In this study, PASW Statistics ver. 18.0 was used to analyze the correlation between chewing difficulty and osteoarthritis in the population of 8,498 persons aged 50 years and older who had completed the health related questionnaire in the fifth Korea National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey in 2010∼2012. The following conclusion was drawn: The distribution of the chewing difficulty status showed that 38.8% of the respondents had chewing difficulty and that there was no significant difference by gender. Older respondents tended to have significantly greater chewing difficulty 34.3% of the respondents aged from 50 to 64 years and 46.4% of those aged 65 years and older, those who had lower levels of education and income, who were smokers, and who had higher levels of depression and stress suffered from significantly greater chewing difficulty. Chewing difficulty and osteoarthritis were correlated with each other: the respondents having chewing difficulty had 1.44 (95% confidence interval [CI], 1.23∼1.70) higher prevalence of osteoarthritis than those with no such difficulty. In addition, such correlation was not found in males: the former had 1.36 (95% CI, 0.98∼1.88) higher prevalence of osteoarthritis than the latter, which was not statistically significant. Such correlation was found in females: the former had 1.47 (95% CI, 1.22∼1.76) higher prevalence of osteoarthritis than the latter, which was statistically significant. Therefore, the chewing difficulty status affected osteoarthritis for females aged 50 years and older. Therefore, the efforts to solve oral health problems through oral hygiene would help prevent osteoarthritis from worsening and manage the condition.
Objective:To investigate the current status of prescription drugs in Oriental medical institutes and to draw up a future plan for the revitalization of Oriental medical health insurance, this survey has been performed. Method:The survey has been made with 321 doctors working at Oriental medical institutes in Daegu and Kyungbuk areas for a period of 3 month from June 1, 2010 until September 1, 2010. Result:1. When it comes to the current status of the use of herbal drugs in Oriental Health insurance, most of doctors surveyed prescribe insurance drugs, and they prescribe insurance drugs to patients, who are less than 20% of total patients visiting their clinics. 2. The awareness of Herbal Health Care Drugs is investigated. When it comes to the understanding of the difference between insurance drugs(powder type drugs) and granular type drugs, doctors admit that they differ only in one aspect, whether or not their being covered by health insurance. Based on the survey results on the understanding of insurance coverage of granular type drugs, doctors, even though they long for granular type drugs to be accepted as insurance drugs, are worrying whether the number of outpatients might dwindle due to increased insurance co-payments. They also point out that the biggest obstacles in the expansion of the granular type drugs as insurance drugs are the lack of understanding of the government and the objection of the Health Insurance Review and Assesment service (HIRA) for fear of increased insurance claims. 3. Upon investigation on Oriental medicine doctors' understandings of herbal pharmaceutical industry, it is found that doctors' responses on pharmaceutical industry are not all positive ones('new product development and neglect of R&D infrastructure' and 'smallness of industry'). When it is investigated what area needs the greatest improvement in herbal pharmaceutical industry, 'securing sufficient capital, good manufacturing, and strengthening quality control', is the highest. 4. When it is asked what are the most needed in order to improve herbal health insurance medicine, responses such as 'the increase in the accessibility to and the utilization of Oriental medical clinics through the diversification of the means of prescriptions', 'the improvement of insurance benefits(cap adjustments)', 'increase the proportion of high quality medicinal plants', 'the ceiling of co-payments(deductible) at 20,000 won or more', 'expansion of the choices of formulations', 'formulational expansions of tablets and pills', and finally 'admittance and expansion of granular type drug as insurance drug' are the highest. 5. Upon investigating the general characteristics of the current status of the usage of Oriental health care herbal drugs, the followings are observed. First, the frequency of use of health insurance drugs by the doctors who use health insurance with general characteristics shows similar differences in case of total monthly sales amount (p<0.001), average number of daily patients (p<0.05). Secondly, as to the willingness of th...
Objectives: This study aimed to identify the opinions of Gyeongsangbuk-do residents on out-of-hours (OOH) pharmacies and to examine the operating experiences of pharmacists who are operating OOH pharmacies in other areas. Methods: Cross-sectional survey was carried out for 1,000 Gyeongbuk residents employing a questionnaire via online or face-to-face, and 82 pharmacists who currently operate OOH pharmacies employing a postal questionnaire. Out of eighty-two, 46 pharmacists replied (response rate 56.1%). Results: As for the necessity of introducing OOH pharmacies in Gyeongsangbuk-do, 84.9% answered more than necessary. 86.1% favored the local government support for OOH pharmacies. The necessity of OOH pharmacies was highly evaluated among participants who experienced to be unable to use medicines or services in out of service hours, regardless of their characteristics or health condition. County residents consistently put a positive opinion for the necessity of OOH pharmacies if they have elderly family member(s), while city residents had significant differences across subgroups depending on their conditions (family members, household economics, health status, etc.). Almost all (95.7%) pharmacist participants highly evaluated the necessity of OOH pharmacies and the majority of them (63.0%) felt satisfied. However, 60.9% of participants have ever considered closing their OOH pharmacy business due to private, business management and professional reasons. Conclusion: This study made suggestions to address anticipated issues for the Gyeongbuk-style OOH pharmacy model.
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