The occurrence of injuries and death caused by traffic accidents have been increasing during last few decades in Korea, which resulted in enormous personal, social and economic loss in terms of death, disability, labour days and medical costs incurred for treatment. Generally, it is well known and even became an hot sociopolitical issue that the duration of hospital stay for traffic accident patients are much longer than that of other patients with the similar condition. The objective of the study is to find out epidemiologic characreristics and management pattern of traffic accident patients in a general hospital of medium-sized, industrialized town. This study was carried out on 177 cases injured by motor vehicle accidents, who were admitted and treated in a general hospital from Feb. 1, 1997 to Sept. 30, 1997. The results obtained are as followings: The most of the patients(44%) were 20-30 years old age group although the occurrence of injuries was more frequent among older ages, 50's for male and 60's for female being 2.1 times more frequent among male. The traffic accidents occurred most frequently(14.1%) in the morning(06:00-08:00) and afternoon(14:00-16:00), and on Saturdays(20.3%); the (14.1% traffic accidents were frequent during weekends for passengers whereas it was more frequent during weekdays for pedestrian. Old and child pedestrians were most vulnerable subjects to traffic accidents. The most common site injured was head(19.9%) and the injury types were fracture of lower extremity(9.3%), skull fracture(8.6%) and rib fracture(8.6%) for both sexes; rib fractures/thoracic spine fractures(12.0%) for female and tibia/ fibula fractures(11.6%) for male. Mean days of hospital stay presumptively judged by the doctor who examined, made diagnosis and admitted the patient was 43.8 days compare to 38.4 days of actual mean days of hospitalixation. On the other hand, the optimal mean days of hospital stay for the patients determined by two doctors independently was estimated to be 26.6 days. Thus the difference between actual days of hospitalization and optimal days of hospitalization was 11.7 days, which can be regarded as excess hospitalization days. It consists 30.5% of actual hospitalization days, an enormous waste of resources. The only factor associated with this excess hospitalization was payment responsibility for the hospital cost; when the hospitalization expenses are to be paid by the person inflicted the injury there were always excess days of hospitalization regardless of insurance status.
Accidents, Traffic* ; Child ; Diagnosis ; Epidemiology ; Female ; Fibula ; Hand ; Hospital Costs ; Hospitalization* ; Hospitals, General ; Humans ; Insurance Coverage ; Korea ; Length of Stay ; Male ; Motor Vehicles ; Ribs ; Skull ; Spine

No abstract available.

PURPOSE: The purpose of this study was to evaluate the effectiveness of a ventilator-associated pneumonia (VAP) bundle.METHODS: This was a retrospective study that was carried out between June 2010 and October 2015. In this study, 3,224 intubated patients were included. The VAP bundle which was applied to Group 1 patients (n=470) included head-of-bed elevation to 30 degrees, cuff pressure monitorization, prophylaxis of peptic ulcer, and prophylaxis of deep vein thrombosis. The VAP bundle for Group 2 patients (n=1,914) included all the elements of the VAP bundle for Group 1 patients and one additional element which was oral care with 0.12% chlorhexidine. The VAP bundle for Group 3 patients (n=870) added sedative interruption and assessment of readiness to extubate to the VAP bundle for Group 2.RESULTS: The numbers and incidences of VAP were significantly different among the three groups. Moreover, there were significant differences among groups in ICU length of stay and mortality.CONCLUSION: Three different VAP prevention bundles made different effects in patient outcomes.
Chlorhexidine ; Humans ; Incidence ; Infection Control ; Intensive Care Units ; Length of Stay ; Mortality ; Patient Care Bundles ; Peptic Ulcer ; Pneumonia, Ventilator-Associated ; Retrospective Studies ; Venous Thrombosis

This study was conducted to examine the differences in perceived body weight and image and various lifestyles based on the self-rated health of university students when gender was adjusted. Five hundred fifty-five participants were asked their perceived health condition, and 58, 289, 160 and 48 students answered themselves as "very healthy", "healthy", "normal", and "unhealthy", respectively. As compared to the other 3 groups, "unhealthy" group showed higher proportions in dissatisfaction of body weight and negative perception of body image (P < 0.01). As health related lifestyles, "very healthy" group reported longer sleeping time than "unhealthy" group (P < 0.05), and had a higher proportion of people with regular exercise. Among the dietary behaviors, the frequencies of followings significantly different among the groups: "Regularity of meal time" (P < 0.01), "Eat protein foods more than twice a day" (P < 0.001), "Eat vegetables" (P < 0.01), "Eat fruit and fruit juice" (P < 0.01), "Eat vegetable oil added foods" (P < 0.01), "Eat seaweed" (P < 0.01), "Eat breakfast" (P < 0.01), "Modulation in animal fat and high in cholesterol intake" (P < 0.01). Particularly, higher proportion of subjects answered "very healthy" had higher frequencies (6-7 times/week) of these dietary behaviors. Overall results suggest that healthy lifestyle including adequate sleeping time, regular exercise, and good dietary behaviors might be potential factors affecting positive perception of health. In addition, positive perception of body weight and image were related with positive perception of health.
Animals ; Body Image ; Body Weight ; Cholesterol ; Fruit ; Humans ; Life Style ; Meals ; Vegetables

OBJECTIVE: This study was to investigate the factors that influence the propensity of Koreans in choosing care settings of dementia patients. METHODS: This study analyzed the data from the '2014 Nationwide Survey on Dementia Awareness of Koreans' that was conducted by the National Institute of Dementia. Korean's perception of care burden for dementia was measured with grading on its types. Also its influences on preference for care between facilities and homes were evaluated using multivariate analysis with socio-demographic characteristics. RESULTS: In terms of preferred care settings, respondents preferred facilities over homes in case of themselves and their family, respectively 77.5% and 68.2%. The preference for facilities was significantly influenced by the respondents' age for both themselves and their family. Additionally, the perception of relatively higher emotional and physical burden compared to economic burden significantly influenced preference for facilities for their family. CONCLUSION: Improving public awareness and setting-up a practical social supporting system are needed to reduce emotional and physical burden as well as economic burden of dementia. Furthermore, building up an appropriate and safer communities for dementia patients and their caregivers is much demanded for reducing their burdens.
Caregivers ; Surveys and Questionnaires ; Dementia* ; Humans ; Multivariate Analysis

Diabetic mellitus in an older population is associated with increased basal oxidative stress and free radical accentuated by hyperglycemic challenge. Enhanced free radical in diabetic elderly can cause the oxidative damage and such damage can be protected by antioxidant defense system. It is believed that vitamin C, A and E are the most abundant and effective antioxidants in human plasma. The purpose of this study was to determine the antioxidant status in Korean diabetic elderly using the case-control study. The antioxidant status was examined by determining plasma levels of antioxidant vitamins (vitamin C, A, E, beta-carotene), total antioxidant status (TAS) and thiobarbituric acid reactive substance (TBARS) and intakes of vitamin C, A, beta-carotene and retiol. Fasting glucose and HbA1c levels and serum lipid profiles (triglyceride (TG), total cholesterol, HDL-cholesterol and LDL-cholesterol) were also determined. Diabetic subjects were 122 elderly persons over 60 years old, visiting public health center, and control subjects were 96 healthy elderly persons living in Ulsan, Korea and they were matched by age, gender, smoking and drinking status. The diabetic and control subjects were divided into sub-groups according to the status of using diet therapy and vitamin supplement. The subjects were interviewed to collect data on their general characteristics, disease history, vitamin supplement, diet therapy and health-related habits by questionnaires. Their dietary intakes were obtained by means of semi-quantitative food frequency questionnaires (SQFFQ). Fasting plasma glucose and HbA1c levels were significantly higher in diabetes than in control subjects, and plasma total cholesterol level of diabetes was not significantly different from that of control subjects. However serum HDL cholesterol level of diabetes was significantly lower and serum TG level of diabetes was significantly higher than those of control group. The average vitamin A and beta-carotene intakes of diabetes were significantly higher than those of control subjects. There was no significant difference in plasma vitamin C, beta-carotene, and TBARS levels between two groups, but plasma vitamin A, E and TAS levels were significantly higher in diabetes than those in control group. Plasma vitamin A and TAS levels of diabetic subjects using diet therapy were higher than those of control using diet therapy, and plasma vitamin E, beta-carotene and TAS levels of diabetic subjects using vitamin supplements were significantly higher than those of controls using vitamin supplements. These results suggested that diabetic mellitus could enhance antioxidant defences against reactive oxygen species and interest in healthy eating such as consumption of more antioxidant nutrients.
Aged ; Antioxidants ; Ascorbic Acid ; beta Carotene ; Case-Control Studies ; Cholesterol ; Cholesterol, HDL ; Drinking ; Eating ; Fasting ; Glucose ; Humans ; Korea ; Oxidative Stress ; Plasma ; Public Health ; Reactive Oxygen Species ; Smoke ; Smoking ; Thiobarbiturates ; Thiobarbituric Acid Reactive Substances ; Vitamin A ; Vitamin E ; Vitamins ; Surveys and Questionnaires

The purpose of this study was to investigate the weight control attempts and related factors among 220 female college students in Seoul. Factors examined included body image, body satisfaction, interest in weight control, beliefs related to weight control, social norms, social expectations regarding subjects' body size and weight change. Data were analyzed using t-test and chi-square test(at alpha=0.05). The average height and weight of subjects were 160.7 cm, 52.2 kg respectively. BMI and body fat(%) were 20.2 and 25.2%, respectively. One hundred seventy two students(78.2%) had attempted to control their weight, mainly to lose weight, and were categorized as the weight control attempt group. Subjects used diet modification as well as unhealthy method to control weight. 48.2% in the attempt group were underweight or normal weight(by BMI), suggesting that their weight control attempts were was unnecessary. Students in the attempt group described their own size as heavier than those in the no-attempt group(p<0.01) or other girls of their age(p<0.05) ; more dissatisfied with their body size(p<0.01), and showed more interest in weight control(p<0.01). Several differences in beliefs were also noted(p<0.001). The attempt group believed less strongly in the harmful effects or difficulties in weight control and believed more strongly in the advantages of weight control. With respect to social factors, the attempt group perceived that their family and friends wanted them to be smaller than they were(p<0.001), perceived that significant others felt that they should lose weight(p<0.05). These results suggest that educational programs for college female students should start focusing on the harmful effects of excessive dieting and information about desirable weight control methods. Students should be helped to have a correct body image. In addition, educational programs should incorporate strategies to change beliefs regarding weight control, as well as modifying social expectations from significant others.
Body Image ; Body Size ; Diet ; Female* ; Food Habits ; Friends ; Humans ; Seoul ; Social Control, Formal ; Thinness

The role of free radicals in the progression of many diseases and aging has been given a great attention and total antioxidant status (TAS) has shown to be reduced with aging. The incidence of hypertension has shown to be relatively high in the aged population, and it is known to be associated with increased obesity and oxidative stress. The aim of this study was to examine the obesity indices and the total antioxidant status in hypertensive elderly (64y Aged* ; Aging ; alpha-Tocopherol ; Ascorbic Acid ; beta Carotene ; Blood Pressure ; Body Mass Index ; Free Radicals ; Humans ; Hypertension ; Ideal Body Weight ; Incidence ; Obesity* ; Oxidative Stress ; Plasma* ; Ulsan* ; Uric Acid ; Waist-Hip Ratio

The purpose of this study was to investigate the age-related changes of cardiovascular disease risk factors and inflammatory markers in non-obese Korean women. Subjects were 112 women over 20 years old with body mass index (BMI) less than 30 kg/m2 and were divided into 3 groups (< 40 years, 40~59 years, > or = 60 years). Mean weight and BMI in the oldest group were significantly higher than those in the other 2 younger groups (P <0.05). Mean total cholesterol, triglyceride, LDL-cholesterol and apolipoprotein B/apolipoprotein A1 ratio (BAR) in the oldest group were significantly higher than those in the youngest group (P <0.05), and mean HDL-cholesterol of the oldest group was significantly lower than that of the youngest group (P <0.05). The older-aged group showed significantly higher mean values of atherogenic index (AI) and LDL/HDL ratio (P <0.05) than the respective younger-aged group, and AI was significantly correlated with age, nitric oxide and thiobarbituric acid reactive substances (P <0.01). In addition, mean vascular cell adhesion molecule-l (VCAM-1) tended to be higher in the older-aged group than the younger group. Tumor necrosis factor-alpha, a proinflammatory maker, was significantly positively correlated with serum homocysteine, a cardiovascular disease risk factor (P <0.01). In addition, a significantly positive correlation was observed between C-reactive protein and BAR (P <0.01). Overall results suggested that the aging might affect the increase of cardiovascular disease risk factors including the serum lipid profiles, weight and BMI, and age-related increases of weight and BMI might play a role in changes in certain biomarkers of inflammation.
Aging ; Apolipoproteins ; Biomarkers ; Body Mass Index ; C-Reactive Protein ; Cardiovascular Diseases ; Cell Adhesion ; Cholesterol ; Female ; Homocysteine ; Humans ; Inflammation ; Nitric Oxide ; Risk Factors ; Thiobarbiturates ; Thiobarbituric Acid Reactive Substances ; Tumor Necrosis Factor-alpha

Heterotopic pregnancy occurs when there are coexisiting intrauterine and ectopic pregnances. It occure, more often, due to assisted reproductive technology such as IVF-ET, GIFT and increased pelvic inflammatory diseases. We present a case of heterotopic pregnancy confirmed by surgical removal of ruptured left ovarian pregnancy and sonographic finding of the intrauterine pregnancy following natural conception.
Female ; Fertilization ; Pelvic Inflammatory Disease ; Pregnancy ; Pregnancy, Ectopic ; Pregnancy, Heterotopic* ; Reproductive Techniques, Assisted ; Ultrasonography