PURPOSE: The purpose of this study was to investigate the effect of stress, social support and self-efficacy on the mental health of female undergraduate students. METHOD: Three hundred ninety-nine undergraduate students were conveniently selected from a university in Seoul. The instruments used in this study were stress, social support, self-efficacy, and mental health scales. ANOVA, t-test, Pearson correlation coefficients, and stepwise multiple regression with SPSS Win 16.0 Version were used to analyze the data. RESULTS: Mental health was significantly influenced by stress, social support, self-efficacy, and monthly expenditures. These variables accounted for 44.2% of the variance in mental health. CONCLUSION: The important factor that was found to affect the mental health of undergraduate female students was stress. Therefore, future studies need to be pursued to develop various strategies, such as stress relief programs, for mental health promotion of female undergraduate students.
Female ; Health Expenditures ; Humans ; Mental Health ; Weights and Measures

PURPOSE: The purpose of study was to explore the frequency of irritable bowel syndrome(IBS) among female university students and identify self-esteem, depression, and physical health. METHOD: The secondary analysis was performed. A total 401 university female students were recruited from 1 university in Korea. IBS was diagnosed based on the Rome III criteria. The questionnaires included Rosenberg's self-esteem scale, Center for Epidemiological Studies-Depression (CESD) scale, and physical health questionnaire developed by Lee. The collected data was analyzed with SPSS Win 15.0 statistics program using frequencies, percentages, ANOVA, and the Pearson's correlations of the variables. RESULT: The frequency of IBS was 26.7 % in students. All women had mixed constipation and diarrhea subtype of IBS. Compared to the women without IBS, those with IBS reported significantly lower scores on self-esteem and higher scores of CESD and on the physical health questionnaire. CONCLUSION: Nursing interventions targeting female students with IBS should be developed in order to reduce the depression and physical health problem and improve self-esteem.
Constipation ; Depression ; Diarrhea ; Female ; Humans ; Irritable Bowel Syndrome ; Korea ; Surveys and Questionnaires ; Rome

PURPOSE: The purpose of this study was to investigate perceived stress and dietary habits of female college students and define the relationships between them. METHOD: A convenient sampling method was used at a university based in Seoul. Finally, 412 students participated in the study from May 1 to June 10, 2008. The questionnaires administered consisted of a Stress Scale for college students and Dietary habit scale questionnaires. The students filled out the questionnaires by themselves. The collected data was analyzed with the SPSS Win 14.0 statistics program, which was used to calculate the frequencies, percentages, ANOVA, and Pearson's correlation of the variables. RESULT: The major findings of this study were as follows; In general, female students were mostly stressed by 'schooling.' Stress scores were significantly different in accordance with religion. Overall, dietary habits of study participants were normal. Significant differences were observed in the dietary habits between type of residence, major, and spending money per month. There was a significant relationship between perceived stress and dietary habits. CONCLUSION: Stress management for female college students should be developed and nutritional education programs should be reinforced.
Female ; Food Habits ; Humans ; Surveys and Questionnaires

Objective: To investigate a measles outbreak that spread to Japan and Taiwan, China during March–May 2018, exploring the characteristics of the super-spreading event. Methods: A contact investigation of the index case and reconstruction of the epidemiological dynamics of measles transmission were conducted. Employing a mathematical model, the effective reproduction number was estimated for each generation of cases. Results and discussion A single index case gave rise to a total of 38 secondary cases, 33 in Japan and five in Taiwan, China. Subsequent chains of transmission were observed in highly vaccinated populations in both Japan and Taiwan, China. The effective reproduction number of the second generation was >1 for both Japan and Taiwan, China. In Japan, the reproduction number was estimated to be <1 during the third generation. Vaccination of susceptible individuals is essential to prevent secondary and tertiary transmission events.

Purpose: The purpose of this study was to investigate the influence of nurses on the nursing intentions in patients with emerging infectious diseases. Methods: Data were collected from 201 nurses with over one year of clinical experience in a general hospital located in Seoul, South Korea. A structured self-report questionnaire was utilized to measure belief factors, core factors, rewards, and nursing professional pride, as well as nursing intentions in patients with emerging infectious diseases. Results: The results revealed that nurses' intentions to provide care for patients with emerging infectious diseases were significantly influenced by perceived behavioral control (β=.26, p<.001), clinical experience (β=-.14, p=.008), behavioral beliefs (β=.31, p= .010), feeling of vocation (β=.29, p=.012) and attitudes toward behaviors (β=.08, p=.034). Conclusion Enhancing nurses' intentions to provide care for patients with emerging infectious diseases requires the implementation of systemic and educational strategies aimed at strengthening their confidence and beliefs.

Purpose: This study examined the degree of self-leadership, emotional intelligence, nursing professionalism, and nursing performance of intensive care unit (ICU) nurses, and aimed to identify factors influencing nursing performance. Methods: In this descriptive study, the study participants were 121 nurses with over 6 months of experience working at a tertiary general hospital in Seoul. Data were analyzed using descriptive statistics, the independent t-test and one-way analysis of variance, the Scheffé test, Pearson correlation coefficients, and stepwise multiple regression analysis. Results: The average scores for self-leadership, emotional intelligence, nursing professionalism, and nursing performance were 3.66±0.40, 5.06±0.62, 3.59±0.37, and 3.11±0.29, respectively. In this study nursing performance showed statistically significant differences according to gender (t=2.39, p=.018), age (F=20.62, p<.001), marital status (t=-2.94, p=.004), educational background (t=-4.05, p<.001), total experience (F=11.95, p<.001), ICU experience (F=12.44, p<.001), and work department (F=3.33, p=.026). Self-leadership (r=.41, p<.001), emotional intelligence (r=.31, p<.001), and nursing professionalism (r=.24, p=.007) were positively correlated with nursing performance. Factors affecting nursing performance were ICU experience (β=-.42, p<.001), self-leadership (β=.30, p=.001), and emotional intelligence (β=.17, p=.046), with a total explanatory power of approximately 35%. Conclusion ICU career experience, self-leadership, and emotional intelligence predicted higher nursing performance among ICU nurses.

BACKGROUND: The recent change in pharmaceutical education system following the paradigm shift to patient-oriented pharmacy service requires an in-depth discussion to reorganize a future direction and establish a basis for maximizing social values of community pharmacy service. OBJECTIVE: This study was conducted to review the current status of community pharmacy service provision in Korea based on published literatures. METHODS: The electronic databases of National Digital Science Library and Electronic National Assembly Library were used to search the journal articles and dissertation papers. A search term "community pharmacy" was used and the published period was limited to papers published after year 2001, when the legal separation of prescribing and dispensing was implemented. Relevant study reports were also searched manually. Information about pharmacy service provision and study outcomes were retrieved from the selected papers, and classified by predefined individual service scope. RESULTS: A total 33 papers reporting services provided by community pharmacies were selected (journal article 11, dissertation paper 17, and study report 5). Pharmacy services identified in these papers could be classified into prescription dispensing service, pharmaceutical care service, self medication service, other products service, and health promotion service. Twenty papers reported prescription dispensing services, three papers reported pharmaceutical care service, and only two papers reported health promotion service. Current community pharmacy services are highly dependent on prescription drugs while expanded services such as pharmaceutical care and health promotion are peripheral. Most prevalent research topic was medication counseling service (18 papers), reflecting that community pharmacists generally consider it to be the most important and fundamental service. Overall, current pharmacy services are very limited and focus on prescription dispensing service. CONCLUSION: At this point of time requiring expansion and quality improvement of community pharmacy services, we suggest further lively discussion to strengthen pharmacist's functional identity and set conditions for providing socially expected services.
Community Pharmacy Services ; Counseling ; Education, Pharmacy ; Health Promotion ; Humans ; Korea* ; Pharmaceutical Services* ; Pharmacies* ; Pharmacists ; Prescription Drugs ; Prescriptions ; Quality Improvement ; Self Medication ; Social Values

PURPOSE: Identifying microbial communities with 16S ribosomal RNA (rRNA) gene sequencing is a popular approach in microbiome studies, and various software tools and data resources have been developed for microbial analysis. Our aim in this study is investigating various available software tools and reference sequence databases to compare their performance in differentiating subject samples and negative controls. METHODS: We collected 4 negative control samples using various acquisition protocols, and 2 respiratory samples were acquired from a healthy subject also with different acquisition protocols. Quantitative methods were used to compare the results of taxonomy compositions of these 6 samples by varying the configuration of analysis software tools and reference databases. RESULTS: The results of taxonomy assignments showed relatively little difference, regardless of pipeline configurations and reference databases. Nevertheless, the effect on the discrepancy was larger using different software configurations than using different reference databases. In recognizing different samples, the 4 negative controls were clearly separable from the 2 subject samples. Additionally, there is a tendency to differentiate samples from different acquisition protocols. CONCLUSION: Our results suggest little difference in microbial compositions between different software tools and reference databases, but certain configurations can improve the separability of samples. Changing software tools shows a greater impact on results than changing reference databases; thus, it is necessary to utilize appropriate configurations based on the objectives of studies.
Classification ; Computational Biology ; Healthy Volunteers ; Metagenome ; Microbiota ; RNA, Ribosomal, 16S

PURPOSE: The purpose of this research was to assess the methodological quality of non-randomized studies published in the Journal of Korean Fundamentals of Nursing. METHODS: A search of non-randomized studies assessing intervention effects was conducted among all articles published in the Journal of Korean Fundamentals of Nursing between 2011 and 2013. Articles were assessed for quality using the Methodological Index for Non Randomized Studies (MINORS). For each index item, the frequency and percentage of articles meeting the criteria were calculated, along with mean scores by research method, publication year, and research topic. RESULTS: A total of 22 studies were included. The mean score for studies without control groups was 11.75 (range 0-16), and for those with control groups, 19.27 (range 0-24). Results show that improvement is needed on several items: "endpoints appropriate to the aim of the study," "unbiased assessment of the study endpoint," "follow-up period appropriate to the aim of the study," "loss to follow up less than 5%," and "contemporary groups." CONCLUSION: Although the quality of articles published in the Journal of Korean Fundamentals of Nursing has consistently increased, more emphasis should be placed on using rigorous research methods.
Follow-Up Studies ; Clinical Trial ; Nursing* ; Publications

PURPOSE: The purpose of this study was to provide a basis for improvement and enhancement of nursing education by investigating learning outcomes that apply to fundamentals of nursing and teaching methods used in classes. METHODS: Data were collected from 111 professors of fundamentals of nursing who responded to the self-report questionnaire. Data were analyzed using chi-square test. RESULTS: For learning outcomes in fundamentals of nursing the most frequent number of outcomes was two (35.2%), or three (32.4%). For learning outcomes in fundamentals of nursing practicum, the most frequent number of outcomes was two (32.4%), or three (31.6%). In fundamental nursing classes, teaching methods used most frequently were lectures (98.2%) and videos (60.4%), and in practice classes, demonstration (98.2) and open laboratory (90.9%). Constructivist teaching methods that were utilized in fundamental nursing were team-based learning (19.8%) and case-based learning (19.8%), and for practice classes, objective structured clinical examination (29.7%). In the cross analysis, 28.8% of the nursing professor used the constructivist teaching methods in fundamental nursing and in practice classes. CONCLUSION: There is a need to continue to improve teaching methods for new nurse-educators and professors and to discuss learning outcomes of fundamental nursing.
Education ; Education, Nursing ; Learning* ; Lectures ; Nursing* ; Teaching*