Construction of a Form for Users of the Child Welfare System Based on the Delphi Method

Professionals in charge of designing individualized plans for children and adolescents in the child welfare system often lack the necessary information, either because it has not been systematically collected or because there are doubts about the reliability of the data obtained. The lack of consensual and validated instruments that gather the necessary information has led to the development of a rigorous and effective form, based on the Delphi methodology, aimed at obtaining an exhaustive knowledge of the characteristics of children and adolescents under the child welfare system. Once a consensus of different specialists approved the hetero-informed form, it was completed by 41 professionals working in residential care facilities for 307 children and adolescents. It consists of 66 items grouped into six dimensions: general information, school/work situation, child welfare system history, family visitation history, biological family information, and experiences of sexual abuse. During its construction and validation, a panel of experts analyzed its format and content during the different phases. Most of the items showed good performance, and professionals highlighted their ease of use and relevance. The method used ensured the content validity of this form. This instrument has proven to be a useful and effective tool for collecting sociodemographic information on children and adolescents in the child welfare system, which may improve their conditions

Does emotion regulation in adolescents in residential care mitigate the association between sexual victimization and poor psychological well-being?

Background: Childhood sexual abuse/assault has been linked to mental health problems that affect an individual’s psychological well-being. This study explores the facets of emotional regulation as mediating mechanisms in the relationship between sexual victimization and psychological well-being in adolescents in residential care in Eastern Spain. Furthermore, it examines the role of sex assigned at birth and being unaccompanied asylum seeker children as possible moderators of the mediation model. Methods: A total of 346 adolescents (34.1% girls, 65.9% boys) aged between 11 and 19 years old completed a battery of instruments. Parallel multiple mediation paths were tested to determine whether sexual victimization is associated to psychological well-being across emotional regulation dimensions. Moderated mediation models with sex assigned at birth and the condition of unaccompanied asylum seeker children were tested too. Results: This study demonstrates that high sexual victimization is associated with poor psychological well-being in adolescents in residential care through the lack of emotional clarity, non-acceptance of emotional responses, and limited access to emotional regulation strategies (β = − 0.6, 95%CI = − 1.26, − 0.09; β = − 0.38, 95%CI = − 0.9, 0.002; β = − 0.39, 95%CI = − 0.93, − 0.03, respectively). In addition, the latter indirect effect pathway was significantly moderated by the condition of being unaccompanied asylum seeker children (β = 1.46, 95%CI = 0.28, 2.84). Sex assigned at birth was not shown to be a significant moderator. Conclusions: Identifying which mechanisms of emotional regulation mediate the relationship between sexual victimization and psychological well-being in adolescents in residential care may contribute not only to reducing the psychological distress of these adolescents but also to improving the effectiveness and efficacy of the child welfare system

Development and Psychometric Properties of an Instrument for the Assessment of Assertiveness in Sexual Relations

Introduction The potential consequences of being assertive or non-assertive for people’s sexual health and sexual well-being highlight the importance of assessing sexual assertiveness (SA). The currently available measures have limitations because they do not take recent social changes into account, they are designed to only assess women, and/or they ignore several com- ponents of SA. This study tests the psychometric properties of the Assertiveness in Sexual Relations Questionnaire (ASRQ). Methods Thus, 2370 participants (aged 18–69 years) of Spain completed the ASRQ, along with other scales that assesses related dimensions (e.g., family values in relation to sexual assertiveness, sexual esteem). Data were collected during 2020. Results Exploratory factor analysis yielded a four-factor structure: Assertive behavior as initiative, sub-assertive behavior, overly assertive behavior as initiative, and assertive behavior as a response, which was verified by confirmatory factor analysis (CFA). A multigroup CFA was also conducted in men and women, confirming the adequacy of this four-factor structure across genders. The reliability of the factors ranged from 0.72 to 0.87. Similarly, correlations with related scales were mostly significant and in the expected direction. Conclusions The psychometric results obtained support the use of the ASRQ as a reliable and valid measure to assess sexual assertiveness in both men and women. Policy Implications The availability of an instrument to assess sexual assertiveness, whose psychometric properties have been satisfactorily tested, benefits society by contributing to the improvement of the sexual health of the population, allowing for more effective interventions and the early detection of skills that contribute to the establishment of risky sexual interactions

Analysis of the Diferential Efcacy of the Reduced Version Over the Extended Version of an Afective‑Sexual Education Program for Adults with Intellectual Disabilities

Recently, with the increase in demand, multiple intervention proposals aimed at improving the sexual health of people with intellectual disabilities have emerged. Among them is the SALUDIVERSEX program, which takes a positive approach to sexuality. It has an extended version, consisting of 16 sessions and whose efcacy has already been proven, and a reduced version of 10 sessions. Thus, the present study aimed to test the diferential efcacy of the two versions. A total of 208 participants (103 women and 105 men) aged between 19 and 67 years (M=37.23, SD=10.66) completed a battery of instruments before and after the intervention. Statistical analyses showed that users who participated in the reduced version of the program presented a signifcantly higher rate of improvement in their sexual behaviors compared to those who participated in the extended version (Sexual response: β10=− 0.46±0.19, p=.034; Sex practices: β10=− 0.52±0.23, p=.037; Use condoms: β10=− 1.56±0.59, p=.017), as well as a signifcantly higher decrease in the risk of sufering sexual abuse (β10=3.95±0.64, p<.001). However, no statistically signifcant diferences in sexuality knowledge were obtained with respect to the improvement between the two versions (β10=− 0.09±1.21, p=.94). Meanwhile, the professionals who applied the program found that those who participated in the reduced version, although they presented a signifcantly greater increase in their knowledge about privacy (β10=− 0.48±0.08, p<.001), did not improve their concerns about their inappropriate sexual behaviors as much as the users of the extended version (β10=− 1.35±0.21, p<.001). Thus, although both versions were efective, the reduced version seems to do so to a greater extent and in a shorter time, which makes it the more recommendable option

Radio Resource Management Scheme for URLLC and EMBB coexistence in a Cell-Less Radio Access network

We address the latency challenges in a high-density and high-load scenario for an ultra-reliable and low-latency communication (URLLC) network which may coexist with enhanced mobile broadband (eMBB) services in the evolving wireless communication networks. We propose a new radio resource management (RRM) scheme consisting of a combination of time domain (TD) and frequency domain (FD) schedulers specific for URLLC and eMBB users. We also develop a user ranking algorithm from a radio unit (RU) perspective, which is employed by the TD scheduler to increase the efficiency of scheduling in terms of resource consumption in large-scale networks. Therefore, the optimized and novel resource scheduling scheme reduces latency for the URLLC users (requesting a URLLC service) in an efficient resource utilization manner to support scenarios with high user density. At the same time, this RRM scheme, while minimizing the latency, it also overcomes another important challenge of eMBB users (requesting an eMBB service), namely the throughput of those who coexist in such highly loaded scenario with URLLC users. The effectiveness of our proposed scheme including time and frequency domain (TD and FD) schedulers is analyzed. Simulation results show that the proposed scheme improves the latency of URLLC users and throughput of the eMBB users compared to the baseline scheme. The proposed scheme has a 29% latency improvement for URLLC and 90% signal-to-interference-plus-noise ratio (SINR) improvement for eMBB users as compared with conventional scheduling policies.This work was supported by the European Union H2020 Research and Innovation Programme funded by the Marie Skłodowska-Curie ITN TeamUp5G Project under Grant 813391

General Bayesian inference schemes in infinite mixture models

Bayesian statistical models allow us to formalise our knowledge about the world and reason about our uncertainty, but there is a need for better procedures to accurately encode its inherent complexity. One way to do so is through compositional models, which are formed by combining blocks or components consisting of simpler models. One can increase the complexity of the compositional model by either stacking more blocks or by using a not-so-simple model as a building block. This thesis is an example of the latter. One first aim is to expand the choice of Bayesian nonparametric (BNP) blocks for constructing tractable compositional models. So far, most of the models that have a Bayesian nonparametric component use either a Dirichlet Process or a Pitman–Yor process because of the availability of tractable and compact representations. This thesis shows how to overcome certain intractabilities in order to obtain analogous compact representations for the very wide class of Poisson–Kingman priors which includes the Dirichlet and Pitman–Yor processes. A major impediment to the widespread use of Bayesian nonparametric building blocks is that inference is often costly, intractable or difficult to carry out. This is an active research area since dealing with the model’s infinite dimensional component forbids the direct use of standard simulation-based methods. The main contribution of this thesis is a variety of inference schemes that tackle this problem: Markov chain Monte Carlo and Sequential Monte Carlo methods, which are exact inference methods since they target the true posterior. The contributions of this thesis, in a larger context, provide general purpose exact inference schemes in the flavour or probabilistic programming: the user is able to choose from a variety of models, focusing only on the modelling part. We show how if the wide enough class of Poisson–Kingman priors is used as one of our blocks, this objective is achieved

HIV Prevention Interventions for Young Male Commercial Sex Workers

The sex industry, where men sell sexual services to other men or women, has grown in recent years. These men who offer sexual services are particularly vulnerable to HIV infection due to such factors as: frequency of risky sexual practices, number of sex partners, drug-taking, prevalence of sexually-transmitted infections (STI) and their specific situation of social exclusion which may hinder access to health services. These multi-faceted realities faced by sex workers explain the burgeoning interest in new avenues of scientific research. There are too few preventive programs however aimed at this population group and the studies that evaluate their effectiveness are fewer still. In this article we survey more recent studies on the difficulties of implementing programs for HIV prevention in male sex workers (MSW), as well as the studies that have gauged the impact of preventive programs in this group

Información para la prevención del VIH. Sí, pero ¿de qué modo?

Catorzenes Jornades de Foment de la Investigació de la FCHS (Any 2008-2009

HIV-Risk Index: Development and Validation of a Brief Risk Index for Hispanic Young People

The prevalence of HIV risk behaviors among young people facilitates the spread of HIV, in particular regarding unsafe sex behavior, although this trend is different within this population. For this reason, identifying the riskier young population is required to prevent HIV infection. The main purpose of this study was to develop and validate a risk index to assess the different sexual HIV risk exposure among Hispanic Young people. For this purpose, 9861 Spanish young people were randomly distributed into two groups (derivation and validation group). According to the results, the factor analyses grouped the nine items of the HIV- risk index into two factors (factor 1, direct sexual risk indicators and factor 2, indirect sexual risk indicators) with an equal structure for men and women by a multi-group confirmatory factor analysis. The variance explained was 54.26 %. Moreover, the Cronbach’s alpha coefficient revealed high internal reliability (α = .79) and the convergent validity supported its evidence based on different HIV risk indexes. Therefore, the HIV-risk index seem to be a rigorous and valid measure to estimate HIV risk exposure among young people.The authors acknowledge young people who have participated in our studies during these years, as well as some colleagues who have contributed to them such as Maite Edo, Mª Carmen Guirado, Jose Miguel Bravo, Sandra Gómez and Cristina Cassà. Authors’ Contribution Rafael Ballester-Arnal & María Dolores Gil-Llario contributed to the design of the study, obtaining funding, and study supervision.Rafael Ballester-Arnal, María Dolores Gil-Llario, Jesús Castro-Calvo & Cristina Giménez-García participated in recruiting participants, collecting data, analysis/interpretation of data, and writing of the paper. Funding This study has been associated with different projects funded by Generalitat Valenciana (B2/2001, B3/2002), Fundación para la Investigación y Prevención del Sida en España, FIPSE (Exp. 12436/03; Exp. 36639/07) and Universitat Jaume I/Fundación Bancaja (P1.1 B 2004-18; P1.1 B2006-19)

Effectiveness of HIV prevention for women: What is working?

The HIV-AIDS remains a public health prob- lem which disproportionally affects women. However, prevention strategies have rarely considered their specific efficacy for them. For this reason, this study examines the differential effectiveness of six intervention elements based on socio-cognitive theories addressing young women. A controlled between-groups design examined the change in risk profile among 167 young Spanish women (mean age 21.3 years old) involved in five sexual risk prevention interventions (informative talk, attitudinal discussion, role- play, fear induction and informative website) and one control non-intervening group (waiting list). Our findings support the differential efficacy of some HIV preventive intervention elements comparing others for women. In particular, the attitudinal discussion stands out followed by the informative talk and the role play. Contrarily, the fear induction component did not reveal relevant improvements. This study provides new evidence related to HIV prevention. Particularly, the higher efficacy of moti- vational components for these young Spanish women is revealed.El VIH-Sida supone un problema de salud que afecta, desproporcionadamente, a las mujeres. Sin embargo, los programas preventivos raramente han considerado el impacto especı́fico que, sobre ellas, ha tenido. Por este motivo, este estudio examinar la eficacia diferencial de seis elementos (charla informativa, discussion actitudinal, juego de roles, inducción al miedo y web informativa) de intervención dirigidos a mujeres basados en teorías sociocognitivas. Mediante un estudio controlado de comparación entre grupos se examinó el cambio en el perfil de riesgo de 167 mujeres jóvenes españolas (promedio de edad: 21,3 años) que participaron en cinco intervenciones dirigidas a prevenir conductas sexuales de riesgo (charla informativa, discusión, actitudinal, juego de roles, exposición al miedo y una web) además de un grupo control sin intervención (en lista de espera). Nuestros hallazgos apoyan la eficacia diferencial de unos elementos de intervención para prevenir el VIH en comparación con otros en el caso de las mujeres. En particular, destaca la discusión actitudinal (basada en componentes motivacionales) seguida de la charla informativa (que incluía conocimientos básicos) y el juego de roles (basado en el componente de habilidades). Por el contrario, la exposición al miedo no reveló mejoras importantes. Este estudio aporta nuevas evidencias relacionadas con la prevención del VIH. En concreto, con la mayor eficacia de los componentes motivacionales para esta muestra de mujeres jóvenes española