VioLit summary: OBJECTIVE: The purpose of this study by Fukuda and Hozumi was to investigate the relationship between the rest activity cycle (sleep and wakefulness) and the filial violence of one school refuser in Japan, an adolescent who refuses to attend school at the junior or senior year. Filial violence was used to refer to violence in the home. METHODOLOGY: A non-experimental case study design was employed. The subject was a student who began to refuse to attend school immediately after entering senior high school. His absence occurred intermittently. He would claim nausea, headache, abdominal pain, insomnia, or fever. Somatic symptoms were sometimes followed by violent activity against his mother or younger sister. On May 27, 1982 his mother visited the psychiatric clinic. The patient visited three months later. His mother voluntarily recorded his everyday life for a period of 11 months, including rest activity, school attendance, filial violence, and other behavior. This record was divided into 17 epochs and each epoch into 30 minute intervals. Each 30 minute interval was assigned a binary value based on whether the subject was in a sleep state (1) or an awake state (0). The strings of binary digits from each of the 17 epochs were used to estimate the dominant circadian rest-activity cycle (CC), and the regularity of the rest-activity cycle (RC), using a binary autocorrelation method of analysis. FINDINGS/DISCUSSION: Results indicated that filial violence (FV) was more frequent during the epoch of more disturbed rest activity cycle in the case of this particular school refuser. However, while CC had no significant serial dependency, RC and FV had significant temporal trend. Psychopathological behavior was more frequently observed during the epoch of more disturbed rest activity cycle. It is noteworthy that the relationship between the psychopathological behavior and the disturbed rest activity cycle was shown in the two separate studies on school refusal. Psychopathology often accompanies the symptom of sleep disturbance. AUTHORS' RECOMMENDATIONS: The authors believed that direct manipulation of the circadian system is worth investigating as a new approach to developing a treatment of school refusal. EVALUATION: This study provides in-depth discussion of two subjects not seen often in the literatureósleep cycles and school refusalówhich may serve as important elements to understanding the beginning of school problems which may lead to dropout. While the depth of information is an asset, the use of case study, particularly from another cultural system, provides little foundation for addressing school problems for students in other cultures than Japanese. The findings of the study itself must be interpreted as suggestions for future directions with a larger population which is possibly both cross-sectional and cross-cultural. The issues are raised, however, with this exploratory work. (CSPV Abstract - Copyright © 1992-2007 by the Center for the Study and Prevention of Violence, Institute of Behavioral Science, Regents of the University of Colorado) N1 - Call Number: F-257, AB-257 KW - Sleep Patterns KW - Case Studies KW - Juvenile Male KW - Juvenile Offender KW - Juvenile Violence KW - School Refusal KW - Domestic Violence Offender KW - Sibling Violence Offender KW - Parent Abuse Offender KW - School Attendance KW - School Dropout KW - Male Offender KW - Male Violence KW - Japan KW - Countries Other Than USA KW - Violence Causes KW - Domestic Violence Causes KW - Sibling Violence Causes KW - Parent Abuse Causes KW - School Dropout Causes
Language: en
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