This study targeted medical workers, who are currently being subjected to an excessive workload and emotional stress during the COVID-19 outbreak. Various treatment programs, such as a relaxation program to relieve stress, a walk in the forest, and woodworking were provided to the participants as forest healing therapies. We enrolled 13 medical workers (11 females, 2 males). Before and after forest healing therapy, stress and sleep-related questionnaires and levels of salivary cortisol, dehydroepiandrosterone sulfate (DHEA-S), and melatonin were measured and compared. The improvement of the perceived stress scale and the decrease of DHEA-S, a stress index, showed statistically significant results. However, although this study was conducted with a small number of participants and has a limitation in that the therapy occurred over a short period of only 1 night and 2 days, the trend of supporting results remains positive. As such, the authors propose forest healing therapy as one intervention to relieve the job stress for this group of workers
This study was undertaken to provide basic data for revitalizing the market and help increase the demand for sleep-improving health functional foods by identifying factors that influence the purchase intention of these products. This was a nationwide consumer survey study. Data were collected through an online self-report questionnaire from August 24 to August 31, 2021, for adults aged 19 years and over. Age (P=0.005), household income (P=0.001), the expectation of effect (P<0.001), purchase experience (P<0.001), and willingness to pay (P<0.001) were significantly associated with the intention to purchase health functional foods for improving the quality of sleep. Moreover, analyzing the factors of selection criteria and reasons for difficulty in making a purchase revealed that the majority of respondents selected the efficacy and effect indicated on the product as the selection criterion when purchasing. The most difficult reason was determined to be the lack of judging the data for false and exaggerated claims. Examining the factors that affected the purchase intention of sleep-improving health functional foods, we determined that the probability of purchase intention was higher when satisfaction with the quality of sleep (P<0.001) was lower or expectation of the effect of sleep-improving health functional foods (P<0.001) was higher. Furthermore, the likelihood of purchase intention was higher when with purchase experience of sleep-improving health functional foods (P<0.001) or the willingness to pay (P<0.001) was greater. Age (P=0.002) and household income (P=0.018) were determined to have a significant effect on the purchase intention of sleep-improving health functional foods.
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