본 연구는 희귀난치 질환 자녀를 둔 가족의 생활 실태와 지원 욕구를 파악하여 지원방안을 모색하는 데 목적이 있다. 이를 위해 2020년 기준 전국의 희귀난치 환아 가족 약 169천 명 중 할당표본추출(quota sampling) 을 통해 모집된 총 263명을 대상으로 설문조사를 하였다. 그 결과, 희귀 난치 환아 가족의 주양육자는 여성으로 자녀 돌봄 및 간병 비중이 높았 고, 치료비지출로 인한 경제적인 부담이 매우 높았다. 전체 삶의 질 평 균 및 삶의 질 하위요인 전반에서 보통 이하의 인식수준을 보였고, 교 육 현장이나 과정에서 자녀의 질병에 대한 인식과 대처 관련 어려움이 큼을 확인하였다. 희귀난치 질환 및 자녀의 재학 상태에 따른 인식수준 도 매우 낮은 수준이었다. 이런 실태에 근거하여 가족지원을 위한 다차 원적인 지원방안을 제언하였다.

Background: Equating is a statistical procedure used to create a common measurement scale across two instruments. Item-level information should be taken into consideration so that scores can communicate interchangeably across the instruments. Objects: To investigate a common measurement scale across two health-related quality of life questionnaires (HRQOL) applied to various cancer survivors who underwent palliative care in healthcare institutions. Methods: A total of 139 cancer survivors who underwent palliative care were recruited from two rehabilitation hospitals and an oriental medicine hospital. Participants consisted of various cancer survivors who presented to the sites for palliative care. They were asked to fill out Korean versions of the World Health Organization Quality of Life (WHOQOL-BREF) and EuroQOL-5 dimension (EQ-5D) questionnaires following the palliative care. For the item level comparison, the Rasch rating scale model was used to investigate how participants regarded individual test items of two instruments in relation to item difficulty calibrations. Results: All items except the three items fit the Rasch model. One item (anxiety/depression) of the EQ-5D and two items (dependence on medical aids and negative feelings) of the WHOQOL- BREF are misfit. The WHOQOL-BREF targets the survivors well, while the EQ-5D is able to target the survivors with lower HRQOL levels with some ceiling effects. By inspecting the item difficulty calibrations of the two instruments, five items of the WHOQOL-BREF are selected as common items in relation to the EQ-5D. These five items are considered compatible with each other. Differential item functioning (DIF) analysis reveals that the healthcare item of the WHOQOL-BREF vs the self-care item of the EQ-5D exhibits significant DIF. Conclusion: Findings suggest that one paired item should be taken into consideration when equating the WHOQOL-BREF and the EQ-5D applied to cancer survivors who underwent palliative care.

Various rheological methods to measure the hardness of instant cooked rice by a texture analyzer were investigated and compared. Specifically, instant white rice samples with a wide range of hardness were subjected to four different rheological tests with disk, cylinder, rod, and cone probe whose results were inter-correlated. All the measurements demonstrated that the hardness of instant rice was reduced with increasing moisture content and showed negatively linear relationships. Out of the four tests applied in this study, the highest coefficient of correlation (R2 = 0.9268) was observed distinctly in the cone probe test, where both compressive and shear forces can be applied to deform individual rice grains. However, the cylinder probe test had the lowest coefficient of correlation (R2 = 0.7247) because it may be ineffective in causing direct deformation of individual rice grains. Furthermore, when the hardness values (N) were converted to stress (Pa), highly linear correlations (R2 ≈ 0.99) were observed between the tests with similar probe geometry and force application.

Mycotoxins, such as aflatoxin B1 (AFB1), deoxynivalenol (DON), fumonisin B1 (FMB1), ochratoxin A, T2 toxin, and zearalenone, are found in numerous vegetables. Mycotoxin accumulation in food and feed poses serious health risks to humans and animals because of carcinogenic, mutagenic, teratogenic, and toxic properties. In addition, mycotoxins cause large economic losses in commercial crop production, food and feed processing, and animal husbandry worldwide. In this study, an analytical method for the simultaneous analysis of the levels of AFB1, DON, and FMB1 in cow blood with liquid chromatography-tandem mass spectrometry (LC-MS/MS) was developed and validated. AOZTM and Myco6in1TM multitoxin immunoaffinity columns and an OasisTM reversed-phase solid-phase extraction Hydrophilic-Lipophilic-Balanced columns were used to purify and concentrate the blood samples. Extracts that contained AFB1, DON, and FMB1 had average recovery of 64.0%, 98.0%, and 89.9%, respectively. In conclusion, we used LC-MS/MS to detect several important toxicological mycotoxins in cow blood. The multimycotoxin method, which detected and quantified the levels of AFB1, DON, and FMB1 can be used in animal pilot studies to monitor simultaneous exposure to major mycotoxins.