PURPOSE
The purpose of this study was to understand clinical nurses' level of information retrieval skill and its influence on evidence based practice (EBP).
METHODS
A cross-sectional design was used. Data were collected from a convenient sample of 492 nurses working at 5 university hospitals in Korea. The Data were analyzed using descriptive statistics, t-test, one-way ANOVA, and hierarchical multiple linear regression.
RESULTS
The mean score for information retrieval skill and EBP competency were respectively 2.81+/-0.64 and 3.98+/-0.86. Two step hierarchical regression analysis showed that attendance at academic conference (p=.036) and information retrieval skill (p<.001) were significant factors of EBP competency, information retrieval skill explained about 19% of total variance of EBP competency.
CONCLUSION
Nurse need to increased fundamental information retrieval skill for EBP competency. Therefore, it is important to increase nurses' information retrieval skills by tailoring continuing EBP education modules. It would be also advisable to develop centralized systems for the internal dissemination of research findings for the use of nursing staff.

PURPOSE
The objective of this study was to evaluate adherence to self-care and identify associated factors in outpatients with Heart Failure (HF).
METHODS
Using a cross-sectional design, a convenience sample of 249 outpatient clinic patients were recruited at S university hospital. Between October 2009 and December 2009, data were collected through questionnaires and medical record review.
RESULTS
The total mean score of adherence to self-care was 18.07+/-3.56 out of a possible 45 points. Among self-care dimensions, adherence to medication and low salt diet was high, while lower adherence was reported in contact with health professionals if symptoms such as weight gain, edema and fatigue were presented. Multivariate analysis adjusted for other socio-demographic and clinical factors showed that disease knowledge related to heart failure (p<.001) and left ventricular ejection fraction (p=.027) were independent predictors of adherence to self-care. These factors explained 23% of total variance in the adherence to self-care.
CONCLUSION
Heart failure patients with higher disease knowledge and those who have good systolic function may be more likely to engage in adherence to self-care than those with lack of disease knowledge and low contractility. Further research is needed to confirm these results and identify other predictors of adherence to self-care.

PURPOSE
This study was to identify the health status and reported resilience according to acculturation type among Chinese students in Korea.
METHODS
The subjects were 386 Chinese students studying in three universities in Chungnam province. The data were collected by standardized questionnaires and SPSS/WIN 15.0 program was used to analyze the data with descriptive statistics, Chi-square, t-test, and ANOVA.
RESULTS
Subjects reported the following Acculturation type: integration (26.7%), assimilation (28.5%), separation (32.4%), and marginalization (12.4%). The reported resilience was significantly different according to economic status. The health status was significantly different according to religion and economic status. Acculturation type was significantly different according to age, educational level, length of stay, type of residency and economic status working style. The health status and resilience were significantly different according to acculturation type.
CONCLUSION
The findings suggest that integration of acculturation type is most useful to health status and resilience among Chinese students in Korea. Future studies need to examine acculturation type as coping strategy for foreign students' adaptation.

PURPOSE
The purpose of this study was to identify the predictors of acculturative stress among Chinese students in Korea.
METHODS
Between October and December 2009, two hundred one Chinese students from three universities located in Cungnam province, were included in the current study using a questionnaire survey. Data analysis was done using SPSS/WIN 17.0 program.
RESULTS
The average score of acculturative stress was 38.50+/-6.97. There were significant differences in acculturative stress according to educational level, economic status, type of residence, speaking skill in Korean, listening skill in Korean, grade point average, satisfaction for studying abroad, and perceived health status. The acculturative stress was significantly correlated with depression, resilience and social support. The strongest predictor of acculturative stress among Chinese students was depression.
CONCLUSIONS
The findings suggest that developing programs to improve psychological health may provide a buffer against acculturative stress experienced by migrating Chinese students. Furthermore, more studies are needed to explore variables that influence on the international students' acculturation in Korea.

PURPOSE
The purpose of this study was to identify the research trends and instruments for assessment of sleep quality in Korea.
METHODS
66 quantitative research reports published from 2000 to March 2009 in Korea were selected from 5 databases: RISS4U, KISS, KISTI, DBpia, and the National Assembly Library and were analyzed according to criteria such as publication years, type of journal, participants, study fields, research design, participants, key words and instruments for assessment.
RESULTS
Research in sleep quality has been rapidly increasing in recent years. More than half of the research analyzed was conducted in nursing. The majority of research methods were survey and correlational research. Patients with chronic illness and the elderly were the major subjects in those researches. Most research was performed based on hospitals and communities. The types of variables tested for their relation and influence on sleep quality were quite limited. With respect to the instrument used for assessing sleep quality, most studies did not consider whether or not the validity of their instrument had been established.
CONCLUSION
It is recommended to conduct clinically applicable interventional research with an experimental design and to develop a reliability and validity established sleep quality instrument for Koreans.

PURPOSE
The purpose of this study was to identify the influencing factors on postpartum fatigue in the parturient women.
METHODS
The data were collected from July to September, 2006 using self-report questionnaires. The sample was 143 healthy parturient women who visited the outpatient clinic at 2 hospitals for a routine follow up after childbirth. The data were analyzed by using SPSS 12.0 Win program.
RESULTS
There were significant differences in the postpartum fatigue by age, religion, sleep hour, and complaint of perceived health problem. The postpartum fatigue were significantly correlated with infant care stress(p<0.001), sleep satisfaction(p<0.001), and feeding difficulty(p=0.016). The multiple regression analysis showed that the postpartum fatigue were significantly predicted by the infant care stress, sleep satisfaction and complaint of perceived health problem. These variables explained 31.8% of the variance of postpartum fatigue. The infant care stress was the main predictor of postpartum fatigue.
CONCLUSIONS
It could be concluded that the nursing intervention for reducing the infant care stress should be developed to manage the postpartum fatigue for parturient women. Prospective studies are needed to be conducted to verify the causal relationship between infant care stress and postpartum fatigue.

PURPOSE
The purposes of this study were to describe the pattern of type D personality, to compare the life style and quality of life between type D personality and non-type D personality patients, and to investigate the factors influencing quality of life in patients with hypertension.
METHODS
A cross sectional, descriptive study was used. The participants in this study were 193 outpatients who were diagnosed with hypertension at two university hospitals in urban area, Korea. The data was collected from December, 2006 to January, 2007. Type D personality was measured by the DS-14 scale.
RESULTS
The prevalence of type D personality was 83.9%. Patients of type D personality were significantly different in educational status, monthly income, fat intake and exercise, and had a lower overall quality of life than patients of non-type D personality. Under controlled general characteristics and life style factors, multiple linear regression analysis was performed. The most significant factor influencing quality of life in hypertensive patients was type D personality, and this factor explained their quality of life with a variance of 14.8%.
CONCLUSIONS
Various programs for psychological intervention are required to control for the distressed personality of patients with hypertension. Further studies should be conducted prospectively on a larger patient population.

PURPOSE
The purpose of this study is to identify the factors that influence HRQOL for married working women.
METHODS
The subjects of the study were 577 full-time working married women living in five province. The data were collected using a structured questionnaire, from April to September 2006.
RESULTS
As for the general characteristics, there was a statistically significant difference in the level of HRQOL(total) according to age, education, menopause, family income, leisure activities, residence, duration of marriage, number of children, firstborn age, household duties of husband, job, career, type of work, women's income, and purpose of working. The level of HRQOL showed a statistically significant difference according to BMI and behavioral factors except for caffeine intake and follow up health screening. The HRQOL were significantly correlated with depression, marital satisfaction and job satisfaction. The multiple regression analysis showed that the HRQOL were significantly predicted by depression, marital satisfaction, education, regular exercise, daily working hours and job satisfaction. These variables explained 48.5% of the variance of HRQOL. Depression was the main predictor of HRQOL.
CONCLUSION
It could be concluded that nursing intervention to reduce depression should be developed to promote the HRQOL for married working women.

PURPOSE
This study was to identify the relationship between family support, self-efficacy and self-care performance in patients with chronic illness. METHODS: The subjects were 100 in-and out-patients who were diagnosed with chronic illness at university hospital in Cheonan. The data analyzed using descriptive statistics, Pearson correlation coefficient and stepwise multiple regression with SPSS WIN 12.0. RESULTS: The level of family support, self-efficacy and self-care performance were high. The family support in patients with chronic illness indicated a significant positive correlation to self-care performance but no significant correlation to self-efficacy. The self-efficacy in patients with chronic illness indicated a significant positive correlation to self-care performance. Family support and self-efficacy account for 24.4% of variance of the self-care performance. The most significant predictor which influenced self-care performance in patients with chronic illness was family support. CONCLUSION: The results of this study showed that family support and self-efficacy are very important variables in explaining the self-care performance. Therefore, these variables should be considered in nursing intervention development and education.

The environment in the ICU leads to negative changes in a patient's usual sleep pattern and so contributes negatively to the patient's health condition as compared to patients in general wards. Therefore, it is thought that an important nursing intervention would be to identify the relation between noise and sleep patterns which play an important role in illness recovery. The purpose of the present study was to explore the relationship between noise in the ICU and the sleep pattern of patients admitted to the ICU. A descriptive correlation design was used to examine the relationship. Thirty-four subjects were recruited from a Medical ICU (MICU), Surgical ICU (SICU) and Coronary Care Unit (CCU) at a large university hospital in Suwon. Data were collected from September 28 to October 31 in 1999. In the present study, noise was categorized into noise level and patients' perception of noise. The objective noise level was measured using the A-Weighted Sound Level Meter. The patients' preception of noise was measured using a self-reported questionnaire developed by the researcher. Sleep patterns in this study includes both quantity and quality of sleep. These were measured using open ended questionnaires and the 'Korean Sleep Scale A' developed by Oh, Song, Kim(1998). The data was analyzed using the SPSS-WIN to test the research question, Pearson product moment correlation coefficient was run. Ancillary analysis were conducted with demographic variables to determine their relation to the main study variables. For the ancillary analysis, t-test and one-way ANOVAs were performed. The results of the present study are summerized as follows: 1. The total mean of objective noise level (10pm-6am) was 56.2dB. The means for night time noise level in individual ICUs for the SICU, MICU and CCU, were 58.7dB, 58.6dB and 48.3dB, respectively. The total mean for patients' noise perception was 42.8 out of a maximum possible score of 76. For item means of noise perception, the one ranked highest was "conversations between doctors and nurses" (3.2). The one ranked lowest was "noise from the radio" (1.2). Regarding the degree of perception for each type of noise source, the one ranked highest was "equipment noise" (2.6), the second was "conversation between medical staff" (2.4), the third was "conversation between patients, caregivers and visitors" (2.3), and the one ranked lowest was "environment noise" (1.8). 2. Looking at quantity of sleep of ICU patients, the mean nocturnal sleep time was found to be 4.9 hours. The total mean of sleep quality for ICU patients was 21.0 out of a maximum possible score of 40. 3. The relationship between perception of noise and quantity of sleep was statistically significant(r= - .41, p<.05). The relationship between perception of noise and quality of sleep was also statistically significant(r= - .47, p<.01). The results of the study indicate that personal perception of noise is related to sleep patterns. Therefore, it is suggested that nursing interventions be developed to reduce the degree of personal perception of noise and, thus, decrease sleep pattern disturbances in patients in the ICU.