Pregnant women need to be supported by their husbands and other family members. But little is known about the factors that contribute to perceived support in pregnant women. So this study is designed to identify the factors contributing to perceived support in pregnant women. The subjects for this study were 19 women who had had vaginal deliveries and 11 who had had cesarean sections in one hospital affiliated with a university. Data were collected during July and August 1992 through interview which lasted 20~30 minutes and used open ended questions. Each woman was interviewed once about their pregnancy experience. The data were analyzed by Van Kaam's phenom-enological analysis method and categorized according to similarity of content. Results of this study are as follows. 1) Mothers felt physically supported by having help with their activities from their husbands or other family members. Psychological stress was relieved by not having to worry about and/or giving a birth to a baby boy; getting special attention; and hearing encouraging words. 2) Mothers felt not supported when indifference was shown by her husband and/or relatives; when forced to do an unusual household activities; or on hearing words stressing her responsibilities. Suggestion for further study are as follows. It is necessary to see if or not the contents of an educational program would increase the perceived support of pregnant women. This could be done by carrying out an experimental research project.
Infection has assumed increased importance as a cause of death among thermally injured individuals. Decreased treatment effectiveness and an increase in mortality are the hallmarks of nosocomial infection. Infection control is a monumental task that must be achieved to reduce mortalities. This was a retrospective study to survey the epi-demiological features of nosocomial infections in a burn unit and to identify the possibilities for infection control. During the past 6 year 2 month period from July, 1981 to August, 1987, 306 burn patients were treated in the burn unit of university hospital. Among of these, 290 eases were the subjects of this study.The data were collected from the patients' recor-ds after discharge. All data collected were analyzed using percent, x2-test, t-test with SPSS program. The results of this study are summarized as follows: 1) Infection rate was 40%. According to site, there were 67 cases of wound infection, 60 cases of post-operative skin graft infection, 20 cases of septicemia and 20 cases of donor site infection. As far as the burn size was concerned, the infection rate for patients whose burn size ranged 61 to 70%, was shown to be 100%, followed by the infection rate of 93.8%, for patients whose burn size ranged from 41~50%. As far as the period of time over which the infection developed, 5 to 7 days showed the highest frequency. Further infection was the main cause of deaths and complications. 2) Based upon the results obained by comparing the general characteristics, between a hospital infection-group and non-hospital infection group, there was a significant defference according to age, the time of the year when the accident happened, the place of accident or length of hospital-admission. And according to the result obtained by comparing the general characteristics of the burn, there was a significant difference according to burn size, burn depth, burn type, and burn site. And also based upon the result obtained by comparing the two groups according to method of treatment, there was a significant difference according to the use of antibiotics and to the type of wound- treatment, and for the 8 different binds of treatment related to infection, there was a significant difference for all. In conclusion, age, length of hospital-admission, burn size, burn type, burn site, burn depth, type of woundtreatment and the 8 different binds of treatment, which are related to burns, were shown to be the factors which affect the infection rate in burn patients.