Potential risk factors and triggers for back pain in children and young adults. A scoping review, part I: Incident and episodic back pain

Background The one-month prevalence of back pain in children and adolescents has been reported at 33, 28 and 48% at ages 9, 13 and 15 respectively. There are many suspected risk factors and triggers of back pain in young people. Objective The purpose of this scoping review was to identify potential risk factors and potential triggers for back pain in young people. The purpose of part I was to identify potential risk factors for incident and episodic back pain in young people. Part II included all eligible studies with unclear or mixed types of back pain. Methods Due to the vast number of studies on “risk factors” for back pain, a two-part scoping review of the literature was chosen as the best way to summarise the evidence. We adhered to the PRISMA-ScR guideline for scoping reviews. General potential risk factors and triggers for back pain in children and young adults (≤ 24 years) were included, incorporating physical, environmental, and/or physiological factors. A search was conducted using PubMed and Cochrane databases from inception to September 2018, limited to the English language. Within part I, and because of their importance, only the results of the studies that investigated risk factors of incident back pain and back pain episodes are presented. Results The search identified 7356 articles, of which 91 articles were eligible for this scoping review. The majority of the eligible articles had an unclear definition of back pain (results presented in scoping review part II). There were 7 inception cohort studies included and 1 cohort study that met the criteria for part I. The most consistent risk factors for incident and episodic back pain are female sex and older age. Conclusion Due to inconsistent ways of reporting on the type of back pain, no definitive risk factor for back pain has been identified. In general, females often report more symptoms, also for other diseases, and older age is not a useful risk factor as it merely indicates that the onset may not be in childhood. Clearly, the time has come to study the causes of back pain from different angles

Correction to: Shoulder pain prevalence by age and within occupational groups: A systematic review

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An investigation of musculoskeletal disorders in healthcare professionals.

The aims of the work within this thesis were to i) establish the prevalence of musculoskeletal disorders among hospital based nurses and physiotherapists and to establish both perceived and possible causes for these disorders, ii) obtain clinical diagnoses and prognoses of nurses and physiotherapy staff attending an Occupational Health Department, iii) to establish which occupational tasks have the greatest potential to cause musculoskeletal disorders and iv) to investigate the effects of simulated nursing tasks and a modified porters' work-rest schedule on spinal shrinkage. In the epidemiological study the annual prevalence of all musculoskeletal disorders was estimated for nurses and physiotherapists in combination as 49%. The point prevalence was 20.7%. The anatomical area most affected was the lower back, buttocks, upper leg area. In total, musculoskeletal disorders accounted for 19% of all absences from work from all respondents within the previous year. Of those staff attending the Occupational Health Department, the main anatomical area affected by musculoskeletal disorders was, again, the back. Whilst a clinical diagnosis could be given to some patients, others were categorised as having 'low-back pain' indicating the often idiopathic nature of the symptoms. Time off work was often extensive and some staff members were retired from their profession as a direct result of their disorder. Patient handling was cited as the major perceived cause of the musculoskeletal disorders experienced. This variable was not significantly associated with the presence of musculoskeletal disorders in a logistic regression analysis. It is likely that all aspects of nursing and physiotherapy require some degree of manual handling and the category as a whole is too broad to enable an association with the presence or absence of a musculoskeletal disorder to be identified. Factors found to be associated with the presence of a musculoskeletal disorder or back pain were the specialty in which the individual worked, the age of the individual, whether physiotherapists' work regularly required the maintenance of stooped postures, the percentage time the individuals spent on their feet during a shift and the psychological variables of work pressure, happiness at work and job aspirations/motivations. The direction of causality for these variables was not established. An ergonomic risk assessment indicated that the tasks with the highest risk potential were manual handling tasks and those involving a static hold/standing of a patient. Manual handling had a high risk score, mainly because of the awkward, non-optimum postures staff were forced to adopt to perform the task. Tasks requiring static flexions scored highly because they were often performed alone and the flexion was maintained for some time. The task's score was also related to other external factors. The final set of studies considered the influence of nurses' and porters' tasks on spinal shrinkage. During a 4-hour simulation of nursing tasks, spinal shrinkage was significantly less with a 20-min seated break than with a 20-min standing break. Ensuring nurses take a 20-min seated break during each shift has the potential to reduce the prevalence of back-pain. A modified work-rest schedule for hospital porters did not have any effect on spinal shrinkage during a 4-hour simulation of occupational activities. The high prevalence of back pain among this group can not be reduced by adopting the modified work-rest schedule. A model detailing the causal factors for musculoskeletal disorders and low-back pain in nurses and physiotherapists has been proposed based on current findings within this thesis. This ergonomic model requires validation in future work

Program of large high perveance ionizer studies

Large porous tungsten sources of cesium ions - ionizer performance at high current densities and relation of performance to physical propertie

Effectiveness of interventions to increase hepatitis C testing uptake among high-risk groups: a systematic review

Background: People who inject drugs are at the greatest risk of acquiring hepatitis C virus infection in many high-income countries, including those in Europe. Our review examined the effectiveness of interventions aimed at increasing hepatitis C virus testing uptake. Methods: We undertook a systematic review of controlled studies. Searches of 13 databases were supplemented with citation searching, and manual searches of reference lists and websites. Studies of interventions that aimed to increase testing uptake among high-risk groups were included. Testing uptake was our primary outcome measure of interest and secondary outcomes were engagement in follow-up services and treatment. A narrative synthesis was undertaken. Results: Eight controlled studies were included. Three studies examined interventions in primary care; one examined dried blood spot testing as an alternative method of testing, and two examined outreach provision. Two further studies examined interventions to improve hepatitis C management. Targeted case finding in primary care, support and training for primary care practitioners, offering alternative testing and provision of outreach testing all increased uptake of testing; however, intervention effects were variable. Conclusions: Evidence from the available studies suggests that increases in testing uptake can be achieved. Careful attention needs to be paid to the resource implications associated with implementation of interventions in primary care settings and also of the potential for interventions to improve outcomes once a positive diagnosis has been made. Further research on the cost-effectiveness of the intervention approaches examined in this review is required

Suited for Success? : Suits, Status, and Hybrid Masculinity

This document is the Accepted Manuscript version. The final, definitive version of this paper has been published in Men and Masculinities, March 2017, doi: https://doi.org/10.1177/1097184X17696193, published by SAGE Publishing, All rights reserved.This article analyzes the sartorial biographies of four Canadian men to explore how the suit is understood and embodied in everyday life. Each of these men varied in their subject positions—body shape, ethnicity, age, and gender identity—which allowed us to look at the influence of men’s intersectional identities on their relationship with their suits. The men in our research all understood the suit according to its most common representation in popular culture: a symbol of hegemonic masculinity. While they wore the suit to embody hegemonic masculine configurations of practice—power, status, and rationality—most of these men were simultaneously marginalized by the gender hierarchy. We explain this disjuncture by using the concept of hybrid masculinity and illustrate that changes in the style of hegemonic masculinity leave its substance intact. Our findings expand thinking about hybrid masculinity by revealing the ways subordinated masculinities appropriate and reinforce hegemonic masculinity.Peer reviewe

Protein processing characterized by a gel-free proteomics approach

We describe a method for the specific isolation of representative N-terminal peptides of proteins and their proteolytic fragments. Their isolation is based on a gel-free, peptidecentric proteomics approach using the principle of diagonal chromatography. We will indicate that the introduction of an altered chemical property to internal peptides holding a free α-N-terminus results in altered column retention of these peptides, thereby enabling the isolation and further characterization by mass spectrometry of N-terminal peptides. Besides pointing to changes in protein expression levels when performing such proteome surveys in a differential modus, protease specificity and substrate repertoires can be allocated since both are specified by neo-N-termini generated after a protease cleavage event. As such, our gel-free proteomics technology is widely applicable and amenable for a variety of proteome-driven protease degradomics research

'Lad culture' in higher education: agency in the sexualisation debates

This paper reports on research funded by the National Union of Students, which explored women students’ experiences of ‘lad culture’ through focus groups and interviews. We found that although laddism is only one of various potential masculinities, for our participants it dominated social and sexual spheres of university life in problematic ways. However, their objections to laddish behaviours did not support contemporary models of ‘sexual panic’, even while oppugning the more simplistic celebrations of young women’s empowerment which have been observed in debates about sexualisation. We argue that in their ability to reject ‘lad culture’, our respondents expressed a form of agency which is often invisibilised in sexualisation discussions and which could be harnessed to tackle some of the issues we uncovered