No abstract available.

In order to prepare for the coming twenty first Century and to meet changing societal dedmands and health needs, it is necessary to develop a new conceptual framework for curriculum the colleges of nursing. The specific objectives of this project were to; 1) address the problem areas of the existing curriculum which were identified in the first phase of this study; 2) develop a conceptual framework which will meet faculty, student and societal needs; and 3) identify the content of the curriculum. In order to accomplish the objectives, the curriculum committee held 30 weekly meetings during the period of October, 1992 and December, 1993, There also were two workshops with college of nursing faculty members. The Philosophy and objectives of education were revised on the basis of the essential concepts of nursing; human being, nursing, environment, and health. From these basic concepts, six essential components were identified for the conceptual framework. These were nuring process, communication, professional roles, client, and nursing. These six components are interrelated in the curriculum. The complex interrelationship among the six components were presented on horizontal and vertical axes. Concepts related to steady improvement were put on a vertical axis. For example, concepts of client, health, and nursing are included in all levels of nursing curriculum and students are expected to retain and accumulate more complex contents as they progress in curriculum. Concepts on the horizontal axis are nursing process, communication, and professional roles. These concepts are unique to nursing and are common to any level of curriculum. Students are expected to study these concepts through all levels of the curriculum. It is expected that the objectives of the college of nursing will be accomplished when the courses and content of the curriculum are based on this conceptual fremework.

In Korea the concept of social support was first used as a research concept in nursing and has not had much application in the clinical field. Another problem is that research on social support has used a direct translation of the words "social support" into Korean as "sawhejukjiji". Three questions were posed to direct the research. 1) Is there a concept of social support in Korean society? 2) if so, what words or expressions are used to describe it? 3) further, if so, how is social support structured and how does it function? In order to answer the research questions a three-step research methodology was used: The first step consisted of a literature review on research related to social support and on information on the background of, and the way of thinking related to interpersonal relations among Korean people. The second step, which was done to identify whether there is a concept of social support in korean society, involved interviewing a sample of the population. The third step involved a panel discussion that included the members of the research team and three consultants, a sociologist, a philosopher and a scholor in korean literature. A review of the literature on interpersonal relationships in traditional korean society identified a four cirole structure that explains interpersonal relationships. The first circle with "me" at the center is the family but here "me" disappears into the "we" that is essential for a cooperative agricultural society. In the second circle are those close to "me" but outside the family. The third circle includes those with whom "I" have infrequent but regular contact and with whom correct conduct is important. The last circle is all the people with whom "I" have nothing in common. They are excluded in interpersonal relationships. The literature on interpersonal relationships showed that within the traditional Korean society people lived in villages where most people were very familiar with each other. "Yun", the social network established the connection and "Jung", the feeling of affection increased with time as the connection was strengthened. In the traditional village psychological support was provided through "Mallaniki", "Pumashi" and "Kae" with the latter two also providing material support. In modern Korea there are more informal and formal social networks, like social services and community activities on the formal level and cultural and leisure groups along with "kae's on the informal level. But even with this modern variety of groups, most social support comes from informal networks that resemble the traditional "Pumashi", "Kai" and "Mallaniki". The six member research team interviewed 65 people in ordsr to identify whether there is a concept of social support and then analysed their responses. There were 20 different words describing the reception of the social support and these could be grouped into seven major categories: virtuous, fortunate, helped, supported, blessed, attached(re-ceiving affection) and receiving (grace) benevolence, there were 27 words describing the act of social support which could be categorized into seven major categories: love, looking after, affection(at-tachment), kindness (goodness), faith, psychological help and material help, for the meaning of social support translated as "sawhe juk jiji" there were a total of 14 different answers which could be categorized into 3 major categories: help, agreement, and faith. In third step, the results of the literature review and the answers to the questions were discussed in a pannel. The results of the discussion led to the following definition of social support in Korea which is shaped like a the four sided pyramid on a base. Social support is the apex of the pyramid and four sides are made up of: "do-oom"(both emotional and material help), "jung"(connectedness, or relationship bound by affection, regard or shared common experience), "midum"(faith or belief in), "eunhae" (kindness or benevolence). The research team identified "Yun"(the basic network of relationships) as the base of the pyramid and as such the foundation for the components of social support in Korean culture. On "Yun" rest the other four components of social support: "Jung", "Midum", "Do-oom", and "Eunhae", For social support to take place there must be "Yun". This is an important factor in social support. In private social network "Jung" is an essential facotr in social support. But not in the public social network. "Yun" is a condition for "Jung" and "Jung" is the manifestation of support.

Today, more chronically ill and handicapped people are being cared for at home by a family mem ber caregiver. The task of caring for a family member may mean that the caregiver has less time and money and more work which may result in increased fatigue and symptoms of illness. This study was done to examine the well being of family caregivers. Fifty three family caregivers were interviewed. Concepts were measured using existing tools and in eluded: Burden(25 item 5 point scale), Social sup port (21 item 7 point scale), Health status defined by a symptom cheeklist (48 item 5 point scale), and Well-being defined by a quality of life scale (14 item 7 point scale) and caregiving activities. Data collection was done by interview and Q-sort. Social support and well-being were positively correlated as were symptoms and burden. Symptoms and burden were negatively correlated with social support and well being. Items on the quality of life scale had a mean score range from 3.09 to 4.96. Quality of life related to income was lowest (3.09) but the desire to use more money for the patient was rated 2.90 on the burden scale where the item means ranged from 0.73 to 3.55. The high mean of 3. 55 was for obligation to give care and the low 0.73 was for not feeling that this was helping the patient. Mean scores for symptoms ranged from 0.26 to 2.15 with the 2.15 being for "worry about all the things that have to be done." Over half of the patients were dependent for help with some activities of daily living. The caregivers reported doing an average of 3.10 out of five patient care activities ineluding bathing (77.4 %), shampooing (67.9%), and washing face and hands (49.1%), and 3.74 out of seven home maintenance activities including laundry (98.1%). cooking (83.0%), and arranging bed ding( 75. 5%). The caregivers reported their spouse as one of the main sources of social support, including in times of loneliness and anger. The mean score for loneliness as burden was 2.15 and ranked fourth and 31(58.5%) of the sample reported being lonely recently and not being satisfied with the support received. Similarly anger caused by the patient was given a mean score of 2.13. and anger was reported to have been present recently by 38 (71.7%) of the sample and satis faction with the support given was low. Having someone to help deal with anger ranked twelfth out of 21 items on the social support scale and had a mean score of 3.98 (range 3.49 to 5.98). Spouses were reported as a major source of social support but the fact that 50% of the caregivers were caring for a spouse, may account for the quality of this source of social support having been affected. These caregivers faced the same problems as others at the same stage of life, but because of the situation, there was a strain on their resources, particularly financial and social. In conclusion it was found that burden is correlated negatively to quality of life and positively to symptoms, but in this sample, symptoms and but den were scored relatively low. Does this indicate that the caregivers accept caregiving as part of their destiny and accept the quality of their lives with burden and symptoms just being a part of caregiving? Does the correlation between the bur den and symptoms indicate they are a measure of the same phenomenon or that the sample was of a more mobile, less burdened group of caregivers? Quality of life was the one variable that was signf cant in explaining the varience on burden. Further study is needed to validate the conclusions found in this study but they indicate a need for nurses to approach these caregivers with a plan tailored to each individual situation and to give consideration to interventions directed at improving quality of life and expanding social support networks for those caring for spouses.

Numerous research reports have substantiated the role of stressful life events in relation to the onset of health changes. The relationship tends to hold across different age groups. Theoretically, adolescence has been considered a developmental crisis period of great stress, impoverished coping skills and high vulnerability to biological, social and psychological demands. The research problem addressed by this study was to examine the relationships between stressful life events and health symptom patterns, and the effect of two variables, coping and social support, theoretically considered to mediate the relationship between stress and health symptoms in adolescents. The following five hypotheses were tested in this research : 1. Health symptoms are positively related to stressful life events in adolescents, 2. Health symptoms are negatively related to coping in adolescents, 3. Health symptoms are negatively related to social support in adolescents, 4. When coping is controlled, the relationship between health symptoms and stressful life events will decrease, and 5. When social support is controlled, the relationship between health symptoms and stressful life events will increase. The study subjects consisted of 1090 high school students of the metropolitan city of Seoul. The following sampling procedure was used : 1. Of the 169 high schools in nine school administrative districts in the city, a proportional sample of ten schools was selected. 2. One class from each of the freshman and sophomore was randomly selected and all the students who were in the sampled class were used as the study sample. The study was limited to freshman and sophomore adolescents, aged 15 to 18(mean=16.6). Of the 1090 subjects 688(63%) were boys and 402(37%) were girls. An Adolescent Inventory of Stressful Life Events, a Health Symptom Questionnaire and an Adolescent Coping Inventory were adapted for this study. The Norbeck Social Support Questionnaire was utilized to collect the data on perceived social support. Five high school teachers in the areas of school health and counselling reviewed the items of each questionnaire for content validity. A pilot study was undertaken to ascertain reliability. Fifty three high school students responded to the questionnaires and gave their opinions on the items. For stressful life events, health symptoms, coping, and social support, the Cronbach's alpha's on the study were .70, .94, .77, and .76 respectively. Research assistants attended all the sampled classes with the school proctor to explain the purpose and procedures of the study to the students. The questionnaires along with a ballpoint pen were distributed to the students who were asked to complete each item. The research assistants left the ballpoint pen with the students as a gift for their cooperation. An average of 50 minutes was required to complete the questionnaires. Using as SPSS, the first, three hypotheses were tested using Gamma, a measure of association for ordinal variables. Partial gamma was used to test the fourth and fifth hypotheses. Patterns of elaboration described by Babbie was selected to interpret the relationship of the three variable analyses. The significance of gamma was determined by Chisquare at a .05 level of significance. There was a positive relationship between health symptoms and stressful life events (Gamma=.35, p=.000). Thus the first hypothesis was supported. Unexpectedly, coping was positively related with health symptoms(Gamma=.13, p=.000). That is, the higher the coping levels, the greater number of health problems. The third hypothesis, the higher the level of social support, the fewer the health symptoms, was not accepted in this adolescent study group. When coping was controlled, under the condition of low coping the association between health symptoms and stressful life events increased significantly to a partial gamma of .39, and under the condition of high coping it was .30. According to the elaboration model, when one partial relationship is the same or greater than the original and the other is smaller, the control variable should be considered to be specifying the conditions. When social support was controlled the relationship between stressful life events and health symptoms increased under the condition of low social support, but with high social support, the relationship decreased. Both partial gamma were statistically significant at .05 level(.43 and .26 relatively). It can be interpreted that stressful life events are strongly and positively related to health symptoms under the condition of low social support, however this relationship can not be expected with high social support. Thus, the last two hypotheses were conditionally sustained. In this study, the relationships between stressful life events and health symptoms, and the specified me diating roles of coping and social support were found to have statistical interaction. This finding supports the theoretical position of this study. It suggests that stressful life events would create high susceptibility to biological, social and psychological health symptoms and coping and social support buffering the relationship between stressful life events and health symptom. The findings of this study have implications for nursing practice. When adolescents are confronted with non-developmental life events that are perceived as stressful, nurses should recognize the evidence of the stress-buffering effect of coping and social support on health symptoms and utilize to diverse sources of social support that are readily available to adolescents.

No abstract available.

This study examined the effects of group social support on the reduction of burden and increase in well-being of mothers of developmentally delayed children. The research used a one group pre-post experimental design. The independent variable in the experiment was group social support. Two series of 4-weekly meetings for group social support were conducted by the researcher with the intention of developing a self-help group. The dependent variables were burden and well-being. Well-being was operationalized as physical symptoms and quality of life. Thirty mothers of developmentally delayed infants from the rehabilitation center of a medical center participated in the study. Data were collected by interview and a self-administered questionnaire. The mean age of the subjects was 29.9 years. Changes of the dependent variables between pre and post tests were compared using the t-test. Even though there was a slight improvement in the scores for the dependent variables, they were not statistically significant. The items, "I resent my baby", "I feel angry about my interactions with my baby", "I feel guilty in my relationship with my baby" showed a significant decrease in burden score and were statistically significant. Symptoms of loneliness, constipation, anxiety, restlessness were less and feeling of happiness was greater after participation in the group social support, than on the pretest. The mothers showed emotional instability and frustrations during the group sessions but their reactions in general were positive. Emotional support, stress management and information provided were identified as the most valuable content of the sessions. However, participation was not active due to the mother's denial, delayed acceptance and/or avoidance of their infants' problems. It can be seen that group social support for the mothers with developmentally delayed children should be provided after infancy when the mothers have time to accept their children's conditions and are ready to receive support. The use of comprehensive instruments which measure burden in both families and mothers needs to be developed for future research.

PURPOSE: This cross-sectional study was designed to explore the relationship among social support, experienced stressful life events and health behaviors of Korean undergraduate students, and validate the mediator effect of social support. METHOD: One thousand four hundred fifty-three undergraduate students were randomly selected from five universities located in the middle area of Korea. RESULT: The health behaviors of Korean undergraduates tend to have unhealthy patterns. In the case of the students living without family, experiencing more stressful life events and perceiving lower social support, health behaviors are poor. The relationship between perceived social supports, the frequency of the experienced stressful life events and the score of health behavior patterns is statistically significant. After controlling the effect of social support, the correlation coefficient between the frequency of experienced stressful life events and the score of health behavior patterns was slightly lower. The score of health behaviors between the group with an extremely high score of social support and the group with an extremely low score were statistically significantly different. CONCLUSION: Future studies need to be pursued to develop various strategies such as a health education programs and counseling programs for health maintenance and health promotion of undergraduates.

This study was conducted to identify the attributes constituting Korean social support and to validate the results of the previous study 'Search for the meaning of social support in Korean Society.' The informants were 41 Korean middle-aged women in three cities : Seoul, Dagjun and Daeku. The data were collected through indepth interviews using the interview guide from Jun. 1994 to Jun. 1995. The interview guide was developed in the simulated situations of 'Stroke attack' which expected to be in need of social support. The women were asked to answer what they felt and the appropriated terms representing the situations. Data analysis were conducted by content analysis. consequently, the Koran social support pyramid was modified as follows ; Support is the apex of the pyramid. The four sides of the pyramid are made up of 'Jung'(Bound by ties of affection, regard or shared common experience, Connectedness), Do-oom(both emotional and material help), Mi-dum(Faith or belief in) and Sa-Rang(Love). The base of the pyramid is 'yun'(the basic network of relationships in Korean culture) that connote the meaning of Eunhae(Benevolence), Euimu(duty, responsibility) and Dori(obligation).