The purpose of this study was to test the reliability and validity of an MIL instrument for adolescents.

The research design was a three-phase, methodological study. 1) The original 46 items of the Meaning in Life (MIL) Scale were reviewed and corrected partially by 20 adolescents. 2) The content was validated by an expert panel (n=15) and adolescents (n=5). 3) The instrument was validated by survey (n=468). Finally, 33 items were chosen for the adolescents meaning in life(AMIL) scale.

Cronbach's alpha coefficient of the 33 items was .92, confirming the high internal consistency of the instrument. 2) Eight factors were extracted through factor analysis: ‘experience of love’, ‘making efforts for goal’, ‘awareness of essential being’, ‘awareness of self limitation’, ‘feeling of satisfaction’, ‘relation experience’, ‘positive thinking’, and ‘hope’. These factors explained 58.26% of the total variance.

AMIL Scale was identified as a tool with a high degree of reliability and validity. The tool can therefore be effectively utilized to assess the degree of meaning of life in caring areas for adolescents. Studies on AMIL of different adolescent subjects are needed for further verification.

This study examined what characteristics and variables predict participation in support groups for women with breast cancer.

282 women with breast cancer from 4 hospitals located in Busan were included in the study. Data was measured on each participant from September 2006 to February 2007. Data was collected using structured researcheradministered sheets and analyzed by descriptive statistics, t-test, chi-square test and logistic regression analysis.

The clients reported medium levels of illness perception, anxiety and depression, stress with coping, social support and self-efficacy. 48.9% of women with breast cancer participated in support groups. Significant influencing factors on the participation in support groups were 'operation time(+)', 'illness perception(+)', 'social support(-)', and 'self-efficacy(+)' Those variables explained 73.4%.

It is necessary to develop a strategy or promoting program for promotion of illness perception and self-efficacy of women with breast cancer. Thus, it is essential to provide participation to a support group to a women with breast cancer.

This research was conducted to compare the effects of drug therapy, physical therapy, and exercise on pain, disability, and depression in patients with chronic low back pain.

The research design of this study was a nonequivalent control group pretest-posttest design. The subjects of this study were 28 patients for the drug therapy & physical therapy, 24 patients for the drug therapy & exercise, and 22 patients for the physical therapy & exercise. Data was collected by MVAS, Oswestry disability questionnaires, and questionnaires of depression. It was analyzed by paired t-test for effectiveness, ANOVA, and Scheffe for comparison of the effects of the 3 experimental treatments, using SPSS/WIN 12.0.

There were no effects of drug therapy & physical therapy on pain, disability, and depression. However, there were effects of drug therapy & exercise and the physical therapy & exercise on pain, disability, and depression. The effects of physical therapy & exercise on pain, disability, and depression were the greatest, but there was no statistically significant differences between the drug therapy & exercise and the physical therapy & exercise.

Exercise is regarded as a more effective and easily accessible nursing intervention to apply alone than drug therapy or physical therapy simultaneously in reducing pain, disability and depression.

The purpose of this study was to investigate RN-BSN students' clinical nursing competency in order to establish baseline data for developing nursing competency based clinical education for RN-BSN students.

A survey of 1,453 RN-BSN students from 21 nursing schools was conducted using a self administered questionnaire.

The mean score of the clinical nursing competency was 2.93. The scores for competency were shown as 2.91 for nursing management, 2.94 for developing professionalism & legal implementation, 2.95 for critical thinking, 2.96 for teaching & leadership, and data collection, basic nursing care, and communication were above 3.00. The items perceived as insufficient competency were physical examination and observation & monitoring in data collection, cardiopulmonary resuscitation, psycho-social care, spiritual care, hospice in basic nursing care, application of knowledge and theory, formulating nursing diagnosis, nursing care planning in critical thinking, education material development, leadership, delegation in teaching and leadership, analysis of organization, planning, infection control, role & job description, evaluation of nursing activities in nursing management, quality improvement, and research in developing professionalism and legal implementation.

This study will contribute to developing a nursing competency based on clinical education for RN-BSN students who have various education needs and clinical backgrounds.

The purpose of this study was to explore the experiences of people with chronic hepatitis B (CHB) in Korea. The specific aim was to identify major problems that people with CHB face and strategies that they are dealing with.

A grounded theory method was utilized. The data were collected by individual in-depth interviews from 12 CHB patients from one of the major hospitals in Korea.

After constant comparative analysis, a core category emerged as “illness management with self-reliance and will.” Seven major strategies that were identified in dealing with the illness were maintaining receptive and positive attitudes; restraining excessive work and greed; searching for information; controlling illness information; adhering to practices for not spreading the viral disease; abstaining from alcohol and smoking and maintaining healthy eating habits; nd using alternative therapies. The outcomes that result from employing these strategies were identified as burden, depression and helplessness, stress for maintaining compliance, and dispirited interpersonal relationships.

The results of this study suggest that most people with CHB in Korea have problems in psychosocial area. Thus health professionals need to provide not only informational support but also emotional one to improve quality of life of the people with CHB.

The purpose of this study was to evaluate the effects of a mentoring program to improve the exercise and dietary habits of adolescents.

A non-equivalent control group, pretest-posttest design was used. The independent variable was a mentoring program for improvement of exercise and dietary habits of adolescents, in which the mentors were nursing students and the mentees were female middle school students. The dependent variables were weekly exercise frequency, weekly exercise time, perception of exercise benefit, frequency of vegetable intake, and dietary habits. The intervention was conducted by various methods such as group education, individual approach through the mentor-mentee relationship, and multimedia approaches.

At follow-up, the perception of the exercise benefit was significantly greater in the intervention group than in the control group. The weekly exercise frequency and frequency of vegetable intake in the intervention group were significantly greater after the intervention than those before the intervention.

This mentoring program is potentially of an effective health promotion program for adolescents and will enable nursing students who participate in the program as mentors to gain confidence in their professional capability.

The purposes of this study were 1) to compare the contribution of demographic-behavioral variables and psychological variables in explaining the variance of depression, 2) identify the most important predictors of depression for Korean female adolescents.

The participants were 840 female adolescents. Data was collected through self-report questionnaires, which were constructed to include demographicbehavioral factors, self-esteem, hostility, hopelessness, and depression. Data was analyzed using the SPSS program.

Female adolescents' demographicbehavioral variables explained 17% of the variance in depression, and perceived physical health status, history of physical abuse, smoking, satisfaction of body weight, parental alcohol abuse, parental divorce, and history of suicidal attempt were the significant predictors of depression for female adolescents. Psychological variables explained 50% of the variance in depression, and self-esteem, hostility, and hopelessness were the significant predictors of depression for female adolescents. The significant predictors of depression among female adolescents' demographicbehavioral variables and psychological variables were self-esteem, hostility, hopelessness, perceived physical health status, parental alcohol problem, and history of physical abuse, explaining 52% of the variance in depression.

In order to reduce depression in female adolescents, it is necessary to design an intervention program that emphasizes improving self-esteem while reducing hostility and hopelessness.

The purpose of this study was to explore and describe the experiences of the family caregivers using a nursing home for their elderly family members.

Participants for this study were 1 man and 9 women caregivers. Data was collected through in-depth interviews from October, 2005 to April, 2006 and analyzed using Strauss and Corbin's grounded theory methodology.

“Finding a way to live together” emerged as a core category and it reflected expanding consciousness allowing them to see each other in a more positive view. The basic social process of “finding a way to live together” includes 3 phases: 1) recognizing the problems, 2) finding solutions to the problems, and 3) accepting the changes in their surrounding. Lack of privacy, family troubles, extreme distress, and unavailable caregivers are reflected in the process of recognizing the problems. The process of finding solutions was making a decision, obtaining family agreement, choosing the best nursing home, and enduring the financial burden. Possible outcomes of the last phase include recovering peace of mind and continuing conflict.

Findings from this study offer suggestions for developing a strategy to help not only the elderly but also the family caregivers.

The purpose of this study was to develop a scale of free nursing home adjustment for the elderly in Korea.

The developmental processes were construction of a conceptual framework, development of preliminary items, verification of content validity, twice data gathering, verification of construct validity, and reliability of final items. The first 53 preliminary items were obtained through review of literatures about nursing home adjustment and in depth interviews with 5 staffs of nursing home. These items were reviewed by five specialists for content validity and 39 items were chosen. The first data was collected from 107 elderly residing in 3 nursing homes and the second survey was from 147 residents who were living in five nursing homes. Finally this data was analyzed for construct validity and reliability.

There were 23 final items which were sorted into 5 factors. The factors were identified as ‘Relocation distress symptom’(8items), ‘Making friends’(4items), ‘Acceptance of new residence’ (6items), ‘Difficulty in group life’(3items), and ‘Having self-worth’(2items). The cumulative percent of variance was 53.466%. The reliability of the scale, Cronbach's alpha was .837.

The result of this study could be used for measuring nursing home adjustment of the elderly. However, for further validity and reliability, repeated researches are needed.

The effects of telephone intervention on self-care practices and quality of life for gynecological cancer patients under chemotherapy was investigated.

A non-equivalent control group pre-test post-test quasi-experimental design was used. The subjects were women cancer patients who had received less than two chemotherapy sessions at C university hospital of Chonnam province(26 in the experimental group: 25 in the control group). The patient's self-care practices(Na & Lee, 1999; Jang, 2004) and quality of life(Lee & Jo, 1997) were measured three times. using a questionnaire. The data was analyzed by Repeated Measures ANOVA, the Friedman test, and the Mann-Whitney test using the SPSS window version 12.0 program.

This study showed that the score of self-care practices and quality of life for the experimental group under telephone counseling were higher than those of the control group.

This study revealed that a telephone intervention as supportive nursing care for women cancer patients under going chemotherapy was effective for self-care practices and qualify of life during the recovery period. Futhermore, this study also suggests that telephone counseling can serve as a continuing nursing supportive intervention for women cancer patients for the upcoming stages of further chemotherapy.

The purpose of this study was to explore factors related to internet game addiction for adolescents.

This study was a cross-sectional survey, and data was collected through self-report questionnaires. Data was analyzed using the SPSS program.

In logistic regression analysis, the risk of being addicted to internet games was 2.22 times higher in males than females. Adolescents with low and middle academic performance also had a higher risk(2.08 times and 2.54 times) to become addicted to internet games. For the location of the computer, the risk of becoming addicted to internet games were .01 times lower in the living room or brother or sisters' room than in their own room. The risk of becoming addicted to internet games was 1.18 times higher in the higher usage time of internet games. The risk of becoming addicted to internet games was .49 times lower in the more accepting and autonomic parents' rearing attitude and .02 times lower in the high self-efficacy group than the low group.

The result of this study suggests that there are noticeable relationships between internet game addiction and gender, academic performance, location of computer, usage time of internet games, parents' rearing attitude, and self efficacy.

The purpose of this study was to identify the reactions of emergency department nurses to violence.

Q-methodology which provides a method of analyzing the subjectivity of each item was used. Thirty emergency department nurses classified 33 selected Q-statements into a normal distribution using a 9 point scale. The collected data was analyzed using the Quanl PC Program.

Three types of reactions to violence were identified. The first type(emotional and physical reactions) showed a sense of regret on the selection of an occupation and emotional and physical reactions such as anxiety, fear, depression, hopelessness, heart palpitations and trembling hands due to the violence. The second type(problem solving) actively coped to prevent the occurrence of violence, grasped the causes of violence and sought out a problem solving plan. The third type(anger reactions) felt a lot of anger against violence, and resented their reality of working under conditions of inadequately secured facilities and systems.

The emotional and physical reactions type and the anger reactions type should be required to attend educational programs to improve attitudes and abilities to solve the problems in a more active and positive manner.

Nursing communication has become more important than ever before because quality of nursing services largely depends on the quality of communication in a very competitive health care environment. This article was to introduce ways to improve nursing communication using conversation analysis.

This was a review study on conversation analysis, critically examining previous studies in nursing communication and interpersonal relationships.

This study provided theoretical backgrounds and basic assumptions of conversation analysis which was influenced by ethnomethodology, phenomenology, and sociolinguistic. In addition, the characteristics and analysis methods of conversation analysis were illustrated in detail. Lastly, how conversation analysis could help improve communication was shown, by examining researches using conversation analysis not only for ordinary conversations but also for extraordinary or difficult conversations such as conversations between patients with dementia and their professional nurses.

Conversation analysis can help in improving nursing communication by providing various structures and patterns as well as prototypes of conversation, and by suggesting specific problems and problem-solving strategies in communication.

The study was conducted to investigate the skin hydration level in various body sites and identify the influencing factors in neonates.

An exploratory comparison study was designed to measure the stratum corneum hydration, using a National DM-R2 on the forehead, abdomen, buttocks, and the back of the hands and feet of 198 neonates including 92 premature infants.

The results showed 32.7%-36.5% of stratum corneum hydration for all sites. Premature infants revealed a higher hydration level on the peripheral sites (dorsal hand and feet) than those of the full-term infants, possibly resulting from therapeutic regimens including an incubator or radiant warmer. Infants in an incubator showed a higher hydration level than those in radiant warmers, suggesting more attention to fluid management for infants in the open environment. In addition, all stratum corneum hydration measurements except one, from the forehead, showed a positive correlation with postnatal age in full-term infants while showing no relation to any measurements in premature infants.

The study demonstrated the very low skin hydration levels in hospitalized neonates, particularly in premature neonates with more susceptible skin hydration instability despite therapeutic interventions for fluid balance. More vigilant fluid management is imperative in neonates, particularly those in the open environment.

This study was to identify knowledge, perception and health behavior about metabolic syndrome for an at risk group in a rural community area.

A descriptive cross-sectional survey design was used. A total of 575 adults with hypertension, diabetes mellitus, dyslipidemia, and/or abdominal obesity were recruited from 11 rural community health care centers. A questionnaire was developed for this study. Anthropometric measures were measured and blood data was reviewed from the health record.

Knowledge about the metabolic syndrome was low as evidenced by only a 47% correct answer rate. Only 9% of the subjects ever heard about the disease, and 87% answered they do not know the disease at all. 87% of the subjects were not performing regular exercise, 31% drank alcohol more than once a month, 12.5% were current smokers, and 33.6% are did not have a regular health check-up.

Development of systematic public health care programs are needed to prevent future increases in cardiovascular complications and to decrease health care costs. These might include educational programs for the primary health care provider and an at risk group, a therapeutic lifestyle modification program, and a health screening program to identify potential groups.

This study was aimed at exploring the current status of graduate programs for an advanced practice nurse(APN) to recommend future directions of APN education.

A total of 142 students enrolled in seven APN specialty programs, 67 professors who were involved in APN education, and nine nurse administrators participated in the study. Data was collected by questionnaires and focus group interviews.

The current definition of APN was found not to be specific enough to represent expected roles of APN in regards to knowledge, attitudes, roles, and skills. Standard curricula employed regardless of the area of APN specialty, lack of qualified clinical practice settings, as well as prepared instructors were found to be problematic.

The following needs to be addressed: 1. redefining of APN roles, 2. tailoring specialty areas of APN, 3. consolidating educational programs, and 4. ensuring APN role models and faculty. Suggesting a CNS role in Korean APN, areas of APN should be rearranged toclarify their roles and educational programs need to be further developed to meet the expectations and quality of APNs. It is necessary to ensure APN's employment in the health care system by laws and policies to perform advanced nursing roles.

This study investigated job stress and coping of ICU Nurses.

Data was accumulated from 206 ICU nurses serving at least more than one year in 500 bed order hospitals during the period of three months from June1, to August 30, 2006.

The average job stress was 2.96± .95 points, which was relatively high. The average coping was 2.55± .23 points.

The extent of the job stress of ICU nurses was relatively high, and they received the heaviest stress from job circumstances. For the prevention of job stress, every effort is required to analyze the causes of stress caused by job circumstances and to pose an appropriate solution. Meanwhile, job stress, needs to be controlled using a solution for the central problem, and search for social support.