The purpose of this research was to address the working conditions of home health nurses through a nationwide home health agency survey conducted at hospitals.

The mail surveys were sent to 303 home health nurses nation wide and returned with a response rate of 71.8%.

(a) Seventy-five percent of home health agencies were established within the past5 years and half of home health nurses are over 40 years old. (b) Working conditions were considered as follows: Seventy-one percent of respondents were full-time employees, sixty-sixpercent of home health nurses had unscheduled visits on a regular day of duty and forty-eight percent were on vacation. Fifty-one percent of home health nurses have experienced traffic accidents and paid penalties (65.9%). Self-reported monthly income level per year was an average of 28,364,000 won. (c) Rates were significantly higher for shoulder pain (61.5%), lower back pain (54.1%), knee pain (39.4%), and gastrointestinal problems (33.0%).

These baseline results show the importance of improving home health nursing working conditions, a comprehensive prevention system and safeguards from physical discomfort.

This study was designed to determine the predictors of postpartum depression.

One hundred- sixty one women within one year after delivery from one public health center located in the northern area of Seoul were used in this study. The instruments were a survey of general characteristics, the Edinburgh Postnatal Depression Scale, recent life events index, perceived social support from family, Quality of marriage index, parenting stress index, and Rosenberg's self-esteem inventory. Data was analysed using descriptive statistics, Pearson correlation coefficients, and logistic regression.

The average item score of the EPDS was 6.67. 12.4% of respondents, who scored above a threshold 12, were likely to be suffering from a depression of varying severity. The fitness of the model for explaining postpartum depression from six variables, plan for pregnancy, family support, quality of marital relation, perceived social support, life events, childcare stress, and self-esteem, was statistically significant and the predictive power of these variables was 90.9%. The significant predictors of postpartum depression were family support and child care stress.

Further research is needed to identify the prevalence rate of postpartum depression using more reliable sampling methods from a large general population. Nursing interventions need to be developed for promoting family support and reducing childcare stress.

The purpose of this study was to describe the current status of utilization and costs of home health nursing care by the levels of medical institutes in Korea.

A secondary analysis of existing data was used from the national electronic data information(EDI) of 148 home health agencies for 6 months from May to Oct 2005 in total.

The 148 agencies had multiple services in cerebral infaction, essential hypertension, sequela of cerebrovascular disease, type 2 diabetes mellitus, etc.. The highest 10 rankings of 76 categories of home health nursing services were composed of 96.4% of the total services, such as simple treatment, inflammatory treatment, urethra & bladder irrigation, inserting indwelling catheter etc., in that order. The highest 20 rankings of 226 categories of home examination services were composed of 77.0% of the total home examination services. In addition, the average cost of home health care per visit was 46,088 Won (≒48 $, 1 $=960 Won). The costs ranged from 74,523 Won (≒78 $, loss of chronic kidney function, N18) to 32,270 Won (≒34 $, other cerebrovascular diseases, I67).

Results suggest that client characteristics of hospital based HHNC are not different from community based HHNC or visiting nursing services for elderly. The national results will contribute to baseline data used to establish a policy for the home health nursing care system and education.

This study focused on analysing costs per home health care nursing visit based on home health care nursing activities in medical institutes.

The data was collected in three stages. First, the cost elements of home health care nursing services were collected and 31 home care nurses participated. Second, the workload and caseload of home care nursing activities were measured by the Easley-Storfjell Instrument(1997). Third, the opinions on improving the home health care nursing reimbursement system were collected by a nation-wide mailing survey from a total of 125 home care agencies.

The cost of home health care nursing per visit was calculated as 50,626 won. This was composed of a basic visiting fee of 35,090₩(≒35$) and travel fee of 15,536₩(≒15$). The major problems of the home care nursing payment system were the low level of the cost per visit, no distinction between first visit and revisits, and the limitations in health insurance coverage for home health care nursing services.

This study's results will contribute as a baseline for establishing policies for improvement of the home health care nursing cost and for applying a community-based visiting nursing service cost.