Irish Contraception and Crisis Pregnancy Study 2010 (ICCP-2010). A Survey of the General Population.

The Irish Contraception and Crisis Pregnancy Study 2010 (ICCP-2010) is a cross-sectional telephone survey of adults aged from 18 to 45 years and living in Ireland. ICCP-2010 follows on from two other national sexual health surveys: the 2003 Irish Contraception and Crisis Pregnancy Study (ICCP-2003) and the 2006 Irish Study of Sexual Health and Relationships (ISSHR). It seeks to provide: (1) data on current knowledge, attitudes and behaviours in relation to sex, contraception and pregnancy in Ireland; and (2) an opportunity to explore trends in relation to sex, contraception and pregnancy in Ireland over a number of years. An overview of the main findings from ICCP-2010, as well as comparisons with ICCP- 2003, are presented in this report. Tests were conducted to explore whether differences between the two surveys were statistically significant, where appropriate, and are highlighted below and in the main report

A hierarchy of distress and invariant item ordering in the General Health Questionnaire-12

Background: Invariant item ordering (IIO) is defined as the extent to which items have thesame ordering (in terms of item difficulty/severity – i.e. demonstrating whether items are difficult [rare] or less difficult [common]) for each respondent who completes a scale. IIO is therefore crucial for establishing a scale hierarchy that is replicable across samples, but no research has demonstrated IIO in scales of psychological distress. We aimed to determine if a hierarchy of distress with IIO exists in a large general population sample who completed ascale measuring distress. Methods: Data from 4107 participants who completed the 12-item General Health Questionnaire (GHQ-12) from the Northern Ireland Health and Social Wellbeing Survey 2005-6 were analysed. Mokken scaling was used to determine the dimensionality and hierarchy of the GHQ-12, and items were investigated for IIO. symptoms reflected the following hierarchy: anhedonia, concentration, participation, coping, decision-making and worthlessness. Results: All items of the GHQ-12 formed a single, strong unidimensional scale (H=0.58). IIO was found for six of the 12 items (H-trans=0.55), and these Limitations: The cross-sectional analysis needs replication. Conclusions: The GHQ-12 showed a hierarchy of distress, but IIO is only demonstrated for six of the items, and the scale could therefore be shortened. Adopting brief, hierarchical scales with IIO may be beneficial in both a clinical and research context

Preliminary Findings of a New Primary and Community Care Psychological Service in Northern Ireland: Low-Intensity Cognitive Behavioural Therapy for Common Mental Health Difficulties

Background: The prevalence of mental health difficulties in Northern Ireland (NI) is significantly higher than in England. In recent years, there have been extensive consultations, and subsequent recommendations made in NI in an effort to address this. Aims: The current study aims to evaluate the effectiveness of an ‘Improving Access to Psychological Therapies’ (IAPT) stepped care service model using low-intensity cognitive behavioural therapy (LI-CBT) in primary and community care settings. Method: A pilot intervention trial design utilized two standardized outcome measures (PHQ-9 and GAD-7) before treatment (at baseline), during treatment (in every session) and at discharge (at final session). Results: Preliminary reliable change outcomes for the pilot cohorts showed a recovery rate of 47.9%, improvement rate of 76.7% and deterioration rate of 6%. Conclusions: These findings suggest that the IAPT service model is clinically effective in the NI population. Data collection for the larger study was completed in December 2017. Future analyses will include follow-up data collected at 4 months post-treatment, and will also aim to identify individual and service level factors that potentially impact treatment effectiveness.</jats:p

Improving research on parental involvement in sexuality education: Findings from the Irish Contraception and Crisis Pregnancy Survey – 2010

Sexuality education research has highlighted the importance of parental involvement2. Parents largely concur with the idea that they should play a fundamental role in their children’s sexuality education; indeed, 95% of parents in one national UK study felt that discussing contraception with their children was primarily their responsibility3. However, only 58% of those parents had actually done so, suggesting that these beliefs are not always reflected in practice3. Investigating sexuality education frequently occurs via national sexual health surveys. For example both the Irish Study on Sexual Health and Relationships4 and the UK National Survey of Sexual Attitudes and Lifestyles II5 included questions that asked participants about learning about sex when they were growing up. Understanding the factors that influence parents in engaging in sexuality education would benefit from advances in research design and methods

Understanding communication of health information: a lesson in health literacy for junior medical and physiotherapy students

Healthcare professional students should be engaged in best practice regarding communication with patients, including using good quality patient information leaflets (PILs) on health behaviours. A cross-sectional survey of 337 junior medical and physiotherapy students investigated the readability, health psychology theory content, and quality and reliability ratings of nine international PILs on smoking. Estimates of readability, theory content and quality/reliability ratings varied considerably across PILs. Importantly, additional theory-based content, as proposed by students, had no detrimental effect on readability scores. Results are discussed with regard to their potential for improving interactions between future healthcare providers and service users

The population impact of common mental disorders and long-term physical conditions on disability and hospital admission

Background: Long-term physical conditions (LTCs) consume the largest share of healthcare budgets. Although common mental disorders (CMDs) and LTCs often co-occur, the potential impact of improved mental health treatment on severe disability and hospital admissions for physical health problems remains unknown. Method: A cross-sectional study of 7403 adults aged 16–95 years living in private households in England was performed. LTCs were ascertained by prompted self-report. CMDs were ascertained by structured clinical interview. Disability was assessed using questions about problems with activities of daily living. Population impact and potential preventive gain were estimated using population-attributable fraction (PAF), and conservative estimates were obtained using ‘treated non-cases’ as the reference group. Results: Of the respondents, 20.7% reported at least one LTC. The prevalence of CMDs increased with the number of LTCs, but over two-thirds (71.2%) of CMD cases in people with LTCs were untreated. Statistically significant PAFs were found for CMDs and recent hospital admission [13.5%, 95% confidence intervals (CI) 6.6–20.0] and severe disability (31.3%, 95% CI 27.1–35.2) after adjusting for LTCs and other confounders. Only the latter remained significant when using the most conservative estimate of PAF (21.8%, 95% CI 14.0–28.9), and this was reduced only slightly when considering only participants with LTCs (18.5%, 95% CI 7.9–27.9). Conclusions: Better treatments for CMDs in people with LTCs could achieve almost the same population health gain in terms of reducing severe disability as those targeted at the entire population. Interventions to reduce the prevalence of CMDs among people with LTCs should be part of routine medical care