Objectives: Through papers and medical journals of North Korea the author identifies the characteristics of the papers and the journals and identifies the characteristics of internal medicine research.
Methods: The study subjects are 2,092 papers inc...
Objectives: Through papers and medical journals of North Korea the author identifies the characteristics of the papers and the journals and identifies the characteristics of internal medicine research.
Methods: The study subjects are 2,092 papers included in 'Internal Medicine' and 9 kinds of medical journals of North Korea. Research methods are quantitative and qualitative research including literature review. Quantitative research is to extract characteristics through collected the study subjects. Qualitative research is to evaluate the study subjects with evaluation tools created for this study.
Results: The North Korean medical journals were securing regularity and there were two publications. Journals did not provide important information internally, including the method of submission. The five journals covered the same subject as the journal title, and the papers of the entire medical subject were also included in the subject field. There were four journals containing several papers related to NCD.
Eight journals, excluding one journal, were generally composed of papers with the same article structure. The characteristics of the papers were as follows. The volume of papers were around 2pages. The papers were described in left and right spaces. English was limited to the abstract only. Image use was only 2% of the total, and the photographs were 0.1% of the total. The reference was used in about six or so, not in the text. Most of the papers, except for some, did not provide keywords. At 56% of the whole papers, the purpose of the research was revealed as the North Korean top leaders' teachings. No specific statistical methods or epidemiological indicators were indicated in the papers case-control studies were common in experimental studies. There were no cases in which the results of the research were negative, and none of the references were related to the code of ethics.
Gastroenterology was the most studied in 'Internal Medicine'. The number of issuances by year increased from 2008 but was not continuous. Compared with IHME data, the author could confirm ischemic heart disease, COPD, asthma and diabetes. There have been many studies on diseases of stomach and duodenum in gastroenterology, hypertension in cardiology, respiratory infectious diseases in pulmonology, glomerular diseases in nephrology, and diabetes mellitus in endocrinology.
The evaluation results of the North Korean medical journals and the papers were not good because it was difficult to confirm the absence of information and the facts of the main information. As a result of the evaluation of papers, the appropriateness of medical knowledge was 43.7%, the freshness was 33.9%, and the originality and research design suitability were evaluated as 36.3% and 33.2%. The overall score of the thesis was 4.31 on average and 2.31 on average
Conclusion: The characteristic of North Korean medical research is that it has a unique appearance in North Korea due to isolation and disconnection. It has contributed to the enhancement of the residents' well-being by carrying out the demands of the North Korean government, has been conducting research in a limited environment, and has preserved its unique characteristics. In addition, the North Korean medical journals have been functioning as a space for academic sharing, and it is important that researches related to Koryo medicine continue to be carried out. When exchanges become active or unified, they can be used in important areas such as development of natural substance new drug.
The proposal is that research on North Korea needs to maintain an objective perspective, and it cannot be an absolute indicator to explain North Korea through the results of the research. In addition, there is a need to continue research on non-political tendencies related to North Korea.
Finally, the academic approach to North Korean medicine should be continued, and it should be prepared so that it can be used as an objective data for establishing the basis for the establishment of the policy through the continuation of the same research as the present study.