Background
: Recently preventive clinical care has been proved important to the health. A number of recommendations or programs for preventive health services have been developed. The government made laws for health promotion of the people and for medical check-up for the insured in the district medical insurance association, who had been alienated from reimbursement for periodic health examination. As a result, above 95% of Korean people could took the periodic health check-up by this legislation. According to the national data, however, about 20% of the insured participated in the health screening program which was carried for the first time by the district medical insurance association in 1995. The reason that the compliance of health screening program was much lower than expected has not been clear yet. The purpose of this study is to define the facors affecting on the compliance of the health screening program.

Methods : Two hundreds of compliers and as many non-compliers of the health screening program was selected by the stratified sampling in one district medical insurance association which consisted of one town and eight township within the National Capital region. The telephone survey was performed from June 1 to 15 in 1996. The questionnaire was framed by health belief model with other demographic data. The data was analyzed by chisquare test, wilcoxon rank sums test, and logistic regression for the comparison of the characteristics between compliers and non-compliers.

Results : There was no difference of demographic data and medical history of chronic disease between compliers and non-compliers. 73.3% of the subjects knew they had been the expectant examinee of the health examination, and among them, 68% took the health examination. However, 53% of non-compliers did not know that they had been the expectant examinee. The most common reason that non-compliers didn't took the health examination was "they didn't know"(43.5%). Among 73 families of compliers which had more than 2 expectant examinees of the health screening program, 44 families(60.3%) had more complier other than study subjects. In contrast, among 74 families of non-compliers, only 7 famiies(9.5%) had more complier other than study subjects. Compliers showed lower reliability of the health screening program than non-compliers. Non-compliers had more perception about the severity of the target disease for the examination and had more confidence about self health status than compliers. There was no difference of the answer about the benefit of the health examination, perceived susceptibility about target disease, sue to action, and perceived barriers. The odds ratio of compliance of other family member was 21.2, perceived severity, 0.70, and cue to action, 1.36.

Conclusion : The main reason of low compliance of health screening program for the insured in the district medical insurance association was lack of public information. By the fact that non-compliers had more perception about the severity of the target disease and there was no difference of perceived benefit of the health examination between two groups, public information should be focused on the benefit and efficacy of periodic health of the health examination between two groups, public information should be focused on the benefit and efficacy of periodic health check-up than severity and susceptibility of target disease. Because the health screening program on study subjects was carried for the firt time, only compliers had experience of the examination. The fact that compliers relied on the examination less than non-compliers meant that the examinees was satisfied much less than expected. Therefore, further study of the expectation of the examinees about the health examination is expected.

Background
: Acute appendicitis is one of the common surgical diseases which urgent diagnosis is needed in emergency or primary practice. But its diagnosis can be complicated because acute appendicitis has diverse clinical manifestations. Moreover facilities for accurate diagnosis are limited in most primary practice, so we investigated the usefulness of acupoints in the diagnosis of acute appendicitis as the more accurate, easy and simple method.

Methods : The number of appendicitis patients group were 26, whose diagnosis was confirmed by pathology after operation (appendicitis patients group). For the control groups, we selected 20 patients of acute abdominal pain whose clinical diagnosis were other than acute appendicitis (nonappendicitis patients group). Another 20 persons were selected for healthy control group. The subjects of each group were measured the pressure pain threshold by pressure algometer at four acupoints of right lower leg. The four acupoints were Joksamni, Nanmi, Sangeoher, Jogu. We analysed the mean pressure of pain threshold and the order of pain intensity at each acupoint and group.

Results : There was no statistical difference of age and sex in each group. The mean pressure of pain threshold at the Nanmi acupoint ; in appendicitis patients 2.98±0.93㎏/㎠, in nonappendicitis patients 3.79±1.04㎏/㎠, in healthy control 5.08±1.05㎏/㎠, The appendicitis patients' pressure of pain threshold was lower than other groups(p<0.001). The mean pressure of pain threshold in appendicitis patients at each acupoint were as following : nanmi acupoint 2.98±0.93㎏/㎠, Joksamni 4.08±1.61㎏/㎠, Sangeoher 4.75±1.43㎏/㎠, Jogu 5.58±1.47㎏/㎠. The Nanmi acupoint was lower than other acupoints(p<0.001). The diagnostic values of the Nanmi acupoint by the pressure of pain threshold were as following: if the pressure was lower than 3.0㎏/㎠, the sensitivity of diagnosis was 76.9%, specificity was 82.5%, if the pressure was lower than 3.5㎏/㎠, the sensitivity and specificity was 88.5%, 75.0% respectively. The diagnostic value by the order of pain inthnsity; in the most painful acupoint was the Nanmi, the sensitivity was 92.2% and the specificity was 70.0%. The diagnostic alue by the combination of pressure and order of pain intensity : if the most painful acupoint was the Nanmi and the pressure threshold was lower the 3.5㎏/㎠ at the Nanmai, the sensitivity and specificity were 80.1%, 80.0% respectively.

Conclusion : If the pressure threshold was lower than 3.5㎏/㎠ at the Nanmi acupoint and the most painful acupoint was the Nanmi acupoint, acute appendicitis could be diagnosed in sensitivity 80.1% and specificity 80.0%.