Encuesta sobre abuso de alcohol y medicamentos en adolescentes de cuatro escuelas del conurbano bonaerense

ResumenIntroducciónEl consumo de alcohol y medicamentos no prescritos en los adolescentes es un problema creciente en los servicios de toxicología. La «jarra loca» es una mezcla de bebidas alcohólicas y medicamentos que utilizan los jóvenes como modalidad de abuso. En los últimos años, además de psicofármacos, los jóvenes mezclan hipoglucemiantes, lo cual puede generar secuelas neurológicas o producir la muerte, dependiendo de la dosis ingerida y el tiempo de duración de la hipoglucemia.ObjetivoEstimar la prevalencia de consumo de alcohol y medicamentos en adolescentes de 12 a 18 años de edad, que concurren a 4 escuelas del partido de Tres de Febrero, de la provincia de Buenos Aires.Material y métodosEstudio observacional, descriptivo y transversal. Se realizó una encuesta autoadministrada sobre consumo de alcohol y medicamentos en adolescentes de 12 a 18 años, de 4 escuelas de la provincia de Buenos Aires. Se realizaron talleres para intercambio de conocimientos y experiencias con los alumnos, y se entregó material gráfico informativo.ResultadosSe realizaron 977 encuestas. El 49% de los alumnos encuestados refirió consumir bebidas alcohólicas al salir con sus amigos. El 8% (n=78) de los alumnos refirieron consumir «jarra loca» y el 49% refirieron que sus amigos lo hacían. Veintiún alumnos requirieron atención médica, al menos, en una oportunidad luego de haber tomado bebidas alcohólicas y 17 de estos habían consumido «jarra loca». El 55% de los alumnos desconocían el uso de las pastillas que mezclan en la «jarra loca». El 48% de los padres desaprueba el consumo de alcohol.ConclusiónEl 49% refirió tomar bebidas alcohólicas. En nuestro trabajo, el 8% de los alumnos encuestados consumieron o probaron alguna vez «jarra loca», aunque el 49% afirmaron que sus amigos sí lo hacían.AbstractIntroductionThe consumption of alcohol and non-prescription drugs is a growing problem in toxicology departments. The «jarra loca» is a mixture of alcoholic drinks and drugs used by young people in the form of abuse. In the last few years, besides psychotropic drugs, young people are mixing glucose lowering drugs. This can lead to neurological sequelae or death, depending on the dose ingested and the duration of the hypoglycaemia.ObjectiveTo determine the prevalence of alcohol and drug abuse in adolescents from 12 to 18 years old from four schools in Tres de Febrero, in the province of Buenos Aires.Material and methodsAn observational, descriptive, and cross-sectional study was conducted using a self-report questionnaire on the consumption of alcohol and drug abuse in adolescents from 12 to 18 years old from four schools in the province of Buenos Aires. Workshops were held to exchange knowledge and experiences with the pupils and to give them informative graphic material.ResultsA total of 977 questionnaires were completed, in which 49% of the pupils referred to consuming alcoholic drinks when going out with their friends. Around 8% (n=78) of the pupils referred to consuming a «jarra loca», and 49% said their friends do it. Twenty-one pupils required medical attention at least once after having consumed alcoholic drinks, and 17 of these had consumed the «jarra loca». More than half (55%) of the pupils were unaware about the use of the pills that are mixed in the «jarra loca». Alcohol consumption was disapproved by 48% of parents.ConclusionAlmost half (49%) of adolescents said they drank alcoholic drinks. In this study, 8% of the pupils surveyed had consumed or had tried a «jarra loca» at some time, although 49% state that friends have done it

Zipf's law and log-normal distributions in measures of scientific output across fields and institutions: 40 years of Slovenia's research as an example

Slovenia's Current Research Information System (SICRIS) currently hosts 86,443 publications with citation data from 8,359 researchers working on the whole plethora of social and natural sciences from 1970 till present. Using these data, we show that the citation distributions derived from individual publications have Zipfian properties in that they can be fitted by a power law $P(x) \sim x^{-\alpha}$, with $\alpha$ between 2.4 and 3.1 depending on the institution and field of research. Distributions of indexes that quantify the success of researchers rather than individual publications, on the other hand, cannot be associated with a power law. We find that for Egghe's g-index and Hirsch's h-index the log-normal form $P(x) \sim \exp[-a\ln x -b(\ln x)^2]$ applies best, with $a$ and $b$ depending moderately on the underlying set of researchers. In special cases, particularly for institutions with a strongly hierarchical constitution and research fields with high self-citation rates, exponential distributions can be observed as well. Both indexes yield distributions with equivalent statistical properties, which is a strong indicator for their consistency and logical connectedness. At the same time, differences in the assessment of citation histories of individual researchers strengthen their importance for properly evaluating the quality and impact of scientific output.Comment: 8 pages, 3 figures; accepted for publication in Journal of Informetrics [supplementary material available at http://www.matjazperc.com/sicris/stats.html