An Investigation of the Information Provided to the Parents of Young People with Mental Health Needs on an Internet Forum

Background: Access to Children and Adolescent Mental Health Services (CAMHS) can be difficult, with lengthy wait times. Many of the young people and their parents are not signposted to any form of support during their wait for initial assessment or treatment and people are increasingly turning towards web-based resources for help and advice. However, there are some concerns about the quality of the information shared online. Research on the use and quality of information shared on online platforms for mental health inquiries is limited. Aims: We aimed to investigate the content and quality of the responses shared by forum users on an online forum for parents of young people with mental health needs (Mumsnet ‘Talk’). Forum users were primarily parents, but 8 posts were written by posters identifying as a healthcare worker, teacher, or autism spectrum specialist. Methods: Qualitative methodology was adopted for this study. Forum content from Mumsnet was extracted in an anonymised form and thematic analysis was conducted to explore the content. Information shared in the online forum was assessed for quality by comparing the responses with clinical guidelines. Results: Thread topics related to 16 mental health problems. “Autistic Traits/Autism Spectrum Disorder”, “Obsessions and Intrusive Thoughts/ Obsessive Compulsive Disorder” and “Comorbid Anxiety and Depression” were the most prevalent thread topics, consisting 38.3% of the extracted content. The investigation focused on “Information Offered” as the general dimension. Based on the thematic analysis, there were four second-order themes regarding the information offered by forum users; referral, advice, anecdotal information and opinion on case. The quantitative assessment of responses found that 58.3% of the knowledge exchange on Mumsnet was congruent with evidence-based clinical guidelines. Conclusions: Themes indicate that parents of children and young people with mental health needs seem to use online fora for informational support. It is promising that a significant proportion of the information shared within the extracted forum content is congruent with evidence-based knowledge. However, further investigation is needed to generate better understanding of the overall quality of mental health information available on online platforms

Experiences of Accessing and Undergoing Psychological Therapy in the UK: Turkish International Students’ Perspective

There is a global rise in the occurrence and severity of mental health problems and help-seeking behaviours among students in higher education. Despite experiencing similar levels of psychological distress, international students experience and present with different symptoms of mental health concerns and don’t seek help as much as their domestic counterparts. Overall, qualitative research concerning students' therapy experience in the UK is limited and the international student mental health literature has mainly focused on Asian students. According to the researcher’s knowledge, there is no research investigating the help-seeking experience of Turkish students who are abroad for their studies. This paper presents findings from a qualitative study that explored the experience of accessing and undergoing psychological therapy of Turkish international students. Data were collected using semi-structured interviews with eight Turkish women who had engaged in psychological therapy whilst studying in the UK. Reflexive Thematic Analysis from a critical realist perspective was applied in the research process, which resulted in seven themes: deviation from the normal, pulling in two directions, feeling (un)invited, unmet expectations, managing the differences, benefits from therapy, and the nice therapist. Some of the themes consisted of sub-themes which described different aspects of participants’ experiences. The findings were centred around the cultural and/or language influences on the experience of seeking professional help and engaging in therapy as an international student. It is hoped that the findings will inform and motivate service providers to develop multiculturally competent psychological therapy practices and accessible service provisions attuned to Turkish international students’ needs

ODFNet: Using orientation distribution functions to characterize 3D point clouds

Learning new representations of 3D point clouds is an active research area in 3D vision, as the order-invariant point cloud structure still presents challenges to the design of neural network architectures. Recent works explored learning either global or local features or both for point clouds, however none of the earlier methods focused on capturing contextual shape information by analysing local orientation distribution of points. In this paper, we leverage on point orientation distributions around a point in order to obtain an expressive local neighborhood representation for point clouds. We achieve this by dividing the spherical neighborhood of a given point into predefined cone volumes, and statistics inside each volume are used as point features. In this way, a local patch can be represented by not only the selected point's nearest neighbors, but also considering a point density distribution defined along multiple orientations around the point. We are then able to construct an orientation distribution function (ODF) neural network that involves an ODFBlock which relies on mlp (multi-layer perceptron) layers. The new ODFNet model achieves state-of the-art accuracy for object classification on ModelNet40 and ScanObjectNN datasets, and segmentation on ShapeNet S3DIS datasets.Comment: The paper is under consideration at Computer Vision and Image Understandin

Understanding the Relationship between SelfConstruals, Self-Esteem, Social Support, and the Sociocultural Adaptation of African Students in Northern Cyprus

In this study, we explored the relationship between self-construals, selfesteem, social support, and the sociocultural adaptation of African students in Northern Cyprus. Based on the responses received from 112 students from Sub-Saharan Africa studying in Northern Cyprus, the results indicated that only the interdependent self-construal and social support predicted sociocultural adaptation. This study highlights the importance of social support and relatedness for international students from Sub-Saharan Africa studying in Northern Cyprus

Illness perceptions of Turkish Cypriot patients receiving haemodialysis: A qualitative study

This is a peer reviewed version of the following article which has been published in final form at https://doi.org/10.1111/jorc.12351. This article may be used for non-commercial purposes in accordance with Wiley Terms and Conditions for Use of Self-Archived Versions.Background: Illness perceptions refer to cognitive appraisals that help patients understand and make sense of their condition. Although their importance in health behaviour and outcomes has been evidenced, less is known about cultural influences on mental representations of kidney failure amongst patients receiving haemodialysis in different settings. Objective: To explore the illness perceptions of Turkish patients receiving haemodialysis in North Cyprus (Turkish Cypriots). Design: A qualitative study involving individual semistructured interviews. Participants: Fourteen patients receiving haemodialysis, recruited from three state hospitals in North Cyprus. Approach: All interviews were conducted in Turkish, audio‐recorded, and transcribed verbatim. They were analysed inductively in the original language using reflexive thematic analysis. Once the analysis was completed, it was translated into English. Quality assurance was integral to the research process to retain semantic equivalence. Findings: Three themes were developed. “Illness appraisal” highlighted a lack of factual knowledge about kidney failure and how this is related to attempts at sense‐making, whilst retaining hope for the future. “Life‐changing effects” centred around the negative consequences of haemodialysis across multiple domains (e.g., emotional and physical).“Active coping strategies” focused on mechanisms that patients adopt to manage the burden of haemodialysis, particularly approaches that are culturally rooted.Peer reviewe

Added value of diffusion-weighted images and dynamic contrast enhancement in multiparametric magnetic resonance imaging for the detection of clinically significant prostate cancer in the PICTURE trial

Objective To determine the additional diagnostic value of diffusion‐weighted imaging (DWI) and dynamic contrast‐enhanced (DCE) imaging in men requiring a repeat biopsy within the PICTURE study. Patients and Methods PICTURE was a paired‐cohort confirmatory study in which 249 men who required further risk stratification following a previous non‐MRI guided TRUS biopsy underwent a 3‐Tesla mpMRI consisting of T2W, DWI and DCE followed by transperineal template prostate mapping (TPM) biopsy. Each mpMRI was reported using a LIKERT score in a sequential blinded manner to generate scores for T2W, T2W+DWI and T2W+DWI+DCE. Area under the receiver operating characteristic (AUROC) fanalysis was performed to compare the diagnostic accuracy of each combination. The threshold for a positive mpMRI was set as a LIKERT score >/=3. Clinically significant prostate cancer was analysed across a range of definitions including UCL/Ahmed Definition 1 (primary definition), UCL/Ahmed Definition 2, any Gleason >/=3+4 and any Gleason >/=4+3. Results Of 249, sequential MRI reporting was available for 246. There was a higher rate of equivocal lesions (44.6%) using T2W alone compared to the addition of DWI (23.9%) and DCE (19.8%). Using the primary definition of clinically significant disease, there was no significant difference in the overall accuracy between T2W at AUROC 0.74 (95% CI 0.68‐0.80), T2W+DWI at 0.76 (95% CI 0.71‐0.82) and T2W+DWI+DCE at 0.77 (95% CI 0.71‐0.82) (p=0.55). The AUROCs remained comparable using other definitions of clinically significant disease including UCL/Ahmed 2 (p=0.79), Gleason >/=3+4 (p=0.53) and Gleason >/=4+3 (p=0.53). Conclusions Using a 3T MRI, a high level of diagnostic accuracy can be achieved using T2W as a single parameter in men with a prior biopsy. However, such a strategy can lead to a higher rate of equivocal lesions

Grounding Childhood (Trans)National Identities in the Everyday

This paper engages with the lived and experiential aspects of (trans)national identities in childhood, through the exploration of an ethnographic biography of a Greek-Albanian boy in Athens. Through a grounded ethnographic approach, we examine the ways in which he experiences and negotiates his (trans)national identity. Our analysis demonstrates the everyday subtle and sophisticated understanding of the complexities and contradictions of national identities, and the child’s own positioning within that. In conclusion, we suggest that interdisciplinary approaches should be assumed in the study of (trans)national identities in childhood, and ones that are grounded in children’s own meaning making of their experiences of such identities

MRI in active surveillance: a critical review

INTRODUCTION: Recent technological advancements and the introduction of modern anatomical and functional sequences have led to a growing role for multiparametric magnetic resonance imaging (mpMRI) in the detection, risk assessment and monitoring of early prostate cancer. This includes men who have been diagnosed with lower-risk prostate cancer and are looking at the option of active surveillance (AS). The purpose of this paper is to review the recent evidence supporting the use of mpMRI at different time points in AS, as well as to discuss some of its potential pitfalls. METHODS: A combination of electronic and manual searching methods were used to identify recent, important papers investigating the role of mpMRI in AS. RESULTS: The high negative predictive value of mpMRI can be exploited for the selection of AS candidates. In addition, mpMRI can be efficiently used to detect higher risk disease in patients already on surveillance. CONCLUSION: Although there is an ongoing debate regarding the precise nature of its optimal implementation, mpMRI is a promising risk stratification tool and should be considered for men on AS