BACKGROUND We investigated patients with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) to analyze patterns and identify determinants of healthcare use, according to the severity of airflow obstruction. We used retrospective cohort data from a combination of the 4th Korea National Health and Nutritional Examination Survey (KNHANES) and Korean National Health Insurance (NHI) claims. METHODS Demo...

Clinically, whether a patient has thyroid dysfunction is primarily screened for based on whether his or her thyroid stimulating hormone (TSH) level is within the normal range [1]. Therefore, the validity of the reference range of TSH is very important for ensuring informed clinical judgments. A previous report indicated that the reference range of TSH was higher in areas with high iodine intake...

INTRODUCTION The objective of this study was to investigate whether caffeine intake is associated with urinary incontinence (UI) and quality of life (QOL) in Korean postmenopausal women. MATERIALS AND METHODS We included 4,028 postmenopausal women who had participated in the Korea National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey IV (KNHANES IV). From the KNHANES questionnaire data, we ascerta...

The aims of this study were to assess the diagnostic value of the weight-to-height ratio (WHtR) for the detection of obesity and metabolic syndrome (MS) in Korean children and adolescents, and to determine the advantages of WHtR as a population-based screening tool in comparison with other obesity indicators, such as body mass index (BMI) and waist circumference (WC). We performed a cross-secti...

BACKGROUND As the global population ages, disabling hearing impairment (HI) have been increased rapidly. The impact of HI on health-related quality of life (HRQoL) is of great importance to aid the development of strategic plans and to guide therapeutic interventions. PURPOSE To evaluate HRQoL in Korean adults with different degrees of HI using EuroQol five-dimensional (EQ-5D) and EQ-visual a...