The Effectiveness of an Intervention Program for Subway Operators for Symptoms of Post-traumatic Stress Disorder After the Persons Had Fallen Under a Train / 대한산업의학회지

OBJECTIVE: The aims of this study were to evaluate the level of job stress in subway workers and to determine the main factors that aggravated their PTSD(Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder) symptom, which were due to having fallen under a train, and to verify the effectiveness of the intervention program. METHODS: The questionnaires utilized in the survey were composed of the Korean Occupational Stress Scale (the short form, 24 items), the depression scale, the coping scale II, the PTSD scale and the life style, health status and occupational properties. The intervention program for PTSD symptoms was executed for 18 subway operators who had experienced deadly accidents in their service from June 2004 to May 2006. The intervention programs included exercise, meditation and deep breathing for 8 weeks and a written message was sent twice per week. RESULTS: Compared with pre-intervention, the post-intervention group showed significantly lower scores for the KOSS, depressive symptom and the PTSD. CONCLUSION: This study showed the intervention program was effective to lower the job stress, the PTSD symptoms and depressive symptoms, and to improve the coping skills. It was suggested that the mental health promotion program should be implemented for subway workers to prevent occupational mental diseases.

The Relationship Between Job Stress and Quality of Life for Hospital Workers by Type of Employment / 대한산업의학회지

OBJECTIVE: This study was conducted to evaluate the relationship between job stress and quality of life for hospital workers by type of employment. METHODS: Data were obtained for 361 workers in a large hospital 172 of whom were categorized as typical workers defined by permanent employee and 189 of whom were categorized as atypical workers defined by fixed-term contraction. Job stress was assessed using the Korean Occupational Stress Scale-Short Form and the World Health Organization Quality of Life-BREF Questionnaire RESULTS: Atypical workers had significantly higher scores for job-related stress in the domains of insufficient control, over work, job insecurity, and lack of reward in the workplace compared with typical workers, who had higher scores for stress in the domains of job demands and occupational climate. Test scores also indicated that typical workers had a significantly better quality of life than atypical workers, especially in terms of mental health, social relationships and environment. CONCLUSION: These findings suggested that factors contributing to job-related stress were different between typical and atypical hospital and typical workers are likely to have a better quality of life.

Association of Current and Past Smoking with Metabolic Syndrome in Men / 예방의학회지

OBJECTIVES: The objective of this study was to determine the relationship between past smoking and the risk factors for metabolic syndrome. METHODS: From January 2007 to December 2007, a total of 3,916 over thirty years old male health screen examinees were divided into the nonsmoking, smoking, ex-smoking groups. The diagnosis of metabolic syndrome was based on the criteria of the NCEP ATP (Executive Summary of The Third Report of The National Cholesterol Education Program). Metabolic syndrome was defined as the presence of three or more of the following: a blood pressure > or = 130/85 mmHg, a fasting glucose level > or = 110 mg/dL, a HDL-C (High Density Lipoprotein Cholesterol) level or = 150 mg/dL and, a waist circumference men > or = 102 cm, but a waist to hip ratio > 0.90 was used as a surrogate for the waist circumference. RESULTS: After adjustment for age, alcohol consumption and, exercise in the smokers, for the ex-smokers compared with the nonsmokers, the odds ratio (OR) of a lower HDL cholesterol level (< 40 mg/dL) was 1.29 (95% CI=1.03-1.61) in the smokers, the ORs of a higher triglyceride level were 1.35 (95% CI=1.09-1.66) in the ex-smokers and, 2.12 (95% CI=1.75-2.57) in the smokers, and the OR of a waist to hip ratio was 1.25 (95% CI=1.03-1.52) in the ex-smokers. When there were over three components of metabolic syndrome in the ex-smokers and smokers as compared with the nonsmokers, the odds ratio against the risk of metabolic syndrome were 2.39 (95% CI=1.00-6.63) and 2.37 (95% CI=1.02-6.46), respectively. CONCLUSIONS: The present study suggested that there is an association of smoking with metabolic syndrome in men.

Awareness and Attitude Toward Suicide in Community Mental Health Professionals and Hospital Workers / 예방의학회지

OBJECTIVES: The purpose of this study was to evaluate community mental health professionals and hospital workers attitude and awareness towards suicide. METHODS: This study investigated 264 community mental health professionals and 228 hospital workers. SOQs (Suicidal Opinion Questionnaires) were used from July 2007 to September 2007. After a factor analysis for the attitude towards suicide, the items on ethics, mental illness, religion, risk, and motivation were included in the subsequent analysis. RESULTS: There were significant differences in the attitude towards suicide according to religion, age, educational background, the marriage status, the economic position, and different professional licenses. Hospital workers' view was different from the community workers'. The hospital workers judged that suicide was due to mental illness, and suicide was high for the people in a special environment and who lacked motivation, which caused them to fall in a dangerous situation. For the lower educational group, they thought that suicide was attributable to mental illness. The awareness for suicide was significantly higher in the group with a postgraduate education, unmarried people, mental health professionals and the persons who had concern and experience with suicide. The factors that had an influence on the awareness of suicide were the items of mental illness, religion, risk and motivational factors. CONCLUSIONS: This study suggested that the factors to increase the awareness and attitude for suicide were the experience of increased education and case management of suicide. Therefore, education dealing with suicide and reinforcement of crisis management programs should be developed.

The Association of Cardiovascular Risk Factors with Nonalcoholic Fatty Liver Disease in Health Checkup Examinees / 예방의학회지

OBJECTIVES: The purpose of this study was to evaluate the relationship of nonalcoholic fatty liver and cardiovascular risk factors. METHODS: This study was conducted to investigate the association of nonalcoholic fatty liver and cardiovascular risk factors for adult men (n=2976) and women (n=2442) who were over 19 years old, after excluding the HBsAg(+) or anti-HCV(+) patients and the men and women with increased alcohol intake (men: 40 g/week, women: 20 g/week). RESULTS: Compared with the normal liver subjects, the nonalcoholic fatty liver subjects showed a significantly increased frequency of abnormal systolic blood pressure (> or =120 mmHg), fasting blood sugar (> or =100 mg/dL), total cholesterol (> or =200 mg/dL), triglyceride (> or =150 mg/dL), high density lipoprotein cholesterol ( or =130g m/dL) and abdominal obesity in men, and all these measures were significantly increased in the women except for abnormal HDL cholesterol. After adjusting for the body mass index, age, smoking, exercise and a nonalcoholic liver, the odds ratios of an abnormal waist hip ratio were 1.35(95% Confidence Interval=1.05-4.72) in the mild fatty liver, 1.61(1.19-2.18) in the moderate fatty liver, 2.77(1.57-4.92) in the severe fatty liver compared with a normal liver. The adjusted odds ratios for abnormal fasting blood sugar were 1.26(1.03-1.53) in the mild fatty liver, 1.62(1.27-2.06) in the moderate fatty lliver and 1.77(1.12-2.78) in the severe fatty liver. The adjusted odds ratios for abnormal triglyceride were 1.38(1.11-1.72) in the mild fatty liver, 1.73(0.33-2.24) in the moderate fatty liver and 1.91(1.17-3.10) in the severe fatty liver of men. Adjusted odds ratios for abnormal triglyceride were 1.50(1.04-2.15) in mild, 1.71(1.07-2.68) in moderate, 1.81(0.69-4.38) in severe fatty liver of women. CONCLUSIONS: The nonalcoholic fatty liver subjects had more cardiovascular risk factors compared with the normal liver subjects. Thus, prevention and treatment of the nonalcoholic fatty liver is necessary by lifestyle modifications such as restriction of alcohol intake, no smoking, exercise and adequate eating habits.

The Change of Non-smoking Knowledge and Attitude of Intensive Course of Anti-smoking Leadership Training / 대한산업의학회지

OBJECTIVES: To evaluate the effectiveness of an anti-smoking readership training program on the knowledge, attitude and practice in health managers and supervisors in the workplace. METHODS: We surveyed 482 health managers and supervisors in the workplace from April 2005 to September 2005. The questionnaire included whether or not a smoking cessation program was conducted in their workplace. We assessed before and after educations program about knowledge, attitude and practice for smoking cessation. The 10-hour education program included the benefit of quit smoking, the law for smoking restriction, cognitive therapy, stress management, nicotine addiction, replacement therapy, case study about workplace for anti-smoking policy and program. RESULTS: For the change in the mean scores of all items in knowledge, attitude and practice were significantly increased after the intervention. CONCLUSION: Even a short, 10-hour intervention course of anti-smoking leadership training program was effective for improving the knowledge, attitude, practice to quit smoking activity in workplace. Nevertheless, the program effectiveness would be increased by including a re-training course and website support.

A Study on the Relation of BMI to Lipid Metabolism and Health Promoting Behavior in Middle-Aged Women

PURPOSE: This study examined the relation of BMI to lipid metabolism and health promoting behavior in middle-aged women. METHODS: The subjects were 113 women between 40 to 60 years of age. The data was collected from April 2003 to July 2004. BMI was measured using body composition analyzer and lipid metabolism were measured using automatic biochemical analyzer. Health promoting behavior was collected using a structured questionnaire. The SPSSWIN(10.0 version) program was used to analyze the data and get the descriptive statistics and Pearson's correlation coefficients. RESULTS: BMI was negatively correlated with HDL-c and positively correlated with triglyceride, but there was no significance between BMI and total cholesterol. There was no significance of correlation between BMI and total health-promoting behavior. CONCLUSION: This study showed that BMI is meaningful in the identification of the high risk women to prevent HDL-c & triglyceride metabolism disturbance, but additional research is needed to study the correlation between BMI and health promoting behaviors in middle-aged women.

The Effect of Foot Massage on Stress in Student Nurses in Clinical Practice / 기본간호학회지

The purpose of this study was to identify the effects of foot massage on the stress of student nurses in clinical practice. The research design was a nonequivalent control group pretest-posttest design. The subjects of this study were 52 student nurses from three junior colleges and one university. The subjects were assigned to one of two groups:the experimental group(26 students), and the control group(26 students). The study was conducted from October to November 1999. For the experimental group the foot massage was performed once a day for 3 days, starting from the first day of clinical practice. Subjects' mood, fatigue, blood pressure and pulse rate were measured as dependent variables. The Instrument for mood and fatigue state was a 100mm visual analogue scale. For the experimental group pre and post tests were done just before and after every 3 foot massages and on the 7th clinical practice day. For the control group pretest was done on 1st clinical day and posttest was done on clinical practice 7th day. The data was analyzed by the t-test and paired t-test and the results are summarized as follows: 1. The mood state scores were significantly higher for the experimental group as compared to the control group after the foot massage(t=13.73, p<0.001). 2. The fatigue state scores were significantly lower for the experimental group as compared to the control group after the foot massage(t=8.69, p<0.001). 3. The systolic blood pressure was significantly different between the experimental group and the control group after the foot massage(t=3.0073, p<0.01). 4. The diastolic blood pressure was not significantly different between the experiment group and the control group after the foot massage. 5. The pulse rate was not significantly different between the experiment group and the control group after foot massage. 6. The mood state scores on the 1st, 2nd, 3rd massage day was significantly improved right after the foot massage. 7. The fatigue state scores on the 1st, 2nd, 3rd massage day were significantly lower right after the foot massage. 8. Systolic blood pressure on the 1st and 2nd massage day was significantly decreased right after the foot massage. Diastolic blood pressure and pulse rate were decreased right after massage but the change was not statistically significant. On the basis of the above findings, this study suggests that foot massage can be an effective stress relieving method for student nurses in clinical practice.