Background: Child sexual abuse (CSA) is a public health problem of epidemic proportions worldwide. Among children, the consequences of sexual violence on individual health are particularly numerous and often pervasive. Exposure to CSA appears to occur during early adolescence, with a peak incidence rate at age 12 years. In Japan, from 2012 to 2022, the increase in the number of children using smartphones resulted in an increase in the number of children victimized by crimes linked to social networking services (SNS), including child prostitution, child pornography, sexual assault, and rape, from 1,076 to 1,732.

Objective: The present study aimed at applying self-care theories to develop a child sexual abuse prevention program with an application (CSAP-A) and to evaluate its effects on self-protective attitudes during routine activities and use of social networking services (SNS) in elementary school students in Japan.

Methods: The study was performed to fifth-grade children at four elementary schools in Japan and used a pretest/posttest design. In the control group, an education by lecture with learning materials was introduced to four elementary schools in June 2022, and the presentation was given in July 2022. The control group was selected after obtaining assent from the children and consent from their guardians and school principals; the control group comprised 102 (43.4%) of the 235 fifth-grade children at the four elementary schools. In the intervention group, CSAP-A was introduced to four elementary schools in May and June 2023, and the intervention was performed in July 2023. The intervention group was selected after obtaining assent from the children and consent from their guardians and school principals; the intervention group comprised 96 (53.9%) of the 178 fifth-grade children at the four elementary schools. Participants completed a questionnaire before and after presentation of the information.

Results: A significant interaction was found between the pretest/ posttest and the CSAP-A group / the control group with respect to the total scores for self-protective attitudes during routine activities (F (1,391) = 4.68, p = 0.03). CSAP-A showed a tendency to improve the total scores for self-protective attitudes while using SNS (F (1,383) = 3.31, p = 0.06). In addition, the satisfaction with the way in which the information was presented was significantly higher in the intervention group than in the control group.

Conclusions:The results suggest that CSAP-A may be useful in helping elementary school children develop self-protective attitudes during routine activities and increase the satisfaction of learning about such attitudes.

Background: School-based cancer education by cancer survivors has been shown to enhance students’ knowledge of cancer prevention and reduce the stigma against cancer patients. Although online education has become more prevalent in schools since the COVID-19 pandemic, there is a lack of evidence to determine whether it is as learned as in-person cancer education.

Objective: This study aimed to clarify the characteristics of learning content acquired by middle school students through cancer education provided by cancer survivors according to different types of learning.

Methods: From October 2020 to March 2021, cancer education by cancer survivors was provided to second-year middle school students (N=1,501) in 15 schools in prefectures A and B. Anonymous essays from middle school students who attended class were used as the data. Text mining was conducted using KH Coder software and all analyses were performed separately for face-to-face and online courses.

Results: A total of 873 students were taught face-to-face with cancer patients in their schools, whereas the remaining 628 students were taught online. Essays were collected from 784 students in face-toface courses and 585 in online courses. The results of the co-occurrence network analysis indicated the following three key themes in both face-to-face and online courses: “understand the word that is loaded for death,” “attitude of appreciation for living,” and “acquisition of knowledge about cancer.” A correspondence analysis comparing each class and school assembly identified different characteristics in the descriptions.

Conclusions:This study revealed that cancer education provided by cancer survivors, whether in person or online, might help students develop respect for their own and others’ lives and gain knowledge of cancer. In particular, students who participated in cancer education in each class were more likely to describe their attempts to connect what they had learned to actual actions.

Background: In Japan, suicide due to bullying has been a matter of strong public concern for half a century. However, there is almost no quantitative understanding of the actual situation. Japanese newspaper coverage of bullying suicides is polite and firm. The newspapers publish the main contents of the report by third-party committee together with the actual event.

Objective: This study quantitatively analyzes the statistics on suicide resulting from bullying as compiled from reporting in newspapers.

Methods: The data for this study comprise online newspaper reports over 10 years, 2012–2021. The term “bullying-related suicide” in these newspaper articles refers to cases in which a third-party committee had identified the occurrence of bullying. The subjects of analysis are Japanese elementary, junior high, and high school students. Statistics are tabulated on students’ gender and grade and the month and day of the week when the bullying-related suicide took place. Chi-square tests were conducted to analyze the presence or absence of bullying vis-à-vis the sexes/grades of the students.

Results: The results for the 98 identified cases of suicide due to bullying are as follows. In junior high and high school, male students outnumbered female students. And the grade with the highest number of bullying-related suicides was eighth grade. In terms of month, the most cases, 12, occurred in July, and the majority of cases, 19, occurred on Mondays and Wednesdays. The chi-square test results indicated significant differences in bullying-related suicides across junior high school grades (p < 0.001).

Conclusions: This study provides explicit findings from a concrete analysis of the reality of suicides resulting from bullying. These findings can contribute to suicide prevention efforts for Japanese youth.

Background: In indoor environments such as gymnasiums, the effect of exposure to solar radiation is less severe, however, heat is more likely to accumulate, and humidity is higher than in outdoor environments. Therefore, the efficiency of heat dissipation by living organisms becomes less efficient, and the environment may be prone to dehydration due to increased sweating. The actual duration of the main events in physical education (P.E.) classes varies across schools. More than 30 minutes of exercise in a hot environment is considered to present sufficient thermal stress for students. In some cases, students cannot consume water due to the time constraints of the class. There are only a few experimental studies on the prevention of dehydration in P.E. classes in Japan. Therefore, it is important to examine the effects of water intake on organisms during P.E. classes.

Objective: This study aimed to examine the effects of water shortage on various physiological responses and subjective symptoms during summer P.E. class.

Methods: Twelve healthy young males (age: 20.3 ± 0.5 years) volunteered to this investigation and play the practice of basketball for 50 minutes under the simulation high school P.E. class in July (temperature: 30.3 ± 0.2 ℃). They were divided into two conditions: one in which they could hydrate freely during the class (WI group, n=6) and another in which they could not be allowed to hydrate (NI group, n=6). Measurements included pulse rate, rating of perceived exertion (RPE), the subjective thirst (ST), body weight, dehydration rate, water intake, urine volume (UV), and urine specific gravity (USG). Those measurements were estimated before the class and after the main exercise and end of the class.

Results: Pulse rate, RPE, USG at the end of class and dehydration rate in the NI group were significantly higher than those in the WI group. There was a significant difference in dehydration rate between groups (WI vs. NI: 0.4 ± 0.5 % vs. 2.1 ± 1.3 %, p<0.05). Although the USG of the WI group after class was significantly lower than that of before class (p<0.05), there was no significant difference within the NI group. In the NI group, significant positive correlations were found between ST and pulse rate (r=0.703, p<0.05) and between ST and RPE (r=0.619, p<0.05). In the WI group, there was no significant correlation among changes in weight, USG, ST, or exercise load index (pulse rate, RPE).

Conclusions: Students who did not drink water during a 50-minute P.E. class indoors at summer temperatures around 30 ℃ were clearly more dehydrated than those who could drink freely.