Purpose: This study aimed to measure willingness to use (WTU) and appropriate payable cost of visiting nurse service for the elderly and explore their impact factors. Methods: The study included 752 participants selected from data that were completed in 2017 for the elderly aged over 60 nationwide. Logit and Tobit regression analysis were performed to confirm the influencing factors. Results: The study found that 39.1% of the elderly in the community were WTU the visiting nurse service, and they reported that the cost per visit was 12,650 Korean Won. The factors influencing WTU were having less than moderate subjective health status (OR = 1.63, p = .011), being part of a social participating groups (OR = 1.50, p = .046), or participation in senior health promotion programs (SHPPs) (OR = 1.96, p = .003). The cost was also influenced by less than moderate subjective health status (β = 4.37, p = .021), being part of a social participating groups (β = 4.41, p = .028), or participation in SHPPs (β = 4.87, p = .023). Additionally, elderly people living alone who were used as covariates were highly WTU (OR = 2.20, p = .029). Conclusion This study provides evidence to predict demand for visiting nurse service and reflects consumer value in setting the service cost. This is the first study to derive cost from consumers' perspective regarding the service for the elderly. As it is the result of an open-ended survey, follow-up studies are needed to estimate more reliable and reasonable results.

BACKGROUND: This study aims to analyze the effects of insurance types on the medical service uses for heart failure inpatients using propensity score matching (PSM). METHODS: 2014 National inpatient sample based on health insurance claims data was used in the analysis. PSM was applied to control factors influencing the service uses except insurance types. Negative binomial regression was used after PSM to analyze factors that had influences on the service uses among inpatients. Subjects were divided by health insurance type, national health insurance (NHI) and medical aid (MA). Total charges and length of stay were used to represent the medical service uses. Covariance variables in PSM consist of sociodemographic characteristics (gender, age, Elixhauser comorbidity index) and hospital characteristics (hospital types, number of beds, location, number of doctors per 50 beds). These variables were also used as independent variables in negative binomial regression. RESULTS: After the PSM, length of stay showed statistically significant difference on medical uses between insurance types. Negative binomial regression provided that insurance types, Elixhauser comorbidity index, and number of doctors per 50 beds were significant on the length of stay. CONCLUSION: This study provided that the service uses, especially length of stay, were differed by insurance types. Health policy makers will be required to prepare interventions to narrow the gap of the service uses between NHI and MA.
Comorbidity ; Health Policy ; Heart Failure* ; Heart* ; Humans ; Inpatients* ; Insurance* ; Insurance, Health ; Length of Stay ; National Health Programs ; Propensity Score*

The Cognitive-Behavioral Therapy for Insomnia (CBT-I) is an important and effective treatment for insomnia patients. However, it is not easy for most general practitioners to learn and practice CBT-I, and it is popular to prescribe sleeping pills to insomnia patients in clinical practice. In the case, we need to consider the factors which can influence the effect of sleeping pills to prescribe sleeping pills appropriately and safely with the lowest dosage. Age, gender, medical or psychiatric comorbid disease, workplace, or sleep environment may affect the patients' satisfaction with their sleeping pills. Physician should know about the mechanism of action of each sleeping pill and which type of sleeping pills needs to be prescribed to patients in each situation. Physician also needs to ask patients what time they took their sleeping pills and check whether patients followed physician's sleeping pills administration instruction or not. In this review, we want to discuss about optimizing the sleeping pills prescription to insomnia patients.
Drug Therapy ; General Practitioners ; Humans ; Hypnotics and Sedatives ; Prescriptions ; Sleep Initiation and Maintenance Disorders*

Background: Carvedilol is a beta-adrenergic receptor antagonist primarily metabolized by cytochromes P450 (CYP) 2D6. This study established a carvedilol population pharmacokinetic (PK)–pharmacodynamic (PD) model to describe the effects of CYP2D6 genetic polymorphisms on the inter-individual variability of PK and PD. Methods: The PK–PD model was developed from a clinical study conducted on 21 healthy subjects divided into three CYP2D6 phenotype groups, with six subjects in the extensive metabolizer (EM, *1/*1, *1/*2), seven in the intermediate metabolizer-1 (IM-1, *1/*10, *2/*10), and eight in the intermediate metabolizer-2 (IM-2, *10/*10) groups. The PK–PD model was sequentially developed, and the isoproterenol-induced heart rate changes were used to establish the PD model. A direct effect response and inhibitory E max model were used to develop a carvedilol PK–PD model. Results: The carvedilol PK was well described by a two-compartment model with zeroorder absorption, lag time, and first-order elimination. The carvedilol clearance in the CYP2D6*10/*10 group decreased by 32.8% compared with the other groups. The inhibitory concentration of carvedilol estimated from the final PK–PD model was 16.5 ng/mL regardless of the CYP2D6 phenotype. Conclusion The PK–PD model revealed that the CYP2D6 genetic polymorphisms were contributed to the inter-individual variability of carvedilol PK, but not PD.

Purpose: The purpose of this study was to estimate the medical expenditures for poisoning patients in Korea using data from National Health Insurance and the Korea Health Panel Survey. Methods: The operational definition of poisoning was the presence of Korean Standard Classification of Diseases codes from T36 to T65. The number of poisoning patients, the amount of legal copayments, and benefit and non-benefit costs were extracted from both databases. The frequency of emergency, inpatient, and outpatient treatment utilization by poisoning patients was determined, and medical expenses were calculated. Linear regression analyses were performed to investigate factors affecting the medical expenses of poisoning patients. Results: The number of poisoning patients increased from 97,965 in 2011 to 147,984 persons in 2020. Medical expenses also increased by 74% from Korean won (KRW) 30.1 billion to KRW 52.3 billion, and benefit costs also increased by 79%. The average outpatient cost per person was KRW 67,660, and the inpatient cost was KRW 1,485,103. The average non-benefit medical expenses were KRW 80,298, accounting for about 16.2% of the total expenses. Multivariable analysis showed that the total expenditure was associated with economic status and disabilities. Conclusion The average medical expenditure per poisoning patient was KRW 534,302 in 2020, and poisoning-related costs gradually increased during the study period. Further research on the economic burden of poisoning should include indirect costs and reflect disease-adjusted life years.

Purpose: This study was to review the previous studies on the ‘Willingness to Pay (WTP)' for healthcare services and suggest future implications for nursing research. Methods: Using the scoping review method, we used RISS, KISS, KMbase, Koreamed, PubMed, EMbase, CINAHL as searching engines. According to the selection and exclusion criteria, 40 appropriate studies were selected and analyzed. Results: 24 studies were categorized into medical service field among medical, public health, and nursing service fields. A total of 16 studies were related to healthcare system (policies), 13 studies were to the healthcare intervention, and 11 studies were categorized into the health management. Most of the methods for eliciting WTP (70%) were about a contingent valuation method (CVM), and the use of double bounded dichotomous choice (DBDC) tended to increase. In the nursing field, five WTP studies were identified: two studies published in the early years of 2000, which were conducted on hospital-based home health visit services. Recent studies were mostly about counseling and education by advanced practice nurses (APNs). Conclusion WTP studies on healthcare services were largely published from the medical fields and health policy areas with the CVM method. In the field of nursing, studies have been conducted on the subject of limited service areas. More active exploration of research topics is required, particularly under the current policy setting, where discussion of the public health insurance fee for nursing practice is essential.

Purpose: Given the morphological characteristics of schistocytes, thrombotic microangiopathy (TMA) score can be beneficial as it can be automatically and accurately measured. This study aimed to investigate whether serial TMA scores until 48 h post admission are associated with clinical outcomes in patients undergoing targeted temperature management (TTM) after out-of-hospital cardiac arrest (OHCA). Materials and Methods: We retrospectively evaluated a cohort of 185 patients using a prospective registry. We analyzed TMA scores at admission and after 12, 24, and 48 hours. The primary outcome measures were poor neurological outcome at discharge and 30-day mortality. Results: Increased TMA scores at all measured time points were independent predictors of poor neurological outcomes and 30-day mortality, with TMA score at time-12 showing the strongest correlation [odds ratio (OR), 3.008; 95% confidence interval (CI), 1.707–5.300; p<0.001 and hazard ratio (HR), 1.517; 95% CI, 1.196–1.925; p<0.001]. Specifically, a TMA score ≥2 at time-12 was closely associated with an increased predictability of poor neurological outcomes (OR, 6.302; 95% CI, 2.841–13.976; p<0.001) and 30-day mortality (HR, 2.656; 95% CI, 1.675–4.211; p<0.001). Conclusion Increased TMA scores predicted neurological outcomes and 30-day mortality in patients undergoing TTM after OHCA. In addition to the benefit of being serially measured using an automated hematology analyzer, TMA score may be a helpful tool for rapid risk stratification and identification of the need for intensive care in patients with return of spontaneous circulation after OHCA.

BACKGROUND: Accurate typing of Duffy blood group is important because anti-Duffy antibodies cause hemolytic transfusion reaction and hemolytic disease of the newborn. The aim of this study was to evaluate a new genotyping method using high resolution melting (HRM) analysis, a rapid and inexpensive approach for high-throughput Duffy genotyping. METHODS: A total of 20 unrelated Korean blood samples were obtained and an African-black sample was used for GATA control. Phenotyping was performed by hemagglutination (DiaMed AG, Switzerland). GATA and FYA/B PCR products were obtained by PCR-restriction fragment length polymorphism (RFLP) using Taq DNA polymerase (Promega, WI) and enzymes BanI and StyI (New England Biolab, UK). For HRM, PCR amplification was performed using LightCycler 480 ResoLight Dye (Roche, USA) and Lightcycer 480 (Roche, USA). RESULTS: Phenotyping and genotyping data using PCR-RFLP and HRM analysis were compared. Different types of HRM curves were obtained according to genotypes, FYA/FYA, FYB/FYB, and FYA/FYB, and to GATA mutations, homozygote FYB-33T (T/T), heterozygote FYB-33T/33C (T/C), and homozygote FYB-33C (C/C). Phenotypes 18 Fy(a+b-), 1 Fy(a+b+), 1 Fy(a-b+), and 1 Fy(a-b-) showed complete concordance with genotyping methods. Fy(a-b-) sample was found to be a FYB-33C homozygote by both genotyping methods. CONCLUSION: Phenotyping and genotyping showed concordant results and both genotyping methods using PCR-RFLP and HRM analysis showed good agreement in finding mutation in GATA and FY gene coding regions. HRM analysis is suitable and reliable for high-throughput screening for Duffy genotyping.
Antibodies ; Blood Group Antigens ; Blood Group Incompatibility ; Clinical Coding ; England ; Freezing ; Genotype ; Hemagglutination ; Heterozygote ; Homozygote ; Humans ; Infant, Newborn ; Mass Screening ; Phenotype ; Polymerase Chain Reaction ; Taq Polymerase

Purpose: Body adiposity is negatively correlated with hepatic iron status, and Korean pine nut oil (PNO) has been reported to reduce adiposity. Therefore, we aimed to study the effects of PNO on adiposity, hepatic mineral status, and the expression of genes and proteins involved in iron absorption. Methods: Five-week-old male C57BL/6 mice were fed a control diet containing 10% kcal from PNO (PC) or soybean oil (SBO; SC), or a high-fat diet (HFD) containing 35% kcal from lard and 10% kcal from PNO (PHFD) or SBO (SHFD). Hepatic iron, copper, and zinc content; and expression of genes and proteins related to iron absorption were measured. Results: HFD-fed mice had a higher white fat mass (2-fold; p < 0.001), lower hepatic iron content (25% lower; p < 0.001), and lower hepatic Hamp (p = 0.028) and duodenal Dcytb mRNA levels (p = 0.037) compared to the control diet-fed mice. Hepatic iron status was negatively correlated with body weight (r = −0.607, p < 0.001) and white fat mass (r = −0.745, p < 0.001). Although the PHFD group gained less body weight (18% less; p < 0.05) and white fat mass (18% less; p < 0.05) than the SHFD group, the hepatic iron status impaired by the HFD feeding did not improve. The expression of hepatic and duodenal ferroportin protein was not affected by the fat amount or the oil type. PNO-fed mice had significantly lower Slc11a2 (p = 0.022) and Slc40a1 expression (p = 0.027) compared to SBO-fed mice. However, the PC group had a higher Heph expression than the SC group (p < 0.05). The hepatic copper and zinc content did not differ between the four diet groups, but hepatic copper content adjusted by body weight was significantly lower in the HFD-fed mice compared to the control diet-fed mice. Conclusion HFD-induced obesity decreased hepatic iron storage by affecting the regulation of genes related to iron absorption; however, the 18% less white fat mass in the PHFD group was not enough to improve the iron status compared to the SHFD group. The hepatic copper and zinc status was not altered by the fat amount or the oil type.

The aim of this study was to assess the occlusal relationships of primary dentition of Korean preschool children in Hwaseong city.
Total 444 children of age group between 2 and 5 years were selected. One pediatric dentist took intraoral photos of children. Evaluation and categorization of the primary molar relationships were done by single examiner. Statistical analysis was performed with Pearson chi-squared test.
Total 389 samples, which is consisted of 185 boys, 204 girls were satisfied with inclusion criteria. Bilateral mesial step was seen in 61.7%. Bilateral flush terminal plane was seen in 15.4%. When the primary molar relations of the right and left sides were not the same, the combination of the mesial step and flush terminal plane was 14.7%.
The present study provides insight into occlusal relationships in the primary dentition of 2 - 5 years old of Korean children in Hwaseong city. Pediatric dentists should understand occlusal relationships of primary dentition for establishment of appropriate treatment strategies and occlusal guidance.