[The impacts of a community health practitioner's ego state, and interpersonal attitude on depression]

Community health practitioners (CHP) in Korea have a responsibility for delivering primary health care to remote or isolated communities. The aim of this paper is to analyze CHPs' level of depression and impacts of their Ego state and interpersonal attitude in transactional analysis on depression. This paper gives fundamental data for developing a the program for mental health promotion of CHPs.

The subjects of this study consisted of 459 Korean CHP who were conveniently selected from the target population. The data was collected through interviews using self-administered questionnaires, including the Korean Ego gram and life position inventory and depression scale.

The CHP's Ego gram showed the N type with the top point of NP. The type of interpersonal attitude was I'M OK - YOU'RE OK (I+U++). The level of depression was 35.4, normal range. There was a significant difference in depression according to the duration of the career. There was a significant negative correlation among NP, A, FC ego states, interpersonal OK and depression, and a significant positive correlation between interpersonal Not-OK and depression. The NP, A, FC ego states and interpersonal Not-OK were significant predictors (47.1%) of depression.

This study showed that a program for CHPs to should include increasing the function of ego states and positive interpersonal attitude.