Epidemiological study on screening test of semi-health condition in young adults
METHODS: The self-report questionnaire, which consisted of 53 items, was administered to 2,074 young adults in Japan between 2011 and 2012.
RESULTS: A principal components analysis was applied to the valid data in order to extract indices which evaluated structural characteristics on semi-health condition. By this analysis, four principal components were extracted. Especially, the first principal component was extracted as an index which indicated a quantitative aspect of the semi-health condition. Every eigenvector of its component had a mark of plus. Therefore, this component was used as the semi-health index. Furthermore, a distribution of young adults with semi-health symptoms was determined by using this index. The sensitivity, specificity, positive predictive value, negative predictive value indicated 88.9%, 84.2%, 46.0%, and 98.1%, respectively. The prevalence of the semi-health condition was 13.1%.
CONCLUSIONS: Epidemiological indices from the screening test will show an excellent level of discriminating the semi-health from good health state. The receiver operating characteristic curve derived from sensitivity and specificity will be also in a good level.