PhD candidate Kim Byung-gwan (majoring in Adult Nursing, supervised by Professor Kim Hye-young) received the Outstanding Paper Presentation Award at the Korean Association of Fundamental Nursing's 2023 Winter Conference held recently.

The PhD candidate presented a paper titled 'Factors Influencing Foot Self-care Behaviors of Patients with a History of Diabetic Foot Ulcer: A Path Analysis' and was honored with the award.

This study built a hypothetical path model that included four exogenous variables—foot care knowledge, depression, anxiety, and social support—and two endogenous variables—stigma and foot care self-care behaviors—to assess the model's goodness-of-fit and to identify the causal relationships among the variables.

The study is considered significant in that it provides evidence to support the development of intervention programs aimed at promoting foot care self-care behaviors among patients with a history of diabetic foot ulcer.

PhD candidate Kim Byung-gwan stated, 'Based on this study, I plan to develop an intervention program to promote foot care self-care behaviors for patients with a history of diabetic foot ulcer and to conduct an intervention study to evaluate its effectiveness. I also plan to expand this into the development of a nursing intervention program that simultaneously addresses foot care knowledge, psychological factors, social support, and stigma, and to carry out subsequent research that contributes to diabetic foot ulcer management and the prevention of complications.'