Abstract
The disease occurs under the various influences, such as physiological factors, psychological problems and sociocultural factors. To elucidate these factors, an epidemiological method is one of the most sultable to apply. From this point of view, we investigated and compared the structures of diseases between A City, which is the center of industry and commerce in our prefecture, and B Town, which is the the farm village in the same prefecture located in the northern part of the mainland of Japan. The subjects were 702 persons in A City and 665 persons in B Town The examination was carried out by questionnaires which were composed of the life style items, self rating depression scale (SDS). hypochondric score (MMPI), childhood stability acale, life stability acale, job stability scale and the past history of diseases. In the case of male subjects, the frequency of the paat history of peptic ulcer of A City (30%) is significantly higher than that of B Town (9.6%). Furthermore, among the workmen in production and transpotation of the city, peptic ulcer had occured 36.6% out of these 138 persons. We understood these workmen had some characuteristic life styles. That is 1) they had irregular mealtimes and irregular work times, 2) they had not sufficient sleeping time, 3) they had many alcohol drinking chances and smoking habits, and 4) they had many visitors. On the psychological tests, the workmen who had past history of peptic ulcer Showed significantly higher hypochondric score average than the workmen who had not the past history of peptic ulcer. In the case of women, the city house wives had the highest frequency of peptic ulcer. On the psychological tests, these wqmen who had the past history of pcptic ulcer had higher hypochondric score average than those who had not the past history of peptic ulcer. These results showed the usefulness of epidemiological approach to investigate the factors influencing psychosomatic diseases.
