[Personnel requirements for health examination of infants under 5 months in municipalities in Japan].
Municipalities offer health education, health counseling, health examinations, and home visitation service for infants and their mothers. In order to determine what the personnel staffing requirements were for health examination of infants under 5 months for municipalities in Japan in 1989, a questionnaire survey was conducted in 1990. Questionnaires were sent to all municipalities and 3,198 responses were received for a response rate of 97.9%. Responses from 912 municipalities were considered invalid, leaving a total of 2,286 responses that were analysed. Results showed that 79.2% of the 2,286 municipalities were able to perform health examinations for infants under 5 months independently, while in 6.5% of the municipalities these examinations were performed by the clinical hospitals. Analysis by size of municipalities showed that 85.7% of the cities with populations of 500,000 or more were able to perform health examinations independently. In the large cities designated by the Government, the health personnel system adequately supported these health examinations. However in rural towns and villages with small populations, it was necessary for public health nurses to be assisted by other staff, most of whom were public health nurses from prefectural health centers. For example, in areas with populations of less than 3,000, about 60% of the total volume of the work required to be performed by public health nurses during the health examinations had to be covered by assistance from prefectural public health nurses.
Hoshi
T
T
Tokyo Metropolitan University.
Nakahara
T
T
Takabayashi
K
K
Iwanaga
T
T
Osaki
Y
Y
Tanaka
H
H
Fukumoto
K
K
Naruki
H
H
Hisatsune
S
S
Gunji
A
A
D002669:Child Welfare; D006280:Health Workforce; D006801:Humans; D007223:Infant; D007231:Infant, Newborn; D007564:Japan; D009111:Local Government; D010808:Physical Examination; D011634:Public Health; D011795:Surveys and Questionnaires