Diagnosis of penile fracture in primary care: a case report

Introduction: Penile fracture has been reported with sexual intercourse, masturbation, rolling over or falling on to the erect penis. Classically the history is with a sudden snap, pain, detumescence and a hematoma of the penis with deformity. Immediate surgical treatment is recommended. The patients may delay the admission due to fear and embarrassment or the condition may usually be underreported. Case presentation: A 32-year-old man presented to primary care complaining of discoloration of penis without any significant history or symptom. Physical examination revealed swollen, ecchymotic, and deviated circumcised penis. Conclusion: Although frequent and common diseases represent the majority of daily work, the primary care physician should be alert for possible unexpected history or symptom of a rare and often serious condition. © 2009 Ozcan and Akpinar; licensee Cases Network Ltd

The Prevalence of Risky Behaviors Related to Violence in High School Students in a Southern City, Turkey

Injuries are the leading cause of mortality and morbidity in adolescents and can be grouped as unintentional (such as motor vehicle crashes and fires) and intentional (violence and suicide). The aim of this study was to find the prevalence of high risk behaviors related to violence in high school students. The population comprised 2,480 randomly selected students from 10 schools among 46,271 students from 72 high schools in 1999–2000 in Adana and 2,352 (94.8%) were reached. They completed a Youth Risk Behavior Survey Questionnaire (YRBSQ). The mean age was 16.5 ± 1 (14–21) years. 275 (11.7%) students stated that they carried a knife or a sharp weapon during the last 30 days, 151 (6.4%) carried a gun, 710 (30.2%) participated in a physical fight, 68 (2.9%) were threatened or injured by a weapon, 73 (3.1%) could not attend school because of threats from other students, 96 (4.1%) were forced into sexual intercourse. Male students were significantly more likely than female students to report all types of high risk behaviors except forced sexual intercourse. The rate of risky behaviors increased with higher grade. Violence towards and by adolescents is a severe problem. Families, teachers, and health care professionals should be aware of risk factors and be active in prevention of high risk behaviors in youth

Performance analysis of co-located and distributed MIMO radar for micro-doppler classification

Over the past few years, the use of Multiple Input Multiple Output (MIMO) radar has gained increased attention as a way to mitigate the degredation of micro-Doppler classification performance incurred when the aspect angle approaches 90 degrees. In this work, the efficacy of co-located MIMO radar is compared with that of distributed MIMO. The performance anaylsis is accomplished for three different classification problems: 1) discrimination of a walking group of people from a running group of people; 2) identification of individual human activities, and 3) classification of different types of walking. In the co-located configuration each radar is placed side by side so as to form a line. In the distributed configuration, the radar positions are separated to observe the subjects from different angles. Starting from the cadence velocity diagram (CVD), the Pseudo-Zernike moments based features are extracted because of their robustness with respect to unwanted scalar and angular dependencies. Two different approaches to integrate the features obtained from multi-aspect data are compared: concatenation and principal component analysis (PCA). Results show that a distributed MIMO configuration and use of PCA to fuse multiperspective features yields higher classification performance as compared to a co-located configuration or feature vector concatenation

Self-perceived Body Weight Status and Weight-control Behaviors of High School Students in a Southern City of Turkey

Defining »healthy weight« is not easy and for an adolescent with all concerns about newly developing physiognomy it is even harder. The aim of this study was to find out the frequency of obesity and the association between the body mass index (BMI), weight-control behaviors and self-perceived body weight status in high school students of a southern city of Turkey. The students from 10 schools were randomly selected among 46,271 students of 72 high schools in Adana from 1999 to 2000. The response rate was 94.8% (2,352/2480). The Turkish version of Youth Risk Behavior Survey Questionnaire (YRBSQ) was completed by the students. The students’ weights and heights were measured. The mean age was 16.5±1.0 years of age (range=14–21 years). The mean BMI was 21.0±3.1, 25.5% of students were underweight, 65.7% were normal, 6.4% were overweight and 2.3% were obese (p=0.0001). Of all students, 24.3% defined themselves as thin, 45.3% as normal, 24.9% as overweight and 5.5% as obese (p=0.0001). The percentage of girls defining their body weight as overweight and obese was significantly higher than the boys (p=0.0001). Of all students, 35.5% wanted to lose weight, 22.3% wanted to gain weight, 27.8% wanted to keep their current weight. Intention (p=0.0001) and interventions to lose weight such as going on a diet (p=0.0001), provocative vomiting (p=0.0001) and 24-hours starving (p=0.0001) were significantly higher in girls than boys. Of students, 26.8% (n=620) were on a diet program either to lose or to keep their body weight. There was significant relationship between being on a diet program and intention to change body weight (p=0.047). We concluded that adolescents living in Adana have relatively higher risk of being underweight than being obese and have unhealthy weight changing plans due to their misperception of their body images. Adolescents may be unconscious on plans and attempts to change their body weights and nutrition and we suggest that education on nutrition and health is required for adolescents

Suicidal Thought and Behavior in High School Students in Adana, Turkey

Fifty years ago adolescents mostly died of natural causes, whereas they now die from more preventable causes. Part of this change has been a worldwide rise in adolescent suicide rates in both developed and developing countries. Suicides are probably under reported due to cultural and religious stigma attached to self-destruction. Objectives of this study were to collect data about suicidal thoughts, plans and attempts and related sociodemographic details in high school students. The population comprised 2,480 randomly selected students among 46,271 students from 72 high schools in 1999–2000 in Adana and 2,352 (94.8%) students from 10 schools were reached and given a questionnaire modified using Youth Risk Behavior Survey Questionnaire (YRBSQ). x2 and Kolmogorov-Smirnov tests were used. Mean age was 16.5 ±1 (14–21) year, 1,187 (50.5%) students reported severe desperation, 526 students (22.4%) had suicidal thoughts, 332 (14.1%) planned committing suicide, 145 (6.2%) attempted suicide. The occurrence rate of desperation, suicidal thoughts, plans, attempts and the mean number of attempts were significantly higher in females than males. Adolescent suicide is a tragedy affecting individual, family, peers, and community. Families, teachers, and physicians should be aware of risk factors for suicide

Effect of St. John's Wort (Hypericum perforatum) treatment on restraint stress-induced behavioral and biochemical alteration in mice

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>A stressful stimulus is a crucial determinant of health and disease. Antidepressants are used to manage stress and their related effects. The present study was designed to investigate the effect of St. John's Wort (<it>Hypericum perforatum</it>) in restraint stress-induced behavioral and biochemical alterations in mice.</p> <p>Methods</p> <p>Animals were immobilized for a period of 6 hr. St. John's Wort (50 and 100 mg/kg) was administered 30 minutes before the animals were subjecting to acute immobilized stress. Various behavioral tests parameters for anxiety, locomotor activity and nociceptive threshold were assessed followed by biochemical assessments (malondialdehyde level, glutathione, catalase, nitrite and protein) subsequently.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>6-hr acute restraint stress caused severe anxiety like behavior, antinociception and impaired locomotor activity as compared to unstressed animals. Biochemical analyses revealed an increase in malondialdehyde, nitrites concentration, depletion of reduced glutathione and catalase activity as compared to unstressed animal brain. Five days St. John's Wort treatment in a dose of 50 mg/kg and 100 mg/kg significantly attenuated restraint stress-induced behavioral (improved locomotor activity, reduced tail flick latency and antianxiety like effect) and oxidative damage as compared to control (restraint stress).</p> <p>Conclusion</p> <p>Present study highlights the modest activity of St. John's Wort against acute restraint stress induced modification.</p

Evaluation of nutritional status in pediatric intensive care unit patients: the results of a multicenter, prospective study in Turkey

IntroductionMalnutrition is defined as a pathological condition arising from deficient or imbalanced intake of nutritional elements. Factors such as increasing metabolic demands during the disease course in the hospitalized patients and inadequate calorie intake increase the risk of malnutrition. The aim of the present study is to evaluate nutritional status of patients admitted to pediatric intensive care units (PICU) in Turkey, examine the effect of nutrition on the treatment process and draw attention to the need for regulating nutritional support of patients while continuing existing therapies.Material and MethodIn this prospective multicenter study, the data was collected over a period of one month from PICUs participating in the PICU Nutrition Study Group in Turkey. Anthropometric data of the patients, calorie intake, 90-day mortality, need for mechanical ventilation, length of hospital stay and length of stay in intensive care unit were recorded and the relationship between these parameters was examined.ResultsOf the 614 patients included in the study, malnutrition was detected in 45.4% of the patients. Enteral feeding was initiated in 40.6% (n = 249) of the patients at day one upon admission to the intensive care unit. In the first 48 h, 86.82% (n = 533) of the patients achieved the target calorie intake, and 81.65% (n = 307) of the 376 patients remaining in the intensive care unit achieved the target calorie intake at the end of one week. The risk of mortality decreased with increasing upper mid-arm circumference and triceps skin fold thickness Z-score (OR = 0.871/0.894; p = 0.027/0.024). The risk of mortality was 2.723 times higher in patients who did not achieve the target calorie intake at first 48 h (p = 0.006) and the risk was 3.829 times higher in patients who did not achieve the target calorie intake at the end of one week (p = 0.001). The risk of mortality decreased with increasing triceps skin fold thickness Z-score (OR = 0.894; p = 0.024).ConclusionTimely and appropriate nutritional support in critically ill patients favorably affects the clinical course. The results of the present study suggest that mortality rate is higher in patients who fail to achieve the target calorie intake at first 48 h and day seven of admission to the intensive care unit. The risk of mortality decreases with increasing triceps skin fold thickness Z-score

In What Level And How Medical Students Use Metacognition? A Case From Hacettepe University

The aim of this study is to describe in what level and how medical students use metacognition. In the study, quantitative and qualitative methods were used together, by benefiting from descriptive method. The first three year (preclinic year) students of Hacettepe University, Faculty of Medicine participated to the study. In order to determine the metacognition level, Metacognition Scale was used and also 9 students were interviewed. In the metacognition scores, the differences were determined according to the phases and academic achievement levels but not gender and the curricular language. In the interviews, it's been observed that the students in the learning process go through similar cognitive stages. These stages are recalling knowledge, learning new information and ensuring the sustainability of learning.WoSScopu