Abstract

Background
The Korean traditional national holidays commonly produce several physical symptoms related to stress. This study was performed to evaluate the degree of the stress from the married women during their Korean traditional biggest holidays. Methods: The subjects were 99 married women who had visited the Health Promotion Center at a university hospital. For evaluating the stress of the Korean traditional biggest holidays, subjects were allowed to write in subjective stress score based on the Social Readjustment Rating Scale. The factors associated with the stress were investigated. Results: The mean (± SD) score of the married women's stress of the Korean traditional biggest holidays was 38.7 (± 21.9). The score was widely distributed from the 0 to 100. The cases with hobbies to cope with stress showed significantly (P < 0.05) lower stress score than those without hobby. The stress score was inversely correlated with family APGAR score (r = -0.346, P < 0.01). In stepwise multiple regression model, the stress score was related to family APGAR score and hobby to cope with stress (overall R2 = 0.171, P < 0.001). Conclusion: The stress score of the Korean traditional biggest holidays was widely distributed from 0 to 100 in Korean married women. These results suggest that traditional biggest holidays act as a stressor for individual with a range of variable extent.

• Keywords: Stress; Social Readjustment Rating Scale; Holidays