The purposes of this study were to develop the psychosomatic health questionnaire in elementary school children, and to examine the relationship between their habitual physical activity and psychosomatic health in children. In Study I, subjects were 406 pupils (206 boys and 200 girls) in grade 4 through 6 in elementary schools. The pupils completed a battery of some questionnaires in classroom settings. As the result of factor analysis, it was found that the psychosomatic health questionnaire had five factors structure (anger, complaints, anxiety, sleep, and depression) . Four hundred elementary school children (grades 4 through 6; 201 boys and 199 girls) participated in Study II. Correlation analysis revealed the relationship between psychosomatic health and habitual physical activities. The results indicated that the amount of habitual physical activity was correlated with some psychosomatic health subscales. For boys, the habitual physical activity was correlated with anger, complaints, depression, and anxiety. The anger and anxiety were slightly related to habitual physical activity for girls. It was described that the increase of physical activity could contribute to improve some psychosomatic health.

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Purpose of study : The purpose of this study was to evaluate a smoking cessation appeal to smokers by student nurses.
Methods : This study was conducted in 1994 and 1995. There were 674 samples from first to third year female student nurses and 156 smokers who had been contacted by the student nurses. Separate self-administered multiple choice questionnaires for student nurses were used as a pretest (1-2 weeks before a 80-minute lesson for the student nurses) and a follow-up test (6 months after the lesson) . Additionally, the student nurses had interviews with a smoker and a questionnaire was filled out by the smoker (just before the appeal and 1 month after the appeal) .
The program consists of the lesson for student nurses, and a consequent appeal to a smoker by each student nurse.
Results and Discussion : One hundred and fifty-six (23.1% of) student nurses were able to appeal for the smoking cessation. Among occasional student nurse smokers at the pretest who smoked 1-29 cigarettes per week, 42.9% of the successful student nurses who could appeal and 20.0% of the unsuccessful student nurses became non-smokers by the time of the follow-up test. But the difference was not statistically significant. One third of heavy smokers, who smoked 20 or more cigarettes per day, became occasional smokers, who smoked 1-19 cigarettes per day, after the smoking cessation appeal by the student nurses. The self-help smoking cessation material which was used in the appeal was generally accepted by the smokers.

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Purpose: The Sense of Coherence (SOC) is a core concept of Antonovsky's salutogenic model. This study aims to investigate the factors related to the SOC among university students, including socio-demographic characteristics, daily life style, personality traits, social support network, and family environments and school life from childhood to the present.
Method: The participants are 593 undergraduates at three universities in Tokyo. Hierarchical multiple regression analysis is used to examine the factors related to the SOC score.
Result: The sense of responsibility, amount of perceived social support network, self-rated family environments in childhood, and self-rated school life at junior and senior high school were positively associated with the SOC score. Female students had greater social support network, which may enable them to maintain their SOC at the same level with male students. Further, those who had grown up in supportive family were more likely to perceive their family as a source of social support, which suggests the importance of family environments in childhood. Neither religious beliefs nor Type A behavior was significantly related to the SOC score.
Conclusion: Our findings were generally consistent with previous studies. The factors related to strong SOC among university students include strong sense of responsibility, greater amount of perceived social support network, supportive family environments in childhood, and positive experiences at junior and senior high school.

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The purpose of the study is to develop a participatory nutrition education program, which aims to support self-reliance on food and nutrition of rural women. Based on the needs survey regarding nutritional issues, the meetings were planned. These meetings were held 4 times at the income-generating activities center at two communities. The goal of the program was to find own theme for establishing an action plan to solve the nutritional problems. The results of this implementation were as follows:
1. The number of participants was 17 in A community and 21 in B community.
2. Fifty-two point nine percents of the participants in A community and fifty-seven point one percents of B community recognized the action plan clearer than before.
3. Statistically significant relation was found between the range of sharing nutritional information and degree of making an action plan clearer.
Therefore, it is necessary to develop participatory programs, through which participants would spread nutritional information to others.

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Objective: To grasp the present situation of health education in developing countries with a special focus on maternal and child health, and to seek the desirable international cooperation program toward the future in the field of health education.
Method: A questionnaire was distributed to 80 Japanese Overseas Cooperation Volunteers working for community-based nursing activities who were dispatched to developing and least developing countries from December 1998 to January 1999. Comparison was made between developing and least developing countries.
Findina:
1. The main providers of health education were the nurse (both female and male) and the health worker.
2. The contents of health education were maternal and child health, family planning, vaccination, nutrition, and safe water. In the least developing countries health education on safe water, and maternal and child health was more intensively conducted than in developing countries.
3. Concerning implementation method, problems were found in lack of health education program in regular bases and health education technique.
4. Future challenges included a) in-service training of health education providers to improve their educational technique, b) development of inexpensive and community-oriented audio-visual aids, and c) others.

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