Earticle

Purpose: The purpose of this study was to investigate the association of job stress and health promotion behaviors with the quality of life in female riot police officers. Methods: A cross-sectional design was adopted, and a convenience sample of 182 female riot police officers from 5 Metropolitan Police Agencies in South Korea. All participants completed a self-administered survey questionnaire that assessed job stress, health promotion behavior, and quality of life in May 2018. The collected data were analyzed using t-test, analysis of variance, and correlation and multiple linear regression analyses, all of which were executed using SPSS/WIN 23.0 and STATA 13.0. Results: The level of job stress among participants was moderate, and the mean was 45.25 out of a maximum possible score of 100. The mean scores that emerged for health promotion behaviors and the quality of life were 2.62 (maximum=4) and 56.59 (maximum=100), respectively. Job stress (r=-.380, p<.001) and health promotion behaviors (r=.559, p<.001) were correlated with the quality of life. The statistically significant predictors of the quality of life were job stress (β=-.212, p=.001) and health promotion behaviors (β=.417, p<.001). Conclusion: The variables that were associated with the quality of life of female riot police officers were job stress and health promotion behaviors. Therefore, interventions that can enhance job stress management and health promotion behaviors are needed to improve the quality of life of female riot police officers.

Purpose: This study aimed to examine the relationship between organizational health (OH), safety climate (SC), the nursing working environment (NWE), and engagement in patient safety management activities (PSMA) among operating room nurses and identify the factors that predict engagement in PSMA. Methods: From August 10th to 25th, 2018, 176 operating room nurses who were working in tertiary and general hospitals responded to a structured questionnaire. Using SPSS/WIN 25.0, the collected data were subjected to independent-samples t-test, one-way analysis of variance, Scheffé test, and Pearson’s correlational and multiple stepwise regression analyses. Results: OH and SC were significantly correlated with engagement in PSMA. The factors that predicted engagement in PSMA were OH, NWE, participation in accreditation, years of work experience, and hospital size; together, they explained 17% of the variance in engagement in PSMA. Conclusion: This study revealed that OH has a significant influence on engagement in PSMA among operating room nurses. Therefore, hospitals should aim to create healthy working environments to promote engagement in PSMA among operating room nurses, actively delegate responsibilities to increase their level of participation in accreditation, and implement strategies that maintain high levels of nurse retention.

Purpose: This study aimed to determine health problems experienced by workers in special employment relationships (WSER) and identify coping strategies used when such problems occur. Methods: This qualitative study used the focus group interview method. Thirteen study participants included five home-visit tutors, five insurance salespersons, and three credit card recruiters. The interviews were conducted from November 2018 through January 2019, with each occupational group interview lasting about 2 hours. Analysis based on phenomenological research was independently performed by two researchers. Results: Most participants had common health problems involving vocal cord symptoms, and stress related to emotional labor and traffic accidents. The unique health problems included cystitis, musculoskeletal, and digestive symptoms in home-visit tutors; reduced vision and hearing in insurance salespersons; and mental distress in credit card recruiters. There was no protection system for their health coverage, and the company emphasized their self-employed status to avoid taking responsibility for them. Twelve participants did not purchase occupational accident insurance owing to both not having adequate information and economic burden concerning premium status. Conclusion: WSER experienced both physical and mental health problems. These problems were caused by their unstable employment status, and the social security system for their coverage being non-functioning.

Purpose: The aim of this study was to identify core keywords and topic groups of workplace bullying researches in the past 10 years for better understanding research trend. Methods: The study was conducted in four steps: 1) collecting abstracts, 2) extracting and cleaning semantic morphemes, 3) building co-occurrence matrix and 4) analyzing network features and clustering topic groups. Results: 437 articles between 2010 and 2019 were retrieved from 5 databases (RISS, NDSL, Google scholar, DBPIA and Kyobo Scholar). Forty-one abstracts from these articles were extracted, and network analysis was conducted using semantic network module. The most important core keywords were ‘turnover’, ‘intention’, ‘factor’, ‘program’ and ‘nursing’. Four topic groups were identified from Korean databases. Major topics were ‘turnover’ and ‘organization culture’. Conclusion: After reviewing previous research, it has been found that turnover intention has been emphasized. Further research focused on various intervention is needed to relieve workplace bullying in nursing field.

Purpose: This study aimed to investigate the correlation between death anxiety, terminal care stress, and job satisfaction of new nurses, as well as to identify factors affecting job satisfaction using descriptive correlations. Methods: This study included 143 new nurses who had 3 to 12 months of experience in terminal care. Data were collected from January to February 2018, and were analyzed using descriptive statistics, t-test, ANOVA, Scheffé test, Pearson's correlation coefficient, and hierarchical regression analysis. Results: There was a negative correlation between job satisfaction and terminal care stress (r=-.170, p=.043), while death anxiety and terminal care stress were positively correlated (r=.284, p=.001). The following findings demonstrated a significant effect on job satisfaction: lesser the clinical career experience, the lower the job load causing death anxiety and terminal care stress, and the higher the job satisfaction. Furthermore, the explanatory power of these factors was 15.1%. Conclusion: To assist new nurses within three months of joining in clinical adaptation, it is necessary to provide them with appropriate knowledge regarding terminal care through training, and with counseling opportunities for the psychological burdens they experience while caring for dying patients.

Purpose: This study aimed to identify factors influencing depressive symptoms in public and private sector employees. Methods: Survey data on 23,602 workers who had worked in the public or private sector were obtained from the 2014 Korean Working Condition Survey (KWCS). Symptoms of depression were measured using the WHO-5 Well-being Index. Data were analyzed using a x2 test, t-test, and multivariate stepwise logistic regression to determine the factors affecting the symptoms of depression. Results: First, the prevalence of depressive symptoms was 41.1 % in public sector employees and 43.4 % in private sector employees. Second, the factors commonly affecting depressive symptoms in public and private sector employees were residence area, cognitive demands, development opportunities, social support from colleagues, social support from supervisors, social community at work, job rewards, and work-family conflict. In addition, age, company size, atypical work, ergonomic risks, quantitative demands, emotional demands, influence, and job insecurity were found to be predictors of depressive symptoms unique to private sector employees. Conclusion: Mental health programs including the employee assistance program (EAP) should be developed and implemented after considering the risk factors affecting depressive symptoms.

Purpose: This study aimed to identify the influence of job stress, compassion satisfaction, and resilience on depression of nurses. Methods: One hundred seventy six nurses working at one tertiary hospital in one metropolitan city were included. The data collection was conducted from September 1st to October 1st, 2018, using a structured, self-reported questionnaire. The collected data were analyzed using descriptive statistics, t-test, one-way ANOVA, Pearson’s correlation coefficients, and multiple regression. Results: The M±SD age of 170 subjects was 29.62±5.59. Depression had significant negative correlations with compassion satisfaction (r=-.50, p<.001) and resilience (r=-.56, p<.001), and a positive correlation with job stress (r=.42, p<.001). In the multiple regression analysis, marital status (β=-.15, p=.015), job stress (β=-.00, p<.001) and resilience (β=-5.47, p<.001) had a significant effect on depression. The explanatory power of the subject’s marital status, leisure life, job stress, compassion satisfaction, and resilience on depression was 44.1% (F=27.62, p<.001). Conclusion: The study results showed that single status, low job stress, high resilience may decrease depression of nurses. Reducing job stress and improving resilience of nurses will virtually contribute to reduce their depression that can influence on not only nurses’ health status but also their performance and qualitative caring for patients.

Purpose: This study aims to provide preliminary data for weight management, and prevention and management of cardiovascular and cerebrovascular diseases. We examined the effect of changes in the weight of workers at a manufacturing company over three years on their metabolic syndrome and metabolic syndrome diagnosis components. Methods: Necessary data were collected from the questionnaire and the results of the Korean National Health Screening of 2015 and 2017, which included 228 workers at a manufacturing company in G region. The collected data were analyzed using the SPSS/WIN 23.0 program. ANCOVA was used to examine the differences in the metabolic syndrome diagnosis components according to weight change. In addition, multiple logistic regression analysis was used to obtain the odds ratios of metabolic syndrome and metabolic syndrome analysis component, based on the weight changes in the normal weight group and the obesity group. Results: Waist measure, systolic blood pressure, and blood pressure were found to have significant effects based on participants’ weight change over three years. These factors increased with a larger increase in weight at a statistically significant level. This study analyzed the weight changes of the normal weight group and the obesity group considering the data from the National Health Screening of 2015, and found that the risk of metabolic syndrome increased at a statistically significant level as body weight increased; thus, the obesity group showed a higher risk in this regard. It was also found that waist measure, fasting blood sugar, and high-density low cholesterol increased at a statistically significant level as body weight increased. Conclusion: Health administrators need to recognize the importance of workers’ weight management, select an intensive management group based on a time series analysis of weight changes, and develop and implement programs to manage the metabolic syndrome diagnosis components.

Purpose: This study aimed to examine the process from occurrence of a hospital nurse’s suicide to workers’ compensation approval, responses of the parties involved, issues debated during approval deliberations, and significant policy changes resulting from the incident. Methods: We conducted in-depth interviews with involved parties and collected various documents, including newspaper articles, forum proceedings, and the agency report on determination of workers’ compensation. Content analysis was performed on the collected data. Results: A Joint Task Force continuously reported its progress and findings through mass media such as newspaper, radio, and TV. These activities exerted pressure on a government agency to conduct an occupational disease review and significantly impacted the workers’ compensation approval. The agency recognized associations between the hospital’s inadequate nurse training and the suicide but did not confirm the excessive overtime and workplace harassment experienced by the nurse as causes of the suicide. This case’s media coverage and impact resulted in a law prohibiting workplace harassment and a hospital system dedicating at least one nurse to training activities. Conclusions: This incident had a significant social impact as the first case of workers’ compensation approval for a hospital nurse’s suicide. However, the case produced no structural changes in nurses’ working conditions such as heavy workloads.

Purpose: This study aimed to examine the factors associated with behavior that reduces exposure to environmental hormones among nursing students. Methods: Data were collected from 160 nursing students in D and B cities, using self-report questionnaires. Data were analyzed using SPSS 22.0, and the analyses included descriptive statistics, t-test, ANOVA, Pearson's correlation coefficient test, and stepwise multiple regression. Results: Behavior that reduces exposure to environmental hormones differed significantly in terms of the participants’ knowledge about environmental hormones. Behavior that reduces exposure to environmental hormones was negatively correlated with knowledge of environmental hormones, attitude towards pro-environmental behavior, and environmental self-efficacy; these factors were significant predictors of behavior that reduces exposure to environmental hormones, and accounted for 27.0% of the variance. Conclusion: Environmental self-efficacy was identified as the most significant factor affecting behavior that reduces exposure to environmental hormones in nursing students. Therefore, it is necessary to develop programs to improve pro-environmental behavior and environmental self-efficacy in nursing students.

Purpose: This study aimed to identify the factors that affect the health promotion behaviors of shift workers. Methods: Using self-administered questionnaires, data were collected between August 13th and 31st, 2018. Descriptive statistics were computed, and t-test, analysis of variance, and correlational and multiple stepwise regression analyses were conducted using International Business Machines Corporation (IBM) Statistical Package for the Social Sciences (SPSS) version 22. Results: Health promotion behaviors were significantly and positively correlated with psychological well-being (r=.491, p<.001), fatigue (r=.170, p=.030), and self-efficacy (r=.520, p<.001). Psychological well-being (β=.249, p=.014), fatigue (β=.179, p=.007), and self-efficacy (β=.335, p=.001) had significant effects on health promotion behaviors and together explained 31.7% of the variance. Conclusion: A systematic educational program that enhances psychological well-being should be developed and implemented to nurture health promotion behaviors among shift workers. Additionally, an intervention program that can enhance health promotion behaviors should be implemented to improve self-efficacy and prevent fatigue among shift workers.