Clients of Health-Related Social Service usually possess certain types of disability. Without appropriate and sufficient care, their daily life is not easy, and their social activity is hampered by various degrees. These difficulties mainly stem from sensory, motor, and autonomic impairments, or a combination thereof. Special disadvantages in society often exacerbate these problems by impairing mental health. To date, there seem to be fewer comprehensive and quantitative methods to analyze and evaluate the complex and dynamic characteristics of the disabilities found in clients, either in physical or psychological terms. For this reason, an attempt to introduce cognitive and behavioral analytical methods is considered for use in the Behavioral Science area of Health-Related Social Service. From various points of view, such analyses should broaden and deepen our understanding of the disabilities of Health - Related Social Service clients and stimulate new and increased research activity in this field.

View full abstract

The kinds and amount of health-social services in the community have increased dramatically after several health-social related laws were passed in 1993. In this study, the trend of health-social services in the community were clarified and the factors related to the kinds and amount of services were analyzed. The subject were all 3,255 communities in Japan, and were asked to answer the questionnaire. The actual results were as follows ; 1) The feature of health-social services in the community showed several patterns, which were effected by the demographical factors, 2) The kinds and amount of health-social services related strongly to the population in the community, 3) Communities with the population of 10,000-30,000 had only two third of health-social services available compare to communities with the population less than 5,000. These results showed that to promote the health-social services in the community, suitable level of population must be designated for effective usage of services. And also, the consensus for cost-effectiveness of services should be obtained from the people in the community.

View full abstract

The aim of this paper is to determine the rate of and the circumstances related to falls among the frail elderly living at home who have some difficulties in their daily life. Distribution survey by home helpers were carried out in 1995. Subjects for the survey were 128 elderly residents aged 60 and above. Results obtained were as follows ; 1) The rate of falls during the preceding year was 47.8% in men and 59.7% in women. 2) A rate of 55.7% of all falls occured indoors. The cause of falls was mainly intrinsic rather than extrinsic. 3) Fall related injuries were observed in 81.2%. Fractures resulting in being bedridden was higher in women than in men. 4) Logistic regression analysis showed that the history of osteoporosis was significantly associated with the increased risk of falling.

View full abstract

The aim of this study was to clarify the structural characteristics of the concept of health held by elderly people. The items of the survey were sex, age, educational background, and concept of health. For the concept of health, 15 items of physical, mental and social health were surveyed. The subjects were selected from 2,200 elderly people (over 65 years old), living at home, in five districts of Hokkaido, by the stratified random sampling method, confirmatory factor analysis by the maximum likelihood method was performed on the data of valid questionnaires recovered from 1,536 people. The results showed that the concept of health held by elderly people is composed of three factors : physical, mental and social health. The internal conformity of these factors was 0.83 for the physical health factor, and 0.71 for the mental health factor. The results of this study suggest that elderly people have the same concept of health as that advocated by WHO.

View full abstract

A comprehensive system of health - social services has become the main stream in the real support for elderly or disabled persons. In this study, we discuss about the local level of management by referring from the resuits of investigations into the needs of users and the capability of the institute related health-social services. From the results, the following functions were determined to be necessary for comprehensive system of health-social services at the local level ; 1) The function of planing and control the total system, 2) the function of consultation for all needs of the elderly or disabled person, 3) To expand the menu for the residential care, 4) Collection and distribution of the information about health-social services, 5) Continuous evaluation of the health-social services.

View full abstract

The unmarried mother's problem lies in the fact that not only do unmarried mothers suffer from guilt, social stigma and severe emotional crisis, but also their illegitimate children bring about other social burden such as becoming orphans. The purpose of this study was to clarify the problem of unmarried mothers and their children, and to construct Health-Social Support Systems to promote their well-being in Korea. The subjects were 127 unmarried mothers who use social welfare facility. And this study is based out of self-questionnaire and face-to-face interviews with those unmarried mothers. The results are the unmarried mother fails to win the aid eliminating the troubles existing from pregnancy till the birth of their child. Worse still, there are very few Health- Social Support Systems to make aids possible to those unmarried mothers. In conclusion, to prevent unwanted pregnancies, and to support the maternal and child health in prenatal to the child raring environment, we found a need to construct of Health-Social Support Systems by comprehension of social welfare, health, and medicine.

View full abstract

We have made a survey of all the facilities for the health of the aged and the nursing homes for the aged in Okayama prefecture, and have analyzed the current status of the aged who stayed in these facilities and the relation between these persons and service areas. The main results are as follows. 1) The ratio of the bed - bound aged and the degree of dementia were higher in the case of those who stayed in the nursing home for the aged compared to those who stayed in the facility for the health of the aged. 2) As for the aged who stayed in the facilities in small towns and villages, the ratio of those from other cities, towns and villages was large in both the cases of the facility for the health of the aged and the nursing home for the aged. However, as a result of the analysis according to service areas, it turned out that the ratio of those from other part of the same area reached more than 80% of the total number of those who stayed in these facilities.

View full abstract