PURPOSE: This study was attempted to provide quality improvement and revitalization of visiting nurse services by Importance-Performance Analysis of persons being provided with the services. METHODS: The subjects were 350 people being provided with visiting nurse services from a long term home care institution in the kangwon Province during the period of data collection between Aug. 16 and Sep. 15, 2011. Data analysis was conducted through t-test, ANOVA, and IPA by using the SPSS/WIN 12.0 program. RESULTS: As a result of the Importance-Performance Analysis of visiting nurse services, it turned out that the strength on reliability, assurance, and empathy should be maintained with good work and the aspects of responsiveness appeared to be intensively improved, and the tangibility proved to be subject to improvement. CONCLUSION: For the activation of visiting nurse services, methods for improving the performance in the intensive care area and management strategy establishment which highlights the advantages of strength maintenance area are needed.
Community Health Nursing* ; Data Collection ; Empathy ; Home Care Services ; Humans ; Insurance, Long-Term Care* ; Critical Care ; Long-Term Care* ; Quality Improvement ; Statistics as Topic

BACKGROUND: The causes of chest pain vary but the leading cause of chest pain is ischemic heart disease. Mortality from ischemic chest pain has increased more than two fold over the last ten years. The purpose of this study was to determine the data necessary for rapid treatment of patients with signs and symptoms of ischemic chest pain in the emergency department (ED). MATERIALS AND METHODS: We interviewed 170 patients who had ischemic chest pain in the emergency department of Yeungnam University Hospital over 6 months with a protocol developed for the evaluation. The protocol used included gender, age, arriving time, prior hospital visits, methods of transportation to the hospital, past medical history, final diagnosis, and outcome information from follow up. RESULTS: Among 170 patients, there were 118 men (69.4%) and the mean age was 63 years. The patients diagnosed with acute myocardial infarction (AMI) were 106 (62.4%) and with angina pectoris (AP) were 64 (37.6%). The patients who had visited another hospital were 68.8%, twice the number that came directly to this hospital (p<0.05). The ratio of patients who visited another hospital were higher for the AMI (75.5%) than the AP (59.4%) patients (p<0.05). The median time spent deciding whether to go to hospital was 521 minutes and for transportation was 40 minutes. With regard to patients that visited another hospital first, the median time spent at the other hospital was 40 minutes. The total median time spent before arriving at our hospital was 600 minutes (p>0.05). The patients who had a total time delay of over 6 hours was similar 54.8% in the AMI group and 57.9% in the AP group (p>0.05). As a result, only 12.2% of the patients with an AMI received thrombolytics, and 48.8% of them had a simultaneous percutaneous coronary intervention (PCI). In the emergency department 8.5% of the patients with an AMI died. CONCLUSION: Timing is an extremely important factor for the treatment of ischemic heart disease. Most patients arrive at the hospital after a long time lapse from the onset of chest pain. In addition, most patients present to a different hospital before they arrive at the final hospital for treatment. Therefore, important time is lost and opportunities for treatment with thrombolytics and/or PCI are diminished leading to poor outcomes for many patients in the ED. The emergency room treatment must improve for the identification and treatment of ischemic heart disease so that patients can present earlier and treatment can be started as soon as they present to an emergency room.
Angina Pectoris ; Chest Pain* ; Diagnosis ; Emergencies* ; Emergency Service, Hospital* ; Follow-Up Studies ; Humans ; Male ; Mortality ; Myocardial Infarction ; Myocardial Ischemia ; Percutaneous Coronary Intervention ; Thorax* ; Transportation

No abstract available.

PURPOSE: This study aimed to investigate the degree of role conflict and its ambiguity, and fatigue in clinical nurses and to analyze the effect of these on their self-resilience in order to provide fundamental data for improving their working environment after the Middle East Respiratory Syndrome outbreak. METHODS: After the collection of data from 258 clinical nurses in five general hospitals, t-test, ANOVA, Pearson's correlation coefficient, and multiple regression were performed using IBM SPSS Statistics 20.0. RESULTS: A significant positive correlation was found between nurses' role conflict and ambiguity and fatigue; while a negative correlation was found between nurses' role conflict and ambiguity and self-resilience. A significant negative correlation was found between fatigue and self-resilience. According to the study results, the factor that affected clinical nurses' self-resilience the most was role conflict and its ambiguity, followed by marital status, fatigue, educational level, religion, and related tasks, which together accounted for 38% of self-resilience in clinical nurses. CONCLUSION: To improve weaknesses in nursing care after the Middle East Respiratory Syndrome outbreak, the scope of nursing care was changed upon the expansion of integrated nursing and care-giving services. Therefore, in the rapidly changing environment of nursing, policies to improve nursing performance, as well as successful reaction capability, are suggested.
Coronavirus Infections ; Fatigue ; Hospitals, General ; Marital Status ; Nursing ; Nursing Care

PURPOSE: This study aimed to investigate the degree of role conflict and its ambiguity, and fatigue in clinical nurses and to analyze the effect of these on their self-resilience in order to provide fundamental data for improving their working environment after the Middle East Respiratory Syndrome outbreak. METHODS: After the collection of data from 258 clinical nurses in five general hospitals, t-test, ANOVA, Pearson's correlation coefficient, and multiple regression were performed using IBM SPSS Statistics 20.0. RESULTS: A significant positive correlation was found between nurses' role conflict and ambiguity and fatigue; while a negative correlation was found between nurses' role conflict and ambiguity and self-resilience. A significant negative correlation was found between fatigue and self-resilience. According to the study results, the factor that affected clinical nurses' self-resilience the most was role conflict and its ambiguity, followed by marital status, fatigue, educational level, religion, and related tasks, which together accounted for 38% of self-resilience in clinical nurses. CONCLUSION To improve weaknesses in nursing care after the Middle East Respiratory Syndrome outbreak, the scope of nursing care was changed upon the expansion of integrated nursing and care-giving services. Therefore, in the rapidly changing environment of nursing, policies to improve nursing performance, as well as successful reaction capability, are suggested.

Sulfasalazine, one of disease modifying anti-rheumatic drugs, is widely used in various rheumatic diseases. Very rarely, sulfasalazine causes drug-associated hypersensitivity syndrome that resembles infectious mononucleosis. Clinical signs include fever, lymphadenopathy, maculopapular skin rash and multivisceral involvement which appear 2 to 5 weeks after administration of drug. Atypical lymphocytosis, liver dysfunction and splenomegaly are also frequently observed. Severe infectious mononucleosis-like syndrome in sulfasalazine treated patients can be caused by reactivation of viruses such as human herpes virus-6, that often result in hypersensitivity syndrome. We report a case of patient who developed infectious mononucleosis-like syndrome after administration of sulfasalazine for the treatment of rheumatoid arthritis. This case warrents careful observation for infectious mononucleosis-like syndrome after sulfasalazine treatment.
Antirheumatic Agents ; Arthritis, Rheumatoid ; Exanthema ; Fever ; Humans ; Hypersensitivity ; Infectious Mononucleosis ; Liver Diseases ; Lymphatic Diseases ; Lymphocytosis ; Rheumatic Diseases ; Splenomegaly ; Sulfasalazine*

Pelvic visceral pain associated with both cancer and chronic benign conditions may be alleviated by superior hypogastric plexus block (SHPB). The complications of SHPB include infection, bleeding, or intravascular injection because of the adjacent location of the iliac vessel to the route of needle insertion, and pelvic visceral damage. However, acute ureteral obstruction leading to acute renal failure (ARF) as a complication of SHPB has not been reported to date in the literature. We report a patient with ARF that resulted from acute ureteral obstruction following SHPB performed for the relief of lower abdominal pain and tenesmus in metastatic ureter cancer.
Abdominal Pain ; Acute Kidney Injury ; Hemorrhage ; Humans ; Hypogastric Plexus* ; Needles ; Ureteral Neoplasms ; Ureteral Obstruction* ; Visceral Pain

PURPOSE: Post-authorization survey(PAS) is a useful tool for obtainting wider range of data on the safety and efficacy of new drugs following their approval, as they can detect uncommon, unreported adverse events(AEs), which enables more attention to be directed to the practioners. Especially, the limited number of patients in oncology trial cannot usually give the actual incidence of AEs. METHODS: Since Nov. 1998, when docetaxel gained Korean approval in the treatment of breast cancer, a PAS to investigate its safety profiles has been conducted targeting more than 600 patients over 4 calendar years. RESULTS: Case report forms from 626 out of 646 patients were assessable for safety and 444 for efficacy. The patient characteristics are: mean age, 48.1 years; male/female 4/622; Wt/Ht/BSA 57.9 kg/156.1 cm/1.56 m2 ; stage I-II/III/IV 109 (18.2%)/125 (20.8%)/366(61.0%). In 344 patients, 960 AEs were reported in severity of mild/moderate/severe in 6.7, 40.9 and 51.1 % of cases. From AE results, 36.0% needed dose reduction; 34.3% transient interruption of the cycle; and 1.3% permanent discontinuation of docetaxel. Thirty five serious AEs such as febrile neutropenia, alopecia, diarrhea, abdominal pain and headache were reported in 21 patients. Unexpected AEs such as skin ulcer, discoloration of skin, H. Zoster infection, ulticaria, facial flush, chest pain, hemoptysis, pneumonia, stridor, nasal bleeding, photophobia, haematuria, Cushing's syndrome, hyperglycemia and insomnia were reported regardless of any causal relationship. Factors affecting the development of AEs were age, stage, concomitant medication other than chemotherapeutic agents and the number of cycles treated. The efficacy was evaluable in 444 patients with overall response rate of 36.5% (CR/PR 6.3/30.2%). Factors affecting the efficacy were stage, concommitant medication other than chemotherapeutic agents and the number of treatment cycles. CONCLUSION: This post-authorization survey on the safety and efficacy of docetaxel in breast cancer offers oncology practice in the real world without subject selection as is the case in clinical trials, although it was performed to fulfill the registrative requirement of the Korean health authority with limited data. The efficacy and safety profile of docetaxel in breast cancer was no much different from those reported in clinical trials.
Abdominal Pain ; Alopecia ; Breast Neoplasms* ; Breast* ; Chest Pain ; Cushing Syndrome ; Diarrhea ; Epistaxis ; Febrile Neutropenia ; Headache ; Hemoptysis ; Herpes Zoster ; Humans ; Hyperglycemia ; Incidence ; Photophobia ; Pneumonia ; Respiratory Sounds ; Skin ; Skin Ulcer ; Sleep Initiation and Maintenance Disorders

We had experienced a case of congenital lobar emphysema in a 3 months old male infant. Chief symptoms included tachypenea, respiratory difficulty, cyanosis, Chest X-ray or chest CT scan revealed extensive emphysematous changes of the right upper and middle lobes, compression of the right lower lobe and shifted of mediastinum to the left side. This condition was appeared in the absence of infection and foreign body in the bronchus and its failure to respond to conservative treatment. This patient was treated by the right upper and right middle lobes pneumonectomy. A brief review of literature was made.
Bronchi ; Cyanosis ; Emphysema* ; Foreign Bodies ; Humans ; Infant ; Male ; Mediastinum ; Pneumonectomy ; Thorax ; Tomography, X-Ray Computed

No abstract available.
Humans