OBJECTIVE: This study aimed to investigate the prevalence of metabolic syndrome, associated factors in schizophrenia patients and whether metabolic syndrome have an effect on health related quality of life (QoL) and body image. METHODS: 81 subjects were included in this study, who were diagnosed as schizophrenia defined by DSM-IV criteria and admitted in neuropsychiatric department, Wonkwang University Hospital. For each subject, anthropometric index and laboratory parameters were measured. Metabolic syndrome defined by National Cholesterol Education Program-Adult Treatment Panel III. The subjects were evaluated health related QoL with Short-Form 36 Health Survey-Korean (SF-36-K), and were evaluated body image with Body Image Scale. RESULTS: Of patients, 24.7% had metabolic syndrome. Metabolic syndrome was associated with long duration of illness. The patients with metabolic syndrome showed poorer QoL, especially role physical and bodily pain in SF-36-K. Also, the patients with metabolic syndrome had negative body image, especially body feature, compared to the patients without metabolic syndrome. CONCLUSION: This study suggests that metabolic syndrome is common among patients with chronic schizophrenia. Also It may lead to lowering of QoL and deterioration of body image. So clinicians should be cautious to aware the increased risk for the metabolic syndrome and intervene actively to prevent and treat metabolic morbidity among chronic patients with schizophrenia.
Body Image ; Cholesterol ; Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders ; Humans ; Prevalence ; Quality of Life ; Schizophrenia

OBJECTIVES: In our studies, we have made efforts to compare illness representation among the pathological gamblers, social gamblers, the family members of gambler, the gambling industry employees, and general adults and to investigate what kinds of illness representation make an estimate of therapy intention. METHODS: 222 gambling users, 125 family members of gambler, 95 employees in gambling industry, and 1383 general adults were included in this study. Symptom representation, negative characteristic representation, negative consequence representation, internal and external attribution representation, spontaneous recovery representation, recovery representation through therapeutic help of speciality, time lapse representation were constructed and included for illness representation of pathological gambling. RESULTS: 1) Pathological gamblers had lower symptoms, negative characteristics, negative consequences and therapeutic help seeking representation than other groups, on the other hand higher external attribution representation and spontaneous recovery representation. 2) Families of problem gambler have inconsistent characteristics higher external attribution and negative consequences and lower therapeutic help seeking representation. 3) It was founded that negative consequences representation and external representation were low in gambling industry employees. 4) The more symptom representation increased and external attribution decreased, the more therapeutic intention increased in case of problem gamblers and their families. CONCLUSION: Pathological gamblers have the lowest awareness and acceptance on mental problem caused by excessive gambling. However, suggested that family members of gambler and gambling industry employees also have partially self defensive and contradicted representations. It was suggested that awareness on severity of symptom and internal attribution representation needs to be increased in order to participate therapeutic place.
Adult ; Gambling* ; Hand ; Humans ; Intention

OBJECTIVES: The aim of this study was to evaluate the reliability and validity of the Korean Version of the Diagnostic Interview Schedule for Children Version IV(DISC-IV), a highly structured diagnostic interview used to assess more than 30 psychiatric disorders in children and adolescents. METHODS: A total of 91 study subjects, including 67 subjects who visited the child and adolescent psychiatry outpatient clinic at our institution and 24 community-based subjects, were assessed using the Korean Version of the DISCIV. Clinical diagnosis was used as a gold standard for the examination of the validity of the DISC-IV. Forty-four of the study subjects were randomly selected for test-retest reliability measurement. RESULTS: The validity of the Korean Version of the DISC-IV showed kappa values ranging from 0.25 to 0.40 in the clinical sample and 0.65 to 1.00 in the community sample. The sensitivities varied according to the diagnostic categories, but the specificities were excellent for all diagnostic entities. CONCLUSION: The Korean Version of the DISC-IV showed good reliability and validity in Korean children and adolescents. The Korean Version of the DISC-IV might be a useful tool for assessing psychiatric disorders in children and adolescents.
Adolescent ; Adolescent Psychiatry ; Ambulatory Care Facilities ; Appointments and Schedules* ; Child* ; Diagnosis ; Humans ; Reproducibility of Results*