Psychometric properties of the Child Health Assessment Questionnaire (CHAQ) applied to children and adolescents with cerebral palsy

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>Cerebral palsy (CP) patients have motor limitations that can affect functionality and abilities for activities of daily living (ADL). Health related quality of life and health status instruments validated to be applied to these patients do not directly approach the concepts of functionality or ADL. The Child Health Assessment Questionnaire (CHAQ) seems to be a good instrument to approach this dimension, but it was never used for CP patients. The purpose of the study was to verify the psychometric properties of CHAQ applied to children and adolescents with CP.</p> <p>Methods</p> <p>Parents or guardians of children and adolescents with CP, aged 5 to 18 years, answered the CHAQ. A healthy group of 314 children and adolescents was recruited during the validation of the CHAQ Brazilian-version. Data quality, reliability and validity were studied. The motor function was evaluated by the Gross Motor Function Measure (GMFM).</p> <p>Results</p> <p>Ninety-six parents/guardians answered the questionnaire. The age of the patients ranged from 5 to 17.9 years (average: 9.3). The rate of missing data was low (<9.3%). The floor effect was observed in two domains, being higher only in the visual analogue scales (≤ 35.5%). The ceiling effect was significant in all domains and particularly high in patients with quadriplegia (81.8 to 90.9%) and extrapyramidal (45.4 to 91.0%). The Cronbach alpha coefficient ranged from 0.85 to 0.95. The validity was appropriate: for the discriminant validity the correlation of the <it>disability index </it>with the visual analogue scales was not significant; for the convergent validity CHAQ <it>disability index </it>had a strong correlation with the GMFM (0.77); for the divergent validity there was no correlation between GMFM and the pain and overall evaluation scales; for the criterion validity GMFM as well as CHAQ detected differences in the scores among the clinical type of CP (p < 0.01); for the construct validity, the patients' <it>disability index </it>score (mean:2.16; SD:0.72) was higher than the healthy group (mean:0.12; SD:0.23)(p < 0.01).</p> <p>Conclusion</p> <p>CHAQ reliability and validity were adequate to this population. However, further studies are necessary to verify the influence of the ceiling effect on the responsiveness of the instrument.</p

Dengue fever: a post-epidemic sero-epidemiological survey in an urban setting at a northwestern county of S. Paulo State - Brazil

Objective The objective of this study was to evaluate the real size of the epidemics registered in thr urban area of the county of Santa Barbara D'Oeste, SP Brazil, from April to June, 1995. The measurement of the epidemiological validity of the official surveillance system criteria and its positive predicted value It were adopted as specific goals. Methods A sero-epidemiological sun,ey was carried out over a sample of 1,113 sera from citizens of Santa Barbara D'Oeste, through a systematic random sampling of houses, five months after the end of the epidemics. Infection rates were compared with the infestation indexes by Aedes aegipty and the notified cases amongst the county sections. The importance of submitting patients with clinical suspicion of dengue to laboratory rests was discussed. Results and Discussion it was found that infection rates by dengue virus varied in the same direction and proportion as the presence of Aedes aegipty larvae reported by the 'Breteau Index', as well as the number of cases,reported by the official notifiable diseases surveillance system during the epidemics. A prevalence of 630 by 100 thousand inhabitants was found, a 15-fold rate when compared to rite laboratory positive sera from cases detected by the surveillance system during the epidemics. A retrospective comparison with the surveillance reports, using serological results as a gold standard, also showed that the majority of dengue specific serum-positive individuals were not detected during the epidemics. otherwise cases that did not present serological reaction were notified exhibiting a low positive predictive value of clinical diagnosis (15,6).33656657

Study of B0(s)→K0Sh+h′− decays with first observation of B0s→K0SK±π∓ and B0s→K0Sπ+π−

A search for charmless three-body decays of B 0 and B0s mesons with a K0S meson in the final state is performed using the pp collision data, corresponding to an integrated luminosity of 1.0 fb−1, collected at a centre-of-mass energy of 7 TeV recorded by the LHCb experiment. Branching fractions of the B0(s)→K0Sh+h′− decay modes (h (′) = π, K), relative to the well measured B0→K0Sπ+π− decay, are obtained. First observation of the decay modes B0s→K0SK±π∓ and B0s→K0Sπ+π− and confirmation of the decay B0→K0SK±π∓ are reported. The following relative branching fraction measurements or limits are obtained B(B0→K0SK±π∓)B(B0→K0Sπ+π−)=0.128±0.017(stat.)±0.009(syst.), B(B0→K0SK+K−)B(B0→K0Sπ+π−)=0.385±0.031(stat.)±0.023(syst.), B(B0s→K0Sπ+π−)B(B0→K0Sπ+π−)=0.29±0.06(stat.)±0.03(syst.)±0.02(fs/fd), B(B0s→K0SK±π∓)B(B0→K0Sπ+π−)=1.48±0.12(stat.)±0.08(syst.)±0.12(fs/fd)B(B0s→K0SK+K−)B(B0→K0Sπ+π−)∈[0.004;0.068]at90%CL

Implicit Essentialism: Genetic Concepts Are Implicitly Associated with Fate Concepts

Genetic essentialism is the tendency for people to think in more essentialist ways upon encountering genetic concepts. The current studies assessed whether genetic essentialist biases would also be evident at the automatic level. In two studies, using different versions of the Implicit Association Test [1], we found that participants were faster to categorize when genes and fate were linked, compared to when these two concepts were kept separate and opposing. In addition to the wealth of past findings of genetic essentialism with explicit and deliberative measures, these biases appear to be also evident with implicit measure

Led into Temptation? Rewarding Brand Logos Bias the Neural Encoding of Incidental Economic Decisions

Human decision-making is driven by subjective values assigned to alternative choice options. These valuations are based on reward cues. It is unknown, however, whether complex reward cues, such as brand logos, may bias the neural encoding of subjective value in unrelated decisions. In this functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) study, we subliminally presented brand logos preceding intertemporal choices. We demonstrated that priming biased participants' preferences towards more immediate rewards in the subsequent temporal discounting task. This was associated with modulations of the neural encoding of subjective values of choice options in a network of brain regions, including but not restricted to medial prefrontal cortex. Our findings demonstrate the general susceptibility of the human decision making system to apparently incidental contextual information. We conclude that the brain incorporates seemingly unrelated value information that modifies decision making outside the decision-maker's awareness