In an effort to address important cross-cultural considerations in the study of posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD), the present study is the first to assess the prevalence of a variety of potentially traumatic events among young Japanese women across life phases. Overall, our results proved similar to those reported in previous Western studies: Traumatic events were quite common among our participants (80.3%; n = 883). This finding is not surprising given that many of them lived through the 1995 Kobe earthquake. Yet our study found that even when "natural disaster" was excluded, the rate remained 53.1%. Comparing four life phases, we found the most consistent differences between preschool and other life phases. The prevalence of potentially traumatic events and the percentage of most distressing events that participants reported were significantly lower in the preschool phase.

Emotional stability of insulin‐dependent diabetics is closely related to their metabolic control. We have already presented the psychological features of diabetic children at the 5 th International Beilinson Symposium. These results indicate that psychological problems are usually interactions with the patient's family. Family troubles derived from impaired interrelation are significant. From these points of view, counselling with the family based on a proper understanding of their relationship is absolutely necessary. We have had regular meetings for mothers with diabetic children in our clinic to discuss their psychological troubles. In this study we examined the frequency of poorly controlled patients in our clinic and analyzed the nature of their problems. We further summarized the opinion of family members which had been discussed in the above‐mentioned meeting. Frequency of constantly poorly controlled patient was 8.1% (3/37) in male and 16.3% (8/49) in female. We report on our method' of approach to them.

No abstract