The objective of this study is to describe how expert public health nurses understand the characteristics of interpersonal relationships and behaviors of fathers who commit child abuse. In this study, a qualitative descriptive design was applied to data analysis. We analyzed data from eight cases as told to us through a semi-structured interview with public health nurses who had been in charge of maternal and child health services for at least 5 years at a public health center. From the nurses’ perspective, the interpersonal relationships and behavioral characteristics of fathers who committed child abuse were divided into seven categories: ‘the inability to build a good family relationship’, ‘the inability to fulfill the role of a father’, ‘the inability to build appropriate relationships with others’, ‘the inability to express feelings or thoughts’, ‘exhibiting selfish behavior’, ‘the inability to behave as a responsible member of society’, and ‘exhibiting aggressive behavior and actions’. The findings suggest the necessity for expert public health nurses to understand fathers, to be aware of the difficulty of building a supportive relationship with fathers, and to improve skills to help fathers form a good relationship with their family members.

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Purpose: To describe the characteristics of the attitudes towards community activities among public health nurses promoting community activities.
Methods: Self-reported anonymous questionnaires were mailed to 485 public health nurses working in a municipality in Japan. The nurses were asked open-ended questions about their motivations and beliefs regarding community activities. Responses were collected from 101 participants. Data were analyzed with content analysis.
Results: We classified 288 contexts into 15 categories and 48 sub-categories, and extracted three core categories. The three core categories were: attitude of seeking to develop an organized system and cooperative relations within the organization, attitude of enhancing the expertise of the public health nurses, and attitude of self-approval and self-management.
Conclusion: These findings show that the characteristics of the attitudes of the nurses towards community activities were as follows: working with co-workers and peers sharing the same vision and attitudes to establish a sympathetic and respectful relationship in the workplace, continuous training, professionalism and competency. These attitudes were suggested as prerequisites for community activities among public health nurses.

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Purpose: The objective of this ecological study was to elucidate the relationship between disability-free life expectancy (DFLE) and community health activities and related parameters.
Methods: One hundred and seventy-nine municipalities in Hokkaido (Japan) were used as units of analysis. DFLEs in 65-year-old men and women (DFLE65) were considered dependent variables. Data on demographics, socioeconomic factors, health care environment, health activities, and public health nursing activities in each unit were considered independent variables. The correlation coefficients were calculated to identify independent variables potentially associated with DFLE65, after which multivariate linear regression analysis was performed.
Results: Multivariate linear regression analysis revealed that a higher number of public health nurses per 100,000 individuals was significantly associated with increased DFLE65s in the entire population and in units with a population of <12,000. Cancer mortality and cancer screening rates were significantly associated with DFLE65s in males across all units. Public health nursing activities were associated with DFLE65s in females across all units.
Discussion: The results suggest that early detection and treatment of cancer are significantly associated with increased DFLE65s in males, whereas public health nursing activities are significantly associated with increased DFLE65s in females.

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[in Japanese]

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