Barking and Dagenham’s Childrens’s Fund: Initial Research Findings

Barking and Dagenham Children’s Fund (BDCF) is a second wave partnership working with young people and their communities to alleviate poverty and to provide opportunities for young people aged 5 to 13 years to flourish and develop. BDCF was allocated £1.6 million and an additional £250,000 for crime related work to spend between 2002 and 2004. In a short space of time a total of 33 projects were commissioned under the four themes of Education, Health and Inequality, Disabled Children and Crime to cover the diverse needs of 5-13 year olds in the community. The University of East London was commissioned to conduct an evaluation of the Children’s Fund. This report represents the first of two evaluation phases and looks at the implementation of the programme

Evaluation of Drug Prevention Communications Project for Young People

This report on the findings of the evaluation of a drug prevention communications project for young people was commissioned by the Partnership Board of the Drugs Communication Team and conducted by researchers at the Centre for Institutional Studies at the University of East London. The research included a survey of young people’s drug use and knowledge about drugs (156 young people). Twenty-eight focus groups to assess the effectiveness of the web-site (94 young people), and eight in-depth interviews with professions to obtain their views of the website were completed. Existing research on drug use and websites, and the project’s monitoring data was collated and six steering group meetings attended

The GP Patient Survey for use in primary care in the National Health Service in the UK--development and psychometric characteristics.

BACKGROUND: The UK National GP Patient Survey is one of the largest ever survey programmes of patients registered to receive primary health care, inviting five million respondents to report their experience of NHS primary healthcare. The third such annual survey (2008/9) involved the development of a new survey instrument. We describe the process of that development, and the findings of an extensive pilot survey in UK primary healthcare. METHODS: The survey was developed following recognised guidelines and involved expert and stakeholder advice, cognitive testing of early versions of the survey instrument, and piloting of the questionnaire in a cross sectional pilot survey of 1,500 randomly selected individuals from the UK electoral register with two reminders to non-respondents. RESULTS: The questionnaire comprises 66 items addressing a range of aspects of UK primary healthcare. A response rate of 590/1500 (39.3%) was obtained. Non response to individual items ranged from 0.8% to 15.3% (median 5.2%). Participants did not always follow internal branching instructions in the questionnaire although electronic controls allow for correction of this problem in analysis. There was marked skew in the distribution of responses to a number of items indicating an overall favourable impression of care. Principal components analysis of 23 items offering evaluation of various aspects of primary care identified three components (relating to doctor or nurse care, or addressing access to care) accounting for 68.3% of the variance in the sample. CONCLUSION: The GP Patient Survey has been carefully developed and pilot-tested. Survey findings, aggregated at practice level, will be used to inform the distribution of pound sterling 65 million ($107 million) of UK NHS resource in 2008/9 and this offers the opportunity for NHS service planners and providers to take account of users' experiences of health care in planning and delivering primary healthcare in the UK.RIGHTS : This article is licensed under the BioMed Central licence at http://www.biomedcentral.com/about/license which is similar to the 'Creative Commons Attribution Licence'. In brief you may : copy, distribute, and display the work; make derivative works; or make commercial use of the work - under the following conditions: the original author must be given credit; for any reuse or distribution, it must be made clear to others what the license terms of this work are

Barking & Dagenham Children’s Fund: Early Outcomes Report

The Barking & Dagenham Children’s Fund is part of this national programme and is a key aspect of the government’s strategy to address child poverty and lack of opportunities for young people aged 5 to 13 years. BDCF started in April 2002 and the programme is overseen by the inter-agency Children’s Fund Committee (CFC). The local authority is the accountable body and the programme is managed by the Social Services Department. The BDCF identified four areas of need and funding is structured accordingly into the following themes: Education Health and Inequalities Disabilities Alternatives to Crime Between 2002 and 2004 the BDCF was allocated a total of approximately £1.6 million. A budget of £250,000 was granted in 2002 - 2003 for the street crime initiatives. In 2004 -2005 BDCF had a total allocation of £777, 638.2 This reduction is in line with a declining budget with other local Children’s Fund programme

Barking & Dagenham Children’s Fund: Early Outcomes Report

The Barking & Dagenham Children’s Fund is part of this national programme and is a key aspect of the government’s strategy to address child poverty and lack of opportunities for young people aged 5 to 13 years. BDCF started in April 2002 and the programme is overseen by the inter-agency Children’s Fund Committee (CFC). The local authority is the accountable body and the programme is managed by the Social Services Department. The BDCF identified four areas of need and funding is structured accordingly into the following themes: Education Health and Inequalities Disabilities Alternatives to Crime Between 2002 and 2004 the BDCF was allocated a total of approximately £1.6 million. A budget of £250,000 was granted in 2002 - 2003 for the street crime initiatives. In 2004 -2005 BDCF had a total allocation of £777, 638.2 This reduction is in line with a declining budget with other local Children’s Fund programme

The Prevalence of Itch in German Schoolchildren : A Population-based Study

Itch is a common symptom, but there is limited evidence on the prevalence of itch in children. The aim of this study was to assess the prevalence of itch in schoolchildren. A questionnaire was developed by experts in the field and based on a literature search. The questionnaire was applied in a pilot study of 25 consecutively selected paediatric patients and their parents. It confirmed the high content validity of the questionnaire, and the questionnaire was comparable to hospital records regarding chronic itch (n = 19, mean consistency 89.47%). The questionnaire was distributed among German schoolchildren in 9/12 randomly selected primary schools in Kiel, Germany. Of 1,722 invited students, 443 schoolchildren aged 6-10 years participated, and 26.2% (n = 116) reported itch. The prevalence of acute itch was 20.0% (n = 87), and 14.7% (n = 65) reported chronic itch. Reduced sleep and mood were often related to chronic itch. This study demonstrated that itch is a common symptom in German schoolchildren

Micafungin versus liposomal amphotericin B for pediatric patients with invasive candidiasis: Substudy of a randomized double-blind trial.

Background: Invasive candidiasis is increasingly prevalent in premature infants and seriously ill children, and pediatric data on available antifungal therapies are lacking. Methods: We conducted a pediatric substudy as part of a double-blind, randomized, multinational trial to compare micafungin (2 mg/kg) with liposomal amphotericin B (3 mg/kg) as first-line treatment of invasive candidiasis. Treatment success was defined as clinical and mycologic response at the end of therapy. Statistical analyses were descriptive, as the sample size meant that the study was not powered for hypothesis testing. Results: One hundred six patients were included in the intent-to-treat population; and 98 patients-48 patients in the micafungin group and 50 patients in the liposomal amphotericin B group-in the modified intent-to-treat population. Baseline characteristics were balanced between treatment groups. Overall, 57 patients wer