Design and baseline characteristics of the finerenone in reducing cardiovascular mortality and morbidity in diabetic kidney disease trial

Background: Among people with diabetes, those with kidney disease have exceptionally high rates of cardiovascular (CV) morbidity and mortality and progression of their underlying kidney disease. Finerenone is a novel, nonsteroidal, selective mineralocorticoid receptor antagonist that has shown to reduce albuminuria in type 2 diabetes (T2D) patients with chronic kidney disease (CKD) while revealing only a low risk of hyperkalemia. However, the effect of finerenone on CV and renal outcomes has not yet been investigated in long-term trials. Patients and Methods: The Finerenone in Reducing CV Mortality and Morbidity in Diabetic Kidney Disease (FIGARO-DKD) trial aims to assess the efficacy and safety of finerenone compared to placebo at reducing clinically important CV and renal outcomes in T2D patients with CKD. FIGARO-DKD is a randomized, double-blind, placebo-controlled, parallel-group, event-driven trial running in 47 countries with an expected duration of approximately 6 years. FIGARO-DKD randomized 7,437 patients with an estimated glomerular filtration rate >= 25 mL/min/1.73 m(2) and albuminuria (urinary albumin-to-creatinine ratio >= 30 to <= 5,000 mg/g). The study has at least 90% power to detect a 20% reduction in the risk of the primary outcome (overall two-sided significance level alpha = 0.05), the composite of time to first occurrence of CV death, nonfatal myocardial infarction, nonfatal stroke, or hospitalization for heart failure. Conclusions: FIGARO-DKD will determine whether an optimally treated cohort of T2D patients with CKD at high risk of CV and renal events will experience cardiorenal benefits with the addition of finerenone to their treatment regimen. Trial Registration: EudraCT number: 2015-000950-39; ClinicalTrials.gov identifier: NCT02545049

Modeling the theory of planned behavior for intention to improve oral health behaviors : the impact of attitudes, knowledge, and current behavior

The aim of this study was to test the efficiency of an extended model of the theory of planned behavior (TPB) in predicting intention to improve oral health behaviors. The participants in this cross-sectional study were 153 first-year medical students (mean age 20.16, 50 males and 103 females) who completed a questionnaire assessing intentions, attitudes, subjective norms, perceived behavioral control, oral health knowledge, and current oral hygiene behaviors. Attitudes toward oral health behaviors and perceived behavioral control contributed to the model for predicting intention, whereas subjective norms did not. Attitudes toward oral health behaviors were slightly more important than perceived behavioral control in predicting intention. Oral health knowledge significantly affected affective and cognitive attitudes, while current behavior was not a significant predictor of intention to improve oral health behavior. The model had a slightly better fit among females than among males, but was similar for home and professional dental health care. Our findings revealed that attitude, perceived behavioral control, and oral health knowledge are predictors of intention to improve oral health behaviors. These findings may help both dentists and dental hygienists in educating patients in oral health and changing patients’ oral hygiene habits. (J Oral Sci 53, 369-377, 2011)

Romanian Version of the Perceived Stress Scale: An Investigation of its Psychometric Properties

AbstractThe Perceived Stress Scale (PSS) is a widely used stress instrument that measures the degree to which life events are perceived as stressful. The goal of this study was to examine the psychometric properties of the Romanian version of the PSS-10 with a non-clinical sample. The subjects of the study were 528 undergraduate students at the University of Medicine and Pharmacy “Carol Davila”, Bucharest, Romania. All of the diagnostic tests indicated the adequacy of proceeding with factor analysis. Specifically, Bartlett's test of sphericity was statistically significant (P<0.0001), and the Kaiser-Meyer-Olkin (KMO) value was 0.89.The overall Cronbach's alpha was 0.855, and the test–retest reliability coefficient was 0.72. The Exploratory Factor Analysis (EFA) showed that the rotated factor solution for the PSS-10 contained two factors with with eigenvalues greater than 1, which accounted for 56.798% of the variance. Factor 1 consisted of 6 items representing “negative feelings” (Items 1, 2, 3, 6, 9, and 10) and accounting for 44.04% of the variance; whereas Factor 2 consisted of 4 items representing “positive feelings” (Items 4, 5, 7, and 8) and accounting for 12.76% of the variance. The item loadings ranged from 0.629 to 0.797. The Confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) indicated a very good fit of this two-factor model to this sample.The Romanian version of the PSS-10 demonstrated adequate psychometric properties for evaluating stress level