Levantamento dos principais adulterantes encontrados em amostras de cocaína: uma revisão de escopo.

TCC(graduação) - Universidade Federal de Santa Catarina. Centro de Ciências da Saúde. Farmácia.A cocaína (COC) é uma droga ilícita estimulante do sistema nervoso central (SNC) e atualmente se encontra na segunda posição entre as drogas mais consumidas mundialmente. Frequentemente ocorre sua adulteração com componentes farmacologicamente ativos, ao qual compreendem uma grande diversidade presente no mercado. Esses adulterantes são utilizados principalmente com a finalidade de conferir alguma propriedade à droga. O objetivo desse trabalho foi realizar um levantamento dos principais adulterantes encontrados nas amostras de COC através de uma revisão de escopo. Esta revisão seguiu o referencial metodológico proposto por Arksey e O’Malley. As bases de dados selecionadas para realizar a busca foram: PubMed, BVS, Scopus, Scielo e Web of Science, onde foram incluídos artigos redigidos nos idiomas inglês, português, espanhol e publicados até junho de 2019. Realizada a busca, organização dos artigos e levantamento dos adulterantes descritos na literatura, constatou-se que a lidocaína, cafeína, fenacetina, levamisol, benzocaína, procaína, diltiazem, hidroxizina, aminopirina, paracetamol e tetracaína foram os principais adulterantes utilizados nas amostras de COC. Foram abordadas as propriedades farmacológicas desses adulterantes, seu uso para fins terapêuticos, mecanismo de ação, efeitos adversos e tóxicos. Elencados as principais justificativas para a utilização dessas substâncias nas amostras de COC, e também as possíveis consequências geradas ao organismo quando se utiliza os adulterantes em associação a COC. As principais propriedades farmacológicas dos adulterantes incluíram anestésicos locais, analgésicos e antipiréticos, estimulante, anti-helmíntico, anti-histamínico, antiarrítmico, adicionados principalmente com o objetivo de potencializar ou mimetizar os efeitos da COC. Como consequência as associações da COC com esses adulterantes destaca-se, aumentar os efeitos tóxicos no organismo devido ao sinergismo causado pela combinação. Concluiu-se que a prática da adulteração da COC pode trazer riscos graves a saúde do usuário, assim como influenciar nos testes utilizados na identificação da droga. Ter o conhecimento dos componentes utilizados para adulterar a COC demonstra-se importante, pois traz o alerta para a inteligência forense e os impactos que podem gerar na área da saúde.Cocaine (COC) is an illicit central nervous system stimulating drug (CNS) and is currently in second position among the most consumed drugs worldwide. Adulteration often occurs with pharmacologically active components, which comprise a wide diversity present in the market. These adulterants are mainly used with the purpose of imparting some property to the drug. The purpose of this research is to do a survey about the main adulterants found in COC samples through a scope review. This review followed the methodological framework proposed by Arksey and O'Malley. The databases selected to perform the search were: PubMed, VHL, Scopus, Scielo and Web of Science, which included articles written in english, portuguese, spanish and published until june 2019. After researching, organizing articles and surveying the adulterants described in the literature, it was found that lidocaine, caffeine, phenacetin, levamisole, benzocaine, procaine, diltiazem, hydroxyzine, aminopyrine, paracetamol and tetracaine were the main adulterants used in the COC samples. The other adulterants found were not deeply studied, considering they were mentioned only in a few articles. Then, the pharmacological properties of these adulterants, their use for therapeutic purposes, mechanism of action, adverse and toxic effects were addressed. Then there were listed the main justifications for the use of these substances in COC samples, and also the possible consequences for the organism when using the adulterants in combination with COC. The main pharmacological properties of adulterants included local anesthetics, analgesics and antipyretics, stimulant, anthelmintic, antihistamine, antiarrhythmic, added mainly to potentiate or mimic the effects of COC. As a consequence the associations of COC with these adulterants stand out, increasing the toxic effects on the organism due to the synergism caused by the combination. It was concluded that the practice of cocaine tampering can bring serious risks to the user's health, as well as influence the tests used to identify the drug. Having the knowledge of the components used to tamper cocaine is important, as it brings alert to forensic intelligence and the impacts that can generate on health area

A consistent picture?

In times of declining party identification, political parties need to persuade and mobilize their voters from election to election. Setting topics in such a way that voters are convinced to cast their vote has become an essential prerequisite for success in modern election campaigns. Social media are suitable for this, as parties can set their own topics or highlight the topics most important to the voters and communicate them to a large audience in organic posts or target specific voter groups with ads. While tendencies of issue ownership in posts on Facebook are repeatedly shown empirically, there is a lack of studies investigating which strategies parties follow in their investment decisions on Facebook ads. Based on theoretical expectations derived from the literature about digital political marketing and issue prioritization in election campaigns, this article investigates whether parties communicated consistently on Facebook with regard to the issues they set in organic posts, sponsored posts, and ads during the 2021 German federal election campaign. The results of a manual quantitative content analysis (n = 1,029 posts, n = 1,197 sponsored posts, n = 2,643 ads) show that parties focused on issue ownership in their posts. Still, their investments in sponsored posts and ads followed different strategies. Here, most parties highlighted social policy, contradicting issue ownership for some parties. The article provides novel insights into digital campaigning and discusses the extent to which parties can engage audiences beyond their organic reach within party-affiliated audiences

Missed opportunity to connect with European citizens? Europarties’ communication on Facebook during the 2019 European election campaign

The digitization of political communication and major transformations in the European Union (EU) have altered the conditions for European election campaigns. Whereas national political parties remain highly visible political actors in the EU, Europarties attract relatively little attention from the media and citizens. Social media could provide Europarties with an opportunity to raise awareness among European citizens. In our study, we investigated the social media campaign strategies of Europarties by conducting a manual quantitative content analysis comparing their Facebook posts with the posts of national parties from 12 European countries, focusing on the communication elements used to inform and mobilize citizens, especially in relation to the lead candidates. Our results revealed that some Europarties employed the concept of European lead candidates by emphasizing their candidates in their Facebook posts. However, in their relative inactivity on Facebook compared with national parties, Europarties did not seem to counteract the oft-cited lack of a European public sphere

Attitudes of medical students towards general practice: Effects of gender, a general practice clerkship and a modern curriculum

Aims: Planning a career in general practice depends on positive attitudes towards primary care. The aim of this study was to compare attitudes of medical students of a Modern Curriculum at Hannover Medical School with those of the Traditional Curriculum before (pre) and after (post) a three-week clerkship in general practice. In parallel, we aimed to analyse several other variables such as age and gender, which could influence the attitudes

Newly diagnosed incident dizziness of older patients: a follow-up study in primary care

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>Dizziness is a common complaint of older patients in primary care, yet not much is known about the course of incident dizziness. The aim of the study was to follow-up symptoms, subjective impairments and needs of older patients (≥65) with incident dizziness and to determine predictors of chronic dizziness. Furthermore, we analysed general practitioners' (GPs') initial diagnoses, referrals and revised diagnoses after six months.</p> <p>Methods</p> <p>An observational study was performed in 21 primary care practices in Germany, including a four-week and six-month follow-up. A questionnaire comprising characteristic matters of dizziness and a series of validated instruments was completed by 66 participants during enrolment and follow-up (after 1 month and 6 months). After six months, chart reviews and face-to-face interviews were also performed with the GPs.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>Mean scores of dizziness handicap, depression and quality of life were not or only slightly affected, and did not deteriorate during follow-up; however, 24 patients (34.8%) showed a moderate or severe dizziness handicap, and 43 (62.3%) showed a certain disability in terms of quality of life at the time of enrolment. In multivariate analysis, n = 44 patients suffering from chronic dizziness (dependent variable, i.e. relapsing or persistent at six months) initially had a greater dizziness handicap (OR 1.42, 95%CI 1.05-1.47) than patients with transient dizziness. GPs referred 47.8% of the patients to specialists who detected two additional cases of benign paroxysmal positional vertigo (BPPV).</p> <p>Conclusions</p> <p>New-onset dizziness relapsed or persisted in a considerable number of patients within six months. This was difficult to predict due to the patients' heterogeneous complaints and characteristics. Symptom persistence does not seem to be associated with deterioration of the psychological status in older primary care patients. Management strategies should routinely consider BPPV as differential diagnosis.</p

Keep Them Engaged! Investigating the Effects of Self-centered Social Media Communication Style on User Engagement in 12 European Countries

On Facebook, patterns of user engagement largely shape what types of political contents citizens can see on the platform. Higher engagement leads to higher visibility. Therefore, one of the major goals of political actors' Facebook communication is to produce content with the potential to provoke user engagement, and thereby increase their own visibility. This study introduces the concept of self-centered social media communication style which focuses on 'salient' and 'owned' issues with populist and negative appeals and investigates how user engagement is related to its main elements. We also explore how users' receptivity to these content-related factors is shaped by country context. More specifically, we hypothesize that users are more likely to react, comment on and share posts focusing on salient topics or issues 'owned' by parties rather than more permanent policy issues, and posts including populist appeals and negativity. Further, we test how these effects are moderated by geographical regions and the level of party system polarization. We manually coded 9,703 Facebook posts of 68 parties from 12 European countries in the context of the 2019 European elections. Our findings show that users are more likely to engage with immigration-related, domestic, populist and negative posts, but react less to posts dealing with environmental or economic issues. While issue ownership does not play a significant role for user engagement, country context plays a minor role. However, some populist appeals are more effective in more polarized countries

Data-driven campaigning and democratic disruption : evidence from six advanced democracies

Data-driven campaigning has become one of the key foci for academic and non-academic audiences interested in political communication. Widely seen to have transformed political practice, it is often argued that data-driven campaigning is a force of significant democratic disruption because it contributes to a fragmentation of political discourse, undermines prevailing systems of electoral accountability and subverts ‘free’ and ‘fair’ elections. In this article, we present one of the very first cross-national analyses of data-driven campaigning by political parties. Drawing on empirical research conducted by experts in six advanced democracies, we show that the data-driven campaign practices seen to threaten democracy are often not manifest in party campaigns. Instead, we see a set of practices that build on pre-existing techniques and which are far less sophisticated than is often assumed. Indeed, we present evidence that most political parties lack the capacity to execute the hyper-intensive practices often associated with data-driven campaigning. Hence, while there is reason to remain alert to the challenges data-driven campaigning produces for democratic norms, we argue that this practice is not inherently disruptive, but rather exemplifies the evolving nature of political campaigning in the 21st century