PURPOSE: This study is a fact-finding research to understand the status of visiting nursing services operated by health centers in Korea and it aims to provide basic information for policy development on operation and management of visiting nursing services in health centers. METHOD: This study investigates the results of visiting nursing services in 242 health centers from Jan. 10 through Dec. 30, 2000, where 3,106 visiting nurses were employed by the public work program. RESULT: In 2000, 129,401 new household as service recipients was identified and that was 0.9% of Koreas total households (15,137,000), and 5.8% of low income households (2,242,000). The highest high risk group was dementia patients(aver. 55.2/1,000 person). Average number of households visited by visiting nurse were 4.5 households per day and the first-visited houses per visiting nurse were 1.1 households per day. The re-visiting rate was 71.3%. Total 4,059,130 service items were provided and assessment ranked the highest with 33.7%. The satisfaction level of clients on the nurses was an average of 3.17 points in the scale of 4 and the nursing service was a 2.60 points in a scale of 3. CONCLUSION: Visiting nursing service should continue to provide comprehensive healthcare services in cost-effective ways while cooperating with others.
Comprehensive Health Care ; Dementia ; Family Characteristics ; Korea ; Nurses, Community Health ; Nursing Services* ; Nursing* ; Policy Making

Costello syndrome (CS) is a rare multiple congenital abnormality syndrome characterized by a typical coarse face, developmental delay, psychomotor and growth retardation, neurologic abnormalities, cardiac and cutaneous anomalies, severe feeding difficulties with postnatal growth failure, and increased risk of tumors. Since Costello first described it in 1971 and again in 1977, over 100 cases have been reported worldwide. It was recently shown that CS is a congenital condition caused by heterozygous de novo missense mutations affecting the codon for glycine 12 or 13 of the HRAS gene. We experienced three unrelated cases with coarse faces, developmental delays, short statures, macrocephaly, and redundant skin with deep palmar and plantar creases, hypertrophic cardiomyopathy and atrial tachycardia, which are characteristic of CS.
Cardiomyopathy, Hypertrophic ; Codon ; Congenital Abnormalities ; Costello Syndrome* ; Developmental Disabilities ; Glycine ; Macrocephaly ; Maxillofacial Abnormalities ; Mutation, Missense ; Skin ; Tachycardia

BACKGROUND: The incidence of tetanus in adults and neonatal tetanus have been markedly reduced by world-wide use of DTP vaccines. But, tetanus is still one kind of major health problems in many developing countries, and several serosurvey stduies in developed countries revealed that substantial proportions of adult population may lack immunity against tetanus and immunity level against tetanus is continuously decreasing by age. In Korea, tetanus outbreaks have been disappeared since the 1980s by high acceptant DTaP vaccination rates. Annually, few tetanus patient has been reported since 1990s. But, there have been no seroepidemiological studies to tetanus, no trials to assess tetanus immunizations. And we do not use Td vaccine in adults for maintaning tetanus immunity. In this aspect, we conducted age related survey of immunity to tetanus and indirectly assessed the immunogenecity of tetanus vaccines, used in Korea. METHODS: For the evaluation of age related serosurvey of tetanus immunity in Korean population, study subjects were classified into 16 groups (A~J group; below 10 years with one year interval, K~O group; 11~60 yrs with 10 years interval, P group; over 60 yrs). The numbers of each group were 100, and sex distributions of each group were almostly equal. And for the indirect assessment of tetanus immunization in Korean children, children under 15 years old age were classified into 6 groups (I~VI) according to the status of DTaP vaccination. The numbers of this each group were 50, and sex ratio was almostly equal. Specific IgG antibody to tetanus toxin were detected by ELISA. And the ANOVA repeated t-test was used to compare antibody levels in study groups. RESULTS: In age related groups, the antibody levels to tetanus toxin were well maintained until 20 years old age group (L group), but thereafter the titers abruptly decreased below 0.1 IU/mL and over 75% populations among the groups over 30 years old age needed maintenance of protective immunity to tetanus. The antibody level of male was statistically higher than that of female in P group. In the groups related DTaP vaccination status, the antibody titer was very low in prevaccination group (I), but the titers after primary vaccinations were sharply increased and highly maintained until 15 years. CONCLUSOIN: The results of our study revealed that the immunity to tetanus was dramatically decreased in age groups over 30 years old. This result indicates that Td vaccination program in adults should be considered for maintenance of immunity to tetanus. And our study indicate that DTaP vaccination programs and vaccines, used in Korea, are effective for acquisition and maintenance of tetanus immunity in Korean children.
Adolescent ; Adult ; Child ; Developed Countries ; Developing Countries ; Disease Outbreaks ; Enzyme-Linked Immunosorbent Assay ; Female ; Humans ; Immunization ; Immunoglobulin G ; Incidence ; Korea ; Male ; Seroepidemiologic Studies ; Sex Distribution ; Sex Ratio ; Tetanus Toxin ; Tetanus* ; Vaccination ; Vaccines ; Young Adult