Mental health professionals’ perspectives of family-focused practice across child and adult mental health settings: a qualitative synthesis

The shift towards a family-focused approach to practice has been highly endorsed across child and adult mental health services, with increasing policy development and a growing evidence base. The aim of this review was to synthesize the qualitative evidence of professionals’ perspectives and experiences of implementing family-focused practice across these settings. Electronic databases were searched up to March 2018, with nine articles included. The synthesis produced two overarching challenges relating to the organizational and system issues of family-focused practice and clinicians’ attitudes, knowledge, and practice towards addressing the complexity of families’ needs. The findings point to a limited evidence of professionals viewing the benefits of family-focused practice and a lack of coherence relating to professionals’ investment in family-focused practice. These are discussed within policy and implementation factors

Stakeholders' perspectives of family-focused practice and engagement in a community outreach service: application of normalization process theory

This qualitative study explores stakeholders’ perspectives of family-focused practice and engagement factors in a community outreach service for children and their families affected by parental mental illness. Participants included mental health clinicians, and parents and young people who were receiving input from the service. Data for clinicians were gathered via two focus groups (n=8) and semi-structured interviews were conducted for parents (n=4) and young people (n=5) aged 13-16. Analysis included an inductive and iterative thematic approach and a deductive framework approach using Normalization Process Theory to explore the implementation of family-focused practice within the service. Results indicated coherence of views across stakeholders regarding the benefits of a family approach, with clinicians’ application of the family model as enabling family- focused practice, and families’ participation indicating an overall investment in a family approach. Stakeholders endorsed the community outreach approach however clinicians’ appraisal of this was both an enabler to a family approach and a barrier in terms of demands and expectations. Factors for engaging families were also found to be embedded within a family approach and facilitated engagement and an understanding of needs

Endostatin concentration in plasma of healthy human volunteers

Background: Angiogenesis is involved in many cardiovascular and cancerous diseases, including atherosclerosis and is controlled by a fine balance between angiogenic and angiostatic mediators. Endostatin is one of the main angiostatic mediators, and inhibits angiogenesis and prevents progression of atherosclerosis. The available literature shows a broad range of concentrations in relatively small samples of healthy controls and is calculated by using different techniques. This study was aimed to determine the basal endostatin concentration in plasma of healthy volunteers, to fully understand its physiological role. Methods: Fifty healthy adult volunteers were recruited to the study. Participants were advised not to participate in any physical activity on the day before the blood sampling. The volunteers’ physical activity, height, weight, heart rate and blood pressure were recorded. The samples were analysed for plasma endostatin concentration, using ELISA. The participants were divided by gender and ethnic groups to calculate any difference. Results: Endostatin and other variables were normally distributed. Most of the participants had a moderate level of physical activity with no gender related difference (p=0.370). The mean value for plasma endostatin in all samples was 105±12 ng/ml with range of 81–132 ng/ml. For males, it was 107±13 ng/ml, while for females; 102±12 ng/ml. There were no significant gender or ethnicity related differences in endostatin concentration. Moreover, endostatin was not significantly related with any anthropometric and physical variable. Conclusion: This study gives endostatin levels in normal healthy people and show no gender and ethnicity related differences in endostatin levels. Endostatin was not related with any anthropometric and physical variable

READING ACHIEVEMENT GAP BETWEEN PUBLIC AND PRIVATE SCHOOLS IS VISIBLE IN EGRA SCORES

ABSTRACT There is a difference in reading proficiency between pupils who attend public and private schools. In this study, reading proficiency among fourth-graders in public and private schools was assessed and compared. 100 pupils from each type of school made up the study's final participant count of 200 grade 4 students. The Early Grade Reading Assessment (EGRA) results showed that the private school group outperformed the public-school group on each of the three subtasks. Particularly, more pupils in the private school group received proficient or advanced ratings on the EGRA. In terms of total EGRA scores, the private school group outperformed the public-school group, according to the t-test results. In comparison to the public-school group, the private school group's mean EGRA score was 12.5, while the latter was 10.5. These results imply that students who attend private schools outperform their public-school peers on the Early Grade Reading Assessment. It is crucial to remember that this study did not go into the underlying reasons for this discrepancy. Why private school children typically perform better on reading examinations requires further investigation

Bioassay studies of metal(II) complexes of 2,2'-(ethane-1,2-diyldiimino)diacetic acid

Ni(II), Cu(II) and Zn(II) coordination compounds with modified diammine 2,2'-(ethane-1,2-diyldiimino)diacetic acid (EDDA) were prepared and characterized. Coordination complexes of the EDDA were characterized by physical measurements including elemental analysis, IR, UV-Visible, magnetic susceptibilities and conductance measurements. The complexes were screened against four pathogenic bacteria like Escherichia coli, Pseudomonas aeruginosa, Klebsiella pneumoniae and Staphylococcus aureus and their concentrations for maximum inhibition zones were obtained. KEY WORDS: EDDA, Coordination complexes, Antibacterial studies Bull. Chem. Soc. Ethiop. 2011, 25(2), 239-245

To compare the efficacy of progesterone between oral versus vaginal routes of administration in the treatment of first trimester threatened miscarriage

Objective: To determine the efficacy of oral versus vaginal progesterone in the treatment of the first trimester threatened miscarriage. Methodology: This randomized controlled trial study was conducted at Gynaecology and Obstetrics Department of Mardan Medical Complex, Mardan from September 2019 to March 2020. A total of 126 women between ages 18-45 years presenting in their first trimester with threatened miscarriage were included. All patients were randomly allocated in two equal groups A and B by lottery method (63 in each group). Patients in group A were given oral progesterone 10 mg bid for one week and group B patients were given vaginal progesterone 400 mg for one week under the supervision of obstetrician. All patients were followed up till 20th week of pregnancy. The efficacy of the drug was evaluated based on the absence of bleeding per vagina and pregnancy proceeding beyond 20 weeks of gestation. Results: A total of 126 women were included. The majority of the patients 64 (50.79%) were between 18 to 30 years of age. The mean age of women in group A was 30.52 ± 4.52 years and in group, B was 30.73 ± 4.23 years. Efficacy of Oral progesterone (group A) was seen in 57 (90.48%) women and of vaginal progesterone (group B) was seen in 46 (73.02%) women. This showed a highly significant difference between the two routes of administration with p-value of 0.01. Conclusion: Oral progesterone is more effective than vaginal progesterone in treating first trimester threatened miscarriage in terms of prevention of blood loss and continuing the pregnancy beyond 20 weeks

Comparison of simple and chelated amberlite IR-120 for preconcentration and Determination of Cu(II) from aqueous samples

In the present study, the efficiency of simple and chelating Amberlite IR-120 with α-nitroso β-naphthol (IR-αNβN) and with 8-hydroxy quinoline (IR-8HQ) has been compared for the removal of Cu(II) from aqueous solutions. The chelation was confirmed using different characterization techniques like SEM, TGA and FTIR. A number of experiments were carried out in batch system to determine the effect of different parameters on adsorption of Cu(II) like pH, contact time and sample volume. The results showed occurrence of maximum adsorption at pH 7 in 10 min with adsorption capacity of 71.5 mg g-1 at 298 K. The adsorption followed pseudo second order kinetic model among the four kinetic models applied. Maximum desorption from IR-8HQ was obtained with a mixture of 4.0 M HCl and 0.5 M HNO3. Furthermore, IR-8HQ was found to be most selective adsorbent among three adsorbents investigated. The developed preconcentration procedure was successfully applied to spiked tap water and real samples. KEY WORDS: Chelating adsorbent, Amberlite IR-120, α-Nitroso β-naphthol, 8-Hydrox quinoline, Preconcentration Bull. Chem. Soc. Ethiop. 2016, 30(1), 39-54.DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.4314/bcse.v30i1.

Impact of Training and Development on Organization Performance with Mediating Role of Intention to Quit as Human Resource Quality Cost

The study is focused on the analysis of the impact of the training and development efforts in the  Small  and Medium  Enterprises  of  Pakistan  on  the  intention  of  employees  to  leave  the organization  considering  it  as  an  expense  and  the  wastage  of  time  and  resources  by  the organization.  The  study  will  also  evaluate  the  ultimate  impact  of  the  intentions  of  the employees  on  the  performance  of  the  organization.  The salary  based  employees  of  the organizations  having  5 –  250  employees  have  been  selected  on  the  basis  of  stratified sampling  technique  for  the  data  collection  purposes.  Out  of 600  questionnaires  distributed, 290  were  returned  and  278  were  used  for  the  study.  The relationship of training and development and organization performance has been found to be positively mediated by the intention of employees to quit the organizations. The positive relationship might exist due to the  number  of  other  factors  like  inflation,  less  job  opportunities  existing  in  the  Pakistani context. The study will be highly significant for the practitioners in the SMEs, shifting their focus towards the increased training and development efforts

Analyse Risk-Return Paradox: Evidence from Electricity Sector of Pakistan

This study analyse risk return relationship of the electricity companies of Pakistan by using the log return series of these electricity companies. Financial time series data have the property of autoregressive heteroscedasticity so move towards the GARCH family test. As the study want to analyse the risk return relationship so, GARCH-M Model of Engel et al (1987) is used, who empirically found relationship between risk and return. Results show that risk return in case of Pakistan electricity companies is not a specific relation (negative or positive) rather they show paradox of risk return