Abstract
As in Europe and the USA, POMS is now going to be widely used in the area of occupational health in Japan. However, the Japanese translation of POMS is still not well established. Therefore, in this study, we translated the POMS into Japanese, and using 261 medical students in their last three years of study, we analyzed whether the fifty-six items of the mood factors of POMS are correctly or differently interpreted compared with the classified mood states in the original POMS. The number of the items, differently interpreted at a higher frequency than 20% among the students, was about 20 on the average of three years. Many of the items fell under the heading of "depression-dejection" and "tension-anxiety". The number of items, differently interpreted at a lower frequency than 5% among the students, was about 15 on the average of three years. Many of these items belonged to "vigor". The Japanese translation of POMS was applied to 106 workers engaged in manufacturing automotive parts. Among male and female workers exposed to organic solvents, a positive correlation (P<0.05) was found between the urinary hippuric acid level and the score of "anger-hostility". Negative correlations (P<0.05-0.001) were found between the age and each score of "tension-anxiety", "depression-dejection", "anger-hostility", "fatigue" and "confusion". However, no significant difference in the score of any mood factors of POMS was found between the group of sixty-one workers exposed to organic solvents and the group of forty-five workers unexposed. For the understanding of workers' subjective psychological aspects, the POMS examination is useful as a part of the neurobehavioral core test battery to be administered to workers exposed to organic solvents.
