Q-Methodological Approach to the Perception of Meridian Massage for HEALTH MANAGEMENT

Purpose: Modern society, according to the change of social demand due to the improvement of living stand-ards, the rapid increase of aging population and healthy life extension comes to have a high interest in health promotion from the perspective of prevention as well as disease treatment. This study conducted a subjectivity study on the subjects of workers in the skin care industry who performed meridian massage on the field. Method: To analyze the perception, attitude, use, and satisfaction of the skin care industry workers about me-ridian massage, after the survey of 30 people sampled with P-sample was completed, the collected data were coded according to the location on the Q-sample distribution map. The input data was analyzed using the QUNAL-PC program, and for factor analysis, principle component factor analysis was used. And among the re-sults calculated by inputting the number of factors variously based on the Eigen value of 1.0 or higher, three types judged to be the best were selected and examined with Z-score. Results: Three types were extracted from the results of analysis. Type I was categorized as subjectivity of high experienced people with more than 20 years of experience and a strong positive perception on the natural heal-ing effect and health intervention function of meridian massage. Type II was categorized as subjectivity of low experienced people with less than 10 years of experience, and a subjective perception that was sensitive to the trends in the skin care industry. Type III was categorized as subjectivity of middle experienced workers with experi-ence between more than 10 years and less than 20 years and a strong positive subjectivity for the pain relief ef-fect of meridian massage. Conclusion: Therefore, this study is meaningful in that it explored the subjective meaning of the workers in the skin care industry for meridian massage, grasped the intrinsic reasons, and derived a general view of meridian massage.