The questionnaire sheets included age, years of work experience,
problems associated with work environments, lifestyle
behaviors, and CFSI. Using parts of the “Study of caregiving
by home-helpers who work through the Private Placement
Services Association of Japan and care for victims of occupational
accidents (1992)” (7) and the “Study of the care of
victims of occupational accidents (1994)” (8) conducted by the
Private Placement Services Association of Japan, we prepared
19 questions regarding problems associated with work environments
that required “yes” or “no” answers. These 19 questions
were divided into five symptom groups based on question
content. If the respondent answered “yes” to any question in a
symptom group, they were classified as having that symptom
(i.e., “being with”). If the respondent answered “no” to all
questions in a symptom group, they were classified as not
having that symptom (i.e., “being without”). The following five
symptom groups were used in this study: anxiety/concern
regarding care techniques; anxiety/concern regarding care content;
anxiety/concern regarding personal relationships; anxiety/
concern regarding work conditions; and anxiety/concern regarding
physical fitness.
In the CFSI, the number of questions under each of the
eight categories to which the respondent answered, “I’ve recently
experienced this condition”, was used as the number of
responses for that category in aggregate CFSI calculations. We
also calculated the complaint rate for each category by dividing
the number of responses by the number of questions for each
CFSI category.
To extract the factors shown in the CFSI exerting an
impact on levels of fatigue, we first examined the relationship
of the number of responses for each CFSI category with age and
years of work experience by calculating Pearson’s correlation
coefficient. Next, we calculated the mean number of responses
(complaint rate) for each CFSI category among subjects who
did or did not report anxiety/concern associated with work environments,
as well as among those who did or did not report
having regular exercise and proper eating behaviors. We then
compared the two groups using the Mann-Whitney U test. In
addition, we used stepwise multiple regression analysis to
identify factors impacting each CFSI category. The factors
examined here were age, years of work experience, workplace