Abstract
This study was conducted in order to find a way to manage the health care for elementary and junior high school pupils on the basis of the relation between psychosomatic symptoms and their stress for life event and living behavior. The subjects were the third-year junior high school pupils in 45 boys and 38 girls, who went to the one of three public junior high schools in Y town, near Himeji City in Hyogo Prefecture. The initial investigation was carried out in February 1996, when the subjects were the fifth-year elementary school pupils. The second investigation was conducted in July 1999. Psychosomatic symptoms were assessed by the questionnaire, consisting of fourteen conditions including “abdominal pain”, “orthostatic dizziness”, “sleeplessness” and “pains in upper or lower extremities” etc. According to the symptoms, the rates of “feeling oppressed in breathing”, “general malaise”, “orthostatic dizziness” and “bad feeling in the morning” significantly increased among boys (P<0.01, respectively). In addition, the rates of “feeling oppressed in breathing”, “general malaise”, “orthostatic dizziness”, “bad feeling in the morning”, “feeling strained in the eyes” and “feeling stiff in the shoulders” significantly increased among girls (P<0.01, respectively). The rates of “carsickness” and “sleeplessness” in girls were significantly larger than those in boys during elementary school period (P<0.05, respectively). The multivariate analysis, which uses Hayashi's quantification method I, indicated that “not having breakfast” in boys and “high stress score for not enough time to sleep” in girls were the most highly correlated with increase in the number of psychosomatic symptoms among elementary school pupils. In junior high school pupils, “going on a diet” in boys and “high stress score for not enough time to play” in girls were the most highly correlated with increase in the number of psychosomatic symptoms. These results suggest that an effective prevention strategy for decreasing the level of psychosomatic symptoms in junior high school pupils would be controlling sleep time and eating habits with careful consideration.
