Anisakiasis Annual Incidence and Causative Species, Japan, 2018-2019.

Using data from 2018-2019 health insurance claims, we estimated the average annual incidence of anisakiasis in Japan to be 19,737 cases. Molecular identification of larvae revealed that most (88.4%) patients were infected with the species Anisakis simplex sensu stricto. Further insights into the pathogenesis of various anisakiasis forms are needed.

Gradations of clinical severity and sensitivity to change assessed with the Beck Depression Inventory-II in Japanese patients with depression.

Knowledge of what constitutes a minimal clinically important difference and change on a psychiatric rating scale is essential in interpreting its scores. The present study examines the Beck Depression Inventory-II (BDI-II), a recently revised successor to the world's most popular self-rating instrument for depression. BDI-II was administered to 85 patients with major depression, diagnosed with DSM-IV along with its severity specifiers. It was again administered to 40 first-visit patients from the original sample when they returned 14 or more days later. The Clinical Global Impression-Change Scale was rated at the same time. All the ratings were done independent of each other. The BDI-II was able to distinguish between all grades of depression severity. An approximate 10-point difference existed between each severity specifier. The BDI-II was also sensitive to change in depression: a 5-point difference corresponded to a minimally important clinical difference, 10-19 points to a moderate difference, and 20 or more points to a large difference. Given the already established high reliability, content validity, construct validity and factorial validity, and the high sensitivity to between-subject differences and within-subject changes demonstrated in the present study, the BDI-II promises to continue to be a leading self-rating instrument to assess depression severity worldwide.

Quality of life and social role functioning in Japanese patients with panic disorder.

Although a number of recent studies have shown that panic disorder is associated with deterioration in quality of life and social dysfunctions, details of these impairments and their correlates have not been well studied. The present study aims to examine which aspects of quality of life and social functioning were particularly impaired in patients with panic disorder and to search for their clinical correlates. Fifty patients with panic disorder with or without agoraphobia who participated in our group cognitive-behavioral treatment program were administered the Medical Outcomes Study Short-Form Health Survey and the Work, Home and Leisure Activities Scale. Their panic disorder symptomatology was assessed with the Panic Disorder Severity Scale and Fear Questionnaire. Compared with the population mean, the patients reported less than average quality of life in both physical and mental domains, especially in the latter domain. They also reported substantial social dysfunctions, especially in work and social leisure activities. Different aspects of patients' psychopathology were associated with these impairments. While agoraphobia appeared as a consistent predictor for most of the aspects examined, social phobia emerged as a strong predictor for mental quality of life and for work and social leisure functions. The findings suggest that we need to remain sensitive to different aspects of functional impairments of patients with panic disorder and that we may need to pay more attention to the role of social anxiety in their treatment.

Cross-cultural evaluation of the Panic Disorder Severity Scale in Japan.

The Panic Disorder Severity Scale (PDSS) [Shear et al., 1997] is rapidly gaining world-wide acceptance as a standard global severity measure of panic disorder, however, its cross-cultural validity and reliability have not been reported yet. We developed the Japanese version of the PDSS and examined its factor structure, internal consistency and inter-rater reliability and concurrent validity among Japanese patients with panic disorder with or without agoraphobia. We also established rules of thumb for interpreting PDSS total scores, taking the Clinical Global Impression severity scale as the anchoring criterion. The identical one-factor structure of the PDSS was confirmed among the Japanese patients as among the United States patients. Both internal and inter-rater reliability was excellent (Cronbach's alpha was 0.86, and ANOVA ICCs were all above 0.90). Concurrent validity of the PDSS items with self-report questionnaires tapping similar or overlapping domains was satisfactory (Pearson correlation coefficients were mostly above 0.5). Using the anchor-based approach, the following interpretative guides are suggested: among those with established panic disorder diagnosis, PDSS total scores up to 10 correspond with "mild," those between 11 and 15 with "moderate," and those at or above 16 correspond with "severe" panic disorder. The present findings support the cross-cultural generalizability of panic disorder symptomatology and of the PDSS, in particular.