Shimako Hamanishi

Job Strain and Sleep Quality in Japanese Civil Servants with Special Reference to Sense of Coherence

Job Strain and Sleep Quality in Japanese Civil Servants with Special Reference to Sense of Coherence: Ali Nasermoaddeli, et al. Department of Welfare Promotion and Epidemiology, Toyama Medical and Pharmaceutical University—The combination of poor sleep quality and high job strain may provoke poor health status. Meanwhile, a sense of coherence (SOC), composed of comprehensibility, manageability and meaningfulness has been associated with adoptive measures in responding to life stress. In this study we investigated the impact of job strain on the sleep quality in civil servants and the extent to which SOC affects their sleep quality. In this cross‐sectional study we evaluated 1682 civil servants working in departments related to the municipality of T city in Toyama prefecture, Japan, in the spring of 2001. Using the validated Japanese versions of Pittsburgh sleep quality index (PSQI‐J), SOC‐13 and a self‐reported questionnaire providing information on psychosocial stress in the workplace, we conducted logistic regression analysis to assess the impact of low and high SOC (differentiating by the median score) on sleep quality in different levels of job strain. Using a cut‐off point of 5.5 in the PSQI‐ J global score, high job strain subjects were less likely to have good sleep quality (Odds ratio=0.62; 95% confidence interval: 0.44‐0.86) compared with those with lower levels of strain at the workplace after adjusting for potential confounders. Compared with high job strain/low SOC subjects, high job strain/high SOC civil servants were likely to have better sleep quality (Odds ratio=2.12; 95%CI: 1.08‐4.19) after adjusting for age, sex, employment category, level of education and negative affectivity. Increasing psychological stress at the workplace may decrease sleep quality in Japanese civil servants, but a high sense of coherence may attenuate the adverse impact of job strain on sleep quality.

Associations of Sense of Coherence with Sickness Absence and Reported Symptoms of Illness in Japanese Civil Servants

Antonovsky proposed a sense of coherence (SOC) as a construct that predicts effective coping measures in confronting stressful conditions. SOC has been defined as a global orientation that expresses the extent to which one has a pervasive, enduring though dynamic feeling of confidence that (1) the stimuli deriving from one’s internal and external environments in the course of living are structured, predictable and explicable; (2) the resources are available to one to meet the demands posed by these stimuli; and (3) these demands are challenges, worthy of investment and engagement. On the other hand, sickness absence is a composite outcome, comprising health and social behavior. It is primarily a proxy measure of ill health implying reduced occupational functioning, a form of illness behavior, leading to withdrawal from work, which may be linked to a wide range of life stressors. In this 1-year follow up study, qualitative and quantitative measures of health were obtained at baseline. This paper tries to address a primary question: are higher levels sense of coherence related prospectively to lower rates for symptoms of illness and sickness absence from the job?

Outdoor physical activity and its relation with self-reported health in Japanese children: results from the Toyama birth cohort study.

BACKGROUND Few studies have examined trends in engagement in outdoor physical activity as children grow and whether changes in physical activity at different ages affect childrens health. This study determined the preference for and frequency of physical activity among Japanese children from ages 6 to 12 years and investigated the effect of physical activity and of change in physical activity on childrens self-reported health. METHODS Data were from the prospective, longitudinal Toyama Birth Cohort Study, a total of 5238 children were followed at their age of 12 years. Preference for and frequency of outdoor physical activity were from the self-administered questionnaire. Self-reported health was from the Japanese version of Dartmouth Primary Care Co-operative project charts. RESULTS Reporting liking and participating in outdoor physical activity at both ages 6 and 12 years were associated with higher likelihood of good self-reported health (Odds ratio 1.24 [95% CI: 1.03-1.50] for liking activity and OR = 1.27[1.08, 1.50] for participating in activity) compared with those who did not like or participate in this at only one or at neither age, after adjustment for lifestyle factors and body pain. The adjusted OR was 1.23 (95% CI: 0.97-1.56) for girls whose preference for liking outdoor physical activity was not changed at both ages compared with those whose preference changed. The OR was 1.47 (95% CI: 1.14-1.89) for boys who persisted in participating in the outdoor physical activity than those who did not persist. CONCLUSIONS There is an association between a persistent expression of liking outdoor physical activity and self- reported health.

Serum thiocyanate concentration as an indicator of smoking in relation to deaths from cancer

All residents aged 40 years or more in Oyabe City, Toyama Prefecture, Japan were involved in an annual medical check-up between 1987 and 1988. The cohort was followed and death certificates from cancers were confirmed prospectively. During follow-up to December 31 st, 1994, 100 deaths (28 gastric, 17 lung and 55 other cancers) from cancers occurred, and these subjects were included in this study as the case group. Subjects in the control group, matched for gender and age with the cases, were selected randomly from participants whose serum samples had been stocked during annual medical check-up. The concentration of serum thiocyanate in all (79.8 μmol/l), gastric (86.7 μmol/l) and lung (90.0 μmol/l) cancer patients were significantly higher than that of relevant controls (64.3 μmol/l, 59.0 μmol/l and 61.0 μmol/l, respectively; and p<0.001, p<0.001 and p<0.05, respectively). After adjusting for BMI, blood pressure and total serum cholesterol, the results of multiple logistic regression analysis showed that the risk of all cancers (OR=3.40, 95% confidence interval (95% Cl): 1.67–6.96, p<0.01), gastric cancer (OR=7.98, 95% CI: 1.91–33.34, p<0.05) and lung cancer (OR=8.83, 95% CI: 1.19–65.65, p<0.05) were elevated significantly with logarithm transformed values of serum thiocyanate increased. The present findings suggested that in epidemiological studies confirmation of smoking status with biomarkers such as serum thiocyanate may be important, although considering the small sample size, a relatively weaker risk to interested factors rather than the strong relationship between smoking and cancer was noted.

Association among number, order and type of siblings and adolescent mental health at age 12.

Although the sibling relationship is a unique one, the effects of the number and type of siblings on mental health among adolescents have not been reported.