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Background Despite the research and clinical significance of the Postpartum Bonding Questionnaire (PBQ), its psychometric properties have not been studied intensively. The goodness-of-fit of proposed factor models of the PBQ is poor. Configural and measurement invariance have never been reported. Methods As a secondary analysis of the previous paper ( Ohashi et al., 2016a , Ohashi et al., 2016b ), we analysed the PBQ data at 5 days and 1 month after childbirth among 247 mothers of a singleton. We created 9 parcels of PBQ items to perform confirmatory factor analysis (CFA). We also examined configural and measurement invariances of the PBQ factor structure between the two observation times. Results The CFI of the 3-factor model of the PBQ was .936 and .968 for 5 days and 1 month after childbirth, respectively. Configural, measurement (metric, scalar, and residual), and structural (factor variance and factor covariance) invariances were accepted. The mean of only ‘anger and restrictedness’ factor was scored higher at 1 month than 5 days after childbirth. Conclusion The 3-factor model of the PBQ was good in its fit with the data as well as robust in its measurement between the two observation time periods.

This paper reports on two research results: ( 1) designing an English for Specific Purposes (esp) corpus architecture complete with annotations structured by regular expressions; and ( 2) a case study to test the design to cater for creating a specific vocabulary list using the compiled corpus. The first half of this study involved designing a precisely structured esp corpus from 190 veterinary medical charts with a hierarchy of the data. The data hierarchy in the corpus consists of document types, outline elements and inline elements, such as species and breed. Perl scripts extracted the data attached to veterinary-specific categories, and the extraction led to creating wordlists. The second part of the research tested the corpus mode, creating a list of commonly observed lexical items in veterinary medicine. The coverage rate of the wordlists by General Service List (gsl) and Academic Word List (awl) was tested, with the result that 66.4 percent of all lexical items appeared in gsl and awl, whereas 33.7 percent appeared in none of those lists. The corpus compilation procedures as well as the annotation scheme introduced in this study enable the compilation of specific corpora with explicit annotations, allowing teachers to have access to data required for creating esp classroom materials.

The Infant Behavior Questionnaire-Revised (IBQ-R) assesses the temperament of infants in Western and non-Western countries. Although its factor analyses revealed three factors—surgency, negative affectivity, and effortful control—in the Western culture, the degree to which these are universal or culturally specific is unclear. This study developed a Vietnamese version of the IBQ-Revised Very Short Form (R-VSF) and examined its factor structure in a Vietnamese population. The Vietnamese IBQ-R VSF was administered to 292 mothers of infants between the ages of 3 and 18 months in Nha Trang city, Vietnam, between July and September 2019. After deleting items to achieve sufficient Cronbach’s alphas for each scale (surgency, negative affectivity, and orienting/regulation), the remaining 28 items were aggregated to parcels subjected to exploratory factor analyses (EFAs). EFAs revealed a 3-factor model corresponding to the original theory, and confirmatory factor analyses indicated a good fit of this structural model. The final 3-factor model with parcels indicated measurement and structural invariance between mothers of boys and girls.

Intense fear of childbirth by expectant women is called tokophobia. Because there are no qualitative studies targeting women with an intense fear of childbirth in Japan, it is unknown whether there is any link between the type of fear of objects/situations among tokophobic women and their psychological/demographic background. Furthermore, there is no available summary of the lived experience of Japanese women with tokophobia. This study aims to identify the intensity patterns of various types of fear among the participants and summarize the lived experience of having intense fear of childbirth. A qualitative descriptive study was conducted using a semi-structured interview. Pregnant women with an intense fear of childbirth participated in individual interviews facilitated by a psychiatrist and a midwife. Audio recordings of the interviews were transcribed and analyzed using a content analysis approach. The number of participants was ten. The types of feared objects varied individually and these were categorized as being related to either prospective or retrospective fear. The participants’ experiences were grouped into three categories: difficulty in daily life, preoccupied negative expectation towards childbirth, and psychological adaptation to the upcoming childbirth. The results imply that women with tokophobia continuously suffer from fear in their daily life; hence, a special approach is needed to detect and reduce their fear.

Background: Although midwives are expected to play a key role for psychological support throughout perinatal periods, their educational chances are limited. Versatile teaching strategies such as e-learning may be promising in expanding education. The objective of our study was to clarify the effects of an e-learning educational programme on midwives’ empathic communication skills.Methods: From April 2019 to September 2019, a randomised controlled trial of a one-day e-learning educational programme on perinatal psychological issues (both perinatal mental health assessment and empathic communication) was conducted to improve empathic communication skills of midwives. Two types of measurements (paper-and-pencil multiple-choice test and video-viewing tests of simulated patient) were used to measure the competency of empathic communication skills.Results: Participants (N = 115) were randomly allocated to two groups (Intervention: n = 58, Control: n = 57). The intervention group was at a significantly higher level for both post-tests of empathic communication skills compared with the control group. Both intervention and control groups showed improvements in acquiring knowledge about perinatal mental health assessments.Conclusions: The results of our study show that a one-day e-learning programme helped improve the midwives' empathic communications skills. Therefore, an effective one-day e-learning educational programme of perinatal mental health will expand opportunity to learn about empathic communication skills for midwives.Trial registrations: UMIN000036052

Background: Whereas the majority of studies on temperament are variable-centered, temperament structure has rarely been challenged from a person-centered perspective (i.e., typology of temperament). The purpose of our study is to identify temperamental typology of Japanese toddlers using the EASI survey and a two-step cluster analysis. Methods: Net-survey collected data from 531 mothers and 369 fathers of a 3- or 4-year-old child in Japan. They were distributed the EASI with 4 subscales (Emotionality (E), Activity (A), Sociability (S), and Impulsivity (I)) and the Child Behavior Checklist (CBCL). Results: A two-step cluster analysis yielded 4 clusters: The first cluster (n = 288) was characterized the highest S and mildly high A and I, and thus interpreted as Average-Active. The second cluster (n = 179) was low in E, A, and I, but mildly high in S, and thus interpreted as Regulated. The third cluster (n = 288) was almost the same level in I and E as the first cluster, but mildly low in A and S, and thus interpreted as Average-Quiet. The fourth cluster (n = 145) was high in E, A, and I, but low in S, and thus interpreted as Sensitive/Hyperreactive. Regulated children scored the lowest in internalizing and externalizing behaviors on the CBCL subscales whereas Sensitive/Hyperreactive children scored the highest on these subscales. Conclusion: We identified four typologies of children’s temperament patterns interpretable as Average-Active, Regulated, Average-Quiet, and Sensitive/Hyper-reactive.

Bonding is crucial to perinatal mental health. Despite an extensive body of literature on maternal bonding, few studies have focused on paternal bonding. This scoping review aimed to clarify the current state of the concept of paternal–infant/fetus bonding. The eligibility criteria were drawn from the population concept and context elements to answer the following questions: “what is paternal bonding?” and “what are the constructs of the concept of paternal bonding?” The review comprised 39 studies. Paternal bonding was associated with both positive and negative paternal behavior and thought and may be determined based on fathers’ beliefs and rearing history. Most studies showed that father–child interaction is one of the factors promoting paternal bonding. However, fathers generally felt more distant from their babies post-delivery than mothers. Only a few studies originally defined paternal bonding; most relied on the definitions of maternal bonding. We found different descriptions lacking consensus. Few studies examined the differences between paternal and maternal bonding. No consensus exists on the concept, constructs, and assessment of paternal bonding. The causal relationship between paternal bonding and other variables is unexplored. Future studies should explore fathers’ perspectives and experiences, focusing on the unknown aspects of paternal bonding identified in this review.

Background:Despite its clinical and public policy-making importance, neonatal abuse has been only minimally studied.Purpose:To identify predictors of mothers’ emotional abuse towards their infants at 1 month after childbirth.Methods:We studied a cohort of 252 women at three time points: late pregnancy and 5 days and 1 month after childbirth. At each time point, the women were administered a set of questionnaires about their depression (Edinburgh Postnatal Depression Scale), bonding towards the foetus or neonate (Maternal Antenatal Attachment Scale and Postnatal Bonding Questionnaire, respectively), and, at 1 month after childbirth, emotional abuse (Conflict Tactic Scale).Results:Structural equation modeling (SEM) analysis revealed that neonatal emotional abuse was predicted by bonding difficulties at 5 days after childbirth but not by depression at that time point.Conclusion:Assessment for maternal bonding problems in the early post-natal period should be routinely performed by perinatal health professionals.

Background Accuracy of temperament assessment is a prerequisite in research studies. To identify the extent to which parental assessment of child temperament is biased by their personal attributes, we proposed a new structural equation model, in which biases of parental attributes in their assessment of child temperament can be separated from the true (i.e. non-biased) associations between the two. Methods We examined 234 father–mother pairs using questionnaires including Emotionality, Activity, Sociability, and Impulsivity; Social Desirability Scale; Hospital Anxiety and Depression Scale; Temperament and Character Inventory; and State–Trait Anger Expression Inventory. Results Paternal Depression and Persistence, maternal Trait Anger, and parental Novelty Seeking showed significant bias in assessment of Emotionality. Maternal Self-transcendence showed significant bias in assessment of child Impulsivity. Conclusion Researchers should be cautious about biases in parental assessment of children's Emotionality and Impulsivity, but other temperament traits may be free from such biases.

Perinatal depression is prevalent worldwide. However, there are few available studies that discuss the different cultural factors affecting perinatal depression within Asian countries. This study aims to compare the literature regarding related factors relating to perinatal depression in India and Japan, and to synthesize the evidence common to both countries in addition to the country-specific evidence. We conducted a systematic review using several databases (CINAHL, MEDLINE, Pubmed, Ovid, SCOPUS, IndMED, and ICHUSI). Keywords were "antenatal depression" or "postpartum depression", and "India" or "Japan". Both Japanese and English language papers were reviewed. The identified evidence was compared between the two countries, as well as with non-Asian countries based on previous reports. In total, 15 articles on India and 35 on Japan were reviewed. Although several factors were shared between the two countries as well as with other non-Asian countries (vulnerable personality, being abused, age, marital conflict, and lower socio-demographic status), some differing factors were identified between India and Japan and non-Asian countries; India: poor socioeconomic status, living only with the husband, pregnancy not welcomed by the husband, a female baby, and poor relationship with in-laws; Japan: infertility treatment, conflict with work-life balance, poor relationships with biological mother or in-laws, and concerns about social relations with the other mother's friends. To conclude, involving the family and community may be important for implementing both global standardized and culture-specific interventions. In India, treatment involving the in-laws may be effective because large family structure is a significant predictor of perinatal depression. In Japan, a family/community approach involving not only the mother's family of origin but also the working environment is essential.

Objective: To investigate the relationships between depressive mood, bonding failure, and abusive parenting. Method: We distributed questionnaires to 1198 mothers attending a three-month postnatal health check-up in rural areas in Japan. The questionnaires assessed these three variables along with demographics. We evaluated the causal relationships by comparing different structural equation models to the data. Results: Although all the models fit the data well, the best Akaike Information Criterion was obtained from a model where both depressive mood and bonding failure predict abusive parenting, but depressive mood and bonding failure do not predict each other directly. The determinant coefficient of child abuse in the final model was 0.13. Discussion: We found depressive mood and bonding failure during postpartum period impacted negatively on mother’s parenting behaviour. Because only 13% of the variance of abusive parenting was explainable by this model, further study should be needed to identify other risk factors of child abuse. Similarly, midwives and public health nurse in community should pay attention to not only depression but also bonding failure to prevent child abuse.

Negative attitudes of mothers towards their infant is conceptualized as postpartum bonding disorder, which leads to serious health problems in perinatal health care. However, its measurement still remains to be standardized. Our aim was to examine and confirm the psychometric properties of the Postnatal Bonding Questionnaire (PBQ) in Japanese mothers. We distributed a set of questionnaires to community mothers and studied 392 mothers who returned the questionnaires at 1 month after childbirth. Our model was compared with three other models derived from previous studies. In a randomly halved sample, an exploratory factor analysis yielded a three-factor structure: Anger and Restrictedness, Lack of Affection, and Rejection and Fear. This factor structure was cross-validated by a confirmatory factor analysis using the other halved sample. The three subscales showed satisfactory internal consistency. The three PBQ subscale scores were correlated with depression and psychological abuse scores. Their test–retest reliability between day 5 and 1 month after childbirth was measured by intraclass correlation coefficients between 0.76 and 0.83. The Akaike Information Criteria of our model was better than the original four-factor model of Brockington. The present study indicates that the PBQ is a reliable and valid measure of bonding difficulties of Japanese mothers with neonates.

Accuracy of temperament assessment is a prerequisite in research studies. To identify the extent to which parental assessment of child temperament is biased by their personal attributes, we proposed a new structural equation model, in which biases of parental attributes in their assessment of child temperament can be separated from the true (i.e. non-biased) associations between the two.We examined 234 father-mother pairs using questionnaires including Emotionality, Activity, Sociability, and Impulsivity; Social Desirability Scale; Hospital Anxiety and Depression Scale; Temperament and Character Inventory; and State-Trait Anger Expression Inventory.Paternal Depression and Persistence, maternal Trait Anger, and parental Novelty Seeking showed significant bias in assessment of Emotionality. Maternal Self-transcendence showed significant bias in assessment of child Impulsivity.Researchers should be cautious about biases in parental assessment of children's Emotionality and Impulsivity, but other temperament traits may be free from such biases.

Background. To examine the effects of temperament and character domains on depression during pregnancy.Methods. We examined 601 pregnant women using a questionnaire that included the Edinburgh Postnatal Depression Scale (EPDS), the Temperament and Character Inventory (TCI), and demographic variables.Results. In a hierarchical regression analysis, severity of depression during pregnancy was predicted by the women’s negative response towards the current pregnancy, low self-directedness, and high harm avoidance, persistence, and self-transcendence.Conclusion. Depression during pregnancy is predicted by personality traits as well as women’s negative attitudes towards the current pregnancy.

Background: The EASI Survey, a 20-item parent report, was one of the first instruments developed to measure children’s temperament. Methods: We performed an exploratory factor analysis (EFA) of the EASI items in a randomly halved population of Japanese fathers (n = 237) and mothers (n = 412) of children under four years of age. The factor structure was cross-validated by a confirmatory factor analysis (CFA). Then, parents’ assessments of each temperament were regressed on the other parents’ assessments and then on a variety of intrapersonal and interpersonal variables related to the assessor parents. Results: An EFA yielded a two-factor structure but a four-factor structure according to the original report showed better fit with the data. The new four-factor model (excluding items with low factor loadings) showed in a CFA acceptable goodness-of-fit with the data. This four subscales showed moderate internal consistency. Parental assessment of the EASI subscales was explainable by the assessment rated by the other parent. After controlling it, parents with depression, anger, and less caring attitudes were more likely to rate their child’s Emotionality and Impulsivity higher than their partners. Conclusions: The EASI Survey may be applicable to a Japanese non-clinical child population.

To assess the effects of perceived rearing during childhood on adult trait anger and anger expression, we evaluated parents of young children attending paediatric clinics (N = 1118). Participants rated their trait anger level and anger expression styles using the State-Trait Anger Expression Inventory and also rated the rearing patterns of their parents during childhood using the Parental Bonding Instrument. A structural equation model suggested that (1) Anger In and Anger Out were predicted by Trait Anger, while Anger Control was predicted by low Trait Anger; (2) Trait Anger was predicted by the affectionless control rearing style of participants’ fathers during childhood, but not by their mothers’ rearing styles; and (3) none of the anger expression scores were predicted directly by the perceived rearing of the participants’ parents. Results did not differ between male and female participants. Adult trait anger may be explained by people’s perception of their rearing during childhood.

2014