Screening Tools for Mental Disorders Among Female Refugees: a Systematic Review

Female refugees are particularly vulnerable to mental disorders but assessment may be complex and challenging. Various screening tools have been developed for this population, but little is known about their usefulness. The main aim is to examine the literature on the effectiveness of screening tools for mental health problems among female refugees. Systematic review of PubMed, PsycINFO and Embase to locate all published work. Comprehensive search terms were used and inclusion and exclusion criteria were formulated. The initial search yielded 877 articles, of which 757 were removed after titles and abstracts were reviewed. Then, 121 full-text versions of articles were examined and 96 excluded according to the criteria. A total of 25 articles were included in this systematic review in accordance with the PRIMSA guidelines. Twenty screening tools were evaluated. There is a lack of tools used to screen refugee women, and in particular those in emergency settings. Cultural factors may not be accounted for in the development of screening instruments. Further research in this field can help inform public health policies to address social, educational and occupational inclusion for refugee women in different contexts

A comparative study of tone and intonation in seven Kongo dialects.

This thesis proposes a pitch-accent description of the pitch features of several dialects of the kiKongo language (Western Central Africa), hitherto considered tonal. Evidence is given that contour variation for the purposes of focus and emphasis exists in kiKongo, ie. that there is an intonational overlay to the basic pitch-accent system. The common pitch feature of 'bridging' (assimilation of low pitches to surrounding high pitches) is shown to be comparable to phenomena in three other Bantu languages, and like them has connotations of focus or emphasis. Previous systematisations of kiKongo pitch features are discussed and shown to be broadly comparable, especially in one area: comparison of the various tone-classes established in these works suggests that there are in fact two main accentual classes in kiKongo - rising (low initial) and falling (high initial). These classes are distinguished on words in isolation, but not on words in context. There is thus a three-tier system: accentual classes, pitch- accent system, and intonational overlay. Examination of pitch placement in the different dialects allows us to delimit four main dialect areas. Creole kiKongo (kiLeta) is shown to differ from kiKongo proper in that high pitch usually occurs on the penultimate syllable of the word rather than on the first syllable of the stem, and the development from one system of placement to the other is discussed

Low molecular weight gelators (LMWGs) for ionic liquids: the role of hydrogen bonding and sterics in the formation of stable low molecular weight ionic liquid gels

3 sugar based low molecular weight gelators are shown to form ionic liquid gels with a diverse range of ionic liquids.</p

Effect of investigation intensity and treatment differences on prostate cancer survivor's physical symptoms, psychological well-being and health-related quality of life: a two country cross-sectional study

Aim: To investigate effects on men's health and well-being of higher prostate cancer (PCa) investigation and treatment levels in similar populations.Participants PCa survivors in Ireland where the Republic of Ireland (RoI) has a 50% higher PCa incidence than Northern Ireland (NI).Method: A cross-sectional postal questionnaire was sent to PCa survivors 2–18 years post-treatment, seeking information about current physical effects of treatment, health-related quality of life (HRQoL; EORTC QLQ-C30; EQ-5D-5L) and psychological well-being (21 question version of the Depression, Anxiety and Stress Scale, DASS-21). Outcomes in RoI and NI survivors were compared, stratifying into ‘late disease’ (stage III/IV and any Gleason grade (GG) at diagnosis) and ‘early disease’ (stage I/II and GG 2–7). Responses were weighted by age, jurisdiction and time since diagnosis. Between-country differences were investigated using multivariate logistic and linear regression.Results: 3348 men responded (RoI n=2567; NI n=781; reflecting population sizes, response rate 54%). RoI responders were younger; less often had comorbidities (45% vs 38%); were more likely to present asymptomatically (66%; 41%) or with early disease (56%; 35%); and less often currently used androgen deprivation therapy (ADT; 2%; 28%). Current prevalence of incontinence (16%) and impotence (56% early disease, 67% late disease) did not differ between RoI and NI. In early disease, only current bowel problems (RoI 12%; NI 21%) differed significantly in multivariate analysis. In late disease, NI men reported significantly higher levels of gynaecomastia (23% vs 9%) and hot flashes(41% vs 19%), but when ADT users were analysed separately, differences disappeared. For HRQoL, in multivariate analysis, only pain (early disease: RoI 11.1, NI 19.4) and financial difficulties (late disease: RoI 10.4, NI 7.9) differed significantly between countries. There were no significant between-country differences in DASS-21 or index ED-5D-5L score.Conclusions: Treatment side effects were commonly reported and increased PCa detection in RoI has left more men with these side effects. We recommended that men be offered a PSA test only after informed discussion

Effect of investigation intensity and treatment differences on prostate cancer survivor's physical symptoms, psychological well-being and health-related quality of life: a two country cross-sectional study

Aim: To investigate effects on men's health and well-being of higher prostate cancer (PCa) investigation and treatment levels in similar populations. Participants: PCa survivors in Ireland where the Republic of Ireland (RoI) has a 50% higher PCa incidence than Northern Ireland (NI). Method: A cross-sectional postal questionnaire was sent to PCa survivors 2–18 years post-treatment, seeking information about current physical effects of treatment, health-related quality of life (HRQoL; EORTC QLQ-C30; EQ-5D-5L) and psychological well-being (21 question version of the Depression, Anxiety and Stress Scale, DASS-21). Outcomes in RoI and NI survivors were compared, stratifying into ‘late disease’ (stage III/IV and any Gleason grade (GG) at diagnosis) and ‘early disease’ (stage I/II and GG 2–7). Responses were weighted by age, jurisdiction and time since diagnosis. Between-country differences were investigated using multivariate logistic and linear regression. Results: 3348 men responded (RoI n=2567; NI n=781; reflecting population sizes, response rate 54%). RoI responders were younger; less often had comorbidities (45% vs 38%); were more likely to present asymptomatically (66%; 41%) or with early disease (56%; 35%); and less often currently used androgen deprivation therapy (ADT; 2%; 28%). Current prevalence of incontinence (16%) and impotence (56% early disease, 67% late disease) did not differ between RoI and NI. In early disease, only current bowel problems (RoI 12%; NI 21%) differed significantly in multivariate analysis. In late disease, NI men reported significantly higher levels of gynaecomastia (23% vs 9%) and hot flashes(41% vs 19%), but when ADT users were analysed separately, differences disappeared. For HRQoL, in multivariate analysis, only pain (early disease: RoI 11.1, NI 19.4) and financial difficulties (late disease: RoI 10.4, NI 7.9) differed significantly between countries. There were no significant between-country differences in DASS-21 or index ED-5D-5L score. Conclusions: Treatment side effects were commonly reported and increased PCa detection in RoI has left more men with these side effects. We recommended that men be offered a PSA test only after informed discussion

The Essentials of Cardiac Computerized Tomography

Cardiac computerized tomography (CT) has evolved from a research tool to an important diagnostic investigation in cardiology, and is now recommended in European, US, and UK guidelines. This review is designed to give the reader an overview of the current state of cardiac CT. The role of cardiac CT is multifaceted, and includes risk stratification, disease detection, coronary plaque quantification, defining congenital heart disease, planning for structural intervention, and, more recently, assessment of ischemia. This paper addresses basic principles as well as newer evidence

An omics-based machine learning approach to predict diabetes progression:a RHAPSODY study

Aims/hypothesis: People with type 2 diabetes are heterogeneous in their disease trajectory, with some progressing more quickly to insulin initiation than others. Although classical biomarkers such as age, HbA 1c and diabetes duration are associated with glycaemic progression, it is unclear how well such variables predict insulin initiation or requirement and whether newly identified markers have added predictive value. Methods: In two prospective cohort studies as part of IMI-RHAPSODY, we investigated whether clinical variables and three types of molecular markers (metabolites, lipids, proteins) can predict time to insulin requirement using different machine learning approaches (lasso, ridge, GRridge, random forest). Clinical variables included age, sex, HbA 1c, HDL-cholesterol and C-peptide. Models were run with unpenalised clinical variables (i.e. always included in the model without weights) or penalised clinical variables, or without clinical variables. Model development was performed in one cohort and the model was applied in a second cohort. Model performance was evaluated using Harrel’s C statistic. Results: Of the 585 individuals from the Hoorn Diabetes Care System (DCS) cohort, 69 required insulin during follow-up (1.0–11.4 years); of the 571 individuals in the Genetics of Diabetes Audit and Research in Tayside Scotland (GoDARTS) cohort, 175 required insulin during follow-up (0.3–11.8 years). Overall, the clinical variables and proteins were selected in the different models most often, followed by the metabolites. The most frequently selected clinical variables were HbA 1c (18 of the 36 models, 50%), age (15 models, 41.2%) and C-peptide (15 models, 41.2%). Base models (age, sex, BMI, HbA 1c) including only clinical variables performed moderately in both the DCS discovery cohort (C statistic 0.71 [95% CI 0.64, 0.79]) and the GoDARTS replication cohort (C 0.71 [95% CI 0.69, 0.75]). A more extensive model including HDL-cholesterol and C-peptide performed better in both cohorts (DCS, C 0.74 [95% CI 0.67, 0.81]; GoDARTS, C 0.73 [95% CI 0.69, 0.77]). Two proteins, lactadherin and proto-oncogene tyrosine-protein kinase receptor, were most consistently selected and slightly improved model performance. Conclusions/interpretation: Using machine learning approaches, we show that insulin requirement risk can be modestly well predicted by predominantly clinical variables. Inclusion of molecular markers improves the prognostic performance beyond that of clinical variables by up to 5%. Such prognostic models could be useful for identifying people with diabetes at high risk of progressing quickly to treatment intensification. Data availability: Summary statistics of lipidomic, proteomic and metabolomic data are available from a Shiny dashboard at https://rhapdata-app.vital-it.ch. Graphical Abstract: (Figure presented.).</p

Distinct molecular signatures of clinical clusters in people with type 2 diabetes:an IMI-RHAPSODY study

Type 2 diabetes is a multifactorial disease with multiple underlying aetiologies. To address this heterogeneity a previous study clustered people with diabetes into five diabetes subtypes. The aim of the current study is to investigate the aetiology of these clusters by comparing their molecular signatures. In three independent cohorts, in total 15,940 individuals were clustered based on five clinical characteristics. In a subset, genetic- (N=12828), metabolomic- (N=2945), lipidomic- (N=2593) and proteomic (N=1170) data were obtained in plasma. In each datatype each cluster was compared with the other four clusters as the reference. The insulin resistant cluster showed the most distinct molecular signature, with higher BCAAs, DAG and TAG levels and aberrant protein levels in plasma enriched for proteins in the intracellular PI3K/Akt pathway. The obese cluster showed higher cytokines. A subset of the mild diabetes cluster with high HDL showed the most beneficial molecular profile with opposite effects to those seen in the insulin resistant cluster. This study showed that clustering people with type 2 diabetes can identify underlying molecular mechanisms related to pancreatic islets, liver, and adipose tissue metabolism. This provides novel biological insights into the diverse aetiological processes that would not be evident when type 2 diabetes is viewed as a homogeneous diseas