PURPOSE: The purpose of this study was to compare the use of health services and health expenditures between non-exercise and exercise groups of diabetic patients and among three groups divided according to exercise intensity. METHODS: Data were obtained from the Korean Health Panel Survey of 2011. The participants of this study were 864 diabetic patients who did exercise (walk, moderate exercise, or vigorous exercise) or not. Data were subsequently analyzed using the SPSS 21 Program. RESULTS: The exercise group showed higher percentages of medication compliance, non-smokers, and regular diet than the non-exercise group. The hospitalization percentage, the number of outpatient hospital visits, and health expenditures were higher in the non-exercise group than in the exercise group. There was no difference among the three groups divided according to exercise intensity in the use of health services and health expenditures. CONCLUSION: These results show that exercise is a way to reduce diabetic patients' use of health services and their health expenditures.
Diabetes Mellitus ; Diet ; Health Behavior* ; Health Expenditures* ; Health Services* ; Hospitalization ; Humans ; Medication Adherence ; Outpatients

PURPOSE: The purpose of this study was to identify the effects of occupational health service(OHS) for the aged workers in small workplace. METHOD: A single group of pretest-posttest design was used. 608 aged workers of 253 small workplace who had one out of 4 risk factors were randomly selected. The OHS consisted of education, medical checkup, and counseling. Also information was provided by a visiting nurse 4-5 times every 4-5 weeks from March to November, 2009. The data were collected by interview, self report, and monitored by a nurse. RESULTS: The OHS led to significant reduction of the mean systolic and diastolic blood pressures of 6.46mmHg and 5.22mmHg, each respectively. The mean total cholesterol, glucose, and BMI were also reduced significantly by 6.35mg/dL, 5.91mg/dL, and 0.31kg/m2. And stages of health behavioral change were moved from 1,2,3 stages to 4,5 stages significantly. CONCLUSION: The OHS showed an effective intervention to improve the aged workers' health in the small workplaces. Therefore, The OHS by visiting a nurse can be a good strategy to extend to small & medium-sized companies having no in-site health manager.
Aged ; Cholesterol ; Community Health Nursing ; Counseling ; Education, Medical ; Glucose ; Health Behavior ; Humans ; Occupational Health ; Occupational Health Services ; Risk Factors ; Self Report

PURPOSE: This research was conducted to examine the successful aging and identify factors influencing successful aging in the Korean elderly. METHODS: The subjects were 4,507 elders and data were collected from the 4th Korean Longitudinal Study of Ageing in 2012. The data were analyzed using frequencies, weighted percentage, chi2 test, and logistic regression. RESULTS: The results of this study showed that 19.6% of the participants were categorized to successful aging. The domains of the absence of disease and disability and maintaining physical and mental functioning showed a high rate of achievement, while the domain of active engagement with life showed a low rate of achievement compared to others. Successful aging was influenced by gender, age, subjective economic status, subjective health status, and family support, particularly spouse's support. CONCLUSION: Intervention programs to increase the prevalence of successful aging are required. Especially programs for strengthening spouse's support and enhancing subjective health status are required.
Aged* ; Aging* ; Humans ; Logistic Models ; Longitudinal Studies ; Nursing ; Prevalence

PURPOSE: The purpose of this study is to explore violence experienced by workers in the distribution industry. METHODS: The research subjects were 236 workers from 2 department stores and 1 large scale discount store located in Daejeon City, Korea. The collected data were analyzed through descriptive statistics, chi2-test, and logistic regression analysis. RESULTS: 72.9% of the research subjects experienced verbal violence, and 9.3% of the respondents experienced physical violence during last year. 17.8% of the respondents reported that they had experience of sexual harassment at their workplaces. The variables which affected verbal violence included working departments and stress level, whereas the variable that affected physical violence was educational level of workers. The variables that affected experience of sexual harassment turned out to be gender as well as the duration of work at the current workplaces. CONCLUSION: The findings from this research revealed that many of the workers engaged in the distribution industry were exposed to workplace violence. For the reduction of risk of workplace violence for these workers, it is required to develop and execute programs including violence related policies and education about workplace violence.
Surveys and Questionnaires ; Humans ; Korea ; Logistic Models ; Research Subjects ; Sexual Harassment ; Violence

PURPOSE: The purpose of this study was to explore the coping process of chief Executive Nurses(CENs) Who Had Experienced Unexpected Dismissal.The research question was "would you tell me about your experience of sudden dismissal?" METHOD: The methodology of collecting and analyzing data used in this study followed the ground theory of Strauss and Corbin (1998). Data were collected through in-depth interviews with open-ended questions about the subjects' coping experiences, which were audio-taped and transcribed. The survey was conducted between April and May, 2007. The subjects of this study were 5 CENs. RESULT: The results of the study are as follows. Core category of This Study was "Battling unsupported against the overwhelming reality." The participants had to face the most unexpected reality of being laid off. Their emotional/psychological response were betrayal, powerlessness, lonesomeness, sorrow, and hopelessness. They felt like a general who is facing overwhelming enemy in a war. The coping process was found to have four stages: shocked stage, resisting stage, negotiating stage and reflecting and transcending stage. CONCLUSION: The result of this study suggested that ceaseless exertion and cooperation at organizational and individual levels are needed to establish stable status and power of nursing departments and CENs in hospitals.
Negotiating ; Shock ; Unemployment

PURPOSE: This study aimed to identify the health behaviors of working elderly Koreans aged 65 over and examined the socio-demographic and disease-related factors by health behaviors. METHODS: This study used data obtained from the 2nd basic survey of the 2008 Korean Longitudinal Study of Ageing. We selected 381 working elderly having one or more of the diseases hypertension, diabetes, heart disease or cerebrovascular disease. RESULTS: 78.9% out of the subjects have hypertension, 31.2% have diabetes, 12.3% have heart disease, and 6.3% have cerebrovascular disease. Compared to the health behaviors of the general elderly, the rate of the practice of regular exercise among the subjects was lower, but the smoking and drinking rate were higher. The significant variables associated with health behavior practice rates were gender, type of work, subjective health status and chronic diseases. CONCLUSION: The type of work of the elderly with chronic diseases was significantly associated with health behaviors. Consequently, this study found that continuous care programs for the working elderly with chronic diseases should be developed and provided as an occupational health service when the jobs are offered to them.
Aged ; Chronic Disease ; Drinking ; Health Behavior ; Heart Diseases ; Humans ; Hypertension ; Longitudinal Studies ; Occupational Health Services ; Smoke ; Smoking

PURPOSE: Measurement of transmission dose is useful for in vivo dosimetry. In this study, previous algorithm for estimation of transmission dose was modified for use in cases with tissue deficit. MATERIALS AND METHODS: The beam data was measured with flat solid phantom in various conditions of tissue deficit. New algorithm for correction of transmission dose for tissue deficit was developed by physical reasoning. The algorithm was tested in experimental settings with irregular contours mimicking breast cancer patients using multiple sheets of solid phantoms. RESULTS: The correction algorithm for tissue deficit could accurately reflect the effect of tissue deficit with errors within +-1.0% in most situations and within +-3.0% in experimental settings with irregular contours mimicking breast cancer treatment set-up. CONCLUSION: Developed algorithm could accurately reflect the effect of tissue deficit and irregularly shaped body contour on transmission dosimetry.
Breast Neoplasms ; Humans

PURPOSE: Measurement of transmission dose is useful for in vivo dosimetry. In this study, the algorithm for estimating the transmission dose for open radiation fields was modified for application to partially blocked radiation fields. MATERIALS AND METHODS: The beam data was measured with a flat solid phantom with various blocked fields. A new correction algorithm for partially blocked radiation field was developed from the measured data. This algorithm was tested in some settings simulating clinical treatment with an irregular field shape. RESULTS: The correction algorithm for the beam block could accurately reflect the effect of the beam block, with an error within +/-1.0%, with both square fields and irregularly shaped fields. CONCLUSION: This algorithm can accurately estimate the transmission dose in most radiation treatment settings, including irregularly shaped field.

Purpose: To determine an appropriate surgical technique, it is important to predict pathological results for patientswith clinically localized prostate cancer (PCa) eligible for nerve-sparing radical prostatectomy (NSRP). Severalstudies have highlighted that serum testosterone level was associated with aggressive features of PCa. Therefore,we analyzed factors, including serum testosterone, to predict upstaging and upgrading after surgery for patientswith clinically localized PCa eligible for NSRP. Materials and Methods: We retrospectively evaluated patients who underwent radical prostatectomy (RP) betweenJanuary 2015 and May 2018 at our institution. Patients with Gleason grade group 1 or 2 on biopsy,prostate-specific antigen<10, and ≤clinical/radiologic stage T2 were included in this study. Upstaging andupgrading were defined as pathological stage≥T3a and Gleason grade group≥3, respectively. We evaluatedthe patients’ demographics and outcomes according to upstaging and upgrading after surgery. Predictive factorsfor upstaging and upgrading were analyzed using a multivariate logistic regression model. Results: Of 108 patients included in the study, upstaging and upgrading after surgery were observed in 24 (22.2%)and 36 (33.3%), respectively. Low serum testosterone level, small prostate size, and positive core number≥3on biopsy were identified as predictive factors for upstaging in multivariate analysis. Although serum testosteronewas associated with upgrading in univariate analysis, only clinical/radiologic stage and biopsy Gleason grade groupwere observed as predictive factors for upgrading in multivariate analysis. Conclusions Serum testosterone level was identified as a predictive factor for upstaging after RP for clinicallylocalized PCa eligible for NSRP.