PURPOSE: To investigate the frequency of childhood sleep problems at pediatric clinics in Seoul and Gyeonggi provinces. METHODS: Children (n=936) and their parents who visited 5 primary and 1 secondary pediatric outpatient clinics were invited to complete a Pediatric Sleep Questionnaire. RESULTS: Among patients, 901 (96.3%) answered questionnaires in sufficient detail for evaluation. The participant's mean age was 4.35±3.02 years (range, 0–18 years). The male to female ratio was 1:0.93 (466 boys, 435 girls). Habitual snoring (>3 day/week) was reported in 16.9% of the participants. The prevalence of habitual snoring in children <2 years and those between 2–5 years was 9% and 18%, respectively. Sleep disordered breathing was found in 15.1% (106 of 700) of children >2 years. Insomnia was reported in 13.2% of children. The prevalence of sleepwalking, night terrors, and bruxism, is 1.6%, 19%, and 21.1%, respectively. Snoring was associated with increased incidence of sleepwalking, night terrors, and bruxism. Age was associated with insomnia and habitual snoring (P<0.05). Insomnia was more prevalent in younger (21%) than in older children (6%). Snoring was more frequent in both preschool (34%) and school-aged children (33%). The frequency of sleep disordered breathing and insomnia did not vary significantly with gender. However, snoring was more prevalent in boys. CONCLUSION: Sleep problems are frequent among children in Korea. Children with snoring have an increased risk of sleepwalking, night terror, and bruxism. Primary clinicians should consider children's sleep habits to improve their health.
Adolescent* ; Ambulatory Care Facilities ; Bruxism ; Child* ; Female ; Gyeonggi-do ; Humans ; Incidence ; Korea ; Male ; Night Terrors ; Parents ; Prevalence ; Seoul ; Sleep Apnea Syndromes ; Sleep Initiation and Maintenance Disorders ; Snoring ; Somnambulism

BACKGROUND: Obesity has been generally diagnosed by 'Body Mass Index (BMI)' in primary care. Recently the use of Bioelectrical Impedance Analyzer' has become popular in Korea to evaluate body fat rate (BFR), as cost is inexpensive and the method to use is simple. As a result, the opposed finding of normal BMI and elevated BFR vice versa in same individuals are being encountered frequently. We designed this study to find out the characteristics and cardiovascular risk of people in these groups. METHODS: The medical records of health promotion center were obtained and 22,704 applicants visitor who undeerwent health risk questionnaire, screening tests and physical examination for cardiovascular disease were reviewed. RESULTS: After adjusting for age, sex, exercise and education level, cardiovascular risk such as hypertension, DM, and hypercholesterolemia, LDL tended to increase linearly and HDL tended to decrease linearly with increase of BFR or BMI. In comparison with normal BMI and BFR group, the odds ratios of normal BMI and elevated BFR group or vice versa were increased. CONCLUSION: If either one of BMI or BFR of a person was elevated, even though the other was within normal range, the cardiovascular risk of that person was shown to be high.
Adipose Tissue* ; Body Mass Index* ; Cardiovascular Diseases ; Education ; Electric Impedance ; Health Promotion ; Humans ; Hypercholesterolemia ; Hypertension ; Korea ; Mass Screening ; Medical Records ; Obesity ; Odds Ratio ; Physical Examination ; Primary Health Care ; Reference Values ; Risk Factors* ; Surveys and Questionnaires

No abstract available.
Korea*

No Abstract Available.
Depression* ; Primary Health Care*

No Abstract Available.
Depression* ; Primary Health Care*

PURPOSE: The purpose of this study was to examine effects of smoking cessation program in large size company using motivational enhancement counseling. METHODS: A quasi-experimental design was conducted. 72 workers in intervention group and 65 workers in control group participated in 7 large size companies. Smoking cessation program consisted of a campaign, smoking cessation education, and 6 weeks motivational enhancement counseling. The motivational enhancement counseling was tailored to the individual's stage of change. Stages of smoking behavior, smoking cessation rate, nicotine dependence, and confidence of smoking cessation were assessed after intervention. RESULTS: The results showed that intervention had a significant impact on improving stages of smoking behavior and smoking cessation rate, and impact on decreasing nicotine dependence, compared to those of a control group. CONCLUSION: The effects and feasibility of smoking cessation program including motivational enhancement counseling were revealed in the large size company. These results might provide information that can be used in improving cultures of smoking cessation for workers.
Counseling ; Smoke ; Smoking ; Smoking Cessation ; Tobacco Use Disorder

OBJECTIVE: This study was conducted to evaluate the quality of health information on the internet using DISCERN. METHODS: Breast cancer, asthma, depression, obesity were selected to be the tracer conditions of the health information. To collect information about these 4 tracer conditions, we first select top 9 popular Korean websites which provide health information in January 2004. Nine websites include 6 commercial, 3 hospital. To compare quality of internet health information provided by Korean public institute and other countries', we select Healthguide in Korea, MEDLINEplus in USA and NHS direct online in UK. Overall, a total of 45 heath information provided by 10 Korean, 2 other countries' websites were evaluated by two nurses independently using DISCERN. DISCERN is a heath information quality assessment instrument consists of sixteen five-point- scale item questionnaire. The score was compared between Korean commercial and hospital websites and between Korean public institute's website and those of USA and UK. RESULTS: Korean internet health information scored 2.0 for overall quality score. Internet health information of commercial websites scored 1.8 for overall quality score that was lower than hospital websites(2.4). Internet health information provided by Korean public institute scored 3.0 compared 3.3(MEDLINEplus) and 3.8(NHS direct online). CONCLUSION: Internet health information in Korea hardly meets DISCERN standard that means Korean health information have a problem in quality. Especially, Internet health information of commercial websites needs relatively urgent improvement in quality.
Asthma ; Breast Neoplasms ; Consumer Health Information ; Depression ; Internet* ; Korea ; Obesity ; Surveys and Questionnaires

Health risk appraisal (HRA) is a tool for determining health risk factors and motivating individuals to maintain a healthy lifestyle. We performed this study to describe the HRA algorithm and evaluate the accuracy of an HRA program for 10-yr mortality prediction in Korean men. We used data derived from periodic health examinations of 116,927 male public officials and school personnel aged 20 or older. Risk age and the difference between risk age and calendar age were calculated. We obtained the hazard ratio (HR) of 10-yr mortality according to the calculated age difference. Of the 116,927 subjects, 1,900 (1.6%) died during the 10 yr after the 1992 medical examinations. The HR of 10-yr mortality increased significantly with age difference. Compared with the HR in the reference group (age difference below 2 yr), the HR in the group with a 2- to 6-yr age difference was 1.20 (95% confidence interval [CI]: 1.05 to 1.38) and HR in the group with more than 7-yr age difference was 1.35 (95% CI: 1.14 to 1.75). Risk age is a relatively good predictor of 10-yr mortality in Korean men and may be useful in identifying high-risk middle-aged men for health interventions.
Adult ; *Age Factors ; Female ; *Health Status Indicators ; Humans ; Insurance, Health ; Life Style ; Male ; Middle Aged ; *Mortality ; *Predictive Value of Tests ; Reproducibility of Results ; Risk Factors ; Young Adult

BACKGROUND: There is a lack of data on Korean average VO2max values. This study attempted to yield average values of VO2max corresponding to each age group of Koreans. This study was also designed to investigate the factors associated with VO2max. METHODS: From May 1st 1996 to January 30th 2000, we recruited 21,458 subjects who visited the health promotion center at one university hospital. We obtained the data related to age, exercise by self-administered questionnaire and weight, height and blood pressure by instrumental measurements and hemoglobin, cholesterol by overnight fasting blood sampling. VO2max was estimated by submaximal bicycle ergometer test. RESULTS: The number of research subjects was 21,458: males 12,646 (58.9%) and females 8,812 (41.1%) and the average age was 48.6 (SD: ?10.05) years with age span from 20 to 79 years. The average VO2max was 26.4 (SD; ?6.77) (ml/kg/min) for men and was 19.8 (SD; ?5.94) (ml/kg/min) for women. Relating to factors such as age, VO2max, SBP, DBP, cholesterole, Hb, and body mass index, there were significant statistical differences between sex (p<0.05). For both sexes, VO2max decreased as age, cholesterol, BP and BMI increased. Regular exercise group showed significantly a higher VO2max than non-exercise group for both sexes. CONCLUSION: The average VO2max values for Koreans, according to sex and age group are reported in this study. The decreasing VO2max may be attributed to increasing age, BP, cholesterol, BMI and non-exercise.
Adult* ; Blood Pressure ; Body Mass Index ; Cholesterol ; Fasting ; Female ; Health Promotion ; Humans ; Male ; Research Subjects ; Surveys and Questionnaires

BACKGROUND: Ministry of Health and Welfare offered' Home Doctor Registration Program' to rein force primary care and to increase the efficiency of national health delivery system. But, it failed because it was not supported by doctors and nations. We designed this study to develope and evaluate apractical version of 'Home Doctor Registration Program'. METHODS: We invited primary care doctors who were concerned with 'Home Doctor Registration Program' via PC-communication and developed a practical version of this program. After 6 monte of this program, surveys on participated docters and patients were done. RESULTS: 8 primary care doctors and 285 patients have participated in this study. All the 8 doctors have offered the 4 obligatory services and 3 doctors have offered telephone counselling and no doctor has offered visiting examination. After 6 months of this program, CCPQ score was increased significantly and all the health risk factors of participated patients were decreased. Doctors have thought that Family Chart Service, Health Risk Appraisal, Vaccination and Screening Test are more necessary in this program. But Patients have thought that Telephone Counselling and Visiting Examination are more important in this program. CONCLUSION: Almost of participated doctors and patients have been satisfied with this practical version of 'Home Doctor Registration Program'. But, subjective feeling about which service was more necessary in this program was different between doctors and patients.
Health Services ; Humans ; Mass Screening ; Primary Health Care ; Risk Factors ; Telephone ; Vaccination