[Comparison of behavioral and emotional problems related to school nonattendance in Japanese elementary and junior high school students].
An epidemiological survey was performed on 1,887 mothers of Japanese general elementary school children in the same school district as that for general junior high school students that was previously reported. The questionnaire consisted of two major parts; the former concerning school nonattendance problems from April to September in 1994, and the latter was a Japanese version of the Rutter parental questionnaire. The following findings were obtained: 1) About 12% of the children were absent from school for one day or more either without any justifiable reasons or due to a psychological reason. The rate of nonattendance did not differ significantly from the 13% figure for the junior high school students. 2) The percentage of children who missed more than 20% of scheduled days of school was 0.16% in this survey compared to the 0.65% for this entire school district, both of which surpassed the national figure of 0.13% (1993 fiscal year) in the annual report of the Japanese Ministry of Education. 3) The distinction of truancy from school refusal in the elementary school children was made more sharply than in the junior high school students. 4) The percentage of children who scored thirteen or more, the cutoff point of the Rutter parental questionnaire, was 8.6%, which is a rather low frequency in comparison to former reports in and outside Japan. While items relating to neurosis showed little difference between sexes, antisocial scores were higher in boys similar in tendency to junior high school students. In addition, the rate of positive responses to the Rutter parental questionnaire items were higher in the elementary school children, although those items showed less specific relation to school nonattendance than in the junior high school students. 5) Those in the school nonattendance group (n = 222) did not differ significantly from the school attendance group (n = 1367) in demographic characteristics such as sex, family size, total number of children and birth order. However, school grade, mother's school background and father's job category were significantly different. In addition, Rutter scores as well as neurotic and antisocial scores were much higher in the school nonattendance group. 6) Rutter scores, especially neurotic scores showed a rather high correlation to the number of nonattendance days, although not as high in magnitude as in the junior high school students. The school nonattendance group was divided into three groups, neurotic, antisocial and mixed. A rather strong relation between school nonattendance rate and the neurotic group (n = 77), and a qualitative difference between neurotic group and antisocial group (n = 56) were seen similar to the junior high school students.
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Kuramoto
D000041:Absenteeism; D000293:Adolescent; D000328:Adult; D000987:Antisocial Personality Disorder; D002648:Child; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D007564:Japan; D008297:Male; D009497:Neurotic Disorders; D010290:Parents; D000297:Psychology, Adolescent; D002666:Psychology, Child; D012574:Schools; D011795:Surveys and Questionnaires