Assessment of Fatigue among Citrus Fruits Farmers in an Island of the Inland Sea of Japan

Author: Setsuko SHIRONO ; Mieko IWAMOTO ; Kumiko SUIZU ; Noriaki HARADA
Publication Type:Journal Article
MeSH: Fatigue <1>; FARMERS; Seasons; Questionnaires; Japan
From:Journal of the Japanese Association of Rural Medicine 2003;52(4):709-716
CountryJapan
Language:Japanese
Abstract: We investigated the status of fatigue in a cohort of about 300 citrus fruits farmers in western Japan. The Fatigue Questionnaire for Farmers developed by the Rural Life Research Institute in Tokyo was used in this study. The severity of fatigue was assessed with the fatigue scale for the Questionnaire. The major results obtained were as follows;1. Fatigue scores at the farming season were not so high. It was assumed that the amount of agricultural work was small at that year because the citrus fruits crop was below average.2. The scores of fatigue, labor burden, satisfactory and health priority of the subjects at the farming season were not much high in comparison with those of the slack season. However, the fatigue situation indicated different tendencies between the male and female subjects.3. Comparison among three surveys including this study on farmers producing different agricultural products showed different fatigue situations.4. Forty percent of the questionnaires recovered could not be used for this analysis because of unanswered items. It was suggested that there is need of developing a questionnaire easier to answer for subjects.