Myoung Soo Kim

Correlation between Severe ALS Patient-Caregiver Couples' Characteristics and Caregivers' Health Related Quality of Life

PURPOSE The purpose of this cross-sectional study was to examine the relationship between characteristics of severe ALS patient-caregiver couples and health related quality of life (HRQoL) in family caregivers. METHODS The participants in this study were 89 pairs of ALS patients using ventilators and a family caregiver. The characteristics of the ALS patients and caregivers, Korean-Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis Functional Rating Scale-Revised, Zarit Burden Interview and SF-36 were measured in this study. The data were collected from August 2008 to April 2009. Descriptive statistics, Pearson correlation coefficients, and canonical correlation were used for data analysis. RESULTS The physical component summary and mental component summary of the HRQoL score for family caregivers were 147.49±31.63 and 129.09±35.83, respectively. HRQoL for caregivers was related to characteristics of the ALS patient-caregiver couples, such as patients gender, caregivers age, gender, marital status, daily time spent in caregiving and burden with one significant canonical variable. The significant variate showed that the lower the age, the time spent in caregiving and the burden of caregivers, the higher the HRQoL of caregivers. CONCLUSION The support systems for caregivers considering caregiver characteristics such as demographics and burden should be implemented to improve the HRQoL of caregivers.

요양병원 간호사를 위한 전문직 자아개념 (Nurses' Self-Concept Instrument, NSCI) 도구의 타당도와 신뢰도

Purpose: The purpose of this study was to evaluate the validity and reliability of the Korean Version of the Nurses’ Self-Concept Instrument (NSCI) geriatric hospital nurses in Korea. Methods: Bilingual nursing professionals performed translation and back-translation. Reliability and validity of the content and construction of the instrument were confirmed. Internal consistency reliability was determined. Construction and concurrent validity were verified using fac-tor analysis and correlation coefficients. Results: The total 14 items for the Korean version of the Nurses’ Self-Concept Instrument (NSCI) were retained through item analysis. In explanatory factor analysis, four subcategories were pro-posed with their names of each factor: ‘Leadership’, ‘Staff relation’, ‘Knowledge’, and ‘Care’. The four factors accounted for 78.81% of the variances. The Cronbach’s α regarding internal consistency were .77~.91 for the NSCI subscales. Correlation among four subcategories ranged .62~.84. Conclusion: The findings show that the Korean version of the Nurses’ Self-Concept Instrument is reliable and valid for measuring professional Self-Concept of geriatric hospital nurses in Korea.