Suchergebnisse

Factor structures of the 60- and 30-item versions of the General Health Question naire (GHQ) were explored, using data collected from 236 Japanese high-school and university students. The 60-item version produced factors interpretable as social functioning, anxiety, somatic symptoms, and severe depression; the 30-item version produced general dysphoria, social functioning, depressive thoughts, difficulty in concentration and insomnia. Although the two versions of the GHQ produced the same number of factors, their structures differed in content. Thus it may be necessary to examine the factor structures of the GHQ when using it in a study of a population containing subjects with different cultural backgrounds.

The family history of major psychiatric disorders was examined among relatives of 193 in-patients fulfilling the Research Diagnostic Criteria (RDC) for Schizophrenia, Unspecified Functional Psychoses, Schizoaffective Disorder, Manic Disorder or Major Depressive Disorder. The morbid risk (MR) for schizophrenia was greater among the relatives of probands with non-affective psychoses whereas the MR for mania was greater among the relatives of probands with affective bipolar disorder. When major psychiatric syndromes were examined, only manic syndrome showed familial aggregation.

Background:Despite its clinical and public policy-making importance, neonatal abuse has been only minimally studied.Purpose:To identify predictors of mothers' emotional abuse towards their infants at 1 month after childbirth.Methods:We studied a cohort of 252 women at three time points: late pregnancy and 5 days and 1 month after childbirth. At each time point, the women were administered a set of questionnaires about their depression (Edinburgh Postnatal Depression Scale), bonding towards the foetus or neonate (Maternal Antenatal Attachment Scale and Postnatal Bonding Questionnaire, respectively), and, at 1 month after childbirth, emotional abuse (Conflict Tactic Scale).Results:Structural equation modeling (SEM) analysis revealed that neonatal emotional abuse was predicted by bonding difficulties at 5 days after childbirth but not by depression at that time point.Conclusion:Assessment for maternal bonding problems in the early post-natal period should be routinely performed by perinatal health professionals.

Purpose: To study the determinants of current parenting styles in Japan.
Methods: Fathers (n = 312) and mothers (n = 333) of children aged between 0 and 10 attending a paediatric clinic were
evaluated with regards to the following: parental attitudes rated by spouses using the Parental Bonding Instrument, current
dysphoric mood assessed with the Hospital Anxiety and Depression Scale, life time history of Major Depressive Episode
(MDE), and perceived parenting styles when the parents themselves were children.
Results: Path models showed that current parenting styles were predicted by parents perception of maternal rearing during
childhood. Moreover, in mothers only, they were predicted by the manner in which the women were raised by their
fathers. This prediction was indirect, occurring via lifetime history of MDE and current dysphoric mood.
Conclusion: This study suggests that the way in which parents themselves were raised was no less important than how
they currently felt in determining how they were raising their child. Current dysphoric mood or lifetime history of MDE
mediated such effects only among mothers.

Background: It is now widely acknowledged that depression is accompanied by major deficits in social functioning. However, the course of this dysfunction and its relationship with depressive symptoms in the long term is less understood. Methods: The Group for Longitudinal Affective Disorders Study (GLADS) in Japan has conducted a 10-year prospective, serial follow-up of a cohort of mood disorder patients starting treatment for their index episode. The vicissitudes of the social adjustment of patients with major depression were analyzed using the standardized instrument (Social Adjustment Scale — Self-Report) and in conjunction with the measurement of depressive severity (Centre for Epidemiologic Studies Depression). Results: The results showed: (i) psychiatric patients with major depression commencing treatment showed moderate to extremely large social dysfunction at baseline; (ii) this dysfunction declined rapidly in the first six months of treatment but then levelled off and showed fluctuating patterns up to 10 years of follow-up; (iii) the degree of dysfunction varied from domain to domain, most notable in Work and least notable in Economy subscales; and (iv) the influence of persistent depression also varied from domain to domain, stronger in Housework and Leisure and weakest in Work spheres. Conclusion: Future studies of social functioning in depression need to differentiate its various aspects.

Background:The Edinburgh Postnatal Depression Scale (EPDS; Cox, Holden & Sagovsky, 1987) has been widely used as a screening instrument. It is also used as a measure of Postnatal Depression (PND) severity. Various EPDS factor structure models have been proposed in many studies without an unequivocal conclusion. We compared first-order, higher-order factor, and bifactor models of the EPDS, and examined possible predictors of subscales by Structural Equation Modelling (SEM).Methods:Data came from a follow-up study of 758 women after childbirth on two occasions (five days and one month postnatal). We used the EPDS together with items tapping Negative Life Events (NLEs) and coping styles and behaviours.Results:The bifactor model showed the best fit with data compared with all other models: CFI = 0.999, RMSEA = 0.14, and AIC = 79.637. A single general dimension alongside three distinct subfactors (anhedonia, anxiety, and dysphoria) was predicted differentially by various predictor variables.Conclusion:Our study expanded on a previous factor structural study of the EPDS and developed the hierarchical (bifactor) model. The model's construct validity was confirmed by its meaningful associations with NLEs and coping styles and behaviours.

The link between marital adjustment and personality was investigated in 66 Japanese married couples using Locke and Wallace's Short Marital Adjustment Test (SMAT; Locke & Wallace, 1959) and the Eysenck Personality Questionnaire (EPQ; Eysenck & Eysenck, 1975). Structural
equation modeling suggests that the husband's neuroticism score is related to the wife's marital satisfaction as is the wife's dyadic consensus score, although to a lesser extent, while the wife's extraversion score is related to the husband's marital satisfaction.
Spouses' marital satisfactions were correlated with each other. The study suggests that the personality traits of a partner can predict an individual's marital adjustment.

We report the first community epidemiological study of taijin kyofusho in Japan. A total of 132 inhabitants in a small community in the city of Kofu, Japan, was interviewed by trained interviewers using a semistructured interview, and completed self-report questionnaires. Of these respondents, nine (6.8%) reported ' taijin kyofu' symptoms, eight of whom reported having specific concerns about strong body odor although the ' taijin kyofu' symptoms were not serious enough to meet the criteria of a mental disorder. Although taijin kyofusho has traditionally been viewed as a disorder of young males, our cases were older and predominantly female. Although this sample was small and drawn from only one community, and we had no control group, our findings seem to support the view that some psychiatric symptoms are influenced by socio-cultural factors and that the symptoms of taijin kyofu are likely to be found in the general population of Japan.