Psychosocial functioning and self-rated health in Japanese school-aged children: A cross-sectional study

Emotional and behavioral disorders in children are school-health concerns; however, Japanese screening tools for such disorders are not yet available. We examined the association between psychosocial functioning as measured by the Pediatric Symptom Checklist (PSC) and self-rated health within school settings. A cross-sectional study was conducted for 2513 fifth and eighth graders from all of the primary and secondary schools in Shunan City, Japan. The Japanese PSC had high internal consistency (Cronbach's =0.90) and a factor structure similar to that of the English PSC. When the cut-off values were set to 28 and 17, 4-9% and 20-39% of our respondents, respectively, reported high PSC scores. A multiple ordinal logistic regression analysis showed that the odds ratio of a positive PSC score (28) for poorer self-rated health among ratings of very good, good, fair, and poor was 3.5 (95% confidence interval=2.6-4.8). There was a clear association between psychosocial dysfunction identified by a PSC score 28 and poor self-rated health. We offer directions for further research on appropriate PSC cut-off values with Japanese samples.