Psychosocial functioning and self-rated health in Japanese school-aged children: A cross-sectional study

• Published in: Nursing & health sciences Vol. 15; no. 2; pp. 157 - 163
• Main Authors: Okuda, Masayuki, Sekiya, Mari, Okuda, Yumi, Kunitsugu, Ichiro, Yoshitake, Norikazu, Hobara, Tatsuya
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Australia Blackwell Publishing Ltd 01-06-2013
• Subjects: Adolescent; Age Factors; Behavior disorders; Checklist; Child; Child Welfare; Children; Children & youth; Confidence Intervals; Cross-Sectional Studies; Dysfunction; Emotions; Female; health; Health status; Humans; Japan; Logistic Models; Male; Mass Screening - methods; Mental Disorders - diagnosis; Mental Disorders - epidemiology; Mental Disorders - psychology; Multivariate Analysis; Nursing; Odds Ratio; Pediatric Symptom Checklist; pediatrics; Psychology; Psychometrics; psychosocial dysfunction; Psychosocial functioning; Risk Assessment; school children; School Health Services; Schools; Self-Assessment; Sex Factors; Social psychology; Surveys and Questionnaires; Japan; psychosocial dysfunction; Japan; pediatrics; health; Pediatric Symptom Checklist; dysfunction; school children
• ISSN: 1441-0745; 1442-2018
• DOI: 10.1111/nhs.12005

Emotional and behavioral disorders in children are school‐health concerns; however, Japanese screening tools for such disorders are not yet available. We examined the association between psychosocial functioning as measured by the Pediatric Symptom Checklist (PSC) and self‐rated health within school settings. A cross‐sectional study was conducted for 2513 fifth and eighth graders from all of the primary and secondary schools in Shunan City, Japan. The Japanese PSC had high internal consistency (Cronbach's α = 0.90) and a factor structure similar to that of the English PSC. When the cut‐off values were set to ≥ 28 and ≥ 17, 4–9% and 20–39% of our respondents, respectively, reported high PSC scores. A multiple ordinal logistic regression analysis showed that the odds ratio of a positive PSC score (≥ 28) for poorer self‐rated health among ratings of “very good,” “good,” “fair,” and “poor” was 3.5 (95% confidence interval = 2.6–4.8). There was a clear association between psychosocial dysfunction identified by a PSC score ≥ 28 and poor self‐rated health. We offer directions for further research on appropriate PSC cut‐off values with Japanese samples.