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Biomedical subjects

Shoji Nagata

Publications and source records attributed to Shoji Nagata.

At least 19 recordsLinked to original sources
PubMed2005

Applying a solution-focused approach to support a worker who is under stress.

The solution-focused approach (SFA) developed by Insoo Kim Berg and Steve de Shazer at the Brief Family Therapy Center, Milwaukee, USA is classified as brief psychotherapy. We believe that SFA can give an occupational healthcare staff useful tools that will positively influence their relationships with workers, because it focuses on workers' strengths rather than their weaknesses when the staff interviews them using SFA. In this report, we explain the case of a worker who was under stress and was interviewed using SFA. Although the worker came to the interview because of his physical symptoms, he disclosed that he was under considerable stress at work and that his main concern was his relationship with his superior. One of the authors interviewed him using SFA. In the interview the worker discovered his own resources and strengths, and finally defined his goal. In the end, he discovered solutions by himself, and has been doing well in follow-up. We describe this process in detail, and discuss potential applications of SFA in occupational medicine.

Adult↗
PubMed2005

Relationship between turnover and periodic health check-up data among Japanese hospital nurses: a three-year follow-up study.

The present study explored the relationship between turnover and periodic health check-up data among Japanese hospital nurses. The subjects were 379 registered nurses in a Japanese hospital and the duration of our study period was three years. By the proportional hazard model, we investigated the relative risks (RRs) of the turnover rate associated with the following: lifestyles (irregularity of meals, taking breakfast), work environment (working hours, work schedule), and health status (body mass index [BMI], serum total cholesterol [T-cho], taking medication, sleep disturbance). We obtained the data on turnover from October, 1997 to September, 2000. During the observed period we were able to follow up on 363 female nurses (96%) and the turnover total amongst them was 100. We divided the subjects into a younger (21-25-yr-old) and an older (>25-yr-old) group because of the interaction between age and turnover. In the younger group, we found that sleep disturbance influenced turnover significantly. On the other hand, in the older nurses, BMI and T-cho contributed to turnover significantly. Our results imply the possibility of a partial association between turnover and periodic health check-up data among the nurses.

Adult↗
PubMed2004

Diazepam attenuates conditioned histamine release in guinea pigs.

To clarify the possibility of pharmacological mediation on classical conditioning-associated asthmatic response, the effect of diazepam on an odor-induced conditioned histamine release was investigated in ovalbumin (OA)-sensitized guinea pigs, i.e. a model of bronchial asthma. The animals received conditioning sessions in which an antigen (OA) as the unconditioned stimulus and an odor (dimethylsulfide) as the conditioned stimulus (CS) were simultaneously inhaled. After the animals were intraperitoneally injected with saline or diazepam (2.5 or 5 mg/kg), they underwent exposure to the CS and blood collecting. This procedure was repeated three times in order that the animals would have each kind of injection. The animals injected with saline showed significantly higher levels of plasma histamine following the exposure to the CS as a conditioning effect compared with the baselines (P<0.05), whereas the group injected with diazepam (5 mg/kg) did not indicate such elevations. The suppressing effect of diazepam on the conditioned histamine release was also confirmed by a multiple regression analysis (5 mg/kg) and an analysis of covariance (2.5 and 5 mg/kg), even after adjustments for several factors regarding immunological sensitization and conditionability. The present study suggests that diazepam attenuates a conditioned histamine release.

Animals↗
PubMed2004

Relationship between self-reported low productivity and overtime working.

OBJECTIVE: To investigate the relationship between overtime working and self-reported low productivity due to poor health over the course of 1 year. METHODS: The subjects were 94 random-sampled workers at a Japanese manufacturing company. The data on sickness absence and low productivity due to poor health were collected by self-report questionnaires every month from October 1999 to September 2000. Seventy-four workers returned complete answers. The complete data on overtime hours of forty-nine of these employees were obtained from company records. RESULTS: In those reporting low productivity, cold-like symptoms and sleep loss were given as the causes. Low productivity was closely linked to overtime worked, whereas sick leave tended to increase during periods of change in overtime working. CONCLUSION: Our results suggest the possibility of a relationship between overtime working and self-reported low productivity.

Adult↗
PubMed2004

Relationship between an interview-based health promotion program and cardiovascular risk factors at Japanese companies.

The present study investigated the relationship between an interview-based health promotion program and cardiovascular risk factors at manufacturing companies. Excluding insufficient data and the workers who took medication prescribed by a physician in 1993, the subjects were six hundred and twenty-nine 18-55-yr-old employees who had been working at two manufacturing companies in Kyushu from 1993 to 1997. The intervention company introduced an interview-based health promotion program from 1993. The program consisted of health measuring, group education, and health interviewing all employees to help with their behavioral change. We subdivided the subjects into younger (18-34-yr-old) and older (35-55-yr-old) groups. We defined changing degree (Delta) with (the following data in 1997) minus (the initial data in 1993). With agreement of the subject companies, we compared the Delta of each item, including body mass index (BMI), systolic blood pressure (SBP), diastolic blood pressure (DBP), serum total cholesterol (T-cho), serum aspartate aminotransaminase (AST), serum alanine aminotransferase (ALT), and serum gammaglutamyl transpeptidase (GGTP), in the intervention with that in the reference. BMI and SBP decreased significantly after the program in the under 35-yr-old intervention group. On the other hand, T-cho, AST, ALT, and GGTP decreased and HDL increased significantly after the program in the over 34-yr-old intervention group. Our results showed that the worksite health promotion had the potential to improve cardiovascular risk factors of Japanese employees.

Adult↗
PubMed2004

A study of the effects of active listening on listening attitudes of middle managers.

The present study was conducted to clarify the direct effects of active listening (AL) training given to middle managers in a local government. Altogether, 345 middle managers participated in 13 AL training sessions over two years. We developed the Inventive Experiential Learning (IEL) method, and used it as the central training method in this study. To investigate how well the participants learned AL, we asked the middle managers to answer a shorter version of the Active Listening Attitude Scale (ALAS) consisting of two subscales-i.e. "Listening Attitude" and "Listening Skill"-before training, one month after and three months after training. Altogether, 284 middle managers answered the questionnaire three times. The scores of each subscale were analyzed by repeated measurement analysis of variance. The participants were divided into three groups using the percentile values of the original sample of ALAS, i.e. low-score group (-24%), medium-score group (25-75%) and high-score group (76%-), and the proportionate changes were examined. The results showed both the "Listening Attitude" and "Listening Skill" subscales increased significantly after training. Analysis of the percentiles showed that the proportion of the low-score group decreased and that of the high-score group increased in both subscales, from one to three months after training. These changes are considered to indicate that the participants have learned AL although they attended AL training for only one day.

Analysis of Variance↗
PubMed2003

Relationships among self-efficacy, communication, self-management skills and mental health of employees at a Japanese workplace.

We investigated relationships among self-efficacy, self-management skills, communication with superiors and mental health of employees at a Japanese workplace. The subjects were 426 employees in a medium-sized manufacturing company in Kyushu. In 1999, with agreement of the company, we mailed a self-administrated questionnaire which included questions on age, gender, job rank, communication with superiors, a General Self-Efficacy Scale(GSES), a Self-Management Skill scale(SMS) and the Japanese version of the 12-item General Health Questionnaire(GHQ-12). Eighty percent of the subjects returned the questionnaire. Excluding senior managers and insufficient answers, the final response rate was 55 percent. By multiple regression analysis, we found that job rank contributed significantly and positively, and that age, communication with superiors and self-management skills contributed significantly and negatively to the GHQ-12. Our results implied that age, job rank, communication with superiors and self-management skills would contribute to the mental health of Japanese employees.

Adult↗
PubMed2003

A psychosocial-approached health promotion program at a Japanese worksite.

This study examined trends of sickness absence before and after a psychosocial-approached health promotion program (HPP) at a Japanese worksite. The subjects were 1029 male employees working at a manufacturing company from April 1991 to March 1999. The HPP was performed from April 1995 to decrease sickness absence through helping to improve all employees' lifestyles according to a psychosocial approach incorporating six characteristics: 1) concept based on the population strategy, 2) use of a health risk appraisal (HRA), 3) setting easy lifestyle targets, 4) praising the employees' personal lifestyle initiatives, 5) supported (sponsored) by the management, 6) award of subsidiary payments. Sickness absence was considered to be consecutive days calculated by medical certification and company records. Absences due to musculoskeletal diseases and total diseases decreased, when comparing four-year periods before and after the program's introduction. In this report we show that trends of sickness absence changed after the introduction of the psychosocial-approached health promotion program.

Adult↗
PubMed2003

[Development of the Japanese version of the Rathus Assertiveness Schedule].

The present study investigated the reliability and validity of the Japanese version of the Rathus Assertiveness Schedule (RAS) preparatory to study the relationship between self-expression skills and mental health status of employees at a Japanese worksite. Assertiveness is one of self-expression skills and defined as standing up for one's own rights as well as for others. RAS that the most widely used was developed by Rathus in the U.S.A. and consists of 30 items. We developed the Japanese version of RAS (J-RAS) along with a back-translation. The subjects were 173 participants of a 2-day assertiveness training course from July to December, 2001 and 364 workers in a manufacturing company in the Kyushu area. We sent the J-RAS to the 173 participants before they commenced the course, and of them 170 participants returned sufficient answers for analysis. During the course their trainers completed the objective evaluations on assertive self-expression. We compared their answers with the trainers' evaluations by the Pearson's correlation to certify the J-RAS's validity. We also mailed the J-RAS to the manufacturing workers in June, 2001. Of them, 266 workers returned sufficient answers by the end of the month. We calculated the Cronbach's alpha coefficient by them to certify the internal consistency reliability of the J-RAS. In August, 2001, we mailed the J-RAS again to 98 workers who agreed to retake the test. We studied the Pearson's correlation between the initial answers and the following ones to certify the test-retest reliability of the J-RAS, using the 98 answers of the workers who agreed to be retested. Our results found that 19 item sets, excluding Q3--7, 9, 13, 19, 20, 25, 28, had significantly positive correlation with the objective evaluations. The sum of the 19 items of the J-RAS (19-item J-RAS) had significantly higher correlations with the objective evaluation than that of 30 items of the J-RAS (30-item J-RAS). The internal consistency reliability of the 19-item or 30-item J-RAS was high, because their Cronbach's alpha coefficient was more than 0.80. Their test-retest reliability was also high, because the Pearson's correlation coefficient between the initial test and the subsequent test was more than 0.84 (ps < 0.001). Our results implied that the validity and reliability of the J-RAS was could be considered as acceptable and that the 19-item J-RAS measured the assertiveness of Japanese people more exactly than the 30-item J-RAS.

Adult↗
PubMed2003

Effect of rapid eye movement sleep deprivation on allergen-induced airway responses in a rat model of asthma.

BACKGROUND: Nocturnal airway narrowing is a common characteristic of asthma that remains poorly understood. Sleep itself or rapid eye movement (REM) sleep has been suspected to play a role in the etiology of nocturnal asthma; however, only inconsistent findings have so far been produced. The purpose of this study was to examine the effect of sleep deprivation, particularly REM sleep, using the classical platform (flowerpot) method on asthmatic responses in a rat model of asthma, in a situation of immobilization stress. METHODS: After the rats had been randomly divided into three groups of 9 including (1) a caged control group, (2) a large (sham) platform group, and (3) a small platform group, we investigated the effect of REM sleep deprivation over a 72-hour period on both the antigen-induced immediate asthmatic response (IAR) and late asthmatic response (LAR) including the changes of stress hormones. RESULTS: The small platform group showed significantly lower plasma histamine levels and higher plasma adrenaline levels during the IAR compared to the control group (p < 0.05). The number of eosinophils in either the bronchoalveolar lavage fluid or the bronchial lamina propria during the LAR in the small platform group was reliably suppressed compared to the other groups (p < 0.05). No significant differences were found in the plasma corticosterone and noradrenaline levels among the three groups, irrespective of the phase of the asthmatic response. CONCLUSIONS: Our results indicate that REM sleep contributes to nocturnal asthma, possibly due to an alteration of the sympathetic nervous function.

Allergens↗
PubMed2003

Relationship between burnout and communication skill training among Japanese hospital nurses: a pilot study.

We investigated the relationship between burnout and communication skill training among Japanese hospital nurses to improve the mental health of human service workers. The subjects were forty-five registered nurses referred to a self-expression skill intervention program by their section superiors, with each superior choosing from two to five nurses. The hospital was located in the Kyushu area and staffed by about four hundred nurses. The subjects were divided into an intervention group (19 nurses) and a reference group (26 nurses). The intervention group received the communication skill training in July and August, 2001. The communication skill training was carried out in accordance with the assertiveness training (AsT) precepts of Anne Dickson. In June, 2001, we delivered a set of questionnaires including age, gender, working years, a burnout scale, and a communication skill check-list as a baseline survey. The baseline questionnaires were returned at the end of June, 2001. In January, 2002, we delivered the same questionnaire again to the two groups and collected them at the end of the month. Excluding the only male and insufficient answers, twenty-six nurses (58%) returned complete answers in the initial and subsequent surveys. We found that the personal accomplishment and the two communication skills such as "accepting valid criticisms" and "negotiation" of the intervention group had improved significantly five months after the training as compared with that of the reference. Our results implied that communication skill training might have a favorable effect on burnout among Japanese hospital nurses.

Adult↗
PubMed2003

Relationships among self-management skills, communication with superiors, and mental health of employees in a Japanese worksite.

The present study investigated relationships among self-management skills, communication with superiors, and the mental health of employees in a Japanese worksite. The subjects were manufacturing workers in a medium-sized company in Kyushu. In 1999, we mailed a self-administrated questionnaire which included questions on age, gender, job rank, communication with superiors, a General Self-Efficacy Scale, a Self-Management Skill Scale, and the Japanese version of the 12-item General Health Questionnaire (GHQ-12). Eighty percent of the subjects returned the questionnaire. Excluding senior managers and insufficient answers, the final response rate was fifty-five percent. The multiple regression analysis showed that job rank contributed significantly and positively and that age, communication with superiors, and self-management skills contributed significantly and negatively to the GHQ-12. Our results implied that self-management skills might have the potential of affecting the mental health of Japanese employees.

Adaptation, Psychological↗
PubMed2002

Fasting stress exacerbates classical conditioned histamine release in guinea pigs.

To clarify the contribution of stress to classical conditioning-associated asthmatic responses, the effect of fasting stress on conditioned histamine release was investigated in a guinea pig model of asthma. The animals were randomly divided into 2 groups for Experiment 1 and 2, and received a conditioning procedure in which ovalbumin (OA) as an unconditioned stimulus (US) and dimethylsulfide (DMS, sulfur smelling) as a conditioned stimulus (CS) were simultaneously inhaled after fasting for 16 h. Then, one group was given food as a reward for respiratory distress, and the other group was denied it for more than 3 h, while being placed in front of the feeding group. After this procedure was repeated 5 times, the plasma histamine levels in response to the CS were measured in half of each group in Experiment 1, and the respiratory resistance (Rrs) was assessed similarly in the other half of each group in Experiment 2. The same experiments were again performed after exchanging assignments of feeding group or fasting group in both experiments. The control groups in both experiments received the CS and the US 10 times separately in a random order under 16 h fasting conditions and were provided food after the exposures. After these pseudo-conditioning presentations, the plasma histamine levels or the Rrs in response to the CS were measured. In Experiment 1, the plasma histamine levels in the fasting stress group after the first conditioning sessions were significantly higher than those of the other groups. This difference was not observed when the groups were exchanged. In Experiment 2, the fasting stress group showed higher values in the Rrs compared to the other groups, irrespective of the first or second conditionings; however, they were not significant. The present study indicates that fasting stress after the conditioning procedures exacerbates the following conditioned histamine release, although the stress effect on bronchoconstriction was not confirmed.

Animals↗
PubMed2002

Superimposed cold stress-induced hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal response during long-duration restraint stress.

It has been reported that animals exposed to prior stress exhibit enhanced, reduced or equivalent hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal (HPA) response to a subsequent acute stressor. We demonstrated previously that a long-duration restraint stress (RTS) evoked adaptive change, characterized by transient increase and gradual recovery to basal level in c-fos mRNA/c-fos protein (Fos) expression in the hypothalamic paraventricular nucleus (PVN) and in plasma adrenocorticotropin (ACTH) levels, although circulating corticosterone (CORT) remained at a high level. In order to investigate the HPA response to another stressor during the adaptive phase of long-duration RTS, we superimposed acute cold stressor (CS) to 16 hours RTS rats. Superimposed CS-induced re-expression of c-fos mRNA/Fos in the parvocellular region of the PVN (PVNpv) was observed in 16 hours RTS rats. The degree of expression of c-fos gene in superimposed CS rats was the same as those observed in single CS rats. The plasma ACTH levels induced by superimposed CS in 16 hours RTS rats were significantly higher compared with those in single CS rats. On the other hand, there were no significant differences between plasma CORT levels induced by superimposed CS in 16 hours RTS rats and those in single CS rats, and between plasma CORT levels before and after additional CS exposure in 16 hours RTS rats. The present study indicated that c-fos gene expression in PVN induced by superimposed CS was normo-responsive, ACTH secretion was hyper-responsive (facilitation), CORT secretion was slightly increased, but not hyper-responsive in long-duration RTS rats. These findings suggest that stress response induced by superimposed CS during long-duration RTS may occur in a different way at each level of the HPA.

Adrenocorticotropic Hormone↗