Prevalence and risk factors of problematic Internet use: a cross-national comparison of Japanese and Chinese university students.

The aim of the present study was to compare risk factors for problematic Internet use (PIU) among Japanese and Chinese university students. A sample of 267 Japanese and 236 Chinese first year university students responded to questionnaires on the severity of PIU, depression, self-image/image of others, and perceived parental child-rearing styles. The results indicated that Japanese participants were more likely to demonstrate PIU than their Chinese counterparts.

Presenteeism in college students: reliability and validity of the Presenteeism Scale for Students.

Objective: Presenteeism is the impaired work performance due to health problems. We aimed to develop a Presenteeism Scale for Students (PSS), and to reveal the existence of presenteeism among students.

Methods: Students (n = 5,701) in 4 national universities in Japan were recruited via the school-based health examination.

Depression and possible cancer risk due to oxidative DNA damage.

The potential link between depression and cancer is an important unsolved question. To clarify this, we compared a cancer-related oxidative DNA damage, 8-hydroxydeoxyguanosine (8-OH-dG), in peripheral leukocytes between 30 patients with depression and 60 age- and gender-matched healthy controls, and examined the 8-OH-dG-related factors. The degree of depression was assessed by the scores of the Center for Epidemiologic Studies Depression scale (CES-D) and the Profile of Mood States (POMS).

Psychological mediation of a type of oxidative DNA damage, 8-hydroxydeoxyguanosine, in peripheral blood leukocytes of non-smoking and non-drinking workers.

Background: The present study investigates whether the formation of 8-hydroxydeoxyguanosine (8-OH-dG), a known oxidative DNA damage relevant to carcinogenicity, can be associated with psychological factors, in order to clarify the possible stress-cancer linkage from a genetic viewpoint.

Methods: We performed a cross-sectional study in which we examined the relationships of the levels of 8-OH-dG in peripheral blood leukocytes to various psychological factors, including the Profile of Mood States (POMS) and the Center for Epidemiologic Studies Depression Scale (CES-D) in 38 non-smoking and non-drinking workers (19 males and 19 females).

Results: The levels of 8-OH-dG in male subjects were negatively correlated with the Tension-Anxiety scores of the POMS.