GSU Event Portal

This project provides an event ticket buying service for the registered members of the service. This project will be engineered by a three-member team that will create the website, document the project, and define the constraints of the project. The website that will be developed will display current and future events given in major cities throughout the United States. Each city will have venues that the website will provide tickets for. The project will center on entertainment events. Entertainment events are defined as sporting, such as baseball, basketball, football and hockey, concerts and movies. The project is intended to provide registered members first choice of entertainment tickets. Non-registered guests are unable to browse the website. The sponsor of the entertainment events is given a venue of distributing tickets of their events. The project will be developed using HTML, CSS, jQuery, and .Net (C#). The application will aim to fulfil the above mentioned features, along with specific backend functions such as administrator access and database manipulation

Improving Secondary Stroke Prevention Among Underserved African Americans: Moving Beyond Health Attitudes

Obesity, a known risk factors for stroke, poses a great health risk for the African American community. Beliefs about health locus of control (HLOC) are predictive of many health behaviors related to both obesity and stroke prevention. Some have recommended targeting health interventions to individuals with internal HLOC, as they tend to be more amenable to changing health behaviors, but this can be exclusionary to African Americans, who tend to have higher levels of external locus of control. The present study is a pretest-posttest randomized control design examining the impact of a brief, CBT-based health management intervention developed for overweight and obese African American inpatients with primarily external HLOC recovering from TIA or ischemic stroke. Intervention participants with a predominately external HLOC demonstrated improvements in minutes per week spent exercising (M=73.87/ SD+ 29.23), daily servings of fruit (M=0.63/ SD+ 0.25) and daily servings of vegetable consumption (M=1.92/SD+ 0.93) at the four-week follow-up assessment. Significant improvements in tobacco cessation (t(19)=3.09, p\u3e.01) and medication adherence (t(19)=2.63, p\u3e.05) were also evidenced. The importance of designing a health intervention sensitive to the HLOC orientation of the population is highlighted and access to health resources is discussed as a possible mediator of the impact of HLOC on obesity-related health behavior

Development and validation of the relational depth frequency scale

OBJECTIVE: The Relational Depth Frequency Scale (RDFS) was developed to measure the frequency of specific moments of profound contact and engagement in psychotherapy. METHOD: Following an initial process of item generation and rating, Three-Step Test Interviews were conducted with eight therapists and clients to further refine potential items. Sixteen relational depth items were then taken forward for psychometric assessment in an online sample of 336 therapists and 220 clients, each divided into separate "shortening" and "checking" subsamples. RESULTS: Following psychometric scale shortening involving confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) and Rasch analysis, we formed a six item RDFS that could be used with both therapists and clients. The parameters of the shortened form replicated well in the independent checking subsamples with good internal consistency (Cronbach's α = .85 and .93 in therapist and clients respectively), acceptable fit statistics in CFA and Rasch analysis, and moderate to high levels of convergent validity against the Working Alliance Inventory (Short Form, Revised) and Relational Depth Inventory (RDI-R2). CONCLUSION: As a brief self-report measure, the RDFS can be used to further assess the relationship between relational depth and therapeutic outcomes. Further research is needed to examine the validity of the RDFS in clinical settings

Caffeine Intake During Pregnancy and Weight of Offspring in Childhood: A Systematic Review

Background: Childhood obesity currently affects one third of the United States’ youth. Meeting criteria for overweight and obesity in childhood not only increases the risk of being overweight or obese in adulthood, but also increases the risk of comorbidities of obesity including: type 2 diabetes, metabolic syndrome, non-alcoholic steatohepatitis, hypertension, obstructive sleep apnea, and slipped capital femoral epiphysis. Several factors have been implicated to have a causal relationship or association with excessive weight gain; however, new studies are suggesting that a significant influence on the weight of the child is present in-utero. The current review explores the relationship between caffeine consumption during pregnancy and the weight of offspring in childhood. The purpose of this review is to organize and critically appraise the current data in order to realign our standard of care with the most recent information. Preventing childhood obesity is our best line of defense for our children and the health of our nation. Method: A comprehensive search of MEDLINE-PubMed, Web of Science, CINAHL-EBSCO, and MEDLINE-Ovid was conducted using the following key words: maternal, pregnant women, caffeine, and childhood obesity. The search produced five articles of which four were relevant to the topic and met all eligibility criteria. The four applicable articles were then reviewed using GRADE criteria. Results: Three of the 4 eligible studies suggest that there is an association between higher levels of caffeine intake in pregnancy and increased weight in childhood compared to lower levels of maternal caffeine intake. One study even suggests complete avoidance of caffeine may be advisable after findings reveal increased BMI from infancy to childhood were associated with any amount of caffeine intake during pregnancy. In contrast, a study by the Research Institute at Nationwide Children’s Hospital did not support the theory that increasing maternal caffeine consumption during pregnancy increases the risk of childhood obesity. Conclusion: The use of caffeine during pregnancy may be linked to childhood obesity. Providers should consider giving stricter recommendations than the current ACOG guidelines of \u3c200mg/day and may even educate pregnant mothers to eliminate caffeine altogether. Keywords: Maternal, pregnant women, caffeine, childhood obesit

Dental visits among adult Hispanics – BRFSS 1999 and 2006

Objectives: This study examined and compared utilization of dental services by adult US Hispanics 18 years and older in the years 1999 and 2006. Methods: Dental utilization data collected by telephone interviews by the state‐based Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System (BRFSS) were analyzed. Results: In 2006, the state mean and median prevalence of adult Hispanics with dental visits during the past year were 56.2 percent and 62.1 percent, respectively, and had not changed significantly since 1999. In 40 states, utilization was well below the national prevalence of 70.3 percent. Frequency of dental visits was significantly higher among females and those with higher income (>$50,000), higher education, nonsmokers, and persons having medical health insurance. Conclusions: Findings from this study suggest that barriers to utilization of dental services among Hispanic adults exist in most states and may contribute to existing oral health disparities. The magnitude of this problem may increase in the future with the expansion of the US Hispanic population.Peer Reviewedhttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/87091/1/j.1752-7325.2011.00259.x.pd

Self-care self-efficacy, religious participation and depression as predictors of poststroke self-care among underserved ethnic minorities

Underserved ethnic minorities have multiple chronic disease risk factors, including tobacco, alcohol and substance use, which contribute to increased incidence of stroke. Self-efficacy (self-care self-efficacy), religious participation and depression may directly and indirectly influence engagement in post stroke self-care behaviors. The primary aim of the present study was to investigate the effects of self-care self-efficacy, religious participation and depression, on tobacco, alcohol and substance use in a sample of largely ethnic minority, underserved stroke survivors (n=52). Participants previously recruited for a culturally tailored secondary stroke prevention self-care intervention were included. The treatment group received three stroke self-care sessions. The usual care group completed assessments only. Both groups were included in these analyses. Main outcome measures included tobacco, alcohol and substance use. Self-care self-efficacy, religious participation and depression were also assessed. Logistic regression analyses, using self-efficacy, religious practice and depression as the referents, were used to predict binary outcomes of tobacco, alcohol and substance use at 4-weeks post-stroke. Higher depression and self-care self-efficacy were associated with reduced odds of smoking and substance use. Greater participation in religious activities was associated with lower odds of alcohol use. We can conclude that incorporating depression treatment and techniques to increase self-care self-efficacy, and encouraging religious participation may help to improve stroke self-care behaviors for underserved and low socioeconomic status individuals. Results are discussed in the context of stroke self-management