Analyzing Korean Public Health Centers' Infectious Disease Disaster Response Experiences with a Focus on Business Continuity.

Objective: This study aims to provide basic data for establishing strategies to maintain the core functions of health centers, and enable an effective response to emergency tasks in the event of future infectious disease disasters. Methods: The participants were 41 workers from two public health centers in Seoul. They all had prior experience in responding to the early and middle stages of the COVID-19 pandemic. Data were collected through Focus Group Discussions, and then analyzed using the deductive method of content analysis. Results: The participants' experiences during the infectious disease disaster crisis were examined through ten categories: governance and coordination, information management, human resources, essential medical supplies and equipment, infrastructure, administration, finance and logistics, community engagement and risk communication, delivery of essential services, security, and additional considerations for vulnerable populations. The analysis of the results made it apparent that new systems and policies were imperative for responding appropriately to the concerns and experiences of the public healthcare center staff, and for improving the response to future epidemics. Conclusion: We found that to prepare for infectious disaster situations in the future, it is necessary for health centers to establish a mid- to long-term business continuity plan to ensure the continuation and stability of their operations. Additionally, it was found that health professionals in public health centers also believe in the necessity of education and training programs on disaster preparedness, based on Business Continuity Planning proposed by the World Health Organization. They deem these essential to sustain routine tasks for the management of the health of local community residents during outbreaks of novel infectious diseases in the future.

Development and evaluation of extracorporeal membrane oxygenation nursing education program for nursing students using virtual reality.

BACKGROUND: This study aims to improve nursing students' ability to care for critically ill patients through education in extracorporeal membrane oxygenation (ECMO) nursing. METHODS: This study developed a virtual reality (VR) simulation program for the five-step ECMO nursing of the Analysis, Design, Development, Implement, and Evaluation (ADDIE) model and used an equivalent control group pre-test and post-test no-synchronized design to verify the effect. The participants of this study were fourth-year nursing students enrolled in nursing departments at three universities in Seoul, Gangwon, and Gyeonggi in South Korea; it included 66 participants, 33 in each of the experimental and control groups. The program consisted of pre-training, orientation, VR simulation, and debriefing. RESULTS: The interaction effect of the intervention and control groups with time points using the ECMO nursing VR simulation program was rejected due to no statistically significant difference in knowledge (F = 1.41, p = .251), confidence (F = 1.97, p = .144), and clinical reasoning capacity (F = 2.85, p = .061). However, learning immersion (t = 3.97, p < .001) and learning satisfaction (t = 4.25, p < .001) were statistically significantly higher in the experimental group than in the control group. CONCLUSION: VR simulation program for ECMO nursing developed in this study is a potential educational method that positively affects the learning immersion and learning satisfaction of nursing students.

Topic Modeling Analysis of Diabetes-Related Health Information during the Coronavirus Disease Pandemic.

This study aimed to provide diabetes-related health information by analyzing queries posted in the diabetes-related online community required during the COVID-19 pandemic. A total of 9156 queries from the diabetes-related online community, dated between 1 December 2019 and 3 May 2022, were used in the study. The collected data were preprocessed for bidirectional encoder representation from transformer topic modeling analysis. Topics were extracted using the class-based term frequency-inverse document frequency for nouns and verbs. From the extracted verbs, words with common definitions were subject to substitution and unification processes, which enabled the identification of multifrequent verb categories by noun topics. The following nine noun topics were extracted, in this order: dietary management, drug management, gestational and childhood diabetes, management of diabetic complications, use and cost of medical treatment, blood glucose management, exercise treatment, COVID-19 vaccine and complications, and diabetes in older adults. The top three verb categories by noun topics were permission, method, and possibility. This study provided baseline data that can be used by clinical nurses to deliver diabetes-related education and management based on information sought by patients.

Depression with Chronic Disease Is Associated with Increased Use of Medical Services and Medical Expenses in Hardcore Smokers.

We aimed to investigate the association of chronic disease and depression with medical service use and expenses in hardcore smokers and provide basic data for health management system of hardcore smokers. This was a secondary data study involving 1735 smokers. Propensity score matching (PSM) was conducted to match hardcore smokers with regular smokers, and a two part model (TPM) was used based on the matched groups. In the case of general smokers, subjects with both depression and chronic disease had a significant relation to medical service use. In the case of hardcore smokers, subjects without depression and with chronic disease or with both depression and chronic disease had increased the use of medical services. The depression and chronic disease of general smokers did not affect the use of medical services. In the case of hardcore smokers, subjects who do not have depression and have only chronic disease (ß = 0.20, p = 0.002) or with depression and chronic disease (ß = 0.20, p = 0.014) significantly related the use of medical services. Conclusion: It is necessary to establish a health management system that considers both emotional states and chronic disease for hardcore smokers.

Ultrasound and MRI Findings of Giant Cell Fibroblastoma in the Abdominal Wall: Radiologic-Pathologic Correlations.

Giant cell fibroblastoma (GCF) is a rare soft-tissue sarcoma of fibroblastic origin. To the best of our knowledge, only one brief description of the MRI findings of GCF exists in the pathologic literature. Herein, we report a case of histologically proven GCF in a 3-year-old boy who underwent ultrasonography and MRI of a superficial mass in the abdominal wall.

Factors associated with electronic cigarette use among current cigarette-smoking adolescents in the Republic of Korea.

OBJECTIVE: Despite a rapid increase in electronic cigarette (e-cigarette) use and substantial dual use of cigarettes and e-cigarettes among adolescents, little is currently known about adolescent e-cigarette use. Thus, this study aimed to investigate (a) rates of e-cigarette use and (b) significant factors associated with e-cigarette use among current cigarette users in adolescence. METHODS: We analyzed secondary data collected from a nationally representative sample of Korean adolescents. Our study sample included 6307 current smokers. Our dependent variable was e-cigarette use and consisted of three categories (nonuse, former use, and current use); independent variables included demographics, perceived stress, parental and friends' smoking, three characteristics of cigarette smoking, and other health risk behaviors. Descriptive statistics was used for the first aim; multinomial logistic regression analysis was performed for the second aim. RESULTS: Of current cigarette users, 20% smoked e-cigarettes in their lifetime but not within the past 30days (former users), and 42% smoked e-cigarettes in their lifetime and within the past 30days (current users). Both former and current e-cigarette use were significantly associated with male gender, higher grades, higher weekly allowance, residence in urban areas, friends' smoking, daily smoking, a higher number of cigarettes smoked, and quit attempts. In addition, current e-cigarette use was significantly associated with at-risk drinking, lifetime drug use, and lifetime sexual intercourse. CONCLUSIONS: E-cigarette use should be included in intervention strategies for smoking prevention and cessation. Strict regulations should be implemented in order to prohibit easy access to e-cigarettes and forbid advertising of e-cigarettes as well.