Korean J Fam Pract. 2016; 6(6): 592-597  https://doi.org/10.21215/kjfp.2016.6.6.592
The Stress of Traditional Biggest Holidays among Korean Married Women and Men: Comparison the Stress Score between Men and Women Using the Korean Social Readjustment Scale
Se-Jung Cho, Jong-Sung Kim*, Sung-Soo Kim, Jin-Kyu Jung, Suk-Jun Yoon, Kyu-Pil Kim
Department of Family Medicine, Research Institute for Medical Sciences, Chungnam National University School of Medicine, Daejeon, Korea
Jong-Sung Kim
Tel: +82-42-280-8172, Fax: +82-42-280-7879
E-mail: jskim@cnuh.co.kr
Received: July 12, 2016; Accepted: August 1, 2016; Published online: December 20, 2016.
© The Korean Academy of Family Medicine. All rights reserved.

This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution Non-Commercial License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0) which permits unrestricted noncommercial use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
Abstract
Background: This study was performed to assess and compare the degree of stress between married women and men during the biggest Korean traditional holiday by using the Social Readjustment Rating Scale.
Methods: The subjects were 308 married men and 254 married women who lived in Daejeon. The subjects were asked to rate their degrees of stress in subjective stress scores based on the Korean version of the Social Readjustment Rating Scale. Stepwise multiple regression analysis was performed to investigate the explanatory power of the subjects’ general characteristics, factors related to the Korean traditional holiday, and family Apgar scores of the subjects’ stress scores.
Results: The mean±standard deviation score for stress during the biggest Korean holiday was 25.85±15.46 in married men and 32.41±17.78 in married women. The stepwise multiple regression analysis revealed 2 variables related with stress score (family Apgar score and allowance for parents) in men (overall R2=0.233) and 3 variables related with stress score (family Apgar score, education, and hobby to cope with stress) in women (overall R2=0.382).
Conclusion: The stress scores of men were lower than those of women. Although the magnitude of stress differed between men and women in this study, there is no doubt that the biggest holiday in Korea is stressful for both sexes. Moreover, the family Apgar score seemed to contribute to the main explanation of the occurrence of stress in both Korean men and women. Our results suggest that family function enormously affects one’s emotional stress.
Keywords: Stress; Scale; Holidays; Family
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