The purpose of this study is to determine the impact of subjects perceived health condition and practiced health promotion life style to their satisfaction with their life. For this purpose, adults were surveyed, and thereby, data were collected to be analyzed. The data were collected during the period of August-September, 1997 and a total of 200 copies of the questionnaire were distributed and 162 copies were returned (return rate : 81%), Finally 57 copies were used for the analysis with 5 inappropriate ones dismissed. The data were analyzed using the SPSS PC+. The 157 subjects consisted of 65 males (41.4%) and 92 females (58.6%), and their average age was 49.39. It appeared that 59.9% of them were living with their spouse only, while 35.7% were living with children. On the other hand, 91.9% had spouses, and the majority of them(59.3) believed in Buddhisam, 35.7% of them graduated from middle school, while 31.2% finished high school. In economic terms, 25.5% of the respondents had an income of 1.01-1.50million won a month. It was disclosed that the demographic factors affecting subjects' health promotion life style were mostly type of the family, spouse, and educational background. The main demographic factor affecting their satisfaction with life was Age, while other variables showed no significant differences statistically. As a result of analyzing the correlation between perceived health condition, health promotion life styles and various factors related to satisfaction with life, it was shown that health promotion life style and perceived health condition were significantly correlated to each other statistically. And age, perceived health condition, health promotion life style, and satisfaction with life were significantly correlated to each other statistically. In conclusion health promotion life style and perceived health condition were identified as important variables in the life satisfaction of adult.
Adult* ; Child ; Demography ; Female ; Hand ; Health Promotion* ; Humans ; Life Style* ; Male ; Spouses ; Surveys and Questionnaires

PURPOSE: The purpose of this study wsa to necessitate auricular acupressure therapy as an independent nursing intervention on cancer paitents by confirming its effectiveness. METHOD: The experimental study was unequivalently controlled pre-post measure study. The subjects were 40 cancer patients who were hospitalized in K medical center in Seoul. The experimental group (20) and the control group (20) were randomly assigned. As measured tools, Spielberger's State-trait Anxiety (1976) measured tool by Kim's transplation (1978). The auricular acupressure therapy was applied to experimental group, and the pre-post measure was performed to both group. The data was analyzed by using SPSS computer program that included descriptive statistics, x2-test, and t-test. RESULT: 1) The experimental group with the auricular acupressure therapy showed lower trait anxiety scores in comparison with the control group (t= 8.036, p=.000). 2) The experimental group which applied the auricular acupressure therapy showed lower state anxiety scores in comparison with the control group (t= 19.616, p=.000). This result showed that cancer patients with the auricular acupressure therapy applied cancer patients decreased state anxiety and trait anxiety. Therefore , effectiveness of the auricular acupressure therapy was confirmed through this study. CONCLUSION: According to the result, anxiety of cancer pateint should be decreased and controlled by the auricular acupressure therapy as independent nursung intervension. In addition, the auricular acupressure therapy will provide effective independent nursing intervention that will decrease anxiety on patient with other disease and will improve quality of their lives.
Acupressure* ; Anxiety* ; Humans ; Nursing ; Seoul

The study was done by applying a phenomenological study, which is qualitative research methods, in order to understand the meaning of the lived experiences, to confirm and describe the meaning structure, and to prepare nursing interventive strategies centering around the meanings of the inpatients' families in the intensive care units. In the study, the family members were the main important nursing providers for in the inpatients' who were admitted in the neuro-surgical intensive care unit in K-university hospital and who agreed to participate in the study after being given on explanation about the purpose of the study. The data were collected from the seven participants who had feelings of trust and intimacy favorable toward the researcher as they were families of patients who had been cared for by the researcher in the ICU where the researcher has been assigned. The data were collected from April to October, 1999. The participants described their experiences as candidly as possible. The researcher described closely the lived experiences with their own words and the observations of the researcher. A tape recorder was used with the consent of the participants to prevent nursing information and communication. The analysis of the data was made through the phenomenological analytic method suggested by Giorgi; as an unit of description, which include the participants'expressions and the researcher's observations, the analysis was used based on the data described from the expressions of the participants and the details of observations of the researcher. The conclusions of the study were as follows: The meanings of the lived experience of the inpatients'families in the ICU was confirmed by indepth interviews and observations including these of the participatants: 1. Psychological impact: confusion, impatience, surprise, insensibility; 2. Physical suffering: fatigue, discomfort, indigestion; 3. Psychological suffering: heartbreaking emotion, anxiety, annoyance, fear, compassion, grief; 4. Economical suffering: economical difficulties; 5. Psychological disagreement: escape from reality, personnel avoidance, grudge, powerlessness, carefulness, transposition of life-tract, abandonment, role-crisis, hope, lack of understanding, regret, feeling of ambivalence(progressive process, medical personnel interest); 6. Psychological dependency; self-reliance groupsupport, family support, religious support; 7. Psychological acceptance; acquaintance, gratitude, reassurance; The study will offer better understanding of experiences therefore, based on the experiences confirmed by the study, it may facilitate more appropriate nursing interventive strategies for health maintenance and to prevent occurrence of possible problems with the inpatients'families in the ICUs.
Anxiety ; Dyspepsia ; Empathy ; Fatigue ; Grief ; Hope ; Humans ; Intensive Care Units* ; Critical Care* ; Nursing ; Qualitative Research ; United Nations

PURPOSE: This study aims to find the sources of nurses' conflicts and to find ways to eliminate them for improved nursing care. METHOD: This study is based on a phenomenological approach. All participants were woking at K-hospital, located in Seoul. The research was performed from September 2000 to February 2001. Data was collected through interviews and observations while participants were working. Interviews lasted a duration of one and half hours and data collection accured five to six times per participant. The data were analysed by Giorgi method and the results are as follows: RESULT: Essential themes in the professional conflict of clinical nurses emerged (1) The discords of human relationships ; (2) Dissatisfaction with working conditions; (3) Lack of self-respect in one's professional expertise ; (4) Dissatisfaction with one's work ; (5) Depression accurring due to one's ability as a professional. CONCLUSION: The foregoing arguments suggest that nurses perform stressful environments in a hospital originating from the relationship among peer group, working conditions, and lack of self-respect as a nurses. Therefore, hospital authorities should strangly consider working conditions, interpersonal relationships, and working conditions in order to promote self-respect of the nurses hospitals.
Data Collection ; Depression ; Humans ; Nursing Care ; Peer Group ; Seoul

PURPOSE: This study is aimed to search the lived experiences of the participants and to analyze the contents so that we can be assured about what the elderly wish and find the appropriate nursing intervention for them in real life. METHOD: This is based on a phenomenological approach. Participants of this study consist of people older than 65 years old. Data was collected from May to August in 2001. Data collection was done through in-depth interviews and observations. The time used in each interview was from 50 minutes to 2 hours. Each participant was interviewed three to five times. Giorgi's phenomenological analysis was used in data analysis. RESULT: The elder's wishes are 1) a respected life, 2) a happy life, 3) a peaceful life, 4) a independent life, 5) a financially independent life, 6) a satisfactory life, 7) a mind to depend on someone, 8) a serving life, 9) a historic family, 10) a happy-ending life. CONCLUSION: The study will contribute for the nursing intervention to enhance the quality of life and successful aging of the elderly.
Aged* ; Aging ; Data Collection ; Humans ; Nursing ; Quality of Life ; Statistics as Topic

PURPOSE: This study was to identify what experience meant for the wives that attempted IVF-ET(In Vitro Fertilization-Embryo Transfer) program due to the spouse's infertility and provide fundamental materials to improve nursing interventions. METHOD: Giorgi's phenomenological method was employed, the subjects were five wives who had ever attempted IVF-ET program due to the infertility of their spouses. In-depth interview and observation method were utilized to gather information from April to December 2003. RESULT: The significant results from analyzing the interviews can be grouped into 34 themes, 8 categories. The essential themes for the experiences of the wives were 'shocked by the unbelievable reality', 'can't give up the connection to the blood', 'Lack of social education on pregnancy, and childbirth', 'self-pity', 'feelings of both families', 'Being afraid of the unexpected result', 'physical and mental agony', 'Positively coping with the reality. CONCLUSION: The results show that infertility is not a mere personal matter, and infertile people, their families and society should team up with in tackling it. The physical, psychological and social problems triggered by infertility could be ironed out by making both personal and collaborative approaches to that.
Humans ; Infertility ; Iron ; Pregnancy ; Social Problems ; Spouses

PURPOSE: This study was designed to explore and compare the self efficacy, social support, and quality of life between middle-aged Korean and Chinese women. METHODS: The sample included 430 (Korean: 220, Chinese: 210) middle-aged women. Study instruments were the Self Efficacy Scale developed by Shere et al (1982), the Social Support Scale modified and based on Interpersonal Support Evaluation List (ISEL) developed by Cohen and Hoberman (1983), and The Quality of Life Scale (SF-36) developed by Ware and Book (1981). Data were analyzed by SPSS/WIN 16 version. RESULTS: Korean women reported more self efficacy and better quality of life than the Chinese women. The quality of life scores between middle-aged Korean and Chinese women showed a statistical significant difference. Self efficacy and quality of life scores reported by middle-aged Korean and Chinese women were below the reported standards of the instruments. In contrast to the other scores, Chinese women reported more social support than Korean women. CONCLUSION: The findings add to the body of literature about Chinese and Korean middle aged women. Additional research is needed to explain the differences among the two groups but the findings can inform the practicing nurse who works with these populations.
Asian Continental Ancestry Group ; Female ; Humans ; Middle Aged ; Quality of Life ; Self Efficacy ; Surveys and Questionnaires

Senile Dementia is one of the dispositional mental disorder which has been known to the world since Hippocratic age. It has become a wide-spread social problem all over the world because of chronic disease processes and the demands of dependent care for several years as well as improbability of treatment of it at the causal level. Essentially, life styles of the older generation differ from those of the younger generation. While the former is used to the patriarchal system and the spirit of filial piet and respect, the latter is pragmatized and individualized under the effects of the Western material civilization. these differences between the two generations cause conflict between family members. In particular, the pain and conflict of care-givers who take care of a totally dependent dementia patient not only is inciting to the collapse of the family union, but is expanding into a serious social problem. According to this practical difficulty, this study has tried to compare dementia care-givers' experiences inter-culturally and to help set up more proper nursing interventions, describing and explaining them through ethnographies by participant observation and in-depth interviews that enable seeing them in a more close, honest and certain way. It also tries to provide a theoretical model of nursing care for dementia patients which is proper to Korean culture. This study is composed of 12 participants(4 males, 8 females) whose ages range from 37-71 years. The relations of patients are 5 spouses(3 husbands, 2 wives), 4 daughters-in-law, 2 daughters, and 1 son-in-law. The following are the care-givers' meaning of experiences that results of the study shows. The first is "psychological conflict". It contains the minds of getting angry, reproaching, being driven to dispair, blaming oneself, giving up lives, and being afraid, hopeless, and resigned. The second is "physical, social and psychological pressure". At this stage, care-givers are shown to be under stress of both body and soul for the lack of freedom and tiredness. They also feel constraint because they hardly cope with the care and live through others' eyes. The third is "isolation". It makes the relationship of patient care-giver to be estranged, without understanding each other. they, also, experience indifference such as being upset and left alone. The forth is "acceptance". They gradually have compassion, bear up and then adapt themselves to the circumstances they are in. The fifth is "love". Now they learn to reward the other with love. It is also shown that this stage contains the process of winning other recognition. The final is "hope". In this stage they really want situations to go smoothly and hope everything will be O.K. These consequence enable us to summarize the principles of care experience such as, in the early stage, negative response such as physical, psychological confusion, pain and conflict are primary. Then the stage of acceptance emerges. It is initial positive response phase when care-givers may admit their situations. As time passes by a positive response stage emerges. At last they have love and hope. Three stages we noted above; however, there are never consistent situations. Rather it gradually comes into the stage of acceptance, repeating continuous conflict, pressure and isolation. If any interest and understanding of families or the support of surrounding society lack, it will again be converted to negative responses sooner or later. Otherwise, positive responses like hope and love can be encourage if the family and the surroundings give active aids and understanding. After all, the principles of dementia care experiences neither stay at any stage, nor develop from negative stages to positive stages steadily. They are cycling systems in which negative responses are constantly being converted. I would like to suggest the following based on the above conclusions: First, the systematic and planned education of dementia should be performed in order to enhance public relations. Second, a special medical treatment center which deals with dementia, under government's charge, should be managed. Third, the various studies approaching dementia care experiences result in the development of more reasonable and useful nursing guidelines.
Alzheimer Disease* ; Anthropology, Cultural* ; Chronic Disease ; Civilization ; Dementia ; Education ; Empathy ; Family Characteristics ; Freedom ; Hope ; Humans ; Life Style ; Love ; Male ; Mental Disorders ; Models, Theoretical ; Nuclear Family ; Nursing ; Nursing Care ; Public Relations ; Reward ; Social Problems ; Spouses

PURPOSE: This study was to identify the meaning of the lived experiences, to describe of the meaning structures and to develop the strategies of nursing intervention centering to these meanings of the smoking cessation. METHOD: This study was derived from a phenomenological analytic method suggested by Giorgi. The participants in this study were five adults who had the previous experience of smoking cessation. The data were collected from September of 2001 to April of 2002 through systemic interviews and participatory observations. Average of five interviews were performed, and each interview lasted an hour and half. RESULT: The meaning of smoking cessation was categorized with nine components. That is (1) obstinacy of the habit of smoking ; difficulty of endurance, succumb to temptation of smoking, repetition of smoking and smoking cessation, habit-forming. (2) Bring about a symptom of improving ; took place headache, expectoration of sputum, sense of instability. (3) Waver in worthy ; doubts about smoking cessation, ridiculed smoking cessation. (4) Be narrowed social life ; become estranged from friends. (5) Futility ; unnecessary, harm. (6) Self-repression ; occurred indomitable mind, strong will, endurance. (7) Gratification ; self-admiration, receive praise from family. (8) Delightfulness ; clean in body and clothes, be disgusted with the foul order of smoking. (9) Improvement in welfare ; a clear mind and good memory, improve in health, have a good appetite. CONCLUSION: The nursing intervention must be focused on these concerns to accomplish successful smoking cessation program.
Adult ; Appetite ; Friends ; Headache ; Humans ; Medical Futility ; Memory ; Nursing ; Smoke* ; Smoking Cessation* ; Smoking* ; Sputum

PURPOSE: This study was to identify nursing interventive strategies centering around the meaning structure of elderly women self-esteem. METHOD: This study is based on a phenomenological approach. The participants were 6 women over the age of 65 selected in Mullae Senior Club or Yeongdeungpo Senior Welfare Center. The data was collected by in-depth and open- ended interviews from May to September, 2001. The analysis of the data was used the phenomenological analytic method suggested by Giorgi(1970). RESULT: Two essential themes in the self- esteem of relationships the elderly women emerged: (1) Self-identification through human relations: (2) The ability for self-control. CONCLUSION: There is a variety of programs and social meetings to confirm self and support systems, whether on the governmental level or the personal level, to help the ability for self-control should be expected to live a more qualitative life and successful aging for elderly women. In addition, this study will offer a better understanding of elderly women within the social and cultural context of South Korea.
Aged* ; Aging ; Female ; Humans ; Korea ; Nursing