OBJECTIVE: As social welfare practice for the disabled has been changed institution -based to community- based care, burden of primary care takers to the mentally disabled(generally, their parents) was increased. This study aims to compare the parents of the mentally ill and the parents of the mentally retarded regarding social support, care burden, level of permanency planning, and type of residential planning and to finding out service needs of the each group. METHOD: For the purpose of the study, 93 parents of the adult with the chronic mental illness and 99 parents of the adult with mental retardation conducted a survey which included social functioning level of the mentally disabled, care burden, social support, level of permanency planning, type of residential planing and service needs. RESULTS: Even though little differences of social functioning level was found, significant differences existed between the two groups regarding care burden and social support. Parents of the mentally ill were perceiving more burden and less social support than parents of the mentally retarded. And they were having pooer permanency planning than parents of the mentally retarded. However little difference was found between the groups regarding type of residential planning. Fifty-one percent of the parents were having a plan for institution and 28% of them were having a plan for living with offsprings without mental disabilities as residential planning. The most needed services of all subjects were institution and community living facility. Secondly, it was income security, such as disability allowances, financial support to caretaker, and so on. CONCLUSION: Parents of the mentally ill are perceiving more burden than parents of the mentally retarded by reason of the fluctuating course, aggressive symptoms, unpredictable prognosis of mental illness. Therefore this study concluded that policy for mental health which secure various types of community living facilities was needed. At the same time, income security was strongly needed for social integration of the mentally disabled. In the mental health professions, it is needed to have more active interest of meeting needs of the parents.
Adult* ; Financial Support ; Humans ; Intellectual Disability ; Mental Health ; Mentally Disabled Persons* ; Mentally Ill Persons* ; Parents* ; Primary Health Care ; Prognosis ; Social Welfare

OBJECTIVES: This is a descriptive study which was carried out to identify characteristics of the chronic mentally ill and their families in a rural area and the influencing factors on family burden. METHODS: Data was collected for seven months beginning April 1, 1998 by questionnaire from chronic mentally ill patients and their families in two towns and seven townships of the rural areas of Kyonggi Province. In additional to the mental diagnosis of the mentally ill patients, family burden was measured by interviewing the other family members using the questionnaire developed by Pai & Kapur (1981). Of those interviewed, 103 patients were selected for final analysis. RESULTS: Of 103 mentally ill patients, 36.1% of the subjects were not under treatment. In particular, of 29 patients with schizophrenia, 48.3% of the subjects had stopped taking medication and 6.9% of the subjects had never been treated. According to the results of a specialized examination by a psychologist, 81% of patients were in need of hospitalization. Most primary caregivers were parents. Of the 101 primary caregivers in the study, 39.6% were over 65 years old. In case of death of the primary caregiver, 50.5% of these 101 mentally ill patients would not have anyone to care for them. Of the various kinds of family burden, primary caregivers most often reported psychological stress. Overall, the families of dementia and schizophrenia patients complained of the most family burden. Through univariative analysis, the variables of sex, education and current treatment type of the patients, the relationship with the patient and marital status of the primary caregiver and the number of people living together in the household showed significant correlation with the family burden of schizophrenia patients. Univariative analysis also showed that there were a number of variables which were correlated to the family burden in mentally retarded patients. Concerning the need for mental health services, the most common requests were for entitlement to disability benefits and housing programs. CONCLUSIONS: Community mental health services in rural areas must be developed, planned and executed in consideration of the local situation. In particular, the development of various family support programs is needed in order to mitigate emotional, mental and economic burdens and carry out a positive role to care for and rehabilitate patients.
Aged ; Caregivers ; Community Mental Health Services ; Dementia ; Diagnosis ; Education ; Family Characteristics ; Gyeonggi-do ; Hospitalization ; Housing ; Humans ; Marital Status ; Mental Health Services ; Mentally Disabled Persons ; Mentally Ill Persons* ; Parents ; Psychology ; Surveys and Questionnaires ; Schizophrenia ; Stress, Psychological

Though Fragile X syndrome is one of the most common inherited causes of mental retardation, it is not much detected yet in Korean population. One of the reason may be that the syndrome is not well known to the special education teachers as well as to the clinicians in this country. Thus, molecular test was undertaken to screen out fragile X syndrome in 122 children of two Korean schools for emotionally severely handicapped children. The subjects were all boys, previously known as having pervasive developmental disorder with or without mental retardation. Southern blot analysis of peripheral blood showed the abnormally enlarged (CGG)n repeat sequence associated with fragile X syndrome in two children. This finding suggests that the DNA testing for fragile X syndrome is warranted for Korean high risk population and that more concern about this syndrome is needed for the professionals who work for mentally handicapped children. The issues involved in genetic counseling for fragile X syndrome are discussed.
Blotting, Southern ; Child ; Disabled Children* ; Disabled Persons* ; DNA* ; Education, Special ; Fragile X Syndrome* ; Genetic Counseling ; Humans ; Intellectual Disability ; Korea* ; Mentally Disabled Persons

No abstract available.
Humans ; Mentally Disabled Persons*

No abstract available.
Humans ; Mentally Disabled Persons*

No abstract available.
Humans ; Mentally Disabled Persons*

We studied the nutritional status of on mentally handicapped children living at home or in institutions since early teenage years are nutritionally important. The subjects of 7 to 12 year old mentally retarded children attending a special education school in Seoul were surveyed with questionnaires as well as 2-day dietary recall records, with the help of persons of their care-giver when needed. Among the 64 children, 54.7% are living in institutions and the rest of them are living at home. They were ranged from the trainable (64.1%), the educable (26.6%), and the non-trainable (9.4%). Their average daily intake of energy intakes (%RDA) was 2,070.1 kcal (94.1%), Ca 603.9 mg (75.5%), Fe 11.1 mg (92.5%), Vt.A 507.5 RE (84.6%), Vt. B2 1.1 g (88.2%), niacin 14.1 g (93.6%) and Vt. C 58.2 g (83.1%). Their average intakes of these nutrients were significantly higher in subjects of institutions than at home. The nutrients consumed at a much higher level than the RDA of the normal children were Vt. B1 (1.6 g, 146.8%) and protein (75.3g, 136.9%). The higher percentage of children at home were under consumed of several nutrients (< 75% RDA) than ones in institutions. When comparing the degree of handicap, energy and nutrient intakes except Vt. C were highest in educable children than trainable ones or Dawn's children. MAR of the diets of the subjects was 0.84. Children at home showed lower MAR as well as NAR of each nutrients, whereas children belonged to INQ < 1 were less at home. Handicapped children at home were snacking higher amount relative to their calorie intake and too frequently, that may lead to their poor nutrition. There was positive correlations between factors of nutrition and physical and dietary behaviors, but there were no correlations between factors of nutrition and health-related habits. Nutritional caring mentally handicapped children in institutions seemed to be more effectively managed.
Child* ; Diet ; Disabled Children ; Education, Special ; Humans ; Mentally Disabled Persons* ; Niacin ; Nutritional Status* ; Seoul ; Snacks ; Surveys and Questionnaires

PURPOSE: The purpose of this study was to identify the attitude of persons with an mental disability to marriage. METHODS: The Q-methodology which provides a method of analyzing the individual's subjectivity was used. The 30 participants classified 36 selected Q-statements on a 9 point scale to make a normal distribution. The collected data was analyzed by a PC Quanl Program. RESULTS: Four types of attitude of persons with an mental disability to marriage were identified. Type I: Actively supportive-resistant against social bias, Type II: Passively supportive-reliant on others, Type III: Intensively desiring-less sense of reality, Type IV: Controlling desire-more sense of reality. CONCLUSION: The results of this study suggest a need develop a variety of programs specifically designed for each type of attitude to change attitudes to marriage for persons with an mental disability.
Bias (Epidemiology) ; Humans ; Marriage* ; Mentally Disabled Persons

PURPOSE: This study was done to define and clarify the concept of resilience in people who are mentally disabled. METHODS: Rodgers' evolutionary approach to concept analysis was used to identify common attributes, antecedents, and consequences of the resilience of people who have mental disabilities. A literature search of the RISS, Kiss, CINAHL, PubMed, ProQuest, Scopus and PsycArticle databases from 1980 to 2016 was conducted, using the key words of ‘psychiatric disorder resilience’, and ‘mental illness resilience.’ Thirteen relevant articles and one book were finally selected and reviewed in depth. RESULTS: The concept analysis showed that, the attributes of resilience in people with mental disabilities were ‘flexibility’, ‘potentiality’, ‘strengthening’. The antecedents of resilience were psychiatric symptoms and perceived stigma. The consequences of resilience were understood to be recovery. CONCLUSION: The findings in this study indicate that it is important to provide preliminary knowledge necessary for mental health nurses to reinforce resilience in people with mental disabilities. There is also a need to develop a scale to measure resilience in this population.
Humans ; Mental Health ; Mentally Disabled Persons

This paper was carried out to study on correlation between mentally retardation and lead and zinc. The subjects were 297 mentally retarded children: 132 of Bomyung special school and Sunmyung, which were located in Taegu city of Korea. The former had their parents but the latter had not. The control group 63 children were randomly seleted from the Dong-in primary school near to Medical School of Kyungpook National University. Atomic absorption spectrophotometer, model IL-551 connected with CTF atomizer(IL. 655) was used for the analysis of lead and zinc. The mean value of lead in hair of mentally retarded children was 14.97 3.71ppm which is significantly higher than that of control group, 11.36 2.83ppm. But the content of zinc was not significant in both groups. In the lead there was no significant correlation to age but significant negative correlation to IQ. Zinc showed significant correlation to age but not to IQ. Among the handicapped children, no signigicant correlation between orphan group and non orphan group. Handicaps of mentally-retarded children were speech impairment, emotional disturbance, double and triple handicaps, sensory impairment and abnormal dietary patterns. There were significantly higher contents of lead compared with normal group, except the latter two groups. The disease conditions of mentally retarded children were mongolism, autism, cerebral palsy, epilepsy and microcephaly. In comparing with mongolism, significant difference were existent only on the cerebral palsy and group of unknown etiology. We attempted to divide their past history into external etiology and internal etiology, but could not find significant difference. In view of the whole results, the relationship between mentally-retarded children and lead was presumed to be the early time exposure rather than long interval exposure during growth and the contact opportunity was considered important subject in maternal and child health care.
Absorption ; Affective Symptoms ; Autistic Disorder ; Cerebral Palsy ; Child Health ; Child* ; Child, Orphaned ; Daegu ; Disabled Children ; Down Syndrome ; Epilepsy ; Gyeongsangbuk-do ; Hair* ; Humans ; Korea ; Mentally Disabled Persons* ; Microcephaly ; Parents ; Schools, Medical ; Zinc