This study was conducted to compare activities of daily living, fatigue and depression between rheumatoid arthritis patients and healthy persons. The subjects consisted of 53 rheumatoid arthritis patients and 53 healthy persons at a university hospital in Daegu City. Data were collected by means of structured interviews with questionnaires from July 20, 1999 to August 25, 1999. The instrument used in this study were the activities of daily living scale developed by Katz et al. (1970) and Barthel(1973), Multidimensional Assessment of Fatigue by Belza et al.(1995) and CES-D(Center for Epidemiologic Studies-Depression) scale. Analysis of data was done by use of descriptive statistics, Pearson Correlation, Chi-square test, t-test, ANOVA, MANCOVA and Duncan with the SPSS program. The major findings are summarized as follows: 1. The first hypothesis that the rheumatoid arthritis patients will have a lower degree of activities of daily living than the healthy persons was supported (F=4.584, p=.035). 2. The second hypothesis that the rheumatoid arthritis patient will have a higher degree of fatigue than the healthy persons was supported (F=7.799, p=.006). 3. The third hypothesis that the rheumatoid arthritis patients will have a higher degree of depression than the healthy persons was supported (F=4.768, p=.031). With the above results, it can be concluded that rheumatoid arthritis patients had a lower degree of activities of daily living and a higher degree of fatigue and depression than the healthy persons. Therefore, by providing appropriate nursing intervention, activities of daily living would be much better and fatigue and depression would be alleviated.
Activities of Daily Living* ; Arthritis, Rheumatoid* ; Daegu ; Depression* ; Fatigue* ; Humans ; Nursing ; Surveys and Questionnaires

PURPOSE: The "Out-of-hospital Utstein Style" is an internationally recommended guideline for reporting outcome data for out-of-hospital resuscitation events. This study was designed to evaluate the current status of out-of-hospital cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR) in a tertiary emergency department and to provide basic data for a unified report on guidelines for resuscitation in Korea. METHODS: A clinical analysis of the out-of-hospital cardiac arrest (OHCA) patients, CPR performed in a tertiary emergency department, from July 1995 to December 2002 was conducted. The evaluation was made using Utstein reporting guidelines. RESULTS: Four hundred forty-nine patients were included in this study. The cardiac arrests were caused by non-cardiac medical diseases (41.9%), cardiac diseases (39.6%), unknown (10.0%), and trauma (8.5%). The initial electrocardiogram (ECG) showed asystole in 58.6% of the cases, other rhythms in 29.4%, and ventricular fibrillation/ventricular tachycardia (VF/VT) in 12.0%. Spontaneous circulation was restored (ROSC) in 41.2% of the cases. Twenty-four (5.3%) patients with witnessed and cardiogenic cardiac arrests had VF/VT on initial ECG, and of them, 5 (20.8%) patients were discharged alive. The mean circulatory arrest time was 19.7+/-13.6 minutes, and it was shorter in patients with ROSC (16.9+/-11.6) than in patients without ROSC (22.1+/-14.7, p= 0.003). CONCLUSION: The overall survival rate of OHCA patients was 6.7%, which was poorer than those of western countries. The overall duration from collapse to advanced cardiac life support (ACLS) was 19.7 minutes, which was too long. Major factors contributing to the low survival rate were most likely the lack of bystander CPR, delay in activating the emergency medical system (EMS), and inappropriate CPR by the EMT. We should make every effort to improve these areas.
Advanced Cardiac Life Support ; Cardiopulmonary Resuscitation* ; Electrocardiography ; Emergencies* ; Emergency Service, Hospital* ; Heart Arrest ; Heart Diseases ; Humans ; Korea ; Out-of-Hospital Cardiac Arrest* ; Resuscitation ; Survival Rate ; Tachycardia