PURPOSE: To evaluate the effectiveness of an experience-focused prenatal program on stress, anxiety, childbirth confidence, and maternal-fetal attachment for women in their first pregnancy. METHODS: The participants were 57 pregnant women at 32 weeks or more of a first pregnancy who agreed to participate in this study. The data were analyzed with descriptive statistics, t-test, χ2 test, and Fisher's exact test using the SPSS 21.0 program. RESULTS: The experimental group showed significant differences in stress, anxiety, childbirth confidence, and maternal-fetal attachment from the control group. CONCLUSION: The four-week experience-focused prenatal program can be used for women in their first pregnancy to reduce their stress and anxiety and to increase their childbirth confidence and maternal- fetal attachment.
Anxiety* ; Female ; Humans ; Parturition* ; Pregnancy* ; Pregnant Women

Purpose: This study aimed to analyze the tasks of midwives who lead natural childbirth in hospitals using the DACUM technique. Methods: Data were collected from 42 hospital midwives between August 23 to October 12, 2022, and the importance, frequency, and professional difficulty of hospital midwives' tasks were assessed. The collected data were analysed using the IBM SPSS Statistics ver. 22.0 program as the average and standard deviation for the importance, difficulty, and frequency of performance the analyzed tasks. The importance, difficulty, and frequency of performance each task were indicated as high, medium, or low,; furthermore, the importance and difficulty were multiplied and analyzed using the coefficient of determination.Result: Midwives’ tasks in natural childbirth in hospitals were classified into 8 duties, 138 tasks, and 49 task elements. Duties were classified into ‘before childbirth,’ ‘during childbirth,’ ‘after childbirth,’ ‘management of high-risk pregnant women,’ ‘goods management,’ ‘administrative work,’ ‘self-development,’ and ‘newborn care.’ The most important and difficult tasks with the highest coefficient of determination were performing neonatal resuscitation if necessary (11.25), transporting and managing emergency patients (10.46), requesting hospitals to transfer patients in case of emergency (10.43), and transferring patients to a tertiary hospital in case of maternal of neonatal emergency (10.30). Conclusion In this novel study in Korea, the role of a midwife in a hospital for natural childbirth were defined, and task according to duties were analyzed.

Purpose: To analyze the incidence and treatment costs associated with vision-threatening diabetic retinopathy (VTDR) in type 2 diabetes and to predict future VTDR populations and treatment expenditures. Methods: Using the data from the National Health Insurance Service from 2006 to 2017, we analyzed VTDR treatment costs by year, sex, and age. Based on the results and changes in future population distributions, we estimated the future number and cost of treatments for VTDR. Results: The number of treatments increased by 2.5-fold from 37,634 in 2006 to 96,214 in 2017, and treatment costs increased 3.4-fold from $13,528,587 in 2006 to $45,643,561 in 2017. When analyzed by year, age, and sex, all showed an increasing trend. Future number of treatments was estimated to increase from approximately 96,000 in 2017 to 220,000 by 2030 and treatment costs were projected to increase by 129% from about $45,643,561 in 2017 to about $1,043,055,262 by 2030. Conclusions As the incidence of VTDR rises due to an aging population and the frequency of intravitreal injections increases due to insurance reimbursement, future treatment expenditures for VTDR are expected to increase as well. Therefore, appropriate policies must be put in place now to secure medical and financial resources to manage VTDR and reduce medical expenditures in the future.

BACKGROUND/OBJECTIVES: The Seoul Metabolic Syndrome Management (SMESY) program is a 1-yr lifestyle modification program targeting metabolic syndrome (MetS) in Seoul residents. This study investigated the associations between adherence to dietary guidelines and MetS among the SMESY program participants. SUBJECTS/METHODS: Data of 54,385 participants aged 20–64 yrs who completed the SMESY program in 2015, had information on adherence to dietary guidelines, and were not medicated for diabetes, hypertension, or dyslipidemia were analyzed. Participants underwent MetS screening and completed a lifestyle questionnaire including adherence to 10 dietary guidelines before and after participation. Participants were classified according to the number of MetS risk factors at baseline (MetS group, ≥ 3; risk group, 1–2; healthy group, none). Adherence to dietary guidelines was determined from the number of “yes” responses regarding the fulfillment of each guideline on ≥ 5 days/week. Multiple logistic regression was used to evaluate associations between newly diagnosed MetS and changes in adherence to dietary guidelines. RESULTS: In the MetS group, MetS prevalence decreased after the SMESY program (men, −41.9%p; women, −48.7%p), and all risk factors were significantly improved (P < 0.0001). All groups exhibited improved adherence to all dietary guidelines after participation (P < 0.0001). In the MetS group with positively changed adherence scores, the MetS prevalence decreased by −44.1%p for men and −49.5%p for women, whereas the prevalence in those with negative changes decreased by −38.1%p for men and −48.6%p for women. In the risk group, those with positively changed adherence scores had significantly decreased odds ratios (ORs) for newly diagnosed MetS compared with those with negative changes (OR, 0.70; 95% confidence interval [CI], 0.61–0.80 for men; OR, 0.88; 95% CI, 0.79–0.99 for women). CONCLUSIONS The SMESY program may effectively reduce the risk of MetS among adults with risk factors by improving adherence to dietary guidelines.

PURPOSE: The increasing prevalence and global spread of carbapenem-resistant Acinetobacter baumannii (A. baumannii) has become a serious problem. The aim of this study was to investigate molecular and epidemiological characteristics of carbapenem-resistant A. baumannii isolates collected from Korean non-tertiary hospitals. MATERIALS AND METHODS: Thirty six non-duplicated carbapenem-resistant A. baumannii isolates were collected from 17 non-tertiary hospitals in Korea between 2004 and 2006. Isolates were typed by multilocus sequence typing and repetitive-sequence-based PCR (rep-PCR). Detection of genes encoding OXA carbapenemase and their relationship with ISAba1 was performed by PCR. RESULTS: Two clones were prevalent among 36 isolates: ST69 (17 isolates, 47.2%) and ST92 (19 isolates, 52.8%). Rep-PCR patterns were diverse and revealed that all isolates were clustered into eight band patterns. The ISAba1-activated blaOXA-23-like and ISAba1-activated blaOXA-51-like genes were prevalent among the carbapenem-resistant A. baumannii isolates. CONCLUSION: The class D beta-lactamase genes of A. baumannii were distributed nationwide in non-tertiary Korean hospitals.
Acinetobacter Infections/epidemiology/*microbiology ; Acinetobacter baumannii/classification/*genetics ; Anti-Bacterial Agents/therapeutic use ; Bacterial Typing Techniques ; Carbapenems/*therapeutic use ; DNA, Bacterial/analysis ; *Drug Resistance, Bacterial ; Hospitals ; Humans ; Microbial Sensitivity Tests ; Molecular Epidemiology ; Multilocus Sequence Typing ; Polymerase Chain Reaction ; Prevalence ; Republic of Korea ; beta-Lactamases/genetics