Development and Effectiveness of the Interpersonal Caring Program for Young North Korean Defectors

ABSTRACT

Purpose@#The purpose of this study is to evaluate the effectiveness of the interpersonal caring program for young North Korean defectors which we developed based on Kim's interpersonal caring technique. @*Methods@#This study employs a non-equivalent control group pretest-posttest design. The subjects of this study are 36 young North Korean defectors living in three areas. The participants are recruited through alternative schools, churches, and acquaintances. The experimental group consists of 20 participants and the control group consists of 16 participants. Experiments are conducted by four days. Specifically, the experiments are conducted eight times and each takes about 120 minutes. Furthermore, we run the camp for two nights and three days. We test our hypothesis by using Kolmogorov-Smirnov, Independent t-test, Paired t-test, and Independent t-test. @*Results@#All the test statistics support our hypotheses such as self-esteem (t=1.87, p=.035), mental health (t=-1.69, p=.049), interpersonal relationships (t=1.93, p=.031), and quality of life (t=1.88, p=.034). @*Conclusion@#We found that the interpersonal caring program developed in this study is effective in improving North Korean defectors’ self-esteem, mental health, interpersonal relationships, and quality of life.