BACKGROUND/AIMS: Pathogenesis of functional dyspepsia consists of motor abnormality, sensory abnormality, and psychologic abnormality. Anxiety, depression, and psychosomatic disorders are well known psychopathologies that lead to dyspepsia, and stress seems to be an additional etiology. The aim of this study is to assess whether stress can cause and/or provoke dyspepsia. METHODS: Functional dyspepsia was defined and classified by Rome criteria. SCL-90-R for the detection of psychopathology, measurement of life stress scale by self-administered questionnaire, and measurement of stress coping mechanisms using a multidimensional stress coping scale test were performed in 79 functional dyspeptic patients and 25 normal controls. RESULTS: No significant difference was found in the total amount of stress between functional dyspeptic patients and the normal control. However, the patients were more stressful about issues relating to health and marital relationship among stresses in individual daily life. As the patients become more stressful, they used more negative coping mechanisms such as restraint, fatalism, criticism, religiousness, and negativism. These seem to provoke several psychopathologies including interpersonal sensitivity, depression, anxiety, hostility. However, there was no relationship in the amount of stress, the stress coping mechanism, and psychopathology among the dyspeptic symptoms and subgroups of functional dyspepsia. CONCLUSION: There was no difference in the total amount of stress between functional dyspeptic patients and the normal control. In some individuals who utilize inadequate coping mechanisms against stress, the stress can provoke dyspepsia.
Anxiety ; Depression ; Dyspepsia* ; Hostility ; Humans ; Marriage ; Negativism ; Psychopathology ; Psychophysiologic Disorders ; Stress, Psychological ; Surveys and Questionnaires

BACKGROUND/AIMS: Pathogenesis of functional dyspepsia consists of motor abnormality, sensory abnormality, and psychologic abnormality. Anxiety, depression, and psychosomatic disorders are well known psychopathologies that lead to dyspepsia, and stress seems to be an additional etiology. The aim of this study is to assess whether stress can cause and/or provoke dyspepsia. METHODS: Functional dyspepsia was defined and classified by Rome criteria. SCL-90-R for the detection of psychopathology, measurement of life stress scale by self-administered questionnaire, and measurement of stress coping mechanisms using a multidimensional stress coping scale test were performed in 79 functional dyspeptic patients and 25 normal controls. RESULTS: No significant difference was found in the total amount of stress between functional dyspeptic patients and the normal control. However, the patients were more stressful about issues relating to health and marital relationship among stresses in individual daily life. As the patients become more stressful, they used more negative coping mechanisms such as restraint, fatalism, criticism, religiousness, and negativism. These seem to provoke several psychopathologies including interpersonal sensitivity, depression, anxiety, hostility. However, there was no relationship in the amount of stress, the stress coping mechanism, and psychopathology among the dyspeptic symptoms and subgroups of functional dyspepsia. CONCLUSION: There was no difference in the total amount of stress between functional dyspeptic patients and the normal control. In some individuals who utilize inadequate coping mechanisms against stress, the stress can provoke dyspepsia.
Anxiety ; Depression ; Dyspepsia* ; Hostility ; Humans ; Marriage ; Negativism ; Psychopathology ; Psychophysiologic Disorders ; Stress, Psychological ; Surveys and Questionnaires

PURPOSE: The purpose of this study was to understand the meditation experiences of breast cancer survivors. METHODS: The participants were 20 breast cancer survivors who participated in 8 weeks of mind subtraction meditation at a tertiary hospital in Korea 2013. The data was collected by in-depth individual interviews, personal logs about the meditation experiences, and field diaries. Data were analyzed using Giorgi's phenomenological analysis. RESULTS: A total of 13 subthemes and 4 themes were derived from the analysis. Participants began to meditate with some doubts initially but were soon comfortable as they became familiar with the meditation method. As they discarded their negativity, they experienced positive changes in their mindset. The experiences of discarded negativity were summarized as "discarding the hate, resentment, and obsession," "discarding the depression, anxiety, and stress," and "discarding the false me." The change after meditation was named "from restraint to freedom," "from negativism to positivism," "from closed doors to the wide open world." and "looking forward to the true happiness." CONCLUSION: Breast cancer survivors reflected on their lives and experienced positive changes as they discarded their negativity through meditation. It is recommended to perform the nursing interventions utilizing the meditation and conduct further studies to examine its beneficial effects.
Anxiety ; Breast Neoplasms* ; Breast* ; Depression ; Hate ; Humans ; Korea ; Meditation* ; Methods ; Negativism ; Nursing ; Qualitative Research ; Survivors ; Tertiary Care Centers

OBJECTIVES: This study was to analyze the results of judgement on continuing hospitalization by the Mental Health Judgement Boards and to explore the present status of judging system for continuing hospitalization. METHODS: Analyzing summary and request sheets for continuing hospitalization on August 2001, we compared the number of requests for continuing hospitalization and the dissent rate at each Mental Health Judgement Board. The selationship between dissent rate and clinical characteristics such as diagnoses, caregivers, medical care systems, institute, and the clinical state was also explored. RESULTS: The summary sheets on the judgement for continuing hospitalization from 14 Mental Health Judgement Boards were collected. Total number of the requests for continuing hospitalization was 4,853 and the nationwide dissent rate was 4.2% with broad range of 0 to 32% in each Mental Health Judgement Board. The request sheets from 10 Mental Health Judgement Boards were 3,014. The proportion of schizophrenic patients was 73.0%, followed by 9.1% for alcoholics, 4.1% for mentally retarded patients, 3.8% for dementic patients, and 10.5% for others. The different of the dissent rates of schizophrenia (2.9%) and other non-schizophrenia (4.8%)was statistically signiticant (chi2=6.797, p=0.009). The dissent rates of family members (4.0%) and majors (1.6%) were statistically different (chi2=10.294, p=.001). The dissent rates of mental hospitals (3.8%) and mental health welfare facilities (2.1%) were statistically different (chi2=5.483, p=.019). The dissent rates of medicaid (3.5%) and insured (1.7%) was statistically different (chi2=4.622, p=.032). The dissent rates by the severity of clinical status were statistically different in all six categories: the risk for self-injury or injuring others (chi2=66.507, p=.000), the disability of daily self-care (chi2=136.033, p=.000), odd, eccentric, or regressed behavior (chi2=96.558, p=.000), unreal or illogical thought pattern (chi2=122.988, p=.000), negativism (chi2=62.715, p=.000), and memory, orientation or judgement problems (chi2=38.387, p=.000). CONCLUSION: The nember of requests for continuing hospitalization and the dissent rates showed wide variations among Mental Health Judgement Boards. Also, the dissent rates of the Boards were significantly different according to diagnoses, caregivers, medical care systems, institute, and the clinical status of patients. This result suggests that the standardization of the guideline on the judgement for continuing hospitalization and the practical plans for protecting human rights of patients require thorough preparation.
Alcoholics ; Caregivers ; Diagnosis ; Dissent and Disputes ; Hospitalization* ; Hospitals, Psychiatric ; Human Rights ; Humans ; Medicaid ; Memory ; Mental Health* ; Mentally Disabled Persons ; Negativism ; Schizophrenia ; Self Care

PURPOSE: The primary purpose of this study was to reexamine underlying dimensions of attitudes toward the elderly held by undergraduate nursing students. A secondary purpose was to investigate characteristics of nursing students associated with attitudes toward elders. METHODS: A survey was performed using self-report questionnaire completed by nursing students from a total of 10 nursing schools or departments each selected randomly from one province of Korea. Students' responses (N=366) were analyzed using factor analysis, correlation coefficients, t-test, and ANOVA. RESULTS: Three attitudinal dimensions explaining 35.29% of the variance were extracted: vitality, generosity and flexibility. From a neutral point of 4.0 in the range of 1 to 7, only generosity (4.47) was evaluated positively, whereas vitality (3.31) and flexibility (2.91) were evaluated negatively. The mean scores of the vitality and generosity dimensions were significantly different by students' level of communication with the elderly, experience living with the elderly, and interest in elders or in issues related to elders. Interest in elders/elder issues was the only characteristic affecting significant mean score difference in flexibility. CONCLUSION: Educational process should increase students' exposure to healthy elderly to modify negative attitudes toward the elderly among nursing students.
Adolescent ; Adult ; *Aged ; Analysis of Variance ; *Attitude of Health Personnel ; Communication ; Cross-Sectional Studies ; *Education, Nursing, Baccalaureate/standards ; Factor Analysis, Statistical ; Female ; Geriatric Nursing/education ; *Health Knowledge, Attitudes, Practice ; Humans ; Korea ; Male ; Negativism ; Nursing Education Research ; Nursing Methodology Research ; *Prejudice ; Questionnaires ; Residence Characteristics/statistics & numerical data ; Stereotyping ; Students, Nursing/*psychology