A Study of Psychosocial Factors in the Psychosomatic Symptoms of Adolescents in Okinawa

High school students (N = 902) in Okinawa were asked to participate in a questionnaire survey which was designed to investigate the psychosocial factors in the psychosomatic symptoms of adolescents. The questionnaire focused on mental distress, perception of school and home environment and psychosomatic symptoms. The Japanese Edition Cornell Medical Index-Health Questionnaire (JCMI) for evaluating emotional instability and the New TK Diagnostic Test for Parent-Child Relationship were also utilized. Distress in relationships with family or friends, finding little pleasure in school and/or home, showing emotional instability as diagnosed according to regions III and IV of JCMI, or showing strained parent-child relationships according to the TK Test items were found to be closely associated with psychosomatic symptoms. In addition, students with human relations problems, especially family problems, tended to have a strained relationship with parents and tended to show autonomic hyperactivity represented by orthostatic dysregulation. Students with peer problems tended to have emotional instability and to find little pleasure in school; they had mental as well as urinary and bowel symptoms. The findings of this study suggest that distresses in family or peer relationships, emotional instability and a strained parent-child relationship are important factors in the onset of psychosomatic symptoms in adolescents.