Parity Reversion in Real Exchange Rates: Fast, Slow, or Not at All?

This paper tests for purchasing power parity (PPP) using real effective exchange rate data for 90 developed and developing countries in the post-Bretton Woods period. Support for PPP is found, since the majority of countries experience finite deviations of real exchange rates from parity. The speed of parity reversion is found to be typically much faster for developed countries than for developing countries and to be considerably faster for countries with flexible nominal exchange rate regimes compared with countries having fixed nominal exchange rate regimes. Copyright 2006, International Monetary Fund

The Long-Run Behavior of Commodity Prices: Small Trends and Big Variability

Using the longest dataset publicly available (The Economist's index of industrial commodity prices), we analyze the behavior of real commodity prices over the period 1862-1999 and have two main findings. First, while there has been a downward trend in real commodity prices of about 1 percent per year over the last 140 years, little support is found for a break in the long-run trend decline in commodity prices. Second, there is evidence of a ratcheting up in the variability of price movements. The amplitude of price movements increased in the early 1900s, while the frequency of large price movements increased after the collapse of the Bretton Woods regime of fixed exchange rates in the early 1970s. Although there is a downward trend in real commodity prices, this is of little practical policy relevance, since it is smalll and completely dominated by the variability of prices. Copyright 2002, International Monetary Fund

Child and adolescent psychiatric nursing and the 'plastic man': Reflections on the implementation of change drawing insights from Lewin's theory of planned change

Child and adolescent psychiatric nursing (CAPN) as a discipline has been remarkably slow in the uptake of high fidelity human patient simulation (HFHPS) as an education tool. Assuming HFHPS has potential use, and the issue is one of change management, this paper speculates about how Lewin's paradigm for Planned Change might provide guidance to the specialty discipline of CAPN in development of strategies to promote adoption of HFHPS to education of pre-registration nurses. Kurt Lewin (1890-1947) was a seminal theorist of change, whose pioneering work has had significant impact across many disciplines. His theory of Planned Change has four components - field theory, group dynamics, action research and the three-step model of change. Each component is considered briefly and then combined within an example of application. © eContent Management Pty Ltd

What Does It Take? California County Funding Requests for Recovery-Oriented Full Service Partnerships Under the Mental Health Services Act

The need to move mental health systems toward more recovery-oriented treatment modes is well established. Progress has been made to define needed changes but evidence is lacking about the resources required to implement them. The Mental Health Services Act (MHSA) in California was designed to implement more recovery-oriented treatment modes. We use data from county funding requests and annual updates to examine how counties budgeted for recovery-oriented programs targeted to different age groups under MHSA. Findings indicate that initial per-client budgeting for Full Services Partnerships under MHSA was maintained in future cycles and counties budgeted less per client for children. With this analysis, we begin to benchmark resource allocation for programs that are intended to be recovery-oriented, which should be evaluated against appropriate outcome measures in the future to determine the degree of recovery-orientation

PRIVATE SAVINGS IN TRANSITION ECONOMIES: ARE THERE TERMS OF TRADE SHOCKS?

The paper examines the impact of terms of trade shocks on private savings in the transition economies after accounting for the effect of other determinants. Economic agents in the transition economies are subject to tight credit constraints which are more pronounced during bad state of nature. Thus, adverse shocks to commodity prices in the world market can force them to reduce savings by a larger amount than they would otherwise have. Empirical analysis using a dynamic panel model and data from twenty one transition economies confirm that most of the determinants of savings identified in the literature also apply to the transition economies. Favorable movements in both the permanent and transitory components of the terms of trade have a significant positive impact on private savings with transitory movements having a larger impact than the permanent component. This reflects the lack of access to foreign borrowing that many of the transition economies have faced during the last decade. Although the impact of terms of trade shocks are found to be asymmetric, the magnitude of the impact appears to be small. The results are robust for alternative estimators, determinants, and country groupings.http://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/39958/3/wp572.pd

Is there a causal relationship between acute stage sensorimotor cortex activity and the development of chronic low back pain? : a protocol and statistical analysis plan

Introduction: Why some people develop chronic pain following an acute episode of low back pain is unknown. Recent cross-sectional studies have suggested a relationship between aberrant sensorimotor cortex activity and pain persistence. The UPWaRD (Understanding persistent Pain Where it ResiDes) cohort study is the first prospective, longitudinal investigation of sensorimotor cortex activity in low back pain. This paper describes the development of a causal model and statistical analysis plan for investigating the causal effect of sensorimotor cortex activity on the development of chronic low back pain. Methods and analysis: Sensorimotor cortex activity was assessed within 6 weeks of low back pain onset using somatosensory evoked potentials and transcranial magnetic stimulation mapping techniques. Chronic low back pain is defined as ongoing pain (Numerical Rating score ≥1) or disability (Roland Morris Disability Questionnaire score ≥3) at 6 months follow-up. Variables that could confound the relationship between sensorimotor cortex activity and chronic low back pain were identified using a directed acyclic graph and content expertise was used to specify known causal paths. The statistical model was developed ‘a priori’ to control for confounding variables identified in the directed acyclic graph, allowing an unbiased estimate of the causal effect of sensorimotor activity in acute low back pain on the development of chronic pain. The statistical analysis plan was finalised prior to follow-up of all participants and initiation of analysis. Ethics and dissemination: Ethical approval has been obtained from Western Sydney University Human Research Ethics Committee (H10465) and from Neuroscience Research Australia (SSA: 16/002). Dissemination will occur through presentations at national and international conferences and publications in international peer-reviewed journals. Trial registration number: ACTRN12619000002189 (retrospectively registered)

It\u27s safe to move! A protocol for a randomised controlled trial investigating the effect of a video designed to increase people\u27s confidence becoming more active despite back pain

Introduction Social media provide promising contemporary platforms for sharing public health information with a broad audience. Before implementation, testing social media campaigns that are intended to engage audiences and initiate behaviour change is necessary. This trial aims to investigate the effectiveness of a public health campaign to increase people\u27s confidence in becoming more active despite low back pain in comparison with no intervention. Methods and analysis This is an online randomised controlled trial with two intervention groups and one control group in a 1:1:1 allocation. People over 18 years of age and fluent in English will be recruited via social media advertising. We developed a social media-based public health campaign to support recommendations for managing low back pain. The interventions are two videos. Participants in the control group will be asked questions about low back pain but will not view either video intervention. The primary outcome will be item 10 of the Pain Self-Efficacy Questionnaire, which asks participants to rate how confident they would feel to gradually become more active despite pain ranging from 0 (not at all confident) to 6 (completely confident). This outcome will be measured immediately in all participant groups. We will compare group mean of the three arms of the trial using univariate analyses of variance. Ethics and dissemination This trial has been prospectively registered with the Australian New Zealand Clinical Trials Registry. We obtained ethical approval from our institutions Human Research Ethics Committee before data collection. We will publish the results in a peer-reviewed medical journal and on institution websites

Development and measurement properties of the AxEL (attitude toward education and advice for low-back-pain) questionnaire

Introduction: Clinician time and resources may be underutilised if the treatment they offer does not match patient expectations and attitudes. We developed a questionnaire (AxEL-Q) to guide clinicians toward elements of first-line care that are pertinent to their patients with low back pain. Methods: We used guidance from the COSMIN consortium to develop the questionnaire and evaluated it in a sample of people with low back pain of any duration. Participants were recruited from the community, were over 18 years and fluent in English. Statements that represented first-line care were identified. Semantic scales were used to measure attitude towards these statements. These items were combined to develop the questionnaire draft. Construct validity was evaluated with exploratory factor analysis and hypotheses testing, comparing to the Back Beliefs Questionnaire and modified Pain Self-Efficacy Questionnaire. Reliability was evaluated and floor and ceiling effects calculated. Results: We recruited 345 participants, and had complete data for analysis for 313 participants. The questionnaire draft was reduced to a 3-Factor questionnaire through exploratory factor analysis. Factor 1 comprised 9 items and evaluated Attitude toward staying active, Factor 2 comprised 4 items and evaluated Attitude toward low back pain being rarely caused by a serious health problem, Factor 3 comprised 4 items and evaluated Attitude toward not needing to know the cause of back pain to manage it effectively. There was a strong inverse association between each factor and the Back Beliefs Questionnaire and a moderate positive association with the modified Pain Self-Efficacy Questionnaire. Each independent factor demonstrated acceptable internal consistency; Cronbach α Factor 1 = 0.92, Factor 2 = 0.91, Factor 3 = 0.90 and adequate interclass correlation coefficients; Factor 1 = 0.71, Factor 2 = 0.73, Factor 3 = 0.79. Conclusion: This study demonstrates acceptable construct validity and reliability of the AxEL-Q, providing clinicians with an insight into the likelihood of patients following first-line care at the outset

Efficacy, acceptability, and safety of muscle relaxants for adults with non-specific low back pain : systematic review and meta-analysis

Abstract: Objective To investigate the efficacy, acceptability, and safety of muscle relaxants for low back pain. Design: Systematic review and meta-analysis of randomised controlled trials. Data sources: Medline, Embase, CINAHL, CENTRAL, ClinicalTrials.gov, clinicialtrialsregister.eu, and WHO ICTRP from inception to 23 February 2021. Eligibility criteria for study selection: Randomised controlled trials of muscle relaxants compared with placebo, usual care, waiting list, or no treatment in adults (≥18 years) reporting non-specific low back pain. Data extraction and synthesis: Two reviewers independently identified studies, extracted data, and assessed the risk of bias and certainty of the evidence using the Cochrane risk-of-bias tool and Grading of Recommendations, Assessment, Development and Evaluations, respectively. Random effects meta-analytical models through restricted maximum likelihood estimation were used to estimate pooled effects and corresponding 95% confidence intervals. Outcomes included pain intensity (measured on a 0-100 point scale), disability (0-100 point scale), acceptability (discontinuation of the drug for any reason during treatment), and safety (adverse events, serious adverse events, and number of participants who withdrew from the trial because of an adverse event). Results: 49 trials were included in the review, of which 31, sampling 6505 participants, were quantitatively analysed. For acute low back pain, very low certainty evidence showed that at two weeks or less non-benzodiazepine antispasmodics were associated with a reduction in pain intensity compared with control (mean difference -7.7, 95% confidence interval-12.1 to-3.3) but not a reduction in disability (-3.3, -7.3 to 0.7). Low and very low certainty evidence showed that non-benzodiazepine antispasmodics might increase the risk of an adverse event (relative risk 1.6, 1.2 to 2.0) and might have little to no effect on acceptability (0.8, 0.6 to 1.1) compared with control for acute low back pain, respectively. The number of trials investigating other muscle relaxants and different durations of low back pain were small and the certainty of evidence was reduced because most trials were at high risk of bias. Conclusions: Considerable uncertainty exists about the clinical efficacy and safety of muscle relaxants. Very low and low certainty evidence shows that non-benzodiazepine antispasmodics might provide small but not clinically important reductions in pain intensity at or before two weeks and might increase the risk of an adverse event in acute low back pain, respectively. Large, high quality, placebo controlled trials are urgently needed to resolve uncertainty. Systematic review registration PROSPERO CRD42019126820 and Open Science Framework https://osf.io/mu2f5/

Pain catastrophising and kinesiophobia mediate pain and physical function improvements with Pilates exercise in chronic low back pain::a mediation analysis of a randomised controlled trial

How much are the reductions in pain intensity and improvements in physical function from Pilates exercise mediated by changes in pain catastrophising and kinesiophobia? This was a secondary causal mediation analysis of a four-arm randomised controlled trial testing Pilates exercise dosage (once, twice or thrice per week) against a booklet control. Two hundred and fifty-five people with chronic low back pain. All analyses were conducted in R software (version 4.1.2) following a preregistered analysis plan. A directed acyclic graph was constructed to identify potential pre-treatment mediator-outcome confounders. For each mediator model, we estimated the intervention-mediator effect, the mediator-outcome effect, the total natural indirect effect (TNIE), the pure natural direct effect (PNDE), and the total effect (TE). Pain catastrophising mediated the effect of Pilates exercise compared with control on the outcomes pain intensity (TNIE MD -0.21, 95% CI -0.47 to -0.03) and physical function (TNIE MD -0.64, 95% CI -1.20 to -0.18). Kinesiophobia mediated the effect of Pilates exercise compared with control on the outcomes pain intensity (TNIE MD -0.31, 95% CI -0.68 to -0.02) and physical function (TNIE MD -1.06, 95% CI -1.70 to -0.49). The proportion mediated by each mediator was moderate (21 to 55%). Reductions in pain catastrophising and kinesiophobia partially mediated the pathway to improved pain intensity and physical function when using Pilates exercise for chronic low back pain. These psychological components may be important treatment targets for clinicians and researchers to consider when prescribing exercise for chronic low back pain. [Abstract copyright: Copyright © 2023 Australian Physiotherapy Association. Published by Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.