Elevated salivary C-reactive protein levels are associated with active and passive smoking in healthy youth: A pilot study

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>We examined <it>salivary </it>C-reactive protein (CRP) levels in the context of tobacco smoke exposure (TSE) in healthy youth. We hypothesized that there would be a dose-response relationship between TSE status and salivary CRP levels.</p> <p>Methods</p> <p>This work is a pilot study (N = 45) for a larger investigation in which we aim to validate <it>salivary </it>CRP against serum CRP, the gold standard measurement of low-grade inflammation. Participants were healthy youth with no self-reported periodontal disease, no objectively measured obesity/adiposity, and no clinical depression, based on the Beck Depression Inventory (BDI-II). We assessed tobacco smoking and confirmed smoking status (non-smoking, passive smoking, and active smoking) with salivary cotinine measurement. We measured salivary CRP by the ELISA method. We controlled for several potential confounders.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>We found evidence for the existence of a dose-response relationship between the TSE status and salivary CRP levels.</p> <p>Conclusions</p> <p>Our preliminary findings indicate that salivary CRP seems to have a similar relation to TSE as its widely used serum (systemic inflammatory) biomarker counterpart.</p

Cortisol salivaire chez des mères adolescentes et leur nourrisson : exploration de quelques corrélats psychopathologiques et comportementaux

Thèse numérisée par la Direction des bibliothèques de l'Université de Montréal

Peer-to-peer support on Facebook for caregivers of children and youth with complex care needs in New Brunswick: An environmental scan

This environmental scan aimed to describe the purpose, use, and reach of health-related peer-to-peer support groups on Facebook for caregivers of children and youth with complex care needs in New Brunswick. A total of 3,104 searches on Facebook and consultations with thirty-two stakeholders led to the identification of forty-seven Facebook support groups (twenty-one active). Groups targeted a range of conditions, with autism and related intellectual disabilities appearing most frequently. Content analysis of posts indicated that groups were primarily used to exchange informational support. This study showed that Facebook-based peer-to-peer support groups are available to families of children and youth with complex care needs in the province. This work also lays a foundation for future scans of Facebook-based support groups in other Canadian provinces and beyond.La présente analyse du milieu visait à décrire l’objectif, l’utilisation et la portée des groupes de soutien entre pairs liés à la santé sur Facebook pour les personnes qui s’occupent d’enfants et de jeunes ayant des besoins de soins complexes au Nouveau-Brunswick. En tout, 3 104 recherches sur Facebook et des consultations auprès de 32 intervenants ont permis de repérer 47 groupes de soutien sur Facebook, dont 21 groupes actifs. Des groupes ciblaient un éventail de troubles; l’autisme et les déficiences intellectuelles connexes étaient ceux qui étaient les plus fréquents. Les analyses de contenu des messages ont révélé que les groupes étaient principalement utilisés pour échanger des informations de soutien. Selon cette étude, des groupes de soutien entre pairs sur Facebook sont offerts aux familles d’enfants et de jeunes ayant des besoins de soins complexes dans la province. De plus, ce travail jette les bases de futures analyses de groupes de soutien sur Facebook d’autres provinces canadiennes et d’ailleurs

Creative destruction in science

Drawing on the concept of a gale of creative destruction in a capitalistic economy, we argue that initiatives to assess the robustness of findings in the organizational literature should aim to simultaneously test competing ideas operating in the same theoretical space. In other words, replication efforts should seek not just to support or question the original findings, but also to replace them with revised, stronger theories with greater explanatory power. Achieving this will typically require adding new measures, conditions, and subject populations to research designs, in order to carry out conceptual tests of multiple theories in addition to directly replicating the original findings. To illustrate the value of the creative destruction approach for theory pruning in organizational scholarship, we describe recent replication initiatives re-examining culture and work morality, working parents\u2019 reasoning about day care options, and gender discrimination in hiring decisions. Significance statement It is becoming increasingly clear that many, if not most, published research findings across scientific fields are not readily replicable when the same method is repeated. Although extremely valuable, failed replications risk leaving a theoretical void\u2014 reducing confidence the original theoretical prediction is true, but not replacing it with positive evidence in favor of an alternative theory. We introduce the creative destruction approach to replication, which combines theory pruning methods from the field of management with emerging best practices from the open science movement, with the aim of making replications as generative as possible. In effect, we advocate for a Replication 2.0 movement in which the goal shifts from checking on the reliability of past findings to actively engaging in competitive theory testing and theory building. Scientific transparency statement The materials, code, and data for this article are posted publicly on the Open Science Framework, with links provided in the article

Depressive Symptoms in Men Post-Miscarriage

Background: Experiencing a miscarriage can be a traumatic life event for men whose partner has miscarried; for some it might even trigger depression. However, men have received much less attention than women in the literature. In fact, no review of the literature was found to focus on the prevalence of depressive symptoms in men post- miscarriage. Objective: This paper reviewed the literature on the prevalence of depressive symptoms in men post-miscarriage. Method: Using relevant keywords and inclusion/exclusion criteria (detailed in the method section), we retrieved published empirical studies on the prevalence of depressive symptoms in men post-miscarriage from MEDLINE and PsycINFO databases, as well as from the grey literature (between 1946 and Sept 3, 2014). Result: The 4 empirical studies retained for this literature review presented the prevalence of depression caseness and the mean or median (where applicable) depression scores. The prevalence of depression caseness, which was greatest within the first month post-miscarriage (5–17%), decreased until 6 months post-miscarriage (7% and 1–4% at 3 and 6 months post-miscarriage, respectively). A slight increase (2–8%) was noted from the 6-month postmiscarriage assessment to the 12- and 13-month post-miscarriage assessments. The mean/ median depression scores showed a similar decreasing pattern until 6 months post-miscarriage, but they seemed to remain stable from 6 months to 12 and 13 months post-miscarriage (see Table 1). Conclusion: This review was limited by the small amount of literature available. Although there was a decrease initially, depressive symptoms might not resolve easily in men postmiscarriage. However, it is challenging to understand whether depressive symptoms were truly related to miscarriage. The findings were discussed in their specific clinical and environmental contexts. In future studies, assessment of depressive symptoms with male-specific scales may yield a higher prevalence of depression in men post-miscarriage

Falling Through the Cracks: Barriers to Accessing Services for Children with Complex Health Conditions and their Families in New Brunswick

Access to a wide range of services is essential for children with complex health conditions and their families to ensure family-centred care that promotes positive outcomes. Despite this, these families often experience difficulties accessing the services they require. This study examined the services available and the barriers to accessing these services in New Brunswick, Canada. We conducted an environmental scan of services and semi-structured interviews with nineteen families and sixty-seven stakeholders from the health, social, and education sectors. We identified a wide range of services available to children with complex health conditions and their families. Barriers to accessing services were identified and organized into three categories: (1) service availability, (2) organizational, and (3) financial. These findings will inform policy and practice to improve services for these families.L’accès à une vaste gamme de services est essentiel pour les enfants ayant conditions de santé complexes et leur famille afin d’assurer des soins axés sur les familles qui favorisent des résultats positifs. Toujours est-il que ces familles éprouvent souvent des difficultés à avoir accès aux services dont elles ont besoin. Dans le cadre de la présente étude, on a examiné les services offerts et les obstacles qui empêchent d’obtenir de tels services au Nouveau-Brunswick, au Canada. On a entrepris une analyse du milieu des services ainsi que des entretiens semi-structurés avec 10 familles et 67 intervenants des milieux de la santé, des services sociaux et de l’éducation. On a relevé une large gamme de services offerts aux enfants ayant conditions de santé complexes et leur famille. De plus, on a cerné les obstacles à l’accès des services et on les a répartis en trois catégories : les obstacles à la disponibilité des services, les obstacles organisationnels et les obstacles financiers. Ces conclusions façonneront les politiques et les pratiques afin d’améliorer les services pour de telles familles

Exploring the Use of a Facebook-Based Support Group for Caregivers of Children and Youth With Complex Care Needs: Qualitative Descriptive Study

BackgroundCaregivers of children and youth with complex care needs (CCN) require substantial support to ensure the well-being of their families. Web-based peer-to-peer (P2P) support groups present an opportunity for caregivers to seek and provide timely informational and emotional support. Despite the widespread use of social media for health-related support across diverse patient and caregiver populations, it is unclear how caregivers of children and youth with CCN use and potentially benefit from these groups. ObjectiveThe aim of this study is to explore the use of a web-based P2P support group for caregivers of children and youth with CCN in New Brunswick, Canada, and investigate factors related to its use by members. MethodsThe study sample consisted of individuals who joined a closed Facebook group and an analysis of content published to the group. In phase 1, a Facebook group was developed in consultation with a patient and family advisory council, and members were recruited to the group. Phase 2 of this study consisted of an observation period during which posts and related interactions (ie, likes, loves, and comments) by members were collected. In phase 3, a web-based survey was distributed, and semistructured interviews were conducted with a subsample of group members. Survey and interview data were analyzed using thematic analysis. ResultsA total of 108 caregivers joined the Facebook group between October 2020 and March 2021. There were 93 posts with 405 comments and 542 associated interactions (448/542, 82.7% likes and 94/542, 17.3% loves). Of these 93 posts, 37 (40%) were made by group members, and 56 (60%) were made by moderators. Of the 108 members, a subsample of 39 (36.1%) completed a web-based survey, and 14 (13%) participated in the interviews. Content analyses of posts by members revealed that inquiry (17/37, 46%), informational (15/37, 41%), and emotional posts (4/37, 11%) were the most common. Emotional posts received the highest number of interactions (median 24.5). In total, 5 themes emerged from the interviews related to the use of the group and mediating factors of interactions between group members: resource for information, altruistic contribution, varying level of engagement, perceived barriers to and facilitators of group activity, and moderators as contributing members. ConclusionsThese findings demonstrate that caregivers of children and youth with CCN seek geography-specific P2P support groups to meet informational and social support needs. This study contributes to the knowledge on how caregivers use Facebook groups to meet their support needs through moderate and passive engagement

The Effect of Decreased Antipseudomonal Drug Consumption on Pseudomonas aeruginosa Incidence and Antimicrobial Susceptibility Profiles over 9 Years in a Lebanese Tertiary Care Center

Pseudomonas aeruginosa (PAE) is intrinsically resistant to numerous classes of antimicrobials such as tetracycline and &beta;-lactam antibiotics. More epidemiological surveillance studies on the antimicrobial susceptibility profiles of PAE are needed to generate clinically significant data and better guided therapeutic options. We describe and analyze in a retrospective study the epidemiologic trends of 1827 Pseudomonas spp. isolates (83.5% PAE, 16.4% Pseudomonas sp., and 0.2% Pseudomonas putida) from various clinical specimens with their resistance patterns to antimicrobial consumption at a tertiary medical center in Lebanon between January 2010 and December 2018. We report a significant drop in the incidence of PAE from sputum (p-value = 0.05), whereas bloodstream infection isolation density showed no trend over the study period. We also registered a minimal but statistically significant drop in resistance of Pseudomonas to certain antibiotics and a decrease in the consumption of antipseudomonal antibiotics (p-value &lt; 0.001). Only 61 PAE isolates from a total of 1827 Pseudomonas cultures (3.33%) were difficult to treat, of which only one was a bacteremia. Interestingly, we found that the carbapenem susceptibility of Pseudomonas was unaffected by the decrease in their consumption. These results augur that antimicrobial pressure may not be the sole contributor to resistance emergence. Finally, antimicrobial stewardship seems to have a positive impact on nosocomial epidemiology