An unsigned questionnaire survey of smoking was taken on all 101 students of JA Gifu Kouseiren Nurses' School. The smoking rate of the students as of July 2001 worked out at 17.8%(18 in 101 students). Most student smokers said they smoke less than 15 cigarettes a day, each containing less than 0.9mg of nicotine, and their Fagerstrom Tolerance Questionnaire (FTQ) index came to 1.94±1.51, suggesting their nicotine dependence is not so much as we thought. Almost 80% of the students who habitually smoke said they wish to quit smoking. Almost 80% of the students who do not smoke said they feel unpleasant to other person's smoking, and in contrast the remaining 20% of them said they feel like start smoking. These results suggest that there is a pressing need for advising the nurse students not to form the smoking habit and bringing the harm of smoking home to them in class.

OBJECTIVESThe number of elderly workers has also been increasing and poor psychological well-being in elderly workers has been reported. The aim of this study is to elucidate the factors that are related to poor psychological well-being in elderly workers.

METHODSWe administered General Health Questionnaire-12 (GHQ-12) as an indicator of psychological well-being to 330 male elderly workers in the age range of 50-69, and analyzed different psychological factors, namely sense of coherence (SOC), and physical and lifestyle variables such as blood pressure, serum total cholesterol, smoking frequency, alcohol intake, exercise frequency, and body mass index (BMI) that are related to GHQ-12.

RESULTSWhen the cut-off point of GHQ-12 was 2/3, 97 workers who showed high GHQ-12 score were classified as one group having poor psychological well-being. A statistically significantly lower SOC score, higher stress score, lower frequency of exercise, higher smoking score and higher BMI, but not longer working hours or higher shift work score in the workers with higher GHQ-12 scores were observed than in the workers with normal GHQ-12 scores. Multiple logistic regression analysis showed that the low SCO score, low frequency of exercise, high smoking frequency and high BMI significantly contributed to the high GHQ-12 score.

CONCLUSIONSA low SOC score in elderly workers is assumed to be directly related to poor psychological well-being, or via the development of lifestyle problems such as lack of exercise, obesity, and smoking in elderly workers. This assumption must be confirmed by conducting future intervention studies on lifestyle.

OBJECTIVE: The aim of this study was to explore the factor structure of a novel, 10-item rating scale, the Targeted Inventory on Problems in Schizophrenia (TIP-Sz). Determining the factor structure will be useful in the brief evaluation of medication and non-medication treatment of the disease. METHODS: An exploratory factor analysis was performed on TIP-Sz scores obtained from 100 patients who met the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM-IV) criteria for schizophrenia. RESULTS: The factor analysis extracted four factors that were deemed clinically pertinent, which we labeled: disorganization, social cooperativeness, functional capacity, and emotional state. The items exhibited cross-loadings on the first three factors (i.e., some items loaded on more than one factor). In particular, the 'behavioral dyscontrol and disorganization,' 'insight and reality testing,' and 'overall prognostic impression' items had comparable cross-loadings on all of the first three factors. The emotional state factor was distinct from the other factors in that the items loading on it did not cross-load on other factors. CONCLUSION: The TIP-Sz scale comprises factors that are associated with the psychosocial functioning and emotional state of patients, which are important outcome parameters for successful treatment of the disease.
Anomie ; Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders ; Humans ; Schizophrenia

Carcinosarcoma ; Choriocarcinoma ; Conflict of Interest ; Endometrial Neoplasms ; Female ; Gestational Trophoblastic Disease ; Humans ; Japan ; Pharmacists ; Pregnancy ; Sarcoma ; Trophoblasts

We previously described a rare case of anaphylaxis presumably induced by carminic acid in cochineal dye used as a food additive. In this study, highly pure carminic acid was added to an albumin-containing buffer at various concentrations, followed by serial dilution. Varying the mixing ratio of carminic acid and albumin affected the extent of histamine release from passively sensitized basophils. Similar basophil histamine release occurred with carminic acid-globulin solutions. These results provide experimental evidence indicating that basophil activation is dependent on hapten (carminic acid) and carrier (protein) interaction.
Anaphylaxis ; Basophils ; Carmine ; Food Additives ; Histamine Release ; Hypersensitivity ; In Vitro Techniques

The Fourth Edition of the Guidelines for Treatment of Uterine Body Neoplasm was published in 2018. These guidelines include 9 chapters: 1. Overview of the guidelines, 2. Initial treatment for endometrial cancer, 3. Postoperative adjuvant therapy for endometrial cancer, 4. Post-treatment surveillance for endometrial cancer, 5. Treatment for advanced or recurrent endometrial cancer, 6. Fertility-sparing therapy, 7. Treatment of uterine carcinosarcoma and uterine sarcoma, 8. Treatment of trophoblastic disease, 9. Document collection; and nine algorithms: 1-3. Initial treatment of endometrial cancer, 4. Postoperative adjuvant treatment for endometrial cancer, 5. Treatment of recurrent endometrial cancer, 6. Fertility-sparing therapy, 7. Treatment for uterine carcinosarcoma, 8. Treatment for uterine sarcoma, 9. Treatment for choriocarcinoma. Each chapter includes overviews and clinical questions, and recommendations, objectives, explanation, and references are provided for each clinical question. This revision has no major changes compared to the 3rd edition, but does have some differences: 1) an explanation of the recommendation decision process and conflict of interest considerations have been added in the overview, 2) nurses, pharmacists and patients participated in creation of the guidelines, in addition to physicians, 3) the approach to evidence collection is listed at the end of the guidelines, and 4) for clinical questions that lack evidence or clinical validation, the opinion of the Guidelines Committee is given as a “Recommendations for tomorrow”.

OBJECTIVE: We aimed to propose a set of quality indicators (QIs) based on the clinical guidelines for cervical cancer treatment published by The Japan Society of Gynecologic Oncology, and to assess adherence to standard-of-care as an index of the quality of care for cervical cancer in Japan. METHODS: A panel of clinical experts devised the QIs using a modified Delphi method. Adherence to each QI was evaluated using data from a hospital-based cancer registry of patients diagnosed in 2013, and linked with insurance claims data, between October 1, 2012, and December 31, 2014. All patients who received first-line treatment at the participating facility were included. The QI scores were communicated to participating hospitals, and additional data about the reasons for non-adherence were collected. RESULTS: In total, 297 hospitals participated, and the care provided to 15,163 cervical cancer patients was examined using 10 measurable QIs. The adherence rate ranged from 50.0% for ‘cystoscope or proctoscope for stage IVA’ to 98.8% for ‘chemotherapy using platinum for stage IVB’. Despite the variation in care, hospitals reported clinically valid reasons for more than half of the non-adherent cases. Clinically valid reasons accounted for 75%, 90.9%, 73.4%, 44.5%, and 88.1% of presented non-adherent cases respectively. CONCLUSION: Our study revealed variations in pattern of care as well as an adherence to standards-of-care across Japan. Further assessment of the causes of variation and non-adherence can help identify areas where improvements are needed in patient care.
Guideline Adherence ; Humans ; Insurance ; Japan* ; Methods ; Patient Care ; Platinum ; Proctoscopes ; Qi ; Standard of Care ; Uterine Cervical Neoplasms*