A total of 656 cities in Japan were classified according- to demographics, housing and economics, and correlations between these cities grouped according to regional characteristics and the degree of utilization of home welfare services for the aged were investigated. The results of the analysis showed the main characteristics of the cities to be "scale," "degree of urbanization," "industry" and "growth." On the basis of these four characteristics, the 656 cities were divided into the following nine groups: "regional small-scale cities," "regional high-growth cities," "cities forming a large commercial area," "subsatellite cities of a metropolis," "regional key cities," "satellite cities of a metropolis," "non-growth cities," "average regional cities" and "growth-type regional industrial cities." Analysis of the correlations between these nine groups and utilization of home welfare services for the aged showed that there were significant differences among the groups in the number of days per year that home - help service was used by 100 people over the age of 65 and the number of days per year that one-day service was used by 100 people over the age of 65 but that there were no significant differences in the number of days per year that short-stay service was used by 100 people over the age of 65. The results of this study show that the degree of utilization of home welfare services for the aged differs according to the functional characteristics of the city in which the aged reside.

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The all records of 249 preschool aged children which had visited to O Family and Children's Guidance Room in S prefecture during 1989 to 1997 were surveyed and also the present staus of guidance services in S prefecture was investigated. 1) Totally 53 Family and Children's Guidance Rooms have been established in S prefecture by April 1999, but almost all counselors are part time and retired school teachers. The total number of complained case was 50,671 in 1997, and out of these, 16,913 cases are concerning their development and/or speech. Difference between the reported total number of cases and actual number of client was large, because every visit and complaint was counted as one case. 2) The reasons of visits among 249 children at O Family and Children's Guidance Room were mainly consultation on problems including enuresis which were pointed out at the health examination in their villages. 3) Several ideas are proposed for better activities of child guidance in the community. (1) The method of reporting system should be modified to easy to understand the actual status. (2) Adequate professionals including Maternal and Child Health field should be disposed to Family and Children's Guidance Room. (3) Collaboration between guidance centers including telephone counselling center should be reorganized for further efficient service system in the community.

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Recently, health care services have to be delivered effectively and efficiently to accomplish health care reform in the world. On this international trend, the academic domains as Health Care Technology Assessment, Evidence Based Healthcare, Clinical Guideline and Disease Management have been developed, so that critically reviewed evidence on health care can be adapted to the services for human and political decision making. The purpose of this review was to discuss promoting the activities based on evidence in Human Science and to point out these problems to be improved for professinal spesialists of Health-Social Services. Strategetic plans for the effective usage of the informations on the best evidence must be devised, but first priority should be given to changing the views of professinal spesialists for the the activities based on evidence in Human Science.

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The purpose of this study was to clarify the factors related to the motivation for rehabilitation training at rehabilitation facilities for physically disabled persons. The subjects were all the 5,762 persons who were in rehabilitation facilities for physically disabled persons in Japan. Professionals were asked to answer the questionnaire about each disabled person's motivation for rehabilitation training1, age, sex, kinds of disabilities, degree of impairment, activities of daily living, activity level, social adaptation, expectation from rehabilitation training, difficulties for rehabilitation training, etc. Spearman's correlation coefficient, chi-square test and logistic regression analysis were done to clarify the related factors of the motivation for rehabilitation training. The results showed that the motivation for rehabilitation training was significantly related to factors, such as expectations from rehabilitation training (r=0.67, p<0.01), difficulties for rehabilitation training (r=0.44, p<0.01), social adaptation (r=0.37, p<0.01). These relations were kept after controlling the effects of age, sex, educational background, disabilities, native place and degree of impairment. The results suggest that above factors are important to keep motivation for rehabilitation training. Further research must be done to clarify the other factors related to the motivation for rehabilitation training in rehabilitation facilities for physically disabled persons by using longitudinal data.

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In this study, effect of information about health and welfare services for the elderly on utilization of the services was examined. Investigation data performed to 65 or more years old persons (12,573) who might become bedridden in 10 prefecture 72 municipalities were used for analysis. On the basis of these data, 48 municipalities (9,026 persons) in 10 prefecture which had at least 100 subjects who were 70 or more years old were extracted, and percentage of the subjects who knew the services, percentage of the subjects who used the services, and various percentages concerning promotion of the utilization of the services were calculated in the each every municipality, and the analysis was carried out on the municipal unit data not the personal unit data. The effect was analyzed by correlation analyses, multiple regression analysis, and principal component analysis. As the result, degree of the effect is different by the services, though the information affected the utilization of most services.

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