2015, Vol.11, No.11

Crisisonomy 2023 KCI Impact Factor : 0.64

pISSN : 2466-1198 / eISSN : 2466-1201
https://journal.kci.go.kr/cemtp

Firefighters witness the death of their colleagues relatively more often than other occupations, and tend to be exposed frequently to life-threatening environments. This study aims to build up the theoretical foundation on leisure activities and post-traumatic stress among firefighters, construct an analytic framework based on the review of the relevant literature, and then analyze the firefighter's awareness survey data to find out the influence factors as to leisure activites among firefighters in alleviating post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). The findings based on standardized regression coefficients suggest physical leisure as the most influential factor alleviating PTSD, followed by relaxational leisure, recreational leisure, and intelligent leisure. However, psychological leisure turns out to be statistically insignificant.

This paper aims to investigate experience, awareness and preparedness of disaster among nursing college students in Korea and to provide the basic data needed for development of the disaster nursing education curriculum. The average score of disaster awareness was 3.71 out of 5 points, while preparedness of disaster was 0.54 out of 4 points. No statistical significance was found on the association between awareness on disaster and preparedness on disaster. However, awareness of seriousness of disaster was positively correlated with the degree of preparedness on disaster (r=.10, p=.036). We argue from this study that the disaster nursing educational curriculum would help improve the awareness and preparedness of disaster among nursing students and disaster education should begin as early as in the undergraduate level for better linkage to the actual clinical practices.

Korea is an rapidly aging society with high elderly suicide rates. This study tests the hypotheses that the areas with higher levels of social capital and social support have lower suicide rates among elderly population. Although the overall suicide rates in Korea are relatively high among the OECD countries, the elderly suicide rates vary widely by regions. Similarly, the level of social capital provided by local government varies throughout Korea. Using the data from 229 regions in Korea, the Ordinary Least Squares regression was employed to estimate the effects of social capital on regional elderly suicide rates, while controlling for other variables. The results partially support for the direct effects of social capital and social support on elderly suicide rates, showing that the regions exhibiting high level of social support or social capital tend to be lower in elderly suicide rates. These findings highlight the sociocultural contexts of regional-specific circumstances in Korea.