Abstract

The present study explored the health psychological perspectives on hwabyung. The participants were 80 hwabyung patients who visited 'hwabyung clinic' at K university hospital. Comarison group, matching age and sex to hwabyung group, e<mists of caregivers of patients at S university hospital and W university hosital. The scales employed in the present study were Korean adaptation of STAXI (Chon, Hahn, Lee, & Spielberger, in submission), and Korean adaptation of CES-O (Chon, & Lee, 1992) to measure anger and depression, respectively .. The major findings of the present study were as follows: (1) Hwabyung group in the present study were, as in most other hwabyung studies, more females in sex and old in age; (2) when correlations among emotional stress were calculated for hwabyung group, there was no association between anger-in and anger-out. On the other hand, among hwabyung group, trait anger was significantly associated with anger-in as well as anger-out. When hwabyung group was dividied into short-tern group (less then 7 years of duration) vs. long-tern group (over than 9 years of duration), the experience of anger is likely to be expressed as anger-out mode in short-tern group, while the experience of anger is likely to be expressed as anger-in mode in long-tern group; (3) group differences between hwabyung group vs. caregivers group, based on t-test, revealed that hwabyung group was higher in terms of experience of anger; they were higher in state anger and trait anger scores than were caregivers group. With respect to the expression of anger, hwabyung group was higher in terms of anger-in. On the other hand, their were no differences between hwabyung and caregivers group in terms of anger-out and anger-control. (4) when the effects of emotional stress (i. e., anger and depression) on hwabyung, only anger, especially trait anger and anger-in, showed powerful predictors to hwabyung. The present findings strongly suggest that hwabyung may also be associated with physical health, and thus that health piychological approach to hwabyung is strongly called for in future studies.