Influence of activities of daily living on the employment situation for intractable disease patients and their caregivers
Satoru ITO, Sasaki TAKAFUMI, Takahiro HARADA, Sachiko HAYASHI, Hiroshi TAKIGAWA, Nakashima KENJI, Hisanori KOWA, Ritsuko HANAJIMA
THE JOURNAL OF SCIENCE OF LABOUR, Vol.94, No.1, 1-11, (2018)
We investigated the employment situation of intractable disease patients in Tottori Prefecture.In 2014, we sent questionnaires to 4,388 patients of 56 diseases receiving public financial aids for treatment from the Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare in Japan. We obtained replies from 2,364 patients. The average age of the respondents was 62.3 years and their sex ratio was 1:1.38. By the ADL evaluation using the modified Rankin Scale (mRS), the ratio of assistance-free patients (mRS0 and mRS1) was 51.1%, and patients requiring assistance (mRS2 to mRS5) accounted for 43.5%. As many as 40.3% of the whole respondents were working, but 21.0% had lost their jobs by the reason of a disease. When the patients’ ADL became worse than mRS2, the employment ratio of the patients significantly decreased, and the employment ratio of their caregivers decreased when it became worse than mRS3. It is necessary to coordinate job assistance services for these patients depending on their ADL levels.
Quality of online information regarding diagnosis of depression
Tomohiro ISHIMARU, Kengo MIYAUCHI, Keisuke KUWAHARA, Michihiro HATTORI, Hiroshi NEMOTO
THE JOURNAL OF SCIENCE OF LABOUR, Vol.94, No.1, 12-18, (2018)
This study was designed to evaluate the quality of information available on the Internet regarding diagnosis of depression. We evaluated the results returned for a search of both “utsubyou” (depressive disorder) or “utsu” (depression) and “shindan” (diagnosis) on each of the Google Japan and Yahoo! Japan search engines. Of the 400 websites analyzed, 59 displayed information about diagnosis of depression. Information regarding the attribution, disclosure and currency of the disease were displayed on 11.9–22.0% (7-13/59). Inaccurate self-rating scales of depression were found concerning original scales (33.0%), lack of exclusion criteria (18.6%) and shortage of questions or answer choices (16.9%). The quality of medical information was associated with the types of website administrators. These findings offer insight into developing strategies for improving the quality of medical information on the Internet and for educating users while taking into account the types of website administrators.
Key words: Internet; Depression; Quality of information; Diagnosis, Mental health
