Relationship between development of hypertension and a family history of high blood pressure in urban residents-analysis based on results of annual health examinations, 1984 to 1998.
Objective To clarify the relationship between development of hypertension and a family history of this condition in urban residents.
Methods Findings from a 15-year follow-up study of annual health examinations carried out in a community adjoining Osaka city, from 1984 to 1998, were analyzed. Any person who indicated in a self-administered questionnaire that they had either a parent or a sibling with hypertension was considered as having a family history of hypertension.
Results In each year analyzed, mean systolic and diastolic blood pressure, by both sex and age group, was generally higher for those with a family history of hypertension than those without. We examined the proportion of people with such a family history and found that among those who received examinations for 5 consecutive years, the number of times at which the proved normotensive was generally lower than in the control group. When we looked at the odds ratio for hypertension according to combinations of family history, obesity, and use of alcohol, those with all three risk factors had the largest values in each year, followed by those with a family history plus obesity, but without drinking. The population attributable risks were 6.6%-16.0% for family history in men and 6.6%-18.4% in women, 6.0%-18.1% and 9.0%-25.2% for obesity and 3.5%-29.4% and 0.3%-4.0% for drinking.
 These results show that the tree-distributions of normotensiven (optimal, normal, high-normal) were normotensive overall the first time (1984), and for those who received examinations in 1993 and 1998, hazard ratios with a positive family history were higher than with a negative family history.
Conclusions The main new findings of this study are that the incidence of hypertension is significantly higher in people with a family history of the disease than in those without, and looking at odds ratios for population attributable risk, family history proved to be a factor almost as important for high blood pressure as obesity and drinking. The results indicate family history is a significant risk factor for hypertension.

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Objectives The purpose of the present study was to develop a Japanese version of the Subjective Happiness Scale (SHS) and to examine its validity and reliability.
Methods The four items of the English SHS were translated into Japanese. These Japanese items were back-translated into English, and verified by one of the developers of the original SHS. The participants were 364 Japanese undergraduate students (158 males and 206 females). They were asked to answer the questionnaire including the Japanese SHS, five items concerning positive health and self-esteem, and the Japanese General Health Questionnaire (GHQ). The stability of the Japanese SHS was examined over a five-week time period.
Results It was shown that the Japanese SHS was highly internal consistent with alphas of .80 for males and .84 for females. As for the test-rest reliability, a high correlation (r=.86) was found after five-week. One factor structure and factor loadings emerged clearly from factor analysis. The scores of the Japanese SHS correlated positively with positive health and self-esteem. Furthermore, they were significantly greater in the healthy group than in the unhealthy one, from the GHQ scores, especially for depression.
Conclusions These findings suggest that the Japanese version of SHS has internal consistency, test-retest reliability, convergent validity, and discriminant validity.

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Objective To verify whether the statement “cannot go out alone to distant places” should be considered a risk factor for disability among medium elderly persons living alone autonomously in a metropolitan suburban environment, the present cross-sectional study was performed.
Methods Self-rated mobility levels in elderly persons living alone were surveyed by questionnaire in 1,216 elderly people (209 male, 1007 female) aged 65 to 74 years, living in a metropolitan suburb, who had autonomy and ambulation competence. Two categories were used for evaluation of the self-rated mobility level: the A group were those who were able to go out alone to distant places and the B group were those who were able to do so in the locality, but not to distant places without help (cannot go out alone to distant places). Factors such as everyday lifestyle, self-rated health, and psychological, functional, physical and social items were investigated.
Results Although the frequency of going out was nearly the same between the A and B groups, the B group showed the lower hobby and association activity in social communities.
 Individual factors such as self-rated health, instrumental activities of daily living (Tokyo Metropolitan Institute of Gerontology), eyesight, masticatory ability, 1 km continuous walking, pedestrian crossing walking on a green light, and fracture history, medicine intake, cerebrovascular disorder related subjective symptoms, intermittent claudication related subjective symptoms, physical pain, symptoms of depression, daytime sleep, number of meals, and no regular walking and light gymnastic exercises demonstrated significant differences in levels between the A and B groups. The B group had characteristics of lower social activities in social communities, deterioration of physical functions, subjective symptoms of sickness and depression, and a worse self-rated level of health.
 On stepwise multiple logistic regression analysis, individual frailty-risk factors related to “cannot go out alone to distant places”, were “inability to continuously walk a distance of 1km”, “lower masticatory ability”, “having depressive symptoms”, and “having symptoms of intermittent claudication”.
Conclusions The findings from this study show that with autonomous medium elderly persons, those who “cannot go out alone to distant places” have risk factors for a trend toward disability.

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Purpose The purpose of the study was to develop a health education program, named “i-exerM,” utilizing the mail function of the mobile phone and affect its effects setting body weight reduction as the achievement target.
Methods The i-exerM was developed with 136 adults (28 males and 108 females) living or working in Shizuoka Prefecture, and subscribing to the i-mode of NTT DoCoMo or J-sky of JPHONE (currently Vodafone), who indicated an interest in participating in a body weight reduction twelve week (between July 15^th and October 9^th, 2003) program. As one of the special characteristics of the i-exerM, the subjects were informed once every day via mailing to the mobile phone some new items regarding body weight reduction knowledge and practice. By use of a self-monitoring method, the subjects were asked to register the body weight via internet from time to time. Information for each individual at the start and the end of the i-exerM monitoring session was collected with a questionnaire covering physical conditions, lifestyle and program evaluation, without an meeting with the participants during the program. From this trial result, the enforcement potential of healthy education utilizing the mail function of mobile phones was examined.
Results 1) Those who submitted a questionnaire before the i-exerM start and after the end were 14 adult (50%) males and 69 adult (64%) females.
 2) A tendency for reduced body weight was found in 63 (46%) of 136 adults who participated in the i-exerM. Furthermore, average body weights were significantly reduced (P<0.001) from 73.2 kg to 71.1 kg (males), and from 58.8 kg to 57.6 kg (females).
 3) The i-exerM program was evaluated positively, 44 adults (32%) indicating that it was “greatly effective” for “stimulating consideration of body reduction and starting concrete efforts.”
Conclusion The success of the current i-exerM program suggests its possible application for chronic disease states such as hypertension and hyperlipidemia.

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Introduction The relationship between domestic labor and fatigue following night shift work by nurses was examined. Differences due to the age of the youngest child, which apparently influences housework time, were analyzed.
Methods A time survey was conducted with 159 shift work nurses at a public general hospital. Participants were divided into three groups based on the age of the youngest child, i.e., those whose youngest child was in school were placed in the “school age” group, those whose youngest child was preschool age were placed in the “preschool age” group, and nurses without children were placed in the “childless” group. Using four categories of daily living, time use was set as labor hours, physiological hours, house work hours, and social and cultural activity hours, and daily living time was described with reference to seventeen items. A subjective symptoms index (SSI) was applied after both day and night shifts. Comparison of the degree of recovery from physical fatigue and loss of mental concentration were also investigated between the end of day work and the start of night work.
Results Sleeping and napping time was 7 hours and 53 minutes in the “preschool age” group, 8 hours and 18 minutes in the “school age” group, and 9 hours and 11 minutes in the “childless” group. Housework time was 3 hours and 9 minutes in the “preschool age” group, 2 hours and 1 minute in the “school age” group, and 48 minutes in the “childless” group, with the majority of time spent doing cooking and childcare chores. Social and cultural activity time was 36 minutes in the “preschool age” group, 57 minutes in the “school age” group, and 1 hour and 19 minutes in the “childless” group. Fireside time with family was a mere 7 minutes in the “preschool age” group.
 The subjective symptoms index (SSI) after night work showed severe fatigue in all groups. All groups showed greater fatigue and loss of concentration at the time of night work than when finishing day work.
Discussion The results showed greater fatigue in the “preschool age” group, which suggests an inverse correlation with sleeping and napping and a positive link to labor in the home. The “preschool age” group had longer housework hours, and shorter sleeping and social and cultural activity hours, which are presumed to influence fatigue.

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[in Japanese]

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