The purpose of this research is to better understand the activities and characteristics of childhood cancer parent group. The research was conducted using the Focus Group Interviews Method. Based on organizational theory, a conceptual outline was formed and the collected date was analyzed using the Krippendorf content analysis. Interviews were conducted with 31 group directors of eight childhood cancer parent group. The results obtained were classified under the following headings: Motives, Needs, Activities, Meanings, and Effect. The results can be summarized as follow. 1) Each groups activity individually differs on individual experience and facilities that were available to them. 2) With regard to group characteristics; the need to obtain space for activities was important for many individuals for a variety of different reasons or motives. Other important activities in the group were the Doctor centered theme, and those which dealt with the Understanding of caregivers and Being pragmatic. All of the aforementioned information leads us to deduce that the Power of the group is all important.

View full abstract

The purpose of this study was to develop the instrument to assess the school-age children's self-efficacy related to having injections and venipunctures. An 15-item self-report instrument of "School-age Children's Self-efficacy for Painful Medical Procedures" was developed to measure children's beliefs of their own ability of how much they can conduct their behavior to deal with having repeated injections and venipunctures. Items were generated based on the result of the fieldwork and literature. Through content analysis, items were supported as relevant to the concept definition. Conceptual correlations between "School-age Children's Self-efficacy for Painful Medical Procedures" with "Stress Response Scale for Children (SRS-C)" (r = -.70, p< .01) and "Self-esteem Scale" (r = .39, p< .01) highly supported it's conceptual validity. Cronbach's a for the entire instrument was .95. The result of test-retest (r = .88, p< .01) supported the instrument's reliability.

View full abstract

In family life cycles, the nurturing period is a time when families adjust to the changing needs and demands of the family, which is likely to make family ties stronger. However, they also face critical situation, which could be destructive to these ties. The purpose of this study is to construct a family function model for families nurturing infant, based on the Japanese version of the Family Dynamics Measure II (FDM II) and also considering for evaluating the results. The valid response to the questionaire were 454. Analysis of the Japanese FDM II scale turned out to be a highly reliable scale (Cronbach's α = .9158) . Results of the exploratory factor analysis indicated that the FDMII scale was composed of twelve factors (sub-scales) . Further analysis through the Structural Equation Model indicated that the function of the families during the nurturing period was strongly influenced by three key structural components, housekeeping, communication and rule of the families. In the future, this model can be used to compare and interpret functional characteristics of families with a member affected by a chronic ailment, families living in different geographical areas, and families consisting of different member structures, etc., that can be used to help provide family services.

View full abstract