title: Validity and reliability of the Japanese version of the selected anger expression scale and age, sex, occupation and regional differences in anger expression among Japanese.
abstract: To examine the reliability and construct validity of the Japanese version of the Anger Expression Scale among four Japanese communities, and to examine distributions of anger expression scores according to sex, age, occupation, and community, we performed a cross-sectional study among 1,802 men and 3,229 women aged 20-70 in four geographic populations in 1995-97. We handed a self-administered questionnaire, which was selected from the Spielberger Anger Expression Scale, to the participants in the risk factor surveys and measured anger-in and anger-out as the anger expression scale. These scales had high internal consistency (Cronbach's alpha coefficient was 0.97-0.98 for anger-out and 0.77-0.86 for anger-in) and were of almost the same structure as the original. The Pearson correlation coefficients for the anger expression scale examined in 1995 and 1996 were 0.69 for anger-out and 0.57 for anger-in (both p < 0.001). The mean scores of both anger-out and anger-in were inversely associated with age. The mean anger-out score was higher for men than for women (p < 0.001), whereas the mean anger-in score did not vary significantly between the sexes. Furthermore, the mean scores of anger-out and anger-in varied among populations and occupational groups. The present study suggests that the Japanese version of the selected Anger Expression Scale is an acceptable scale for evaluating anger expression among Japanese.
authors.affiliation: Institute of Community Medicine, University of Tsukuba, Ibaraki-ken, Japan.
authors.forename: T
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Ohira
authors.forename: H
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Iso
authors.forename: T
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Tanigawa
authors.forename: T
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Sankai
authors.forename: H
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Imano
authors.forename: T
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Okamura
authors.forename: M
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Kiyama
authors.forename: A
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Kitamura
authors.forename: Y
authors.initials: Y
authors.lastname: Nakagawa
authors.forename: S
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Sato
authors.forename: Y
authors.initials: Y
authors.lastname: Naito
authors.forename: M
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Iida
authors.forename: T
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Shimamoto
mesh_terms: D000328:Adult; D000367:Age Factors; D000368:Aged; D000786:Anger / Q000145:classification*; D003430:Cross-Sectional Studies; D005163:Factor Analysis, Statistical; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D007564:Japan; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D009790:Occupations / Q000145:classification; D010555:Personality Inventory / Q000706:statistics & numerical data*; D015203:Reproducibility of Results; D012111:Residence Characteristics; D012307:Risk Factors; D012737:Sex Factors; D011795:Surveys and Questionnaires