Purpose: This study was conducted with a focus group interview that drew out experiences, limitations, and difficulties in the workplace according to the employment conditions of visiting nurses in the public health centers. Methods: A total of 12 visiting nurses are those working in the public sector in Seoul and Gyeonggi province who were willing to participate in the interview. Analysis categories and coding were divided into three categories: compensation system, occupational status, and opinions to improve their treatment. Using the content analysis method, the current working status and compensation system of visiting nurses were described. Results: The main themes derived from the significant statements of visiting nurses were ‘Ten years of frozen salary system’, ‘Full-time workers of their own league’, ‘Excluded from performance benefits’, ‘Every visiting nurses are virtually precarious’, ‘Experience of exclusion and discrimination’, and ‘Reasons and barriers to be a full-time worker’. All of the visiting nurses working in the community insisted on having equal treatment for work of equal value. Visiting nurses in the public health sector wanted to be set to the same payment system and the fair allowance system as well. It is necessary to continuously seek solutions to the problems left in insisting on the civil service of visiting nurses. Conclusion Visiting nurses who were working in a precarious job position felt job insecurity, and experienced discrimination, alienation, and exclusion. Legal and institutional reform is needed to improve the treatment of visiting nurses.

Purpose: A care coordinator is an emerging nursing professional role in South Korea. The purpose of this study was to identify educational needs and priorities for care coordinators among nurses. Methods: An online survey was conducted on 661 current or retired nurses from January 30 to February 28, 2021. A total of 17 essential competencies for care coordinators, recognized based on literature review, were used to analyze the educational needs. The data were analyzed using descriptive statistics, a paired t-test, and one-way analysis of variance with SPSS 25.0. The educational needs analysis was conducted by using a paired t-test, the Borich Needs Assessment Model, and the Locus for Focus Model. Results: Five contents were identified as the first priorities for educational needs: ‘Health program planning and evaluation’, ‘Care planning’, ‘Coordinating community-based services’, ‘Case management’, and ‘Transitional care’. The second priorities for educational needs included 'Population health management' and'Welfare resource linkages via communicating with social workers’. Conclusion The priority items derived from this study offer underpinning insights for the development of care coordination training program.

Background: This study investigated the demand for and awareness of a primary healthcare pilot project for people with disabilities; it also sought to identify relevant determinants for demand and awareness using Andersen’s behavioral model of health service use. Methods: This study is a secondary analysis of data from the population-based survey conducted in Gyeonggi Regional Health & Medical Center for People with Disabilities. The data was designed with quota random sampling based on the population with disabilities in each district (city [si] and county [gun]) across the Gyeonggi province (do) to evaluate the health and healthcare accessibility of the disabled people living in the Gyeonggi province. The data was collected through the mobile-based survey of 1,140 people with disabilities living in Gyeonggi-do between March 2021 and June 2021. Results: Awareness of the service (12.1%) was remarkably low, while the demand (80.5%) was high. The gap between respondents who needed the service but were unaware of it differed according to age, education, activities of daily living, health information sources, chronic disease, depression, subjective health status, and unmet healthcare needs. Chronic disease (odds ratio [OR], 1.86; P = 0.001) and an unmet need for medical care (OR, 2.30;P= 0.002) had significant influences on demand for the service. Furthermore, living alone (OR, 0.42; P = 0.023), medical aid program beneficiary status (OR, 2.10; P = 0.020), access to health information from health service centers (OR, 4.00; P = 0.002), chronic disease (OR, 1.68; P = 0.043), severity of disability (OR, 1.78; P = 0.025), and subjective health status (OR, 4.51; P < 0.001) significantly affected awareness of the program. Conclusion Chronic disease and an unmet need for medical care were key determinants of service demand, while the severity of disability was not. Thus, there is a need to review the initiative that defines service beneficiaries as people with severe disabilities. Policy makers should consider advertising programs to improve service awareness among people with disabilities.

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.

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.

Background: Since the recently announced Community Care Policy, there has been an opinion that Korea needs to establish an alternative medical model such as physician home visits. This study aimed to assess the need and willingness to pay (WTP) for physician home visits among the community-dwelling Korean older population and to determine the most important factors that influence older adults to decide to use a physician home visit service. Methods: A total of 797 people aged 60 years or older who were randomly selected from a nationwide dataset using a multi-stage stratified sampling method answered a questionnaire on the need and WTP for physician home visits. Results: A total of 39.3% of participants reported that they would like a physician home visit when they need help. Among older adults who needed physician home visits (n = 313), the WTP amount for physician home visits was 21,982 ± 17,546 KRW. Logit and Tobit regression analyses showed that the higher valuated need and WTP for physician home visits was associated with a lower level of physical/psychosocial functioning measured by EuroQol-five dimensions score (odds ratio [OR], 1.13; 95% confidence interval [CI], 1.01–1.27; P = 0.035) and a higher level of satisfaction when using community-based services such as public health centers (OR, 1.32; 95% CI, 1.02–1.72; P = 0.034), social welfare centers and Gyeong-ro-dang (OR, 1.61; 95% CI, 1.04–2.50; P = 0.033; β = 8.39; standard error, 3.63; P = 0.021). Conclusion This study provides evidence that the decision to pay for a physician home visit service is based upon the complex interactions among an individual's physical and psychosocial functioning, personal experiences of service utilization, and demographic factors. The value for physician home visits should be qualified based on the empirical data of WTP, which comes from a consumer-centered perspective.

BACKGROUND: This prospective cohort study used nationwide claims data to investigate the incidence of fall and fragility fractures in association with urinary incontinence (UI) in the elderly, and to compare mortality after fragility fractures in elderly patients with or without incontinence. METHODS: A total of 39,854 Korean adults (age, 66–80 years) who participated in health examinations between 2007 and 2012 and were followed up until 2015 were analyzed. Patient and comparison groups were classified according to the presence or absence of UI. The cumulative incidence of osteoporotic fragility fractures and falls in the 2 groups was assessed and compared. Hazard ratios for fragility fractures were calculated for the risk of UI in association with falls using a Cox proportional hazards model. RESULTS: Of 39,854 elderly participants, 5,703 were classified in the UI group, while 34,151 were placed in the comparison group. Fall rates were significantly higher (20.8%) in the incontinence group than in the comparison group (4.7%) (P < 0.001). Women in the incontinence group (13.9%) showed a significantly higher incidence of all types of fragility fractures than those in the comparison group (11.8%) (P=0.005). After adjustment for confounders, UI was not a significant risk factor for fragility fractures in men (P=0.878) or women (P=0.324). CONCLUSIONS: This study demonstrated that elderly women with UI have a significantly higher incidence of osteoporotic fragility fractures. In addition, elderly women are at higher risk for falls.
Accidental Falls ; Adult ; Aged* ; Cohort Studies* ; Female ; Humans ; Incidence ; Male ; Mortality ; Osteoporotic Fractures ; Proportional Hazards Models ; Prospective Studies ; Risk Factors ; Urinary Incontinence

PURPOSE: Health careeassociated infections increase disease prevalence and mortality and are the main reason for the hospitalization of the elderly. However, the management of underlying infections in patients hospitalized in long-term care hospitals (LTCHs) is insufficient, and the transfer of these poorly managed patients to the emergency room (ER) of an acute care hospital can lead to rapid spread of infection. This study investigated the risk factors associated with an ER visit due to infections that developed in LTCHs. METHODS: The electronic medical records of patients who were transferred to the ER of a university hospital in South Korea were used. Infection prevalence, causative infectious agent, and antibiotic sensitivity were assessed. The associations between patient characteristics and hospital-associated infections were examined using multiple logistic regression analyses. RESULTS: Among the 483 patients transferred to the ER during the study period, the number of infection cases was 197, and 171 individuals (35.4%) had one or more infections, with pneumonia being the most common (52.8%), followed by urinary tract (21.3%) and bloodstream (17.8%) infections. Patients with bedsores, fever, an indwelling catheter, and a higher nursing need were more likely to be seen in the ER because of infectious disease from an LTCH. CONCLUSION: Both an intensive care system and surveillance support should be established to prevent infections, particularly in high-risk patients at LTCHs.
Aged ; Catheters, Indwelling ; Communicable Diseases ; Critical Care ; Electronic Health Records ; Emergencies* ; Emergency Medical Services ; Emergency Service, Hospital* ; Fever ; Hospitalization ; Humans ; Infection Control ; Korea ; Logistic Models ; Long-Term Care* ; Medical Records* ; Mortality ; Nursing ; Pneumonia ; Pressure Ulcer ; Prevalence ; Retrospective Studies* ; Risk Factors ; Urinary Tract

OBJECTIVE: To investigate medical comorbidities and needs for medical and rehabilitation services of adults with cerebral palsy (CP) in Korea. METHODS: This was a prospective cross-sectional study. One hundred fifty-four adults with CP were enrolled in the study between February 2014 and December 2014. Information was obtained from participants regarding functional status, demographic and socioeconomic data, medical problems, and requirements for and utilization of medical and rehabilitation services. RESULTS: The participants included 93 males and 61 females with a mean age of 40.18±9.15 years. The medical check-up rate of adults with CP was lower than that of healthy adults and the total population with disabilities (53.2% vs. 58.6% vs. 70.4%). A quarter of the subjects failed to visit the hospital during the past year, and the main reason was the financial burden. Due to a cost burden and lack of knowledge, more than one-third of the subjects had unmet needs for rehabilitation services; the majority reported needs for rehabilitation services, such as physical therapy for pain management. CONCLUSION: The medical check-up rate was lower in the adults with CP, even though their medical comorbidities were not less than those of healthy people. Several non-medical reasons hindered them from receiving proper medical and rehabilitation services. Such barriers should be managed effectively.
Adult* ; Cerebral Palsy* ; Comorbidity ; Cross-Sectional Studies ; Female ; Humans ; Korea* ; Male ; Pain Management ; Prospective Studies ; Rehabilitation*

OBJECTIVES: This study was conducted to investigate the relationships among job stress, job satisfaction, and mental health in marine officers. METHODS: The researchers gathered data on marine officers working at a harbor in Chungcheong Province, South Korea, using a self-reported questionnaire. Mental health was measured by the Symptom Checklist-90-Revision (SCL-90-R), and general characteristics including socioeconomic factors, job stress, and job satisfaction were measured by structured questionnaires. Multiple regression analysis was performed to investigate the relationships among job stress, job satisfaction, and mental health status according to the symptom dimensions of the SCL-90-R. RESULTS: Among the marine officers, obsessive-compulsive behavior, depression, and somatization were the most problematic symptoms. Those who reported poor health, low job satisfaction, and high job stress had a higher prevalence of psychoticism, somatization, depression, anxiety, and phobic anxiety. CONCLUSIONS: An occupational health system should be introduced that would regularly check the mental health of marine officers in charge of ships and sailors, in order to help reduce their stress levels, enhance their job satisfaction, and thereby improve their mental health.
Anxiety ; Depression ; Humans ; Job Satisfaction* ; Korea ; Mental Health ; Military Personnel ; Occupational Health ; Prevalence ; Ships ; Socioeconomic Factors