The main purpose of this study is to develop a ratio scale measuring level of pain using Korean pain terms. The specific purposes of this study are to identify the degree of pain of each pain term in each subclass; to classify each subclass in terms of dimensions of pain; and to analyze factors of the Korean pain ratio scale clustering together. One hundred and fifty eight pain terms which were originally identified as representative terms and their synonyms were used for data collection. Fifty eight nursing professors and sixty one medical doctors who have contacted with patients having pain were asked to rate the weight of each pain term on a visual analogue scale. Subclasses in which ranks of pain terms were same as findings in two previous studies were 1) thermal pain 2) cavity pressure, 3) single stimulating pain, 4) radiation pain. and 5) chemical pain. Subclasses in which ranks of pain terms were confused were 1) incisive pressure, and 2) cold pain. Subclasses in which one new pain term was added were 1) inflammatory-repeated pain, 2) punctuate pressure, 3) constrictive pressure, 4) fatigue-related pressure, and 5) suffering-related pain. Subclasses in which two new pain terms were added were 1) traction pressure, 2) peripheral nerve pain, 3) dull pain, 4) pulsation-related pain, 5) digestion-related pain. Subclass in which 3 new pain terms were included was fear-related pain. Rating scores of 5 words in 4 subclasses were significantly different between the normal group and the extreme group of subjects in terms of subjective rating. Only one word among 5 words was that newly added to the scale. Rating scores of 12 words in 9 subclasses were significantly different between doctor group and nursing professor group. Among these 12 words, only 3 were those newly added to the scale. In comparison of these 12 words, mean scores of the nursing professors were always 7 to 16 points higher than those of the medical doctors. In the analysis of judgement of subjects in terms of dimensions of pain terms, subclasses of dull pain, cavity pressure, tract pain and cold pain were suggested to be included in the miscellaneous dimension. As a result of factor analysis of the ratings given to 96 pain words using principal components analysis without iteration and with varimax rotation limiting the number of factors to 4, factors of severe pain(factor I) mild-moderate pain(factor II), causative pain(factor III) and temperature-related pain(factor IV) were extracted with the factor loading above 0.388. When the pain words were rearranged on the bases of factor loading above 0.368, number of factors decreased to only first two factors. Maximum score of pain word in factor II was 46.17 and the minimum score of the factor 1 was 45.36. Further studies are needed to identify the validity, reliability, sensitivity and practicability of this ratio scale using patients having various sources of pain.
The main purpose of this study is to systematically classify words indicating pain in terms of their ranks in each subclass. This study is a part of developing a Korean Pain Measurement Tool. This study did not include exploration of each word's dimension such as sensory or affective. Eighty three Korean words tentatively classified in 19 subclasses in previous study were used for this study. At least three to six words were included in each subclass and the words were randomly placed in which each subject indicates their rank of pain degree. One hundred and fifty nursing students and one hundred clinical nurses were requested to indicate the rank of each word. One hundred and sixteen students and eighty three nurses completed the ratings for analysis. The data were collected from June 1983 to July 1983. The data using ordinal scale were analyzed by Friedman ANOVA to test significant difference between rank means. All of pain words indicated significant rank mean difference in all of 19 subclasses. Some of the words were either cancelled or replaced by other words, or rearranged for their ranks. Subclasses of which words were cancelled were 1) Simple stimulating pain, 2) Punctuate pressure, 3) peripheral nerve pain, 4) radiation pain, 5) punishment-related pain, and 6) suffering-related pain. Subclasses of which words were replaced or rearranged were 1) incisive pressure, 2) constrictive pressure, 3) dull pain, 4) tract pain, 5) digestion-related pain and 6) fear-related pain. Four subclasses such as traction pressure, thermal, cavity pressure, and fatigue-related pain indicated significant differences among rank means in each subclasses and showed no visible overlaps of the ranks among means. Further research is needed using high level measurement of pain degree of each word and more sophisticated analysis of the pain degrees. Three pain words which would be related to chemical stimulation were newly explored and included as a new subclass. Through this study, the total number of subclasses increases from 19 to 20 and the total number of Korean words in the scale decreases from 83 to 80.
The purpose of this study was to investigate the home care needs in a rural county as a basic study to develop a Korean home care model. A stratified cluster sampling method was used to select 1,352 household which accounted for 8.8% of Youn Cheon County population. A Standard criterias for home care subject were delineated by five nursing professors representing five different areas of nursing specialty. The developed criteria for home care subjects were as below; 1) Patients who had been discharged from hospital during the previous week. 2) Patients with special medical devices 3) Newborns and the mothers. 4) The chronically ill with poor recovery or control of disease. 5) Subjects with poor health care behavior or ability 6) Subjects with poor social support and/or family resources. 7) Subjects with health related educational needs. Three types of questionnaires were developed to screen home care subjects, one for adults, one for infants and one for the elderly. Also different questionnaire items were developed to evaluate the contol and self care ability of chronically ill subjects. After training in interview methods for 2 days, 39 interviewers visited individual households for interviews. As the results of the study showed that 14.1% of adult subjects and 76.5% of infants and child were judged as having at least one criterion related to home care need, 15.69% of adults and 53% of elderly had at least one chronic illness. The most prevalent chronic illnesses were hypertension, skeletal ?neurological disease and diabetes. The prevalence of subjects with home care needs were, those with poor health care behavior (8.89%), with health-related educational needs (8.71%), with poor recovery or control of disease (3.52%), and with poor social support and inadequate family resources (3.19%). There were only 0.3%, 0.37%, 0.11% who were discharged patients, patients with medical devices, or newborns respectively. Thus, the largest home care client group were those who need direct health care and health education. Seventy five percent of the subjects responded that they were willing to use and pay for home care service if it is offered in the future. It is suggested that recently discharged patients and patients with special medical devices can be cared for by hospital based home care nurses, but other home care clients can be cared for by community based home care nurses.
The purposes of this study were to describe the level of vision and hearing impairments, depression and functional capacity, among Korean institutionalized elderly and to examine the relationship between sensory impairments, depression, and functional capacity in these people. The final pupose was to test the cognitive function path model using sensory competencies as predictors. A convenience sample of thirty nine male and 90 female subjects with a mean age of 80.5 were the subjects of this study. The subjects were tested for cognitive function, and vision and hearing impairments. Physical function and social function were measured by observation of designated task performance by the subjects. Their level of depression was measured using a Geriatric Depression Scale administered through an interview. Individual subjective ratings of heating and vision were marked by the subjects, on a ladder scale. The results of the study showed that 48.8% of the subjects had a hearing impairment, 63.5% had a vision impairement, and 36.4% had both a vision and hearing impairement. The four sensory groups (no sensory impairement, hearing impairement, vision impairement, hearing and vision impairement) were tested for differences in depression, physical function, social behavior and cognitive function. The only significant difference that was found was in cognitive function, between the no sensory impairement group and the hearing and vision impairement group(F=3.25, P<.05). Subjective ratings of hearing showed a significant correlation with cognitive function(r=.34, P<.001) and with social behavior(r=.31, p<.001). There was no correlation between subjective vision ratings and cognitive function or social behavior. However there was a significant correlation between vision and hearing(r=.49, p<.001). There was also a significant negative correlation between age and vision(r=-.21, p<.01) and between age and hearing(r=-.34, p<.001). There was a significant correlation between depression and physical function (r=-.32, p<.001) but there was no correlation between depression and cognitive function or social behavior. Based on the literature review and the result, this study, a path model of sensory competence -> cognitive function->social behavior was developed and tested: Perceived vision and perceived hearing were the exogenous variahles and cognitive function and social behavior were the endogeneous variables in the model. The path analysis result demonstrated an acceptable fit(GFI=.997, AGFI=.972, x2=.72 (p=.396), RMSR=.019) between the data and the model. There was a significant direct effect(beta=.38) of perceived hearing on cognitive function. There was a significant direct effect (beta=.32) of cognitive function on social behavior. The total effect of hearing on social behavior was beta=.32 including the indirect effect (beta=.12). However perceived vsion had little effect (beta=-.08) on cognitive function. The result of path analysis confirms that hearing levels influence cognitive function, and both hearing and cognitive function levels influence social behavior. However, vision has little effect on cognitive function or on social behavior. For the next study, a combined model of the previously developed environment -> depression -> physical and social function model, and the present cognitive function model, should be tested to further refine the functional capacity model. There also a need for longitudinal study of functional capacity and sencory competence in order to better understand how declining sensory competence influences functional capacity and how it effects increasing dependency and nursing needs in the elderly.
The study was conceived in relation to a concern over the growing gap between the needs of chronic patients and the availability of care from the current health care system in Korea. Patients with agonizing chronic pain, discomfort, despair and disability are left with helplessly unprepared families with little help from the acute care oriented health care system after discharge from hospital. There is a great need for the development of an alternative means of quality care that is economically feasible and culturally adaptable to our society. Thus, the study was designed to demonstrate the effectiveness of home health care as an alternative to bridge the existing gap between the patients' needs and the current practice of health care. The study specifically purports to test the effects of home care on health expenditure, readmission, job retention, compliance to health care regime, general conditions, complications, and self-care knowledge and practices. The study was guided by the operations research method advocated by the Primary Health Care Operations Research Institute(PRICOR) which constitutes 3 stages of research : namely, problems analysis solution development, and solution validation. The first step in the operations research was field preparation to develop the necessary consensus and cooperation. This was done through the formation of a consulting body at the hospital and a steering committee among the researchers. For the stage of problem analysis, the Annual Report of Seoul National University Hospital and the patients records for last 5 years were reviewed and selective patient interviews were conducted to find out the magnitude of chronic health problems and areas of unmect health care needs to finally decide on the kinds of health problems to study. On the basis of problem analysis, the solution development stage was devoted to home care program development as a solution alternative. Assessment tools, teaching guidelines and care protocols were developed and tested for their validity. The final stage was the stage of experimentation and evaluation. Patients with liver diseases, hemiplegic and diabetic conditions were selected as study samples. Discharge evaluation, follow up home care, measurement and evaluation were carried out according to the protocols of care and measurement plan for each patient for the period of 6 months after discharge. The study was carried out for the period from Jan. 1987 to Dec. 1989. The following are the results of the study presented according to the hypothesis set forth for the study : 1. Total expenditures for the period of study were not reduced for the experimental group, however, since the cost per hospital visit is about 4 times as great as the cost per home visit, the effect of cost saving by home care will become a reality as home care replaces part of the hospital visits. 2. The effect on the rate of readmission and job retention was found to be statistically nonsignificant though the number of readmission was less among the experimental group receiving home care. 3. The effect on compliance to the health care regime was found to be statistically significant at the 5% level for hepatopathic and diabetic patients. 4. Education on diet, rest and exercise, and medication through home care had an effect on improved liver function test scores, prevention of complications and self-care knowledge in hepatopathic patients at a statistically significant level. 5. In hemiplegic patient, home care had an effect on increased grasping power at a significant level. However, there was no significant difference between the experimental and control groups in the level of compliance, prevention of complications or in self-care practices. 6. In diabetic patients, there was no difference between the experimental and control groups in scores of laboratory tests, appearance of complications, and self-care practices. The above findings indicate that a home care program instituted for such short term as 6 months period could not totally demonstrate its effectiveness at a statistically significant level by quantitative analysis however, what was shown in part in this analysis, and in the continuous consultation sought by those who had been in the experimental group, is that home health care has a great potential in retarding or preventing pathological progress, facilitating rehabilitative and productive life, and improving quality of life by adding comfort, confidence and strength to patients and their families. For the further studies of this kind with chronic patients it is recommended that a sample of newly diagnosed patients be followed up for a longer period of time with more frequent observations to demonstrate a more clear-cut picture of the effectiveness of home care.
Sleep is an essential component for health and the quality of life individuals, and is affected by multiple factors. Thereby, sleep impairment is know to be frequent even in health subjects. The purpose of the study is to compare sleep patterns and related factors between healthy young and old adults and to identify aging effects upon sleep in a cross-sectional way. The survey questionnaire was developed by translation and modification of two well-know sleep questionnaires which were originally developed by Monroe(1967) and Ellis, et al.(1982). Discussion with experts and pilot study were completed to finalize the contents of the questionnaire that was used in this study. Results are as follows : 1. Sleep complaints were lower in older adults. 2. The most frequent variables that explain sleep satisfaction were feeling rested in the morning in the older adults and feeling rested and falling asleep within five minutes in the young adults. 3. Regarding sleep-disturbing factors, physical factors were more frequently reported in the older adults and environmental factors are reported more frequently in the young adults. and there was no difference related to the emotional factors between the two groups. 4. Young adults were practiced strategies for better sleep more often than the older adults, and they were mainly in-home activities just before sleep. 5. Sleep patterns which change with aging were as follows : going to bed and waking up earlier ; not staying in the bed long after waking up ; getting harder to fall asleep ; frequent arousal after sleep onset ; getting harder to go back to sleep after arousal during night sleep. From the results of this study, it can be concluded that sleep and related factors of the young and the older adults are different. Also, sleep patterns change with aging and those changes seem to be negative for sleep in the elderly. Repeated studies are needed to establish more concrete information regarding sleep patterns. In addition, further research is needed to develop more reliable, valid, and feasible sleep measure tools, and to develop and evaluate nursing interventions.
Neural networks have recently attracted considerable attention in the field of classification and other areas. The purpose of this study was to demonstrate an experiment using back-propagation neural network model applied to nursing diagnosis. The network's structure has three layers; one input layer for representing signs and symptoms and one output layer for nursing diagnosis as well as one hidden layer. The first prototype of a nursing diagnosis systern for patients with stomach cancer was developed with 254 nodes for the input layer and 20 nodes for the output layer of 20 nursing diagnoses, by utilizing learning data set collected from 118 patients with stomach cancer. It showed a hitting ratio of .93 when the model was developed with 20,000 times of learning, 6 nodes of hidden layer, 0.5 of momentum and 0.5 of learning coefficient. The system was primarily designed to be an aid in the clinical reasoning process. It was intended to simplify the use of nursing diagnoses for clinical practitioners. In order to validate the developed model, a set of test data from 20 patients with stomach cancer was applied to the diagnosis system. The data for 17 patients were concurrent with the result produced from the nursing diagnosis system which shows the hitting ratio of 85%. Future research is needed to develop a system with more nursing diagnoses and an evaluation process, and to expand the system to be applicable to other groups of patients.
The purpose of this study was to develop a home health care model in the public health system and to test the effectiveness of the model. Seven community health practitioners in Yon-Cheon county, Kyunggi province, carried out home health care service for this research. The subjects of the home health care were a total of 111 community residents with chronic health problems and risk-prone infants and children: 29 persons with hypertension, 18 persons with diabetes, 12 persons with neurologic problems, 12 elderly, and 40 infants and children. During the period of study, from December, 1993 to March, 1995, a demonstrative home health care model was developed in the Yon-Cheon County community health centers with the cooperation of the Yon-Cheon Medical Center and Yon-Cheon Public Health Center for the first six months. A home care practice manual and recording system for home visits were also co-developed by the researchers and community health practitioners. Four workshops and monthly conferences were held for this purpose. Actual home care practice took place for two months, and on-going evaluation and replanning accompanied this process. The result of the evaluation of home care service were as follows. 1) For persons with hypertension, diabetes, neurologic problems, there was significant improvement in knowledge of disease and care, but no significant difference was seen in health behavior or symptoms after home care service. 2) No significant difference was seen in level of self esteem or depression after reminiscence therapy among 12 elderly subjects. 3) There were significant differences in satisfaction toward child rearing and parental support, but no significant difference in education needs for parental role after home care service among parents of infants and children. 4) There was significant improvement in the quality of life among the subjects after the home care service. 5) Subjects responded that they were highly satisfied with the home care service given by the community health practitioners. Although, the actual implementation period was very short, and not all of the evaluation outcomes showed significant improvement, the home health care model of community health practitioners was, in general, positively evaluated. Through this research, the possibility of community health practitioners working as active home care personnel in the public health care system is supported. Further research with an expanded area and subjects for a longer period is recommended. Cost effectiveness research is also needed.
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.
PURPOSE: In order to improve self-management of elderly hypertensives in this study, the researcher examined the effect of blood pressure regulation by an abdominal relaxed breathing training which regulates physical response to stress and lessens the activity of the sympathetic nerve.
METHOD
A quasi-experimental pre-test and post-test design was used. Thirty elderly hypertensive patient ; Sixteen in the abdominal breathing group and fourteen in the control group participated in this study. The abdominal relaxed breathing training consisted of eight sessions twice a week for four weeks. There was no intervention for the control group.
RESULT
1. There was a significant decrease in systolic and diastolic blood pressure between the experimental group and control group over three different times, and interaction by groups and over time. 2. There was no significant difference in the level of total stress response, physical stress response, behavioral-cognitive stress response between the experimental group and control group over three different times, and interaction by groups and over time.
CONCLUSION
Findings indicate that this study will contribute to develop nursing strategies for the regulation of blood pressure for the elderly, which is easy for the elderly to learn as a nonpharmacologic approach.
The main objectives of this study were to analyze the concept of hope, so to provide basic data to develop a valid instrument to measure hope, and to develop hope enhancing nursing intervention a program for cancer patients. The hybrid model approach was applied in three phases, the theoretical phase, the empirical phase, and the analytic phase. The study was developed on universal attributes explaining generalized hope and specific hope, which were revealed in a comprehensive review of the literature. In the empirical phase, eight cancer patients undergoing chemotherapy were interviewed to reveal causes, motivation, and their resource of hope according to The Hope Assessment Guide (Farren, Herth, & Popovich, 1995). In the analytical phase, the results of the two previous stages of the study were compared. The results were as follows: In the theoretical phase, six dimensions of hope emerged; affective, cognitive, behavioral, affiliative, temporal and contextual dimension. The antecedent of hope was loss, crisis, uncertainity, and stress. The consequences were renewal, development of new methods, safety, peace and transcendental competence. In the empirical phase, these six dimensions emerged as theoretical phases were verified and specified as these descriptive terms: feeling, intention, expectation, activity, relation, future- orientation, reality and goal-setting. The antecedent factor of hope was occurrence or recurrence of cancer. The consequence of hope was ability to cope with real condition, feeling of safety and comfort, peace, development of new strategy and recovery of disease. The major content of hope in this phase was related to specific hope, but it was also influenced on by general hope. In the analytic phase, general and specific hope was renamed as trait and state hope. All attributes emerged at the empirical phases, and also emerged at the theoretical phase. However, cognitive and contextual dimensions were revised and specified. In conclusion, the concept of hope is divided into trait hope and state hope, and state hope is an anticipatory expectation that occurs at the time of a stressful stimulus, such as being diagnosed with cancer. Hope is a multidimensional dynamic energized mental state which has the dimensions of affective, cognitive, behavioral, affiliative, temporal and contextual. There should be further studies to develope the state and trait hope scale according to definition and attributes of hope investigated in this study. In addition, considering results of the empirical phase, the family is very a important factor as a resource of hope, so it is necessary to consider family in implementing a nursing intervention program to enhance hope.
This study examined all the research published in Journal of Korean Academy of Nursing (JKAN) for last 30 years, from its beginning year to year 1999, based on an objective frame of evaluation. The purpose of this study is to reflect the trend of nursing research in Korea to date, and to provide an optimal direction for future research. The total number of 959 studies were analyzed with the following results. 1. Since 1990s, the number of non-degree based research has been larger than that of degree-based research compared to 1970s and 1980s. Both collaborative and funded research has been particularly increased in a gradual rate. 2. Research on nurses or nursing students has decreased while research on more diverse populations such as patients, patient families, or community-dwelling healthy clients has increased. 3. While essential nursing concepts such as human, nursing, and health have been consistently dealt as main research topics, research related to the concept of environ- ment has been insufficiently conducted. 4. It was remarkable that the quality of nursing research has been improved due to the acknowledgement of the importance of the empirical research method within the nursing community. 5. Qualitative research has appeared in the journal since the late 1990s, but it is still regarded to be in its novice stage. 6. Although the utilization of research findings for expanding the nursing body of knowledge has been wide in diverse specialties, most studies are limited to focus on concept development or evolution yet. also, in some of these research finding are utilization already considerably as to develop nursing interventions. Based on these findings, conclusions are extended to the following discussions: For the last 30 years, nursing research in Korea has shown an acute methodological development in both quantity and quality. However, there has been a lack of research on theory development although it is one of the ultimate goals in nursing. Further research should be empirical enough to be utilized in an actual nursing care context, and thus to be basis of developing culturally competent nursing theories in Korea.
The purpose of study was to develop and validate Korean Sleep Scale A which can be easily administrated by nurse for a wide range of adult subjects. Dimensions of adult concept were derived by literature review. Previously developed sleep scales were also analyzed in order to develop scales items. The Korean sleep scale A was structured as a 15 item, 4 point like type scale. The Scale was tested an 298 female and male adult subjects after pilottest and content validation. The results showed reliability by internal consistency of Cronbach's alpha=75 Construct validity was tested by factor analysis and known group technique. Factor analysis showed 4 factor-sleep pattern, sleep evaluation, sleep result, and cause of sleep disturbance. Theses four factors explained 55.9% of total variance. Correlations between factors ranged from .15-.32. There was correlation among Korean Sleep Scale A score, Verran and Snyder-Halpern(VSH) Sleep Scale scale, and sleep satisfaction scale score, r= .71(p=.00), r=.51(p=.03), respectively. These study results partially support reliability, construct validity, and criterion related validity of Korean Sleep Scale A. Further validation study is required with other subjects and other settings.
Ego-integrity in Erikson's stage theory is used frequently among health team members related to the care of the elderly and has specific meanings within the context of quality of life in later life. However, the concept of ego-integrity in the elderly has not been well articulated in the literature. This study was conducted clarify and conceptualize the phenomena of ego-integrity in the elderly.
A Hybrid Model of concept development was applied to develop a concept of ego-integrity, which included a field study carried out in Seoul, South Korea using in-depth interviews with old adults who were admitted as a right person for research subject according to attributes of ego-integrity analysed in the theoretical phase.
The concept of ego-integrity emerged as a complex phenomenon having meanings in several different dimensions which encompassed several attributes.
Ego-integrity is a concept having needs that should be treated in a specific way and it is possible to enrich the meaning and methods to manage ego-integrity in nursing interventions for promoting quality of life so that its application may have effects that have positive impacts on the elderly's well being.
This study was to identify the prevalence of orthostatic hypotension and its association with risk factors of orthostatic hypotension aged over 60 in Seoul and Chungju, Korea.
The data were collected from the 22th of August, 2000 to the 7th May 2001. The participants were 74 community-dwelling aged who could stand up from sitting position without assistance. Subjects were interviewed with structured questionnaire in order to ask experience of previous falls, hours in per day, symptoms related orthostatic hypotension and demographic characteristics. Orthostatic hypotension was assessed at 1 minute after the subjects standing from sitting position and defined as 20mmHg or greater decrease in systolic blood pressure after standing.
The prevalence of orthostatic hypotension was 17.1%. The mean drop of systolic blood pressure was 27.46mmHg among orthostatic hypotension subjects. The significant variables which explain the occurrence of orthostatic hypotension was the basal systolic blood pressure, the hit ratio of discriminant function with basal systolic blood pressure was 69.7%.
Finding indicate that this study will contribute to develop nursing strategies to identify risk factors and to prevent orthostatic hypotension for the aged.
Ego-integrity in older adults is the central concept related to quality of life in later life. Therefore, for effective interventions to enhance the quality of later life, a scale to measure ego-integrity in older adults is necessary. This study was carried out to develop a scale to measure ego-integrity in older adults.
This study utilized cronbach's alpha in analyzing the reliability of the collected data and expert group, and factor analysis and item analysis to analyze validity.
Seventeen items were selected from a total of 21 items. Cronbach's alpha coefficient for internal consistency was .88 for the 17 items of ego-integrity in the older adults scale. Three factors evolved by factor analysis, which explained 50.71% of the total variance.
The scale for measuring ego-integrity in Korean older adults in this study was evaluated as a tool with a high degree of reliability and validity.