Nursing research is recognized as an essential basis for the continuous development of the scientific nursing knowledge and practice. An understanding of the barriers and attitudes to research among nurses is important to improve clinical nursing research activities.

Data were collected from nurses at a general hospital, located in D city, using a self-reported questionnaire, from March 15th to April 4th, 2003, and 133 questionnaires were used for the analyses. A 5 pointscale instrument was used to measure barriers and attitudes towards nursing research, with a Cronbach's alpha of .85 and .89, respectively.

Nurses had limited experience in research and were not well prepared to conduct it. Lack of experience, training and time were the major barriers for conducting research. However, the nurses had positive attitudes toward research. There was a difference in barriers (t=2.68, p=.02) and research attitudes (t=-2.74, p=.00) according to the nurses' position. Also, the nurses' research experience influenced research attitudes (t=-3.27, p=.00). The degree of research preparation (F=6.98, p=.00) had an effect on the attitudes toward nursing research but not on the barriers.

There is an urgent need to promote both the ability and environment for clinical nurses to actively participate in research. As the majority of nurses had little experience and low confidence in research and perceived many barriers, this promotion can be accomplished by enhancing their confidence in research through continuing education and by gradually eliminating the barriers to research.

The purpose of this qualitative study was to explore the meaning of the experience of Korean immigrant nurses working in US hospitals.

Purposive sampling yielded 15 Korean immigrant nurses who had more than one year of clinical experience in US hospitals. Data were collected from March to August 2012 through in-depth interviews and thematic analysis was conducted using van Manen's hermeneutic phenomenological approach.

The findings were classified into eight themes: 'struggling from staff at workplace being territorial to outsiders', 'feeling oppressed due to language barrier', 'accepting rational and horizontal relationships at work', 'staying alert in the environment where lawsuits are rife', 'feeling a sense of stability from the social system that values human dignity', 'maintaining self-confidence from prominent nursing practices and senior Korean nurses' professional reputation', 'performing essential comprehensive nursing care', 'promoting self-development to be equipped with professionalism.'

The findings indicate that the Korean immigrant nurses were able to excel in their workplace when their clinical experience at US hospitals was combined with the lived space in US politics and environment, lived time of patience, lived body to be alert, and lived others with multi cultural characteristics.

This paper reports a randomized controlled trial to investigate the effects of a Marital-relationship enhancement program(MREP) for marital couples.

Volunteer couples from several well-being centers in Seoul were randomly assigned either to a treatment group (n=36), participating in a MREP based on Gottman's “sound marital house” theory, or to a control group (n=35) receiving no treatment. The content of the MREP was provided to the control group after the research was completed. Data was collected from December 2003 to May 2004 using modified versions of the inventories developed by Gottman on marital satisfaction, positive affect, conflict regulation, and communication barriers.

Participants in the experimental group showed significant improvements in marital satisfaction, positive affects, conflict regulation, and communication-barrier scores compared to the control group.

The present program for marital-relationship enhancement is helpful in enhancing marital relationships and regulating conflict between marital couples and, ultimately, may be useful to prevent divorce.