It is important to find indicators of quality nursing care to establish the excellence of nursing practice and for the development of nursing as a profession. Caring is one of the indicators which can represent professional nursing care. The purpose of this study was to develop a measurement tool of caring that could be used as an instrument for the evaluation of quality of nursing care. The Target population for the developed tool of caring is the adult patient. The mearsurement tool of caring was developed through the following steps. (1) A list of caring behaviors was made using qualitative researches on caring that has been done in Korea. (2) Caring behaviors in nurses were selected using the list of caring behaviors developed from Watson's 10 factors of caring, (3) Items for the measurement tool of caring were developed using the caring behaviors of nurses (4) Content validity of the developed items was evaluated by an expert panel. (5) The mearsurement tool of caring was developed after a pilot study (6) Internal consistency, and construct validity of the developed tool were verified. (7) The mearsurement tool of caring with the items verified for the internal consistency and construct validity was confirmed. As a result of the study, a mearsurement tool of caring, composed of 27 items with 3 factors, was developed. The Reliability coefficient of the tool was . 9578. The tool is a 5 point Likert scale. The factors of the tool and the number of items for each factor are, 1) accessibility and availablility, 15 items; 2) emotional support and giving information, 8 items; 3) providing a protective environment, 4 items.

Caring is being rediscovered as a central and unifying concept of the nursing. Traditionally, nursing profession has emphasized spirit and activities of caring. But there is little efforts to study the caring phenomena scientifically and systematically in nursing, and then the concept of caring is still remained unclear and ambiguous. Changes of social, and health care environment are threatening the philosophy and practice of caring, so it is urgent to identify caring more scientifically and to rediscover the nature of nursing discipline. Knowledge of the caring is essential component for the development of nursing as a science and a profession. The first thing to study a concept is thought to be the analysis of the concept. So in this study, concept analysis of caring was perfomed to clarify the concept of caring as a basis for the study of caring afterward. The approach used for the concept analysis of caring was the approach presented by Walker and Avant. The defining (or critical) attributes of caring identified in this study were (1) a series of activities for helping others, (2) concern and devotion, (3) interpersonal relationship, and (4) scientific and systematic process. The identified antecedents of caring were (1) awareness of other's needs for help, and (2) moral and cognitive motivation for helping others. The identified consequences of caing were (1) healing, (2) satisfaction, and (3) growth. And the consequences of caring were revealed to both of the care giver and the care receiver. The empirical referents of caring could be the behaviors of interpersonal relationship through scientific and systematic process with concern and devotion for others.

The propose of the study is to try to support the practice of caring suitable for our cultural emotion by cognating the meaning of caring related to health which is melted in korean culture. Concrete purposes were as followings; to first, confirm the caring of civilian in Kangwon-do, to secondly search the caring in the traditional culture idea, and to thirdly present the conceptual frame about the caring. The methodology of this research is the ethnography to use the depth interview and the participative observation. The geographical area of this research was in Wichon-ri, Songsan- myon, Kangnung-shi, Kangwon-do. Study participants were, 6men and 18women, totally 24 persons. Their average age was 72.6 years old. The period of data collection was from January, 1998 to April, 1999, which original data became saturation. Data collection was done after accept allowance of the participants, their stories were recorded in cassettee, by the way of the Spradley analysis was applied and adjusted. The results which was analyized as domain, category and property were as following; First, the category was the life serving other persons, which is the for mind, the benefiting one, the comprehensive one, the respective one, on soon. Second, the category was the controling life, and its property was the moderate mind, that is, vegetables were tried to be fed moderately, pleasantly and comfortable. Thirdly, the category was the eagerness life, and the properties were diligent mind, and mind which accomplished the complete resposibility. Fourth, the category was a happy life, and the properties were positive mind, satisfying one, thankful one, one of their ancestors benefit, and supplicatory one. Fifth, the category was the accepting life, and the properties were the submissive mind, resign one. Sixth, the category was the joint life all together and the properties were the harmonized mind, and the mutual helping one. Seventh, the category was the ruling life, and the properties were the pure mind, the ones which controls the body, the mind, the nature; which could surely confirmed the source of the life that lived with the nature, the native idea of our people. Eighth, the category was the retaining life, and the properties were the inherits the native custom, and the one that keep public morals. According to the result of examining the caring in ethnography, the general caring was performed the conceptual frame about the caring which is related to health was found in the principle of consideration, harmony, compliance, and transcendence.

This study was to find out the perception of toward death and caring behavior of lay parsons in one community : One Island in Pusan County, Chonbuk. The methodology of this study was ethnography. For this study, The fieldwork was conducted from October 1997 to July 1998. Data collected by in-depth interview and participant observations. The participants consisted of were 17 persons of both sexes. The key informants were four specific people. The result of this study is as follows; The people perceived two different kinds of death. Normal death, which means death from old age. The person was respected as an ancestor God and was believed to exist forever with their offspring. Abnormal death was regarded as negative, many had fears toward this king of death. The causes of abnormal death were supernatural phenomena and had absolute holy meanings. Whether death was good or bad, The death was not personal, but collective events as family or community affairs and was interpreted as death and birth for their offsprings. Funeral rites were family-centered and/or community-centered. The did normal procedures for normal deaths for abnormal deaths, there were many protective ceremonies(BuJungmagi : the prevention of the taboo of uncleanliness) for the remaining people. These ceremonies combined confucism and shamanism. Caring behavior for dying persons was ruled as community-centered, reciprocal and reality-centered principles.

Senile Dementia is one of the dispositional mental disorder which has been known to the world since Hippocratic age. It has become a wide-spread social problem all over the world because of chronic disease processes and the demands of dependent care for several years as well as improbability of treatment of it at the causal level. Essentially, life styles of the older generation differ from those of the younger generation. While the former is used to the patriarchal system and the spirit of filial piet and respect, the latter is pragmatized and individualized under the effects of the Western material civilization. these differences between the two generations cause conflict between family members. In particular, the pain and conflict of care-givers who take care of a totally dependent dementia patient not only is inciting to the collapse of the family union, but is expanding into a serious social problem. According to this practical difficulty, this study has tried to compare dementia care-givers' experiences inter-culturally and to help set up more proper nursing interventions, describing and explaining them through ethnographies by participant observation and in-depth interviews that enable seeing them in a more close, honest and certain way. It also tries to provide a theoretical model of nursing care for dementia patients which is proper to Korean culture. This study is composed of 12 participants(4 males, 8 females) whose ages range from 37-71 years. The relations of patients are 5 spouses(3 husbands, 2 wives), 4 daughters-in-law, 2 daughters, and 1 son-in-law. The following are the care-givers' meaning of experiences that results of the study shows. The first is "psychological conflict". It contains the minds of getting angry, reproaching, being driven to dispair, blaming oneself, giving up lives, and being afraid, hopeless, and resigned. The second is "physical, social and psychological pressure". At this stage, care-givers are shown to be under stress of both body and soul for the lack of freedom and tiredness. They also feel constraint because they hardly cope with the care and live through others' eyes. The third is "isolation". It makes the relationship of patient care-giver to be estranged, without understanding each other. they, also, experience indifference such as being upset and left alone. The forth is "acceptance". They gradually have compassion, bear up and then adapt themselves to the circumstances they are in. The fifth is "love". Now they learn to reward the other with love. It is also shown that this stage contains the process of winning other recognition. The final is "hope". In this stage they really want situations to go smoothly and hope everything will be O.K. These consequence enable us to summarize the principles of care experience such as, in the early stage, negative response such as physical, psychological confusion, pain and conflict are primary. Then the stage of acceptance emerges. It is initial positive response phase when care-givers may admit their situations. As time passes by a positive response stage emerges. At last they have love and hope. Three stages we noted above; however, there are never consistent situations. Rather it gradually comes into the stage of acceptance, repeating continuous conflict, pressure and isolation. If any interest and understanding of families or the support of surrounding society lack, it will again be converted to negative responses sooner or later. Otherwise, positive responses like hope and love can be encourage if the family and the surroundings give active aids and understanding. After all, the principles of dementia care experiences neither stay at any stage, nor develop from negative stages to positive stages steadily. They are cycling systems in which negative responses are constantly being converted. I would like to suggest the following based on the above conclusions: First, the systematic and planned education of dementia should be performed in order to enhance public relations. Second, a special medical treatment center which deals with dementia, under government's charge, should be managed. Third, the various studies approaching dementia care experiences result in the development of more reasonable and useful nursing guidelines.

This study is to define the caring experience of mothers with insulin-dependent diabetes mellitus children, by finding core category, contextual factors, intervening factors, and the patterns of caring, and to develop a practice theory on it. Research method followed grounded theory methodology by Strauss and Corbin. Subjects were six mothers, whose children have had insulin-dependent diabetes mellitus for 4 months to 14 years by the interview time. They were selected by theoretical sampling. Data were collected from September, 1995 to January, 1996. Interview were done by long interview took 50 minutes to 2 hours. Content of interview was recorded and transcribed later. Based on the results of previous interview, content of next interview was planned until data reached to the saturation point. Results were as follows : One hundred and forty concepts were found. These concepts were grouped into thirty-three categories, and then to ten categories. Mothers with diabetic child were revealed to face "being overwhelmed by burden". Overwhelming by burden is found to be progressed through the cycle production-coping-decrease or in crease process. Mothers showed four patterns of adaptation in caring the diabetic children. 1) If mothers felt large amount of overwhelming by burden because of difficulty of caring and unsympathizing but they had sufficient support, no condition of the child, and their coping mechanism was positive, most of them overcome with strong will, but some fell into burnout. 2) If mothers felt large amount of overwhelming by burden because of difficulty of caring, unsympathizing, insufficient support, serious condition of the child, and their coping mechanism was negative, they fell into burnout by coping with feeling. 3) In mothers felt small amount of overwhelming by burden because of little difficulty of caring and sympathizing, sufficient support, no serious condition of the child, but their coping was negative, most of them fell into burnout by coping with feeling, but some overcome. 4) If mothers felt small amount of overwhelming by burden because of little difficulty of caring and unsympathizing, sufficient support, no serious condition of the child, and their coping was positive, they overcome with strong will. On the basis of the above result, in order to help mothers take good care of their children, nursing assesment and intervention on life readjustment, and getting support should be required. Especially, through understanding mothers' personalities, individual support consistent with each of them should be required. Therefore education, counseling, mutual support and exchange of information will have to be accomplished.

Hwa-Byung(HB) has been categorized as a Korean culture-bound syndrome that is prevalent in married women of low socioeconomic status.