Basic communicating and counselling skills for family physicians

Family physicians often encounter psychological problems in patients under their care. Treating these problems is integral to a holistic conception of primary healthcare. This article describes the nature, basic principles, and therapeutic process of counselling; dispels myths, biased perceptions, and misconceptions about it; and illustrates how counselling techniques may be applied by family physicians in their practice. The authors make a proposal to confront limitations and contradictions of treating psychological problems in primary healthcare: setting up synergistic partnerships between family physicians and health counsellors.published_or_final_versio

Numerical modeling of transient characteristics of photovoltage in Schottky contacts

Numerical modeling of the transient characteristics of the photovoltage at metal-semiconductor interfaces has been carried out with a simple model in which the contributions of different current transport processes including thermionic emission, tunneling, carrier recombination, and leakage current have been taken into account. The simulation gives the detailed dependence of the transient characteristics on temperature, doping concentration, Schottky barrier height, and leakage resistance. © 1994 American Institute of Physics.published_or_final_versio

Face-to-face individual counseling and online group motivational interviewing in improving oral health: study protocol for a randomized controlled trial

published_or_final_versio

Comparison of Worm Control Strategies in Grazing Sheep in Denmark

Control of nematode parasites with reduced reliance on the use of anthelmintics was studied in 16 ewes with suckling twin lambs on contaminated pasture in Denmark. Ewes and lambs were treated with albendazole at turn-out 3 May. Ewes were removed from the groups on 26 July, and lambs were slaughtered on 11 October. The animals were allocated to 4 groups of 8 lambs and their 4 ewes. Group TS was treated with albendazole at weeks 3, 6 and 8 after turnout and set-stocked; group TM was similarly treated but moved to clean pasture in conjunction with the last drenching; group US was untreated and set-stocked, and group UM was left untreated but moved to clean pasture week 8 after turn-out. Supplementary feed was offered in June and August due to scarcity of pasture. Strategic treatments of ewes and lambs weeks 3, 6 and 8 after turn-out, with or without a move to clean pasture, were highly effective in controlling nematode infections for most of the season. This was reflected in better weight gains and carcass characteristics in the treated compared to untreated lambs, resulting in an average increase in the value of the product by 36%. The effect of moving without treatment (UM) on faecal egg counts was limited but peak pasture infectivity was reduced to less than 10% compared to the set-stocked group and weight gains of lambs were significantly better despite poor feed availability in late season. The study showed that under set-stocked conditions repeated anthelmintic treatments of both ewes and lambs in early season may ensure sufficient nematode control whereas moving animals to clean pasture without dosing was less efficient. The latter may, however, still be a viable option in organic and other production systems where routine use of anthelmintics is banned, particularly if weaning and moving are combined or a second move is performed

Pharmacological interventions in myopia management

Daily low-dose atropine has been shown to result in a reduction of > 50% in myopia progression over 3 years - with little to no rebound effect

The cost of tobacco-related disease

Health Services Research Fund & Health Care and Promotion Fund: Research Dissemination Reports (Series 2)published_or_final_versio

The effect of T'ai Chi exercise on immunity and infections: A systematic review of controlled trials

published_or_final_versio

Word learning deficit among Chinese dyslexic children

The present study examined word learning difficulties in Chinese dyslexic children, readers of a nonalphabetic script. A total of 105 Hong Kong Chinese children were recruited and divided into three groups: Dyslexic (mean age 8;8), CA control (mean age 8;9), and RL control (mean age 6;11). They were given a word learning task and a familiar word writing task. It was found that the Dyslexic group performed less well than the RL group in learning irregular words over trials but not the regular ones. Error analyses showed that the Dyslexic group made more orthographic and word association errors but less intra-wordlist interference errors than the RL control group. The Dyslexic group also performed significantly less well than both control groups in writing familiar words (e.g. their own name). These findings suggest that Chinese dyslexic children have difficulty learning new words, especially irregular ones, and retaining overlearned words in long-term memory. We conclude that Chinese dyslexic children have a specific impairment in word learning like their alphabetic counterparts. © 2006 Cambridge University Press.published_or_final_versio

Estimating incidence of developmental dyslexia in Hong Kong: What differences do different criteria make?

Based on the data of a school-referred sample of Cantonese-speaking Chinese children who met the Hong Kong criterion of dyslexia, we estimated for developmental dyslexia of Chinese children aged between 6 and 10½ in Hong Kong an incidence rate of 0.66% and a gender ratio of 3.29 boys to 1 girl over a four-year period. We also explored the differences in estimates based on this Hong Kong criterion that emphasizes cognitive markers with more conventional discrepancy-based criteria. In view of the possible biases in self-selection and underreporting in the data of the school-referred sample, we compared the figures with those derived from the sample of the normative study of the Hong Kong Test of Specific Learning Difficulties in Reading and Writing, which yielded an estimate of 9.7% in prevalence rate and boy-girl gender ratio of 2 to 1 over a one-year period. The differences in estimates based on the two samples and implications of the findings are discussed in light of the limitations of the study.postprin

Screening for Chinese children with dyslexia in Hong Kong: The use of the teachers' behaviour checklist

Primary school teachers rated the frequency of occurrence of 65 reading-related behavioural characteristics in a sample of 251 Grade 1 to Grade 6 Chinese school children in Hong Kong. These behavioural characteristics were in the areas of general performance, reading, dictation, writing, mathematics, language, memory, concentration, sequential ability, motor co-ordination, spatial orientation, and social/emotional adjustment. Of these 12 areas, 10 yielded scale scores that could distinguish children with dyslexia from those without dyslexia, identified on the basis of their performance in five domains of literacy and cognitive skills. Using a summary score derived from the 10 relevant scales, an optimal cut-off score was suggested to arrive at a balance between high sensitivity and an acceptable rate of false positives in screening for children with dyslexia. The need for cross-replication in screening children with dyslexia using the behaviour checklist with different samples of school students is emphasised.published_or_final_versio