A retrospective exploratory-descriptive design was used to describe the modern Japanese women's self-concept during the early stages of childrearing. The purpose of this research was to explore how a Japanese woman's self-concept changes after she becomes a mother. Seven women, aged 28 to 38, from a purpose sample, were interviewed at home using the-semi-structured interview guide.
The core category, “someone needs me”, provided the more significant indicator of women's self-concept, reflecting the importance of their existence to others. Findings indicated that the modern Japanese woman seeks to be needed by two parties: their children and society. One of these needs originates in the self as a mother. The other originates in the self as an individual with a life of their own. In the acceptance, through family life, of the fulfillment of the two selves,: “myself needed by my child” and “myself needed by society”, the self-concept of modern Japanese women during the early stages of childrearing was defined.

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The effects of the amount of time spent providing care to the elderly on caregivers' lifestyles and fatigue levels were examined. The subjects were 49 females administering in-home care to the elderly in H city located in the western part of Shizuoka prefecture. The caregivers' lifestyles were surveyed in terms of seven items from Breslow's Health Practice Index (HPI), and the caregivers' fatigue levels were assessed based on the Cumulative Fatigue Symptoms Index (CFSI). The subjects were divided into 3 groups for analysis according to the duration of their caregiving: a 24-hour group (n=13), a between 4 & 24-hour group (n=12) and a less than 4-hour group (n=24). The following results were obtained.
1. The overall mean HPI score was 5.0±1.2 out of a possible 7. The HPI scores did not significantly differ between the three groups. However, the HPI score of the 24-hour group was the lowest and indicated that the 24-hour group had the smallest number of caregivers practicing proper sleeping pattern and nutritional balance in comparison with the other two groups.
2. The CFSI scores of the 24-hour group were significantly higher than those of the less than 4-hour group for indications of physical disorders, chronic tiredness and depressive feelings (p<0.05).
3. In the less than 4-hour group, the HPI score was negatively correlated with CFSI score for chronic tiredness (p<0.05).

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The objective of this study was to clarify the nursing care and its process for patients with intractable illness. An inductive qualitative study was conducted by using a grounded theory approach.
Subjects were seven nurses who cared patients with intractable illness at two hospitals in Japan. The qualitative data was collected by participant observations and interviews to the subjects, and analyzed by the constant comparative analysis.
Results revealed four categories of nursing care and its process for patient with intractable illness. Four categories were named as “to accept his/her emotion”, “to respect his/her existence”, “to develop his/her potentiality”, and “to support his/her autonomy”.
Category 1: “To accept his/her emotion” is a nursing care to make the patient express his/her emotion freely, to understand him/her, and to communicate that everyone could feel so if situated as him/her.
Category 2: “To respect existence” is a nursing care to communicate the patient that the existence of him/her is respectable regardless with his/her ability or evaluation.
Category 3: “To develop potentiality” is a nursing care to develop the patient's potentiality for his/her life with safety and high-quality through changing or creating the way of life.
Category 4: “To support autonomy” is a nursing care to support and expand the patient's life activities through the ways of life acquired by him/her.
This study also revealed some definite actions of nurses who cared for patients with intractable illness.

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The purpose of this study is to develop“assessment guideline of family power for healthy life”aiming at expanding self-care power of family in community nursing practice. The subjects of this study covered those families in one hundred and fifty six instances that we had seized as subject for nursing care and study. The method of this study had constructed assessment guideline inductively out of each case, and modified it by applying to cases of families with health problems and others.
As a result, we had formed nine items of“family power for healthy life”and three items of“conditions influencing family power for healthy life”for“assessment guideline of family power for healthy life”.

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The purpose of this study was to describe the relationship between maternal role attainment during pregnancy and empathy. Sixty-seven pregnant women were asked to compelite the Japanese version of the Interpersonal Reactivity Index to measure their empathy, and were subsequently divided into a high-empathy group consisting of 13 subjects, and a low-empathy group consisting of 9 subjects. Data was collected from the 12th through the 30th gestational week by means of a semi-structured interview which was based on Rubin's conceptual model of maternal role attainment.
The following results were obtained.
1. Eight subjects of the high-empathy group and 2 of the low-empathy group were judged to have reached the Introjection-projection-rejection phase.
2. High-empathy group subjects displayed Mimicry more often, had partners near them during Role-play, began Fantasy earlier, and expected more changes in themselves through Grief-work than low-empathy group subjects.
3. High-empathy group subjects were more prepared for the maternal role before conception, came in contact with people that served as a role model more often during pregnancy, and formed Binding-in earlier than low-empathy group subjects.

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The purpose of this study was to develop the instrument to measure self -care agency for the Japanese chronic ill in later adulthood and to test reliability and validity of that.
First, the Self-Care Agency instrument draft which consists of 56 items rated along a 5-point Likert scale was developed. This draft was based upon the work of Orem (1991) and qualitative data of the Japanese chronic patients.
Second, reliability and validity of this instrument was tested. The instrument was reviewed by 5 expert nurses and 16 nursing researchers for content validity. And this instrument was reviewed by 19 Japanese chronic patients for face validity. By result of content validity and face validity, this draft was refined. Next, the internal consistency, stability, and construct validity of this refined instrument was tested. The internal consistency of the instrument, as measured by the Cronbach's alpha, was 0.90 for a sample of 200 Japanese chronic patients. This instrument had a test-retest coefficient of r=0.86 for a sample of 104 Japanese chronic patients. Using factor analytic techniques, five subscales emerged. These subscales gave some agreement with subscales that had been obtained before factor analysis. Therefore, construct validity of the instrument was established in some degree. And the subscale<get a valid support>which emerged in this instrument was reflect Japanese cultural factor.
Reliability and validity of this instrument were obtained in some degree. Further, it is necessary to refine this instrument, considering this research result.

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This study set out to clarify the situation with regard to pain control among cancer patients and the links between this and their sense of well-being in their daily lives. The study was carried out by means of a questionnaire distributed to 49 patients with cancer pain admitted to a general hospital.
The survey showed that about 15% of the subjects were somewhat or very dissatisfied with the pain control. It also revealed that pain intensity correlated significantly with dissatisfaction with regard to pain control as well as with anger resulting from a feeling that there was no point in reporting the pain because the doctors and nurses did nothing. Over half the subjects assumed that an increase in pain signified progression of the disease. With regard to the use of pain medication, over half the subjects were worried about resulting tolerance of or addiction to analgesics, and the strength of their concerns showed a significant negative correlation with the score assigned to their sense of well-being. The intensity of pain also correlated significantly with a tendency to become easily fatigued, a lowering of vitality and physical strength, and an increase in psychological and emotional distress.

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The mental health of nurses was examined 2 years follow-up using the Japanese version of the 60-item General Health Questionnaire (GHQ). A total of 40 nurses in our hospital responded to the GHQ. There was a significant correlation between the GHQ scores of the first year and two years later in all nurses (p=0.0001). There were no changes of GHQ score in two years in all nurses. However, nurses who worked on surgical ward had significantly higher scores than those who worked in internal medicine and those assigned to the elderly medicine ward in two years later GHQ score, especially anxiety and sleep disturbance, social dysfunction, and depression (p<0.05). In the percentage of scores over 17 was no significant difference in three wards and also in the percentage of symptomatic subjects was no significant difference in three wards. Our results suggest that the mental health of nurses who worked on surgical ward might suffer more than that of those who worked in internal medicine and those assigned to the elderly medicine and we must find methods developed to improve it.

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