INTRODUCTION: Consumerism is prevailing value in Korean society, while there has been little concern about it especially in Korean nursing society even though there has been an increasing emphasis on patients' participation in decisions concerning health care and nursing as an ideal in the literature. OBJECTIVES AND METHODS: The study with survey method was carried out to examine the nature of collaboration between patient and nurse in nursing practice in Korea through a replication of the studies carried out in US, Norway, Finland, an Japan (Kim et al., 1993) and to revise and test Kim's explanatory model of collaborative decision making in nursing practice from the Korean perspectives. RESULTS & CONCLUSIONS: Both patients and nurses as groups exhibited pro-consumerist attitudes regarding collaboration in health care, while there were significant differences in attitudes and perceptions of patients and nurses. These findings are similar to those of Kim et al.' s study carried out in US, Norway, Finland, and Japan. Nurses as a group compared to patients held stronger health-care consumerist attitudes and beliefs in general. However, the Korean nurses seem to hold a weaker attitude for challenging professional authority. And the Korean patients compared to the nurses seem to hold stronger belief in the patient's right to information, as found in US, Finland, and Japan. Regarding the nurse patient collaborative attitude in decision making, it revealed that one third or more of the patients as a group believe in the patients' right to be informed of decisions that nurses make for their patients, while another one third or more of them believe in the patients' right for advisory role and joint role in nursing care decision making. This result for the patients is very similar as those found in US, Norway, Finland, and Japan. However, the attitude for the nurses held stronger agreement with patients' to be informed of decision making that nurses make than the patients' right for advisory and joint role. The nurses have weaker belief in patients' self determination on their care than the patients. The results of path analyses confirmed the explanatory models that tested two explanatory models examining the factors contributing to the differences in the attitudes of patients and nurses. The path model for nurses identified nurses' lengths of experience as the important factor explaining attitudes regarding challenging professional authority and the patient's rights for information. The path model for patients identified the level of education as the most significant factor that explains patients' attitudes regarding the rejection of general authority, challenging professional authority, and the patient's right for participation in decision making.

This cross-sectional design was to identify the age at menopause of Korean women using a national sample, and to examine relationships between age at menopause and the anthropometric, sociodemographic, biological and life style behavioral factors. Two thousand eight hundred seven naturally postmenopausal women aged between 41-65 years were recruited by self-selection from 7 metropolitans and 6 provinces in Korea from Dec. 20, 1998 to April 30, 1999. The age at menopause of Korean women was 49.2 years (mean) and 50.0 years (median). The range of age at menopause was 33.0 to 61.0 years. The significant influencing factors on age at menopause were body mass index, mother's and sister's age at menopause, alcohol use, physical activity, coffee preference, and residential area. The menopausal age of Korean women has slightly increased compared to a previous study.

PURPOSE: The purpose of this study was to develop an instrument to measure family resilience for Korean families with a chronically ill child, and to test the validity and reliability of the instrument. METHOD: The items of instruments used based on the researchers' previous study of concept analysis of Korean family resilience. Nineteen item scales were developed with five domains. In order to test reliability and validity of the scale, data were collected from 231 families, who had a child with a chronic illness. Data was collected between August and September of 2001 in a 3rd level University Hospital in Seoul, Korea. RESULT: The results were as follows: As a result of the item analysis, 19 items were selected from the total of 37 items, excluding items with low correlation with the total scale. Five factors were evolved by factor analysis, which explained 56.4% of the total variance. The first factor 'Family strength' explained 28.5%, 2nd factor 'Family maturity' 8.7%, 3rd factor 'The ability to use of external resources' 7.0%, 4th factor 'Control' 6.6%, 5th factor 'The driving force for finance' 5.7%. The attributes in these factors were different with those identified by concept analysis of the family resilience in Korean families from the previous study. Cronbach's alphacoefficient of this scale was .8039 and Guttman spilt- half coefficient was .8184. CONCLUSION: The study support the reliability and validity of the scale. Because the main concept of family resilience was family strength, there were distinct differences in dimensions of family functioning scales.

PURPOSE: The purpose of this study was to develop the instrument to measure family functioning for Korean family with a chronic ill child, and to test the validity and reliability of the instrument. METHOD: The items of instrument were consisted based on researchers' previous study of concept analysis of the Korean family functioning. Twenty six item scale was developed with six domains. In order to test reliability and validity of the scale, data were collected from the 231 families, who have a child with a chronic illness. Data was collected between August and September in 2001 in a General Hospital in Seoul, Korea. RESULT: The results were as follows:As a result of the item analysis, 24 items were selected from the total of 26 items, excluding items with low correlation with total scale. Six factors were evolved by factor analysis. Six factors explained 61.4% of the total variance. The first factor 'Affective bonding' explained 15.4%, 2nd factor 'External relationship' 11.8%, 3rd factor 'Family norm' 10.5%, 4th factor 'Role and responsibilities' 8.3%, 5th factor ' Communication' 7.9%, and the 6th factor 'Financial resource' explained 7.3%. Cronbach's alpha coefficient of this scale was .87 and Guttman spilt- half coefficient was .84. CONCLUSION: The study support the reliability and validity of the scale. There were distinct differences in dimensions of family functioning scales developed in the U. S.

The incidence of reported acute pain is still high which indicates a lack of knowledge in clinical pain assessment and management. This study was carried out to investigate strategies of post-operative pain assessment in terms of patterns of criteria adopted and how these are influenced by prior experience. The research approach, phenomenography, was adopted in data analysis. The subjects of this study consisted of 10 nurses from post-operative care units from a University Hospital in Seoul, Korea. Findings revealed that the nurses mostly relied on "how it usually is" and "how the patient looks" as strategies of post operative pain assessment and "I have learned the typology of patients" as a frame of reference of post operative assessment.