The purpose of this study is to analyze characteristics of character strengths and effect factors of subjective happiness of oncology nurses. This research was conducted on the theoretical background of positive psychology.

This study was a cross-sectional study that data were collected from 182 oncology nurses working in a cancer hospital with 500 beds from January to March, 2017. The research instruments were self-reported questionnaires of VIA-IS and Subjective Happiness Scale. The data were analyzed by t-test, ANOVA, and multiple linear regression analysis.

The average of items about total score of character strengths was 3.38 (±0.29) on the 5-point Likert scale and about subjective happiness was 4.95 (±0.90) on the 7-point Likert scale. Signature strengths of the subjects were classified by six sub-areas of character strengths, frequency of humanity was highest and followed by courage. The level of subjective happiness has significant positive correlations with character strengths. The factors that affect subjective happiness of oncology nurses were job-satisfaction and total score of character strengths. The explanatory power of these factors on the subjective happiness was 34.0%.

We recommend to develop a happiness enhancing program focused on job-satisfaction and character strengths for oncology nurses and to verify their effectiveness.

This study aimed to examine the influence of anxiety sensitivity on task performance and physiological stress response, and to assess the effect of depression in this process for the youth population.

We presented participants with an uncontrollable stress situation where they were required to perform mental arithmetic, based on the Montreal Imaging Stress Task (MIST). A total of 29 participants volunteered for this study. They completed the Anxiety Sensitivity Index-Revised and Patient Health Questionnaire-9 to measure their levels of anxiety sensitivity and depression. Two saliva samples, one before and one after the experiment, were collected to assess the change in cortisol levels as an index of physiological stress response.

Participants with high anxiety sensitivity showed lower performance on the mental arithmetic tasks and a significant increase in a salivary cortisol level, compared to those with low anxiety sensitivity. Furthermore, cortisol levels showed a remarkable increase where high anxiety sensitivity was coupled with depressed mood. In other hands, the levels of cortisol remained unchanged despite high anxiety sensitivity with low depressed mood.

Our results confirm that the interaction between anxiety sensitivity and depression affects participants’ task performance and stress response, as measured through behavioral tasks and physiological data with self-report indices. Also, through the physiological data, we examined that those who have a high level of anxiety sensitivity showed maladaptive responses under high stressful situation.

Numerous studies have accumulated findings indicating that the way of coping is a critical mediator in the relation between these traumatic events and psychological outcomes. This study investigates the associations between coping strategies and post-traumatic stress symptoms (PTSS) in Korean adults.

Through an online survey, 554 non-clinical adult respondents were recruited. We assessed PTSS using the Impact of Event Scale-Revised (IES-R) scale and measured individual coping strategies using the Ways of Coping Checklist (WCCL). Based on the IES-R standard cut-off score, we categorized the respondents into 3 groups: normal (n=255), non-PTSS (n=185) and PTSS (n=144) after exposure to traumatic events.

The scores of each coping strategy in a PTSS group were generally higher than in either the normal or non-PTSS group. In the logistic regression analysis, PTSS group was 2.77 more likely to use Tension-reduction coping compared to the other two samples.

Our findings suggest that PTSS is associated with high inclination to apply emotion-focused coping such as tension-reduction contributing to psychological distress. These results point to the potential value of coping strategies in prevention of and therapeutic approach to PTSS for non-clinical adults.