[Development and effectiveness of a program for relieving 'Hwa-Byung' symptoms].

PURPOSE: This one group experimentation was designed to develop a program for relieving 'Hwa-Byung' (HB) symptoms and examine its effects on HB symptoms, pain threshold emotions like anger, anxiety and depression. METHOD: The program consisted of three components the change of the cognitive thoughts, the formation of a supportive network, and induction of mind-body relaxation. Sixteen middle-aged women with HB were divided into three groups for group dynamics according to the time of the recruitment. Data was collected for nine months at three time points, before, immediately after, and one month later of its application. RESULT: There were statistically significant differences in the severity level of state anger, state anxiety, depression, and HB symptoms according to the time interval. The means of state anger and state anxiety were reduced after the intervention, but it was slightly increased one month later. The means of depression and HB symptoms were continuously reduced after the intervention and one month later. CONCLUSION: This was the first management program for HB women in Korea. A future study must be done with the research design for methodological strength revision of the program.

A Clinical Analysis on the Patients of Orient-Medical Therapies in Emergency Department

We have observed that many patients who were under the treatment of orient medicine at the emergency department of our hospital but no data are available describing the medical habits of these patients. We therefore surveyed these patients seeking care in our ED to characterize their use of orient-medical therapies.4 analysis on the 427 patients who visited our ED and were under the treatment of orient medicine from Jan. 1996 to Jun. 1996 was carried out The results were as follows 1) There was no difference in the sex ratio (m:f=1:0.93). 2) With respect to the age groups of in patients, feat numbers of elderly people(50-year and 60-year old age group, over 60%) visited to our ED. 3) In the leading causes for visit to orient-medical therapy, cardiovascular disease ranked at the top(40%), followed by injury, gastrointestinal disease, and respiratory disease in decreasing order of frequency.4) The total numbers of CVA patients admitted to Oriental medicine were 105 patients. 5) The duration of admitted patients to Oriental medicine was prolonged for elderly patients.6) In the distribution of severity(AVPU) of adimitted patients, the number of patients with alert was 12 and verbal response was 91 painful response was 2 and unresponse was 0.