PURPOSE: The purpose of this study was to examine the relationship between perceived work environment and workplace bullying among Korean intensive care units (ICU) nurses. METHODS: This is a descriptive survey research, with 134 ICU nurses from five hospitals in Korea. The work environment was measured by the Korean Nursing Work Environment Scale. Workplace bullying was measured with the Korean version of the Negative Acts Questionnaire-Revised. RESULTS: ICU nurses reported moderate satisfaction with their work environment, with perception of the basic work system receiving the highest scores. A total of 94.0% of ICU nurses have experienced at least one negative act within the past 6 months, and the prevalence of bullying was 17.2% according to operational bullying criteria. The ICU nurses reported that they experienced more work-related bullying than other types of bullying. Significant negative correlations between the nursing work environment and workplace bullying were found. CONCLUSION: These findings indicate that the better the nursing work environment, the less workplace bullying nurses will experience. Further research needs to be done to identify factors that influence bullying in the nurses and to develop an intervention that prevents workplace bullying.
Bullying* ; Intensive Care Units* ; Korea ; Nursing ; Prevalence

PURPOSE: The purpose of this study was to analyze effects of cardiovascular disease prevention in small scale enterprise using community-based approach. METHOD: The target work site included 4,050 small scale enterprises which were under 50 in non-manufacturing workplace and total 20,986 employees were enrolled. Data collection was conducted from March to December, 2008 by 46 occupational health nurses who were registered in Korean Association of Occupational Health Nurses. RESULTS: The rate of smoking was decreased from 39.9% to 34.6%, and normal BMI group was increased from 61.6% to 64.0%. Evaluation of post-intervention blood pressure(BP) outcomes revealed that significant reductions in systolic BP and diastolic BP(3.25mmHg and 1.89mmHg, respectively) were achieved. In addition, the amount of reduction in total cholesterol level was 180.89+/-28.22mg/dL at pre-ntervention and 177.71+/-24.73mg/dL at post-intervention. CONCLUSION: Cardiovascular prevention program by community-based approach was an effective strategy for quitting smoking and improving BMI, BP, and cholesterol control.
Cardiovascular Diseases ; Cholesterol ; Data Collection ; Health Promotion ; Occupational Health ; Smoke ; Smoking ; Workplace

OBJECTIVE: Occupational medicine specialists in the Busan, Ulsan and Kyung-Nam areas established an area-based occupational disease surveillance system and used this system to collected case information for the purpose of preventing occupational diseases METHODS: 11 hospitals participated in this system. The authors selected five main diseases, which were hand-arm vibration syndrome (HAVS), work-related musculoskeletal disorder (WRMSD), occupational asthma, occupational skin disease and occupational lung cancer and established their case definitions. All cases were reported on the web, and real time analysis was conducted. RESULTS: Between Apri1 2001 and April 2003, 192 cases of HAVS, 118 cases of WRMSD, 33 cases of occupational asthma, 17 cases of occupational skin disease and 17 cases of occupational lung cancer (for a total of 377 cases of these five main diseases) were reported. Most of the HAVS cases came from shipbuilding, and 172 of them (92.7 %) were associated with grinding. Of the four main types of WRMSD, carpal tunnel syndrome (CTS) was the most prevalent with 46 cases and shipbuilding was also the main industry involved (83.9 %). The ergonomic risk factors involved mainly associated with the hand. In 19 (57.6 %) and 4 (12.1 %) cases of occupational asthma, the agents included isocyanate and welding fume, respectively. 64.7 % of the cases of occupational skin diseases were contact dermatitis, and organic solvents and welding fume were the main agents involved. The causative agents of occupational lung cancer included Cr, welding fume, PAH, Ni, etc. 10 (58.8 %) of the cases were diagnosed as squamous cell carcinoma and 5 (29.4 %) as adenoma. CONCLUSION: This result showed that an area-based occupational disease surveillance system might provide an effective method of evaluating the prevalence of such diseases, however the Busan, Ulsan and Kyung-Nam provinces are too large to be treated as individual areas. Therefore, the authors suggest that each province should establish its own surveillance system.
Adenoma ; Asthma, Occupational ; Busan* ; Carcinoma, Squamous Cell ; Carpal Tunnel Syndrome ; Dermatitis, Contact ; Hand ; Hand-Arm Vibration Syndrome ; Lung Neoplasms ; Occupational Diseases* ; Occupational Medicine ; Prevalence ; Risk Factors ; Skin Diseases ; Solvents ; Specialization ; Ulsan* ; Welding