The association between children’s and parents’ co-TV viewing and their total screen time in six European countries : cross-sectional data from the Feel4diabetes-study

In many European children, high levels of screen time can be found, which is associated with several adverse health outcomes. Therefore, there is a need for identifying effective intervention strategies that reduce screen time in children. A factor that may contribute to excessive screen time in children may be "co-TV viewing" (i.e., the time that parents and children spend on watching TV together), as parents often recognize the importance of limiting children's (individual) screen time, but often encourage TV viewing as a family because of its perceived benefits (e.g., educational purposes). The primary aim of this study was to investigate the (sex-specific) association between co-TV viewing and both children's and parents' screen time, and these associations were investigated across and within six European countries. In total, 10,969 parents (Mean(age) = 40.7 +/- 5.3 years, Mean(BMI) = 24.4 +/- 4.6) of primary school children (Mean(age) = 8.2 +/- 1.0 years, 49.0% boys, Mean(BMI) = 17.3 +/- 2.8) completed a questionnaire assessing co-TV viewing and screen time. Multilevel regression analyses were conducted. Across countries, positive associations were found between co-TV viewing and both children's (beta = 11.85, SE = 3.69, p < 0.001) and parents' screen time (beta = 14.47, SE = 4.43, p = 0.001). Similar associations were found in most (but not all) countries. The results suggest that targeting co-TV viewing might be a promising intervention strategy because of its potential to limit screen time of both children and parents

Financiering van de bevolkingsonderzoeken in Vlaanderen: alternatieve financieringsmethodes

Os dados foram recolhidos e registados pelo técnico da ESACB João Nunes sob a supervisão da Prof.ª Maria do Carmo Horta Monteiro.Dados climáticos relativos ao ano de 1996, recolhidos e registados no Posto Meteorológico da Escola Superior Agrária do Instituto Politécnico de Castelo Branco

Cost-effectiveness of a helpline for suicide prevention

We evaluated the cost-effectiveness and budget impact of a suicide helpline in Belgium, consisting of a telephone-and a chat service. An age-and gender-dependent Markov model with a ten-year time horizon and a one-year cycle length was developed, assuming a societal perspective, to predict cumulative costs and quality-adjusted life-years (QALYs) in the helpline users. The model included six transition states: the initial state (at risk), first attempt, re-attempt, follow-up, suicide and death from other causes. Data on the effect of the helpline and costs associated with model states were obtained from the literature. One-way and probabilistic sensitivity analyses were performed to capture uncertainty. In addition, the budget impact of the helpline was analysed. Over ten years, the telephone-as well as the chat service could avoid about 36% of suicides and attempts in this high-risk population. In males, 0.063 QALYs (95% confidence interval, CI 0.030-0.097) and 0.035 QALYs (95% CI -0.026-0.096) were gained by users of the telephone-and chat service respectively. The corresponding values for females were 0.019 QALYs (95% CI -0.015-0.052) and a QALY-neutral result of -0.005 (95% CI -0.071-0.062). There were net societal savings of respectively (sic)2382 (95% CI 1953-2859) and (sic)2282 (95% CI 1855-2758) in male users; (sic)2171 (95% CI 1735-2664) and (sic)2458 (95% CI 1945-3025) in female users. At the population level, an investment of (sic)218,899 saved (sic)1,452,022 for the public health service (national health insurance), mainly due to the telephone service. The analysis predicted that both means of telemedicine for suicide prevention in Flanders are cost-saving, and have a modest effect on QALYs