MIZUTO Masahiko

Participation of residents is essential to promote local projects. A questionnaire was conducted on residents in Miyano area, Yamaguchi City for planning local community development. The aim of this study was to uncover factors for willingness to cooperate in local projects from analysis of the results of the questionnaire. Aid for people who are unable to go shopping, activity to watch over children, development of environment to raise children and anticrime measures were much-needed projects. Relations among neighbors were found to be a factor affecting willingness to cooperate in these projects. Our results suggest that improving relations among residents may lead to increased willingness to cooperate, resulting in enhancement of local community development.

Undergraduate nursing students are required to acquire practical skills, and many of them may experience learning difficulties. However, the relationship between learning difficulties and motivation for pursuing nursing or vocational views remains unclear. In this study, a questionnaire was administered to 92 undergraduate nursing students to determine the influences of their motivation for pursuing nursing and vocational views on learning difficulties. Our results showed that students whose motivation for applying was “because someone recommended me” had difficulty understanding the lecture content. Those who answered “yes” to the item “a career in nursing would help me become my ideal self” found it difficult to acquire practical skills because of fewer opportunities but did not have difficulty balancing their academic and personal lives. Our findings suggest the need to consider measures to support nursing students’ learning by focusing on the motivation for applying for nursing and the vocational views on their learning difficulties.

The use of the Internet and digital devices may encourage social interactions among the elderly. However, the utilization rate of smartphones and other digital devices is not very high among the elderly. A questionnaire was administered to 119 elderly people aged 65 years or older to determine the association between smartphone usage frequency and the frequency of social interactions among them. Our results discovered that 83.2% of the elderly respondents used smartphones. Those who reported using their smartphones more frequently had fewer instances of social isolation and greater numbers of social interactions with others. Our findings also revealed a significant association between the frequency of using social networking services (SNS) on smartphones and the number of social interactions among the elderly. Our findings indicated that the use of smartphones as a means of communication may lead to more social interactions among elderly people.