The purpose of this study is to develop the ‘Hwa-Byung Diagnostic Tool(HBD)’, which can be used to diagnose Hwa-Byung and evaluate the severity of its symptoms. Based on prior research, this study identified three factors necessary for the diagnos...
The purpose of this study is to develop the ‘Hwa-Byung Diagnostic Tool(HBD)’, which can be used to diagnose Hwa-Byung and evaluate the severity of its symptoms. Based on prior research, this study identified three factors necessary for the diagnosis of Hwa-Byung: stress events, physical symptoms, and psychological symptoms. The researcher developed and validated HBD to encompass these factors. The HBD consists of a ‘Hwa-Byung Event Questionnaire(HBE)’ about stress events that made the patient angry, and a ‘Hwa-Byung Symptom Scale(HBS)’ about the physical and psychological symptoms experienced by the patient. A question pool was constructed, and after verifying the content validity with eight oriental neuropsychiatrists and the facial validity with 30 patients with Hwa-Byung. Finally, eight event items and 19 final preliminary questions were chosen. The study involved 265 Hwa-Byung patients diagnosed using the Hwa-Byung Diagnostic Interview Schedule(Kim et al, 2008). Frequency analysis of the HBE confirmed that all Hwa-byung patients reported at least one stress event, with the majority(85%) experiencing stress for over a year. Subsequently, a factor analysis of the 16 preliminary questions in the HBS was conducted, resulting in 13 questions grouped into two factors. Factor 1 was named ‘psychological symptom’ and factor 2 was named ‘physical symptom’. Furthermore, the Cronbach's ⍺ of the HBS was .900, indicating a high level of inter-item consistency. Regarding the cut-off point of the HBS, diagnostic points were calculated to be 21, corresponding to a sensitivity of .977 and specificity of .984. To validate the tool, the correlation between the HBS and the Hwa-Byung scale(Kwon et al., 2008) was analyzed for convergence validity, and the correlation between the HBS and K-BDI-II(Kim et al., 2015) was analyzed for discrimination validity. Pearson correlation analysis revealed a positive correlation between the HBS and the Hwa-Byung scale, r=0.63, p<.001, indicating that the HBS effectively measures the same concept as Hwa-Byung. Conversely, the HBS showed a low correlation with K-BDI-II, r=0.28, p<.001, suggesting the possibility of effective discrimination between Hwa-Byung and depression despite their shared symptoms. In conclusion, the developed inventory, the HBD, is a useful tool for diagnosing Hwa-Byung in primary care settings.