PURPOSE: The purpose of this study was to examine the social determinants of health (SDH) associated with health-related quality of life (HQOL) among the community-dwelling elderly, based on the conceptual framework of the Commission on Social Determinants of Health (CSDH). METHODS: A survey was conducted with 199 elders aged 65 years or older sampled through convenient sampling. Data were collected through face to face interviews by trained interviewers using a structured questionnaire, which included scales of the residential area, social support, sense of community, social network, health behaviors, and HQOL. Data were analyzed by ANOVA and stepwise multivariate regression. RESULTS: Major SDH affecting HQOL included the participants' residential area, sense of community, and health behavior. The HQOL of the elderly residing in the B area with a low rate of basic livelihood security recipients was higher than that of those residing in other areas. CONCLUSION: CSDH framework was useful to determine the factors associated with HQOL among the community-dwelling elderly. In addition to their health behavior, their sense of community was found to be a SDH of HQOL, indicating the need of health promotion programs tailored to the characteristics of residential areas and strategies to enhance involvement in community activities.
Aged* ; Health Behavior ; Health Promotion ; Humans ; Quality of Life* ; Social Determinants of Health* ; Weights and Measures ; Surveys and Questionnaires

PURPOSE: This study was a descriptive research to identify the effects of communication skills, compassion satisfaction, compassion fatigue on burnout among staff of long term care insurance for the elderly in National Health Insurance Services in Korea. METHODS: A descriptive cross-sectional design was used. The participants were 191 staffs of long-term care insurance in National Health Insurance Services. Data were collected via mail from the 24 branch offices which were randomly selected among the total of 226 centers of National Health Insurance Corporation. Stamm's professional quality of life (ProQOL) and Communication Skills Test tool were included in questionnaire to detect. SPSS/WIN 20.0 was used to conduct the descriptive statistics, t-test, ANOVA, correlation analysis, and multiple regression. RESULTS: Compassion fatigue had a significant positive effect on burnout, while Compassion satisfaction had a negative effect on burnout. The explained variance for burnout was 69% and compassion fatigue was the most significant factor in burnout among staff of long term care insurance services. CONCLUSION: The results indicate that the factors influencing staffs' burnout are compassion fatigue, compassion satisfaction, and education level. Therefore, strategies to decrease compassion fatigue and improve compassion satisfaction are needed to decrease burnout for staffs of long-term care insurance in National Health Insurance Services.
Aged* ; Burnout, Professional ; Education ; Empathy* ; Fatigue* ; Humans ; Insurance, Long-Term Care* ; Korea* ; Long-Term Care* ; National Health Programs* ; Postal Service ; Quality of Life

PURPOSE: This study was conducted to examine activities of daily living (ADL) of older adults admitted to Korean long-term care hospitals (LTCHs), and to explore the patient and organizational factors that have an impact on the ADL of this population. METHODS: A secondary analysis of the Korean minimum data set (K-MDS) of patients (N=14,369) and of the profiles of LTCHs (N=358) from the Health Insurance Review and Assessment Service was done between January and July 2008. The outcome variable was ADL score 6 months after baseline assessment. Multi-level linear regression was employed to explore the patient and organizational factors that affected ADL scores. RESULTS: Of the patients, 45.4% had a baseline ADL score of between 31 and 40, with a score of 40 indicating that the patient was entirely dependent for all items. None of the organizational characteristics were significantly associated with effects on the ADLs of older adults who had been in a LTHC for at least 6 months. However, patient characteristics, such as age, baseline ADL, frequency of physical therapy, urinary incontinence, fecal incontinence, pressure ulcers, and having a tube or catheter, were significantly associated with ADL 6 months after baseline. CONCLUSION: In order to maintain and improve the ADL of older adults in LTCHs, we should develop strategies to prevent urinary and fecal incontinence, pressure ulcers, unnecessary tubes or catheters, providing adequate physical therapy. Additional studies should include more detailed information regarding nursing staff, including RN hours for direct care, education level and turnover.
*Activities of Daily Living ; Age Factors ; Aged ; Aged, 80 and over ; Catheterization ; Fecal Incontinence ; Female ; Hospitals/*statistics & numerical data ; Humans ; Long-Term Care ; Male ; Pressure Ulcer ; Republic of Korea ; Urinary Incontinence

Purpose: This study is to identify how the meaning in life, depression, and social support influences the suicidal ideation of old adult hemodialysis patients. Methods: A cross-sectional design was used. A descriptive correlative study was conducted through an organized and structured self-administrated questionnaire survey for 120 sampled old adult renal dialysis patients. The collected data were analyzed by t-tests, ANOVA, Pearson's correlation coefficient, and multiple linear regression analysis using the Stata 13.0 program. Results: The suicidal ideation of participants was positively correlated with the meaning in life, and social support, and the depression was negatively correlated with the suicidal ideation. Significant factors influencing the suicidal ideation included the meaning in life, depression, social support, age, caregiver, monthly income, and smoking. These factors explained 68% of the variance. Conclusion The depression of old adult hemodialysis patients was a major risk factor that increased suicidal ideation, and the meaning in life and social support was a protective factor that reduced the suicidal ideation. These results suggest that health professionals should provide old adult hemodialysis patients with proper management of suicidal ideation, and depression as well as its meaning in life, and social support.

PURPOSE: The purposes of this study were to develop a taxonomy for detection of errors related to hypertension management and to apply the taxonomy to retrospectively analyze the documentation of nurses in Advanced Practice Nurse (APN) training. Method: We developed the Hypertension Diagnosis and Management Error Taxonomy and applied it in a sample of adult patient encounters (N = 15,862) that were documented in a personal digital assistantbased clinical log by registered nurses in APN training. We used Standard Query Language queries to retrieve hypertension-related data from the central database. The data were summarized using descriptive statistics. Result: Blood pressure was documented in 77.5% (n = 12,297) of encounters; 21% had high blood pressure values. Missed diagnosis, incomplete diagnosis and misdiagnosis rates were 63.7%, 6.8% and 7.5% respectively. In terms of treatment, the omission rates were 17.9% for essential medications and 69.9% for essential patient teaching. Contraindicated anti-hypertensive medications were documented in 12% of encounters with co-occurring diagnoses of hypertension and asthma. CONCLUSION: The Hypertension Diagnosis and Management Error Taxonomy was useful for identifying errors based on documentation in a clinical log. The results provide an initial understanding of the nature of errors associated with hypertension diagnosis and management of nurses in APN training. The information gained from this study can contribute to educational interventions that promote APN competencies in identification and management of hypertension as well as overall patient safety and informatics competencies.
Adult ; Advanced Practice Nursing ; Asthma ; Blood Pressure ; Computers, Handheld ; Diagnostic Errors ; Education, Nursing ; Humans ; Hypertension ; Informatics ; Medical Errors ; Patient Safety ; Retrospective Studies

PURPOSE: The purpose of this study was to determine the factors that influence healthcare providers' attitude towards end-of-life care (EOLC) in the emergency department (ED) in hospital settings. METHODS: From June 1 through June 30, 2014, a descriptive correlational study was performed with 41 doctors and 105 nurses stationed in the ED. RESULTS: According to a regression model on the factors affecting healthcare providers' professional attitude towards EOLC, 28.1% of variance (F=15.185, P=0.000) was explained by awareness of death, gender and personal attitude towards EOLC. And 34.1% of the healthcare providers' personal attitude was related with awareness of death, experience of hospice education, occupations and professional attitude towards EOLC. CONCLUSION: This study demonstrated that attitude towards EOLC was influenced by awareness of death and personal characteristics. Healthcare providers in the ED should be provided with tailored training to improve their understanding of death. Also an educational program should be developed and provided to ED healthcare providers to improve their awareness of death.
Delivery of Health Care* ; Education ; Emergencies* ; Emergency Service, Hospital* ; Health Personnel ; Hospice Care ; Hospices ; Humans ; Occupations ; Terminal Care

PURPOSE: The aim of this study was to determine the genotype frequencies of interleukin 10 (IL-10) gene polymorphisms and to investigate their association with the risk of respiratory distress syndrome (RDS) in preterm Korean infants. METHODS: Two hundred fourteen preterm infants born at Ewha Womans University Mok Dong Hospital between November 2003 and July 2008 were studied. The cord blood of preterm neonates and the corresponding maternal blood were analyzed by PCR for IL-10 gene (IL-10 -1082A/G, -819T/C, and -592A/C) polymorphisms. The clinical data of patients were collected retrospectively by chart review. RESULTS: The genotype frequencies of IL-10 genes in Korean mothers with preterm infants differ from other reports. The prevalence of two promoter SNPs of the IL-10 cytokine gene was similar but none had the IL-10-1082GG homozygote. Multiple logistic regression analysis demonstrated the risk of RDS to be significantly lower in the infants of the mothers with an IL-10-592AC/CC genotype than in those with an AA genotype (P= 0.033). The risk of RDS was significantly lower in the mother with an IL-10-819TC/CC genotype than in those with a TT genotype (P=0.030). However, IL-10 polymorphisms in the cord blood were not significantly different in preterm infants with RDS compared with the preterm infants without RDS. When we compared the incidence of RDS and each IL-10 A-1082G/T-819C/A-592C haplotype, the ACC haplotype had a protective effect on RDS (P=0.007). CONCLUSION: We conclude that the maternal IL-10-592A/C and IL-10-819T/C polymorphisms may have a role in the development of the RDS in preterm infants.
Female ; Fetal Blood ; Genotype ; Haplotypes ; Homozygote ; Humans ; Incidence ; Infant ; Infant, Newborn ; Infant, Premature ; Interleukin-10 ; Logistic Models ; Mothers ; Polymerase Chain Reaction ; Polymorphism, Single Nucleotide ; Prevalence ; Retrospective Studies

The effects of different luminance levels and light sources to emmetropization in the chick were investigaed. One-day-old, forty chicks were reared under condition of unilateral visual deprivation with translucent goggle. Under normal light cycles (12-h light/12-h dark), three kinds of luminance levels and two light sources (incandescent lamp vs fluorescent lamp) were used. Three weeks after hatching, refractive error, axial length, equator diameter and corneal diameter of the eyes were measured. The deprived eyes exhibited severe myopia of -11.94 diopters (p<0.001) and refractive changes were mainly related with axial elongations. Refractive error of 1000 lux group was less myopic than 2000 lux group (p<0.05). The fellow eyes didn't show significant difference between groups. No significant changes were noted between different light source groups. The experiment suggests that different degrees of illumination under normal light/dark environment can cause different refractive changes; More studies will be needed to show that the ideal luminance condition for emmetropization in our enviroment be present.
Lighting* ; Myopia ; Photoperiod ; Refractive Errors*

The Korea Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (KCDC) operate infectious disease surveillance systems to monitor national disease incidence. Since 1954, Korea has collected data on various infectious diseases in accordance with the Infectious Disease Control and Prevention Act. All physicians (including those working in Oriental medicine) who diagnose a patient with an infectious disease or conduct a postmortem examination of an infectious disease case are obliged to report the disease to the system. These reported data are incorporated into the database of the National Infectious Disease Surveillance System, which has been providing web-based real-time surveillance data on infectious diseases since 2001. In addition, the KCDC analyzes reported data and publishes the Infectious Disease Surveillance Yearbook annually.
Autopsy ; Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (U.S.) ; Communicable Diseases* ; Humans ; Incidence ; Korea

Purpose: To examine the characteristics, core variables, and their correlations in articles published in the Journal of Korean Academy of Nursing Administration (JKANA) from 2012-2021 and suggest future directions for nursing management research. Methods: A total of 506 articles were analyzed according to study design, participants and setting, statistical methods, keywords, and core concepts and variables. Results: Quantitative research accounted for 73.5%, and most participants were staff nurses (66.8%) and nursing students (9.1%). Furthermore, 318 studies (62.8%) conducted surveys, and settings were mainly acute hospitals(81.5%) and nursing schools (9.7%). Statistical methods for data analysis included independent t-test (81.2%), one-way ANOVA (77.2%), Pearson correlation coefficients (77.2%), post-hoc testing (74.3%), and linear regression(65.9%). Among 2,058 keywords, the most frequent were “nurses” (49.2%), “job satisfaction” (10.7%), and “personnel turnover” (9.1%). The most frequently core concepts were job satisfaction (10.5%), turnover intention(9.5%), organizational commitment (8.5%), and job stress (7.5%). The most frequently variables with significant correlations were turnover intention, work environment, job satisfaction, job stress, burnout, and emotional labor. Conclusion Most JKANA studies examined nursing-related outcomes and performance. Future research should examine the effects of nursing practice and policy on patient outcomes.