drug Resistance, Microbial ; Erythromycin ; Europe ; Korea ; Levofloxacin ; Molecular Biology* ; Penicillins ; Pharyngitis ; Sequence Analysis ; Serotyping ; Streptococcus ; Streptococcus pyogenes* ; Teicoplanin ; United States ; Vancomycin

BACKGROUND: The most common clinical manifestation of tuberculosis is respiratory tract infections. Currently, respiratory tract tuberculosis is diagnosed by using X-ray, acid-fast smear, culture, or DNA probe technology. The nucleic acid amplification technologies include the polymerase chain reaction (PCR) and the ligase chain reaction (LCR). The potential utility of LCx (Abbott Lab.) kit for the detection and identification of Mycobacterium tuberculosis in respiratory specimens has been measured. METHODS: Four different methods such as acid-fast smear, culture, PCR, and LCR were evaluated using 58 specimens isolated from patients. The IS6110 sequences for Mycobacterium tuberculosis synthesized and provided by Applied Biosystems were used for PCR procedure. The LCR assay using LCx kit was performed according to the manufacturer's instruction (Abbott Lab., U.S.A.). RESULTS: Sensitivity, specificity, and positive and negative predicative values for acid-fast smear method were 72, 100, 100 and 89%, respectively and were 89, 100, 100 and 95%, respectively for culture method. Whereas those values for PCR method were 78, 100, 100, and 91% respectively, and those for LCR were 100, 95, 90 and 100%, respectively. CONCLUSIONS: The LCR assay performed on respiratory specimens for the detection of Mycobacterium tuberculosis has been evaluated as a highly effective method among 4 different identification systems.
DNA ; Humans ; Ligase Chain Reaction* ; Mycobacterium tuberculosis* ; Mycobacterium* ; Polymerase Chain Reaction ; Respiratory System ; Respiratory Tract Infections ; Sensitivity and Specificity ; Tuberculosis

The purpose of nursing education is to prepare the professional practitioner as nurse who will be interested in the health and the related aspects of community and will assume responsibility for contributing toward the improvement of the health for the all. This means that nursing education must provide opportunities for the development of knowledge, skills, and attitudes which make this possible. Consequently, this approach has relevance for nursing education. Faculty engaged in endless debates about what is to be included, and to what death, and what will be given short shrift as a result. Thus, it can be seen why there is so much confusion and lack of agreement between the emphasis and objectives in nursing. This study attempted to review and identify the curriculum content of child nursing in Korea to build and develop the standard curriculum contents for national board examination for nurses and child's health needs for the coming 21st century. The questionnaire was consisted of items for selection and organization of the knowledge components and type of unit with weigh to be attained in child nursing. Response of 34% of nursing program in university and junior college. Content analysis was done by using consensual validation of essential knowledge for curriculum content to identify what is obvious or trivial. This study pointed out that it is not yet apparent that demographic fact has greatly influenced child nursing curriculum content. In a similar vein the majority of content of child nursing devote little time and weigh to social and epidemically significant to child health. It seems to be needed that the content of child nursing may push the paradigm shift in nursing education such as health promotion and prevention for postretinal roles of child and family. In conclusion, it is time to convoke and content and standardization on job analysis for national board exam for nurses in Korea.
Child* ; Curriculum* ; Education, Nursing ; Health Promotion ; Humans ; Korea* ; Nursing* ; Veins ; Child Health ; Surveys and Questionnaires

BACKGROUND: Demand for emergency medical information is high according to the health information use, utilization and demand survey for on the Internet. In spite of high demand for emergency information service, emergency information service on-line and off-line are very limited. Therefore, it is necessary to develop a website providing emergency medical information and emergency medical resources information by linking emergency medicine where timely information is required with the Internet technology for health promotion of the public. OBJECTIVE: This study is conducted to develop and evaluate a Web site to provide information on emergency medicine and resources for health promotion. METHODS: To identify and specify users' requirements for the emergency medicine related information, online survey was performed for 209 Internet users who visited the Healthguide. Based on this survey results, we developed content for emergency medical information service: cause, risk factors, prevention, treatment, facilities, laws and rules, policy and statistics of emergency medicine. To evaluate the web site developed in this study, twenty health and nursing informatics experts were recruited and asked to rate using an evaluation tool. RESULTS: This content was integrated into the healthy life (http://healthguide.kihasa.re.kr/health_life/emergency/pages/index.html), which is a service component of the Healthguide. This approach was expected to increase accessibility and usability of implemented services. The rating score of the website was fairly high with mean 3.9(SD 0.6) out of 5.0. According to each evaluation criteria, purpose of the site, easiness of use, relevancy, and reliability were scored 4.1-4.2 and authority and accuracy 3.8-3.9 and currency 3.5-3.7. This evaluation results will be fed back to the Healthguide for operation, maintenance, and upgrade in the future.
Emergencies* ; Emergency Medicine ; Health Promotion* ; Information Services* ; Internet ; Jurisprudence ; Nursing Informatics ; Risk Factors

To investigate the change of cell cycle by genotoxic stress and rebound proliferation in human keratinocytes, the proportions of cell cycle phases were estimated with challenge of UVB irradiation (200 J/m2). With UVB irradiation cell cycle was estimated by Cell Fit program in Flowcytometer, and main change of the cell cycle was S-phase pro-longation. In karyotyping, near diploid number of chromosomes changed to hypoteraploid number. Cell cycle phase was estimated in two groups of cells, near diploid and hypoteraploid. In near dipoid cells, S-phase prolongation was specific phenomenon, while specific G0-G1 phase prolongation was shown in hypoteraploid cells which made transformed foci in culture. The new structural anomalies were del (5q21), 8p+, and t (5 : 8)(q21 : pter). Among them, del (5q21) was found in all transformed hypotetraploid cells. These data suggest that progress of cell cycle could be [G1-S-(G2-G1)-S] by UVB irradiation and deletion of 5q21 has a key role for anchorage independent growth, which is deletion of tumor suppressor gene APC locus. That is one of important mechanisms in keratinocyte transformation by UVB irradiation. With the changes of chromosome number and cell cycle, sizes of nuclei got to bigger by two times and growth rate was delayed.
Cell Cycle* ; Diploidy ; DNA Damage ; Genes, Tumor Suppressor ; Humans* ; Karyotype* ; Karyotyping ; Keratinocytes*

OBJECTIVES: The study was performed to examine the dietary behaviors and life stress of middle school students in the Gyeonggi area. METHODS: A total of 580 middle school students (295males, 285 females) in the Gyeonggi area participated in the study between July and August in 2011. The study was a questionnaire-based survey that included dietary habits, dietary behaviors, and life stress. RESULTS: For dietary habits, the score for drinking milk was higher in male students than in female students, whereas the score for eating fruits was higher in female students compared to male students. There were significant differences in foods eaten and preferred under stress between male and female students. Male students showed significantly less changes in the number of meals, amount of meal intake, number of snacks, snack intake, frequency of overeating, and appetite during stress than female students. Life stress score of students largely came from academic factors, and female students showed higher stress levels in personal and surrounding environment factors than male students. Life stress score was significantly lower in students with high and moderate levels of dietary habits than in students with a low level of dietary habits. Total score for dietary habits and scores for eating adequate amounts of foods for each meal, considering a combination of food groups at each meal and eating green and orange vegetables, were significantly negatively correlated with life stress score. Life stress score was significantly negatively correlated with meal regularity and positively with the level of overeating. CONCLUSIONS: This study may provide basic information on dietary habits and life stress according to gender and the relationship between dietary behaviors and life stress of middle school students, and it suggests gender-based nutrition education programs to solve undesirable dietary habits and dietary behaviors in students with higher stress.
Appetite ; Citrus sinensis ; Drinking ; Eating ; Education ; Female ; Food Habits ; Fruit ; Gyeonggi-do ; Humans ; Hyperphagia ; Male ; Meals ; Milk ; Snacks ; Stress, Psychological ; Vegetables

Objective: It is essential to measure the effect of burnout on doctors because burnout can affect doctors’ mental health as well as the functioning of medical practice. This study aims to validate a Korean version of the single-item burnout measure (SIBM), which was developed to quickly measure the level of burnout among doctors. Methods: Through an online survey, a self-report questionnaire was administered to 324 public health doctors in Korea. The Korean version of the SIBM was validated against the Maslach Burnout Inventory-General Survey (MBI-GS), the Patient Health Questionnaire-9 (PHQ-9), the Generalized Anxiety Disorder-7 (GAD-7) screening tool, the Perceived Stress Scale (PSS), and the Vaccination Attitudes Examination (VAX) scale. Pearson correlation coefficients and analysis of variance (ANOVA) were used to determine the association between the SIBM and other scales. ANOVA was additionally used to determine the associations between the subscales of the MBI-GS and those of the SIBM. Results: The correlation coefficient between the SIBM and the MBI-GS, PHQ-9, GAD-7, and PSS was positive (p<0.01), and the correlation coefficient between the SIBM and the VAX scale was not significant. Therefore, convergent and discriminant validity was verified. Exhaustion and cynicism, which were correlated with the SIBM, with r2=0.43 (p<0.01) and 0.48 (p<0.01), yielded R2 scores of 0.27 (p<0.01) and 0.20 (p<0.01) in ANOVA. Conclusion The Korean version of the SIBM is an appropriate screening tool for burnout. It can be evaluated in a short time, thereby enhancing continuous follow-up observations and response rates to burnout.

The purpose of the study is to develop a Web-based health information service system for the middle-aged women. To identify users' information needs, we conducted an online survey of 189 middle-aged women. It was found that they had various health problems but very few did any health prevention or health promotion activities. We developed following contents in the following areas based on the result of needs assessment. They were exercise, diet including weight control, osteoporosis, climacteric, aging, breast and cervical cancer. Besides this health information, FAQ on women's health, my health knowledge test, statistics, link to related institutes and web sites, newspaper articles/mass media clips, journal articles, conferences papers, and other educational information were added. The homepage was developed as a subsystem of the Healthguide. It was evaluated by the users and the expert panel. The users rated 3.6 out of 5 point in their satisfaction rating and the experts rated 3.9 out of 5 in their site evaluation. It is expected that a Web-based women's health information service system will contribute to women's health promotion as well as provide a community for women's health related researchers and experts to share information on women's health.
Academies and Institutes ; Aging ; Breast ; Climacteric ; Congresses as Topic ; Diet ; Female ; Health Promotion ; Humans ; Information Services* ; Internet ; Middle Aged ; Needs Assessment ; Periodicals ; Osteoporosis ; Uterine Cervical Neoplasms ; Women's Health*

We compared antiobese, hypocholesterolemic, antiplatelet and antioxidant effect of 10% green tea powder and 3% green tea extract in rats pair fed 5% cholesterol diets. The final body weight was decreased significantly compared with the control (p < 0.05). Plasma and liver total cholesterol were lower in group of green tea powder or extract, but not statistically different. HDL cholesterol was increased significantly in group of green tea powder compared with the control or green tea extract (p < 0.05). Plasma triglyceride was significantly decreased in group of green tea extract compared with green tea powder, and green tea powder compared with the control respectively (p < 0.05). Liver triglyceride was significantly decreased in group of green tea powder or green tea extract compared with the control (p < 0.01). Platelet aggregations in the maximum and initial slope were not different among groups. Hemolysis was significantly lower in group of green tea powder compared with the control (p < 0.05). Plasma TBARS production was decreased in group of green tea extract compared with the control (p < 0.05). Na passive leak in intact cells was not different, but Na leak in AAPH treated cell was significantly decreased in group of green tea powder than the control (p < 0.05). The leak increase (delta Na Leak) after AAPH treatment was significantly decreased in groups of green tea powder and extract compared with the control (p < 0.05). Isotope excretion after 14C-cholesterol ingestion was significantly increased in group of green tea extract compared with the control or the green tea powder (p < 0.05). Consumption of green tea in powder or extract may give beneficial effects in weight control and plasma lipid profiles, impeding metabolic syndrome. More studies are needed to clarify what component of green tea and what mechanism are involved in antiobese and hypolipedemic actions of green tea.
Amidines ; Animals ; Antioxidants ; Blood Platelets ; Body Weight ; Cholesterol ; Cholesterol, HDL ; Diet ; Eating ; Hemolysis ; Lipid Peroxidation ; Liver ; Plasma ; Rats ; Tea ; Thiobarbituric Acid Reactive Substances ; Weight Gain