Is Parental Anxiety and Coping Associated with Girls\u27 Distress During a VCUG? Preliminary Findings

Purpose: We investigated the relationship between parental anxiety/coping strategies and girls\u27 distress during VCUGs. Methods: Parents of 32 girls (age 4-10, mean 5.8 years) completed a trait anxiety measure and a measure of parental reactions to children\u27s distress. Post procedure, children, parents and radiology staff rated the level of anxiety, fear, pain and discomfort. Results: Trends indicated that parents who reported increased anxiety rated their children as experiencing increased distress (r = 0.27, p = 0.071), similarly for medical staff ratings (r = 0.28, p = 0.061). Parents with lower trait anxiety scores reported using more emotion- and problem-focused coping strategies (r = -0.37 and r = -0.40, p \u3c 0.05, respectively). These were related to children experiencing less procedural distress (r = -0.30, p = 0.054; r = -0.33, p = 0.037, respectively) and parents rated as less anxious by staff (r = -0.40, p = 0.014; r = -0.31, p = 0.047, respectively). Conclusions: There was a trend toward parental anxiety being related to their child\u27s distress during VCUG. Parental coping strategies resulted in less distress among children and parents. Teaching coping techniques might obviate the need for sedation and help children deal with future stressors

Food insecurity: is it an issue among tertiary students?

Insufficient access to food is known to compromise tertiary studies. Students often belong to groups known to have poor food security such as those renting or relying on government payments. The present study administered a cross-sectional survey incorporating the USDA food security survey module (FSSM) to 810 students at a metropolitan university in Brisbane, Australia. One in four students indicated they were food insecure, this being double that previously reported for tertiary students and five times that previously reported for the general population. Factors associated with food insecurity included low income, reliance on government support and renting. Students from food insecure households were twice as likely to report only fair or poor general health and three times as likely to have deferred their studies due to financial difficulties. Further, at least 80 % of these students reported that their studies were compromised. Strategies to alleviate food insecurity among students could improve retention rates and educational outcomes