This study was done to identify contraceptive practices in adolescent girls in South Korea and predictors of contraceptive practices. Methods: The study sample included 743 girls who had experienced sexual activity. Using statistics from the 12th (2016) Korea Youth Risk Behavior Web-based Survey, hierarchical logistic regression analysis was conducted. Results: The contraceptive practice rate for adolescent girls was 34%. Contraceptive practice was associated with 'age at first intercourse' and 'sexual intercourse after drinking'. For adolescent girls who had early sexual initiation and drank alcohol before sexual intercourse there was a tendency to reduce the practice of contraception. Conclusion: It is necessary to provide practical sex education to improve the practice of contraception in these adolescents. In addition, adolescent girls should be encourage to delay their first intercourse. The results of this study can also be used to develop education interventions regarding healthy sexuality behaviour including the practice of contraception.

Background: This study utilized data from the Korea Youth Risk Behavior Survey to determine the impact of depressive symptoms and loneliness on smartphone overdependence among South Korean adolescents.Methods: This study performed a secondary analysis of cross-sectional data from the 16th Korea Youth Risk Behavior Survey (2020). Data (n=57,925 adolescents aged 12-18 years) were collected from August to November 2020 during the coronavirus disease-2019 (COVID-19) pandemic. The relationships between depressive symptoms, loneliness, and smartphone overdependence were analyzed using complex sample multiple logistic regression analyses.Results: One-quarter of adolescents had developed smartphone overdependence (30.0% of girls and 21.2% of boys). Smartphone overdependence was influenced by depressive symptoms and loneliness, regardless of sex.Conclusions: Appropriate interventions and policies should be developed to resolve smartphone overdependence by reducing adolescents’ depressive symptoms and loneliness. Appropriate help should be provided to these adolescents to promote good mental health. Psychological vulnerability should be considered when providing educational or health management programs to adolescents. Appropriate measures should be developed for the prevention and early screening of depressive symptoms, loneliness, and smartphone overdependence in adolescents, with increased interest in minimizing the related social problems.

Background: This study aimed to compare the stress-coping measurement scales used in the nursing field in South Korea through a literature review based on the types of tools assessed, their characteristics, frequency of use, target stress, target population, and coping outcomes.Methods: The data base periodical information academic, Korea citation index, Korean studies information sharing service, Korean medical database, National discovery for science leaders, KoreaMed, National assemble library, and National library of Korea databases were searched for articles related to coping with stress and nursing published between 2009 and 2018 in South Korea. Of the total 1,666 articles searched, 59 articles that were aligned with the study purpose were finally selected after reviewing the original texts and excluding duplicates.Results: The study identified six stress-coping scales used by Korean nurses, among which the ways of coping (WCQ) was the most frequently used. Most of the studies involved nursing students, followed by patients and health workers (nurses and caregivers). Regarding the types of stress, the WCQ was used the most by studies on work-related and daily living stress, followed by those focusing on health-related stress and clinical practice stress. Secondary analysis of WCQ usage showed that 48.5% of the studies interpreted the scale results for individual coping methods, and the remaining 45.5% interpreted the results based on the overall score.Conclusions: Researchers need to appropriately use and interpret the results of scales that have been translated into Korean and validated for each situation and participant.