上海市患儿家长健康教育需求及现状调查

??????? 目的 了解上海市患儿家长对健康教育知识和方式的需求情况,提出做好患儿家长健康教育的方法和途径。方法 在文献检索和专家咨询的基础上,采用自行设计的调查问卷对200名门诊患儿家长和300名住院患儿家长进行调查,并对调查结果进行统计分析。结果 患儿家长对健康教育知识的需求广泛,教育方式的需求多样,对目前开展的健康教育,住院患儿家长的满意度要好于门诊患儿家长,但仍存在一定的不足。 结论 通过满足患儿家长对健康知识的需求、丰富健康教育的形式、加强医护人员人文教育等途径来做好患儿家长的健康教育。     

Dog training as a violence prevention tool for at-risk adolescents

Abstract

Humane education programs often target at-risk children and seek to teach empathy and gentleness with animals, but few of these have been assessed. This prospective, longitudinal study examined the effects of “Teaching Love and Compassion” (TLC), a humane education program employing educational group discussions and dog training for seventh-grade, inner city youth in Los Angeles, California. The TLC program is offered to groups of 10 to 12 students during their three-week vacation at the year-round school. Students for the experimental and control groups were selected from the pool of those scoring below the 25th percentile in reading and mathematics. The study, conducted over a two-year period, assessed four successive sessions, comprising an experimental group of 41 children and a control group of 42 children. In morning sessions, the experimental group had discussions focusing on interpersonal issues and conflict management. In the afternoons they were taught the proper care and obedience training of shelter dogs. Pre-, post-, and follow-up tests, specially developed to accommodate the children's reading ability and scheduling constraints, were given to both the experimental and control groups to assess their knowledge of animal care, conflict management skills, attitudes toward self and others, and fear of dogs. Members of the experimental group increased their understanding of pet care and the needs of animals and retained this information more than did the control group for all four TLC sessions, both at post-testing (F=58.4, p=0.0001) and follow-up testing (F=18.9, p=0.0001). At post-testing, the experimental group showed a trend toward a decreased fear of dogs (F=3.6, p=0.062), that was significant at follow-up testing (F=4.2, p=0.019). For these children who are exposed to daily violence and aggression to people and animals, these modest changes were associated with the three-week intervention.     

Attitudes toward Animals among German Children and Adolescents

ABSTRACT

This is the first study about attitudes toward animals among German children and adolescents. A sample of 543 pupils (261 boys, 282 girls) aged 11 to 17 (mean age = 13.37 ± 2.01 years) completed a questionnaire based on different established scales, for example, the Animal Attitude Scale (AAS) and the Intermediate Attitude Scale (IAS). Several aspects of attitudes toward animals and various dimensions of human–animal relationships were measured, including gender, age, grade, pet ownership, animal-related activities, meat consumption, and fear of and disgust toward animals. Gender and age were important factors in determining attitudes toward animals: pro-animal attitudes decreased with age and girls showed more positive attitudes compared with boys. Pet ownership and animal-related activities were associated with more positive attitudes toward animals, whilst meat consumption was related to lower pro-animal attitudes. There were no correlations between fear and general attitudes toward animals. The correlations between disgust and attitudes toward animals were weak. We found significant correlations among the different scales and subscales in animal attitudes.     

Exploring the relationship between dental wear and status in late medieval subadults from England

Dental wear patterns were recorded on 458 deciduous molar teeth, of 142 subadults from late medieval (AD 1086–1539) England, to explore the relationship between dental wear and burial status of children. A new ordinal method for scoring dental wear stages on the deciduous molar teeth was devised. It was postulated that if a discernible relationship between dental wear stage and burial location could be seen then this could reflect a difference in diet between those receiving higher or lower status burial. The dental wear stages recorded were statistically similar for the dentitions of subadults from different cemeteries, as well as from different burial locations, indicating a comparable diet for the children studied. Am J Phys Anthropol, 2013. © 2013 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.     

Contribution of lead in soil to children’s lead burden,an update

Abstract

Blood lead levels in children in the USA have dropped dramatically since lead in food, air and drinking water was reduced. In inner cities and older residential areas, increased lead exposure may still be a problem because of dilapidated housing with high lead paint levels. In these areas, at mining sites and around smelters lead levels in soil may be very high. A review of many studies indicates that lead in soil or mine tailings does not make a meaningful contribution to lead absorption by children. The contribution of lead in soil to overall exposure, if any, lies within the variation of the analytical method for blood lead measurements. The results of exposure studies in the pediatric population reviewed in this article do not support exposure predictions for children under 6 years of age based on the US EPA Integrated Exposure Uptake Biokinetic Model (using default parameters or using results obtained with in vitro digestion models). They also do not support predictions based on the percent of solubility of lead in soil (accessibility studies).     

Thiopurine S-Methyltransferase Gene Polymorphisms in a Healthy Slovak Population and Pediatric Patients with Inflammatory Bowel Disease

Thiopurine methyltransferase (TPMT) is a key component in thiopurine metabolism. There is an insufficient evidence about the distribution of the genotype frequencies of TPMT variants and frequencies of TPMT alleles associated with intermediate and deficient activity in a healthy Slovak population and pediatric patients with inflammatory bowel disease (IBD). TPMT variant alleles (*1,*2, *3A, *3B, and *3C) were determined in 114 children treated for IBD and in 281 healthy volunteers. Mutant alleles were present in 9/114 (7.89%) in the IBD patients and in 23/281 (8.19%) of probands. The distribution of the most frequent variants of TPMT gene was similar in a healthy population and patients with IBD.     

High prevalence of serum folate receptor autoantibodies in children with autism spectrum disorders

Abstract

Background: Supplementation of folic acid by pregnant mothers is thought to lower the risk of autism spectrum disorders (ASDs) in the offspring. Folic acid is taken up by cells via receptors with high affinity for folate and reduced folic acid derivatives. However, this is blocked by the presence of folate receptor autoantibodies (FRAA). Cerebral FRAA have been detected with high frequency in children with ASDs, suggesting the existence of a link between folic acid uptake and disease aetiology.

Methods: We investigated the frequency of FRAA in serum samples from 40 children with ASDs and 42 gender- and age-matched children with typical development (TD). Serum FRAA concentrations were measured by enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay.

Results: We found a significant difference in the frequency of serum FRAA in the two study cohorts. Serum FRAA were present in 77.5% (31/40) of children with ASDs compared with 54.8% (23/42) of TD children (p?=?0.03746, Fischer’s exact test). Thus, serum FRAA are more prevalent in children with ASDs than in TD children.

Conclusions: Our data suggest that children with ASDs may have defects in folic acid absorption that play a role in the onset of ASDs.     

Wonderful Ways with Color

Abstract

Editor's note: This essay is the seventh in an occasional series on past treatments of major issues in arts education policy from antiquity through the twentieth century. Future essays will appear as occasion arises.     

High prevalence of asthma symptoms in Warao Amerindian children in Venezuela is significantly associated with open-fire cooking: a cross-sectional observational study

Background

The International Study on Asthma and Allergies in Childhood (ISAAC) reported a prevalence of asthma symptoms in 17 centers in nine Latin American countries that was similar to prevalence rates reported in non-tropical countries. It has been proposed that the continuous exposure to infectious diseases in rural populations residing in tropical areas leads to a relatively low prevalence of asthma symptoms. As almost a quarter of Latin American people live in rural tropical areas, the encountered high prevalence of asthma symptoms is remarkable. Wood smoke exposure and environmental tobacco smoke have been identified as possible risk factors for having asthma symptoms.

Methods

We performed a cross-sectional observational study from June 1, 2012 to September 30, 2012 in which we interviewed parents and guardians of Warao Amerindian children from Venezuela. Asthma symptoms were defined according to the ISAAC definition as self-reported wheezing in the last 12 months. The associations between wood smoke exposure and environmental tobacco smoke and the prevalence of asthma symptoms were calculated by means of univariate and multivariable logistic regression analyses.

Results

We included 630 children between two and ten years of age. Asthma symptoms were recorded in 164 of these children (26%). The prevalence of asthma symptoms was associated with the cooking method. Children exposed to the smoke produced by cooking on open wood fires were at higher risk of having asthma symptoms compared to children exposed to cooking with gas (AOR 2.12, 95% CI 1.18 - 3.84). Four percent of the children lived in a household where more than ten cigarettes were smoked per day and they had a higher risk of having asthma symptoms compared to children who were not exposed to cigarette smoke (AOR 2.69, 95% CI 1.11 - 6.48).

Conclusion

Our findings suggest that children living in rural settings in a household where wood is used for cooking or where more than ten cigarettes are smoked daily have a higher risk of having asthma symptoms.     

Evaluation of urinary trans-3′-hydroxycotinine as a biomarker of children's environmental tobacco smoke exposure

Abstract

The utility of urinary trans-3′-hydroxy cotinine (3HC) as a biomarker of environmental tobacco smoke (ETS) exposure was investigated in comparison with urinary cotinine (COT), the sum (3HC?+?COT), and ratio of the two nicotine metabolites (3HC/COT). Participants were 150 ETS exposed children (aged 1–44 months) and their parents. Child urine samples were collected during 3weekly baseline assessments and at interviews administered 3, 6, 12, and 18 months after baseline. Findings indicate that 3HC and COT can be measured reliably (rho?=?0.96, 0.88) and show equivalent levels of repeated measures stability (rho?=?0.71, 0.75). COT, 3HC, and 3HC?+?COT showed equally strong associations with air nicotine levels, reported ETS contamination, and reported ETS exposure (r=0.60–0.70). The intraclass correlations of 3HC/COT were lower than those for COT or 3HC. Older children had a higher 3HC/COT ratio than younger children (3.5 versus 2.2), and non-Hispanic White children had a higher ratio than African-American children (3.2 versus 1.9). These findings suggest that COT, 3HC, and 3HC?+?COT are approximately equivalent and equally strong biomarkers of ETS exposure in children. Moreover, 3HC/COT may provide a useful indicator to investigate age- and race-related differences in the metabolism of COT and 3HC.