Suchergebnisse

Offering a free gift when a purchase is made is one of the most pervasive marketing practices. We investigated whether making the product offered as a free gift also available for sale by itself (i.e., a stand-alone sale of the gift product) accentuated the customer's perception of
the value of the promotion. Previous research on value anchoring and adjustment predicted that a stand-alone sale of a gift would increase the promotion value, whereas the opposite was predicted in the scarcity perception literature. We conducted 3 empirical studies with 330 undergraduate
students in Korea, and the results supported the scarcity hypothesis: The availability of a stand-alone sale decreased the perceived scarcity of a free gift which, in turn, reduced the value of the promotional offer and discouraged our participants from joining the promotion program. Our findings
suggest that the effectiveness of a free gift promotion is enhanced when the gift is not available as a stand-alone product.

The purpose of this study was to examine the relationship between the job-role quality of employed Korean mothers and their parenting behaviors, as well as the mediating roles of maternal parenting strain and psychological wellbeing. We analyzed the data from 172 employed Korean mothers of children of school transition age who lived in Seoul, Korea. Results from structural equation modeling indicated that better quality of mothers' job-role experience predicted greater psychological well-being and reduced parenting strain. Better job-role quality and less parenting strain were associated with greater psychological well-being, which in turn predicted more positive parenting practices. The mediation effects of psychological well-being and parenting strain were significant. Implications and suggestions for future research on working mothers' parenting are discussed.

Agency freedom is the process through which women can obtain power and control over making decisions about their own life choices. In this study, women's agency freedom was measured based on women's ability to make decisions and their help-seeking practices against domestic violence. We examined how women's higher agency freedom prevented them from being victims of domestic violence. The study analyzed 3373 women from the 2011 Nepal Demographic and Health Survey (NDHS). The results revealed that women's decision-making participation and help-seeking practices had a negative relationship with domestic violence. Women's help-seeking practice had moderating effects on the relationship between women's decision-making participation and domestic violence.

Objectives: This study was designed to evaluate the effectiveness of The "Thank You, Sorry, Love" (TSL) family therapy program in potentially improving the marital relationships and health of North Korean refugee women. Methods: The participants included 12 married North Korean female refugees in their 20s to 40s. Using a blinded assignment, six received the TSL family therapy program and six did not receive any treatment. Pretests (just before the program), posttests (just after termination of the program), and follow-up tests (1 month after termination of the program) were conducted. Results: The program participants experienced a statistically significant decrease in marital violence and an increase in their total antioxidant activity levels. Conclusions: TSL family therapy has the potential to contribute to improving the lives of traumatized North Korean refugee women. Larger scale replication studies involving random assignment would be a useful next step in evaluating the TSL program.

Abstract Background The roles of the tuberculin skin test (TST) and QuantiFERON ® -TB Gold In-Tube assay (QFT-IT) in the diagnosis of active tuberculosis (TB) are not clear in young adults. We evaluated the diagnostic accuracy of the TST and QFT-IT in smear-negative TB among young adults with no underlying disease. Methods We prospectively enrolled 166 young participants 20-29 years of age with suspected active TB in a military hospital of South Korea. The TST and QFT-IT were performed for all participants. Results Of the 143 patients included in the analysis, active TB was diagnosed in 100 (69.9%). There were 141 male patients, none of whom had immunosuppressive disease. The sensitivity, specificity, positive predictive value (PPV), and negative predictive value (NPV) of TST were 94% (95% CI, 87-98%), 88% (95% CI, 74-96%), 95% (95% CI, 88-98%), and 86% (95% CI, 72-94%), respectively. The sensitivity, specificity, PPV, and NPV of the QFT-IT were 93% (95% CI, 86-97%), 95% (95% CI, 81-99%), 98% (95% CI, 92-99%), and 84% (95% CI, 69-93%), respectively. No significant differences were found between the TST and QFT-IT in any statistic. Conclusions Both the TST and QFT-IT showed high sensitivity and specificity in differentiating active TB from other diseases. The diagnostic accuracy of these two tests did not differ significantly when applied to this clinical population of young, immunocompetent adults in whom neonatal BCG vaccination was common, there was no history of previous TB and in whom suspicion of TB was high. Trial registration ClinicalTrials.gov: NCT00982969

AbstractThe study aims to examine the negative effects of sexual violence on North Korean (NK) female refugees in South Korea. Although the prevalence of sexual violence victimization is extremely high and mental health problems are serious among these refugees, little to no research has been done on the relationship between sexual violence and mental health among these women. The mental health conditions of two groups of women (sexual violence victims and those who have not experienced sexual violence) were compared using ANCOVA analyses. The results show that suicidal ideation and alcohol use are significantly more prevalent in the sexual violence group than in the non‐sexual violence group. The women who had experienced sexual violence in particular should be provided with more professional and sustained treatment and management services. The government must improve the effectiveness of existing policies related to suicide and the drinking culture in South Korea.

Rates of death by suicide among North Korean refugees are three times higher than those among their host-country counterparts in South Korea. However, social and cultural factors predicting suicidality among North Korean refugees are not well known. Thus, we explored how social networks affect suicidal ideation in a sample of 405 North Korean refugees in South Korea using egocentric network data. Network diversity (number of different types of ties) was a protective factor for suicidal ideation among women. Having a help-providing and trustworthy church-based tie was a protective factor for women, whereas it was a risk factor for men. It is likely that women connected to people in diverse social contexts received more support to effectively deal with adversities. Because South Korean churches provide tailored worship services and financial aid to North Korean refugees, women might receive emotional comfort from church-based ties whom they can trust and receive help from, whereas men might become distressed about being financially dependent on others, which contradicts cultural expectations of a man's traditional role. Our findings have implications for mental health practitioners serving vulnerable populations, and highlight the importance of understanding the cultural context of social networks and gender in suicide research.