Journal List > J Nurs Acad Soc > v.27(3) > 1085616

Sung: Characteristics of Individuals Seeking Comprehensive Health Check-ups

Abstract

This study was carried out to identify basic data for more efficient operation of comprehensive health check-up centers in the national health care system. The researcher reviewed and analyzed the main symptoms of the subjects according to sex, age, occupation and positive rate in the screening tests of a comprehensive health check-up, performed at one comprehensive health check-up center in located in a hospital. The subjects were 512 persons who had a check-up at the comprehensive health check-up, center in K university hospital in Seoul from October 2, 1996 to March 30, 1997. A questionnaire developed by the researcher to obtain subject's general characteristics, main symptoms, medical examination, diagnosed disease was used as the tool for the study. The researcher analyzed the data with SPSS PC+ program : the distribution of the subject's general characteristics and main symptoms was described with percentages and the difference between main symptoms and screening tests analyzed with X2-test, t-test, ANOVA. The result of this study are as follows : 1. For the distribution of diagnosis in males, liver disease was most frequent and hypertension was second : in females, hypertension and liver disease were not common in that order. 2. The most common complaints were indigestion in the digestive system, sputum in the respiratory system, irregular heart beat in the cardiovascular system, frequent urine in the urinary system, vertigo in the hematologic system. 3. The main symptoms according to sex were for females, a statistically significant higher rate of complaints in the digestive system, cardiovascular system, urinary system, hematologic system, musculoskeletal, mental and nervous system as compared to males. 4. The main symptoms according to age were that in the second decade there ware higher rate of complaints in the digestive system, and cardiovascular system than in the older age group : and in the fifth decade more in the musculoskeletal system. 5. The main symptoms according to occupation were that farmers and fishers had a higher rate of complaints in the mental and nervous system as compared to other occupation groups : and office workers, in gynecology. 6. The main symptoms according to diagnosis, were symptoms of the digestive system, frequent in liver disease : symptoms of the cardiovascular system in allergic disease. 7. The screening tests which showed the highest rates were UGI/FGS, PFT : In males a higher rate of abnormality was seen in abdominal ultrasonography and in, females, in mammography. 8. In screening tests according to sex, males showed a higher positive rate for chest X-rays, and LFT, and females, in mammography, pap smear, CBC. 9. In screening tests according to age, higher positive rates of obesity, high blood pressure, chest X-ray, mammography, pap smear, FBS, CBC, urine test were seen in the fifth decade : PFT and abdominal ultrasonography in the third decade. The subjects who wanted comprehensive health check-up were not asymptomatic but had an illness with several symptoms. It is found that the most frequent diagnosed diseases were hypertension and liver disease. So proper observations must be done for them. Comprehensive health check-ups should be changed to a comprehensive examination including treatment beyond examination for those subjects with positive results.

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