Changes in undergraduate student alcohol consumption as they progress through university

BACKGROUND: Unhealthy alcohol use amongst university students is a major public health concern. Although previous studies suggest a raised level of consumption amongst the UK student population there is little consistent information available about the pattern of alcohol consumption as they progress through university. The aim of the current research was to describe drinking patterns of UK full-time undergraduate students as they progress through their degree course. METHOD: Data were collected over three years from 5895 undergraduate students who began their studies in either 2000 or 2001. Longitudinal data (i.e. Years 1–3) were available from 225 students. The remaining 5670 students all responded to at least one of the three surveys (Year 1 n = 2843; Year 2 n = 2219; Year 3 n = 1805). Results: Students reported consuming significantly more units of alcohol per week at Year 1 than at Years 2 or 3 of their degree. Male students reported a higher consumption of units of alcohol than their female peers. When alcohol intake was classified using the Royal College of Physicians guidelines [1] there was no difference between male and females students in terms of the percentage exceeding recommended limits. Compared to those who were low level consumers students who reported drinking above low levels at Year 1 had at least 10 times the odds of continuing to consume above low levels at year 3. Students who reported higher levels of drinking were more likely to report that alcohol had a negative impact on their studies, finances and physical health. Consistent with the reduction in units over time students reported lower levels of negative impact during Year 3 when compared to Year 1. CONCLUSION: The current findings suggest that student alcohol consumption declines over their undergraduate studies; however weekly levels of consumption at Year 3 remain high for a substantial number of students. The persistence of high levels of consumption in a large population of students suggests the need for effective preventative and treatment interventions for all year groups

Experienced stressors and coping strategies among Iranian nursing students

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>College students are prone to stress due to the transitional nature of college life. High levels of stress are believed to affect students' health and academic functions. If the stress is not dealt with effectively, feelings of loneliness, nervousness, sleeplessness and worrying may result. Effective coping strategies facilitate the return to a balanced state, reducing the negative effects of stress.</p> <p>Methods</p> <p>This descriptive cross-sectional study was performed to determine sources of stress and coping strategies in nursing students studying at the Iran Faculty of Nursing & Midwifery. All undergraduate nursing students enrolled in years 1-4 during academic year 2004-2005 were included in this study, with a total of 366 questionnaires fully completed by the students. The Student Stress Survey and the Adolescent Coping Orientation for Problem Experiences Inventory (ACOPE) were used for data collection.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>Most students reported "finding new friends" (76.2%), "working with people they did not know" (63.4%) as interpersonal sources of stress, "new responsibilities" (72.1%), "started college" (65.8%) as intrapersonal sources of stress more than others. The most frequent academic source of stress was "increased class workload" (66.9%) and the most frequent environmental sources of stress were being "placed in unfamiliar situations" (64.2%) and "waiting in long lines" (60.4%). Interpersonal and environmental sources of stress were reported more frequently than intrapersonal and academic sources. Mean interpersonal (P=0.04) and environmental (P=0.04) sources of stress were significantly greater in first year than in fourth year students. Among coping strategies in 12 areas, the family problem solving strategies, "trying to reason with parents and compromise" (73%) and "going along with family rules" (68%) were used "often or always" by most students. To cope with engaging in demanding activity, students often or always used "trying to figure out how to deal with problems" (66.4%) and "trying to improve themselves" (64.5%). The self-reliance strategy, "trying to make their own decisions" (62%); the social support strategies, "apologizing to people" (59.6%), "trying to help other people solve their problems" (56.3%), and "trying to keep up friendships or make new friends" (54.4%); the spiritual strategy, "praying" (65.8%); the seeking diversions strategy, "listening to music" (57.7%), the relaxing strategy "day dreaming" (52.5%), and the effort to "be close with someone cares about you" (50.5%) were each used "often or always" by a majority of students. Most students reported that the avoiding strategies "smoking" (93.7%) and "drinking beer or wine" (92.9%), the ventilating strategies "saying mean things to people" and "swearing" (85.8%), the professional support strategies "getting professional counseling" (74.6%) and "talking to a teacher or counselor" (67.2%) and the humorous strategy "joking and keeping a sense of humor" (51.9%) were used "seldom or never".</p> <p>Conclusion</p> <p>First year nursing students are exposed to a variety of stressors. Establishing a student support system during the first year and improving it throughout nursing school is necessary to equip nursing students with effective coping skills. Efforts should include counseling helpers and their teachers, strategies that can be called upon in these students' future nursing careers.</p

Surgery in recurrent ovarian cancer

Ovarian cancer is one of the most challenging diseases in gynecologic oncology. The presentation of frequent recurrences requires the establishment and further development of therapy standards for this patient group. Surgery is crucial in the therapy of patients with primary ovarian cancer, and the postoperative residual tumor mass is the most relevant clinical prognostic factor. The surgical management of recurrent disease is still subject to an emotional international discussion. Only a few prospective clinical trials focused on the effects of surgery in relapsed ovarian cancer have been published. The available data show improvements in the prognosis due to complete cytoreduction in the setting of recurrence. However, the selection of eligible patients is the essential issue. Therefore, the establishment of reliable predictive factors for complete tumor resection as well as a definition of the group of patients who might profit from this approach remains a field for research. Further randomized trials designed to develop and incorporate operative standards for recurrent ovarian cancer should follow

Targeting young drinkers online: the effectiveness of a web-based brief alcohol intervention in reducing heavy drinking among college students: study protocol of a two-arm parallel group randomized controlled trial

Contains fulltext : 99751.pdf (publisher's version ) (Open Access)Background: The prevalence of heavy drinking among college students and its associated health related consequences highlights an urgent need for alcohol prevention programs targeting 18 to 24 year olds. Nevertheless, current alcohol prevention programs in the Netherlands pay surprisingly little attention to the drinking patterns of this specific age group. The study described in this protocol will test the effectiveness of a web-based brief alcohol intervention that is aimed at reducing alcohol use among heavy drinking college students aged 18 to 24 years old. Methods/Design: The effectiveness of the What Do You Drink web-based brief alcohol intervention will be tested among 908 heavy drinking college students in a two-arm parallel group randomized controlled trial. Participants will be allocated at random to either the experimental (N = 454: web-based brief alcohol intervention) or control condition (N = 454: no intervention). The primary outcome measure will be the percentage of participants who drink within the normative limits of the Dutch National Health Council for low-risk drinking. These limits specify that, for heavy alcohol use, the mean consumption cannot exceed 14 or 21 glasses of standard alcohol units per week for females and males, respectively, while for binge drinking, the consumption cannot exceed five or more glasses of standard alcohol units on one drinking occasion at least once per week within one month and six months after the intervention. Reductions in mean weekly alcohol consumption and frequency of binge drinking are also primary outcome measures. Weekly Ecological Momentary Assessment will measure alcohol-related cognitions, that is, attitudes, self-efficacy, subjective norms and alcohol expectancies, which will be included as the secondary outcome measures. Discussion: This study protocol describes the two-arm parallel group randomized controlled trial developed to evaluate the effectiveness of a web-based brief alcohol intervention. We expect a reduction of mean weekly alcohol consumption and frequency of binge drinking in the experimental condition compared to the control condition as a direct result of the intervention. If the website is effective, it will be implemented in alcohol prevention initiatives, which will facilitate the implementation of the protocol.8 p

Prospective Monitoring Reveals Dynamic Levels of T Cell Immunity to Mycobacterium Tuberculosis in HIV Infected Individuals

Monitoring of latent Mycobacterium tuberculosis infection may prevent disease. We tested an ESAT-6 and CFP-10-specific IFN-γ Elispot assay (RD1-Elispot) on 163 HIV-infected individuals living in a TB-endemic setting. An RD1-Elispot was performed every 3 months for a period of 3–21 months. 62% of RD1-Elispot negative individuals were positive by cultured Elispot. Fluctuations in T cell response were observed with rates of change ranging from −150 to +153 spot-forming cells (SFC)/200,000 PBMC in a 3-month period. To validate these responses we used an RD1-specific real time quantitative PCR assay for monokine-induced by IFN-γ (MIG) and IFN-γ inducible protein-10 (IP10) (MIG: r = 0.6527, p = 0.0114; IP-10: r = 0.6967, p = 0.0056; IP-10+MIG: r = 0.7055, p = 0.0048). During follow-up 30 individuals were placed on ARVs and 4 progressed to active TB. Fluctuations in SFC did not correlate with CD4 count, viral load, treatment initiation, or progression to active TB. The RD1-Elispot appears to have limited value in this setting

Feasibility test of a UK-scalable electronic system for regular collection of patient-reported outcome measures and linkage with clinical cancer registry data: The electronic Patient-reported Outcomes from Cancer Survivors (ePOCS) system

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>Cancer survivors can face significant physical and psychosocial challenges; there is a need to identify and predict which survivors experience what sorts of difficulties. As highlighted in the UK National Cancer Survivorship Initiative, routine post-diagnostic collection of patient reported outcome measures (PROMs) is required; to be most informative, PROMs must be linked and analysed with patients' diagnostic and treatment information. We have designed and built a potentially cost-efficient UK-scalable electronic system for collecting PROMs via the internet, at regular post-diagnostic time-points, for linking these data with patients' clinical data in cancer registries, and for electronically managing the associated patient monitoring and communications; the electronic Patient-reported Outcomes from Cancer Survivors (ePOCS) system. This study aims to test the feasibility of the ePOCS system, by running it for 2 years in two Yorkshire NHS Trusts, and using the Northern and Yorkshire Cancer Registry and Information Service.</p> <p>Methods/Design</p> <p>Non-metastatic breast, colorectal and prostate cancer patients (largest survivor groups), within 6 months post-diagnosis, will be recruited from hospitals in the Yorkshire Cancer Network. Participants will be asked to complete PROMS, assessing a range of health-related quality-of-life outcomes, at three time-points up to 15 months post-diagnosis, and subsequently to provide opinion on the ePOCS system via a feedback questionnaire. Feasibility will be examined primarily in terms of patient recruitment and retention rates, the representativeness of participating patients, the quantity and quality of collected PROMs data, patients' feedback, the success and reliability of the underpinning informatics, and the system running costs. If sufficient data are generated during system testing, these will be analysed to assess the health-related quality-of-life outcomes reported by patients, and to explore if and how they relate to disease, treatment and/or individual differences characteristics.</p> <p>Discussion</p> <p>There is currently no system in the UK for collecting PROMs online and linking these with patients' clinical data in cancer registries. If feasible, ePOCS has potential to provide an affordable UK-scalable technical platform to facilitate and support longitudinal cohort research, and improve understanding of cancer survivors' experiences. Comprehensive understanding of survivorship difficulties is vital to inform the development and provision of supportive services and interventions.</p

Regulation of synaptic Rac1 activity, long-term potentiation maintenance, and learning and memory by BCR and ABR Rac GTPase-activating proteins

Rho family small GTPases are important regulators of neuronal development. Defective Rho regulation causes nervous system dysfunctions including mental retardation and Alzheimer's disease. Rac1, a member of the Rho family, regulates dendritic spines and excitatory synapses, but relatively little is known about how synaptic Rac1 is negatively regulated. Breakpoint cluster region (BCR) is a Rac GTPase-activating protein known to form a fusion protein with the c-Abl tyrosine kinase in Philadelphia chromosome-positive chronic myelogenous leukemia. Despite the fact that BCR mRNAs are abundantly expressed in the brain, the neural functions of BCR protein have remained obscure. We report here that BCR and its close relative active BCR-related (ABR) localize at excitatory synapses and directly interact with PSD-95, an abundant postsynaptic scaffolding protein. Mice deficient for BCR or ABR show enhanced basal Rac1 activity but only a small increase in spine density. Importantly, mice lacking BCR or ABR exhibit a marked decrease in the maintenance, but not induction, of long-term potentiation, and show impaired spatial and object recognition memory. These results suggest that BCR and ABR have novel roles in the regulation of synaptic Rac1 signaling, synaptic plasticity, and learning and memory, and that excessive Rac1 activity negatively affects synaptic and cognitive functions.This work was supported by the National Creative Research Initiative Program of the Korean Ministry of Education, Science and Technology (E.K.), Neuroscience Program Grant 2009-0081468 (S.-Y.C.), 21st Century Frontier R&D Program in Neuroscience Grant 2009K001284 (H.K.), Basic Science Research Program Grant R13-2008-009-01001-0 (Y.C.B.), and United States Public Health Service Grants HL071945 (J.G.) and HL060231 (J.G., N.H.)

Genome sequencing and comparative genomics of the broad host-range pathogen Rhizoctonia solani AG8

Rhizoctonia solani is a soil-borne basidiomycete fungus with a necrotrophic lifestyle which is classified into fourteen reproductively incompatible anastomosis groups (AGs). One of these, AG8, is a devastating pathogen causing bare patch of cereals, brassicas and legumes. R. solani is a multinucleate heterokaryon containing significant heterozygosity within a single cell. This complexity posed significant challenges for the assembly of its genome. We present a high quality genome assembly of R. solani AG8 and a manually curated set of 13,964 genes supported by RNA-seq. The AG8 genome assembly used novel methods to produce a haploid representation of its heterokaryotic state. The whole-genomes of AG8, the rice pathogen AG1-IA and the potato pathogen AG3 were observed to be syntenic and co-linear. Genes and functions putatively relevant to pathogenicity were highlighted by comparing AG8 to known pathogenicity genes, orthology databases spanning 197 phytopathogenic taxa and AG1-IA.We also observed SNP-level “hypermutation” of CpG dinucleotides to TpG between AG8 nuclei, with similarities to repeat-induced point mutation (RIP). Interestingly, gene-coding regions were widely affected along with repetitive DNA, which has not been previously observed for RIP in mononuclear fungi of the Pezizomycotina. The rate of heterozygous SNP mutations within this single isolate of AG8 was observed to be higher than SNP mutation rates observed across populations of most fungal species compared. Comparative analyses were combined to predict biological processes relevant to AG8 and 308 proteins with effector-like characteristics, forming a valuable resource for further study of this pathosystem. Predicted effector-like proteins had elevated levels of non-synonymous point mutations relative to synonymous mutations (dN/dS), suggesting that they may be under diversifying selection pressures. In addition, the distant relationship to sequenced necrotrophs of the Ascomycota suggests the R. solani genome sequence may prove to be a useful resource in future comparative analysis of plant pathogens