The Stress of Traditional Biggest Holidays among Korean Married Women / 가정의학회지

BACKGROUND: The Korean traditional national holidays commonly produce several physical symptoms related to stress. This study was performed to evaluate the degree of the stress from the married women during their Korean traditional biggest holidays. METHODS: The subjects were 99 married women who had visited the Health Promotion Center at a university hospital. For evaluating the stress of the Korean traditional biggest holidays, subjects were allowed to write in subjective stress score based on the Social Readjustment Rating Scale. The factors associated with the stress were investigated. RESULTS: The mean (+/- SD) score of the married women's stress of the Korean traditional biggest holidays was 38.7 (+/- 21.9). The score was widely distributed from the 0 to 100. The cases with hobbies to cope with stress showed significantly (P < 0.05) lower stress score than those without hobby. The stress score was inversely correlated with family APGAR score (r = -0.346, P < 0.01). In stepwise multiple regression model, the stress score was related to family APGAR score and hobby to cope with stress (overall R2 = 0.171, P < 0.001). CONCLUSION: The stress score of the Korean traditional biggest holidays was widely distributed from 0 to 100 in Korean married women. These results suggest that traditional biggest holidays act as a stressor for individual with a range of variable extent.

Utility of Single Alcohol Questions Related to Binge Drinking in Identifying Problem Drinkers / 가정의학회지

BACKGROUND: This study was done to validate the three single questions about binge drinking for identifying problem drinkers. METHODS: Two hundred sixty-one patients (133 men) were interviewed by family physicians for the presence of problem drinking which was defined as at-risk drinking or alcohol use disorders according to the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism (NIAAA) guideline and Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM-IV) criteria. The three single questions (the largest amount of drinking in a day; days of drinking 1.5 bottle [1 bottle in women] or more of Soju [Korean alcoholic beverage, 56 g of alcohol/bottle]; and days of getting drunk during the recent 3 months) were validated against the interview results. RESULTS: Among 261 interviewees, 31.4% were at-risk drinkers, 30.2% had a current alcohol use disorder, and 36.8% had either or both conditions. The first question, considering 4 drinks or more for men and 3 drinks or more for women as positive, showed a sensitivity of 93.8% and specificity of 75.0% in men, and 86.6% and 86.7% in women, respectively. The second question with cut-point of 1 in both gender showed 81.3% and 86.5% in men, respectively and 80.0% and 89.4%, respectively in women. The third question with cut-point of 3 in both gender showed 61.7% and 92.3% in men, respectively and 46.7% and 91.2%, respectively in women. The area under the Receiver Operating Characteristic curve of the first question was 0.937 in men and 0.970 in women, for the second question, 0.906 and 0.915, and for the third question, 0.768 and 0.764, respectively. CONCLUSIONS: The first question (the largest amount of drinking in a day during the recent 3 months) and the second question (days of drinking 1.5 bottle [1 bottle in women] or more of Soju during the recent 3 months) were considered useful in detecting problem drinkers.

Clinical Analysis of Stereotactic Thalamotomy for Medically Intractable Essential Tremor

Stereotactic ventrolateral thalamotomy has been successful in treating a wide spectrum of involuntary movement disorders. But very little has been reported concerning their application in essential tremor. Twenty three patients with medically refractory disabling essential tremor underwent ventralis(VL) thalamotomies. The procedure was unilateral in twenty three cases. Contralateral tremor remained abscent or markedly reduced in 22 patients at the time of the most recent follow-up examinations at a mean of 2.9 months after surgery. Disability was determined by a modified form of an estabilished rating scale for termor reported by Fahn and was reduced from a mean score of 11 to 3(p<0.0001) after the operation. Persistent surgical morbidity was limited to three patients with mild dysarthria and two with a mild cognitive impairment. There were no surgically related deaths. It is concluded that stereotactic VL thalamotomy is a treatment option for medically intractable disabling essential tremor.