International Journal of Adolescent Medicine and Health最新文献

Objectives: The emergence of adolescent medicine (AM) as a specific area of training and health care delivery is progressing at various pace around the world. The objective of this exploratory survey was to inquire about the existence of official bodies and institutions offering recognition of the discipline as a specific field and on the status of related training initiatives.

Methods: A questionnaire was spread among a convenience sample of 21 colleagues involved in adolescent health care around the world, and answers were collected and analysed manually.

Results: All 21 colleagues from the North and South American, African, Asian and European regions have responded. Only seven countries report the existence of adolescent inpatient wards in some hospitals, while 16 have specialized outpatient clinics; in only eight countries is formal mandatory training in AM required for paediatricians; in seven others, such a stay is available but optional. Six countries have implemented a systematic assessment tackling AM in the certification process of paediatricians and just four recognize AM as a sub-specialty. Only two countries mention compulsory training in AM for family doctors. Fourteen countries report on the existence of an AM association.

Conclusions: Despite an encouraging number of initiatives testifying the growing place of AM in the practice of medicine, our data bring a worrisome portray of the status of AM in the involved countries and call for the development of appropriate health care and training centres.

Objectives: Utility of cognitive-behavioral practice interventions in school settings have been discussed by the scientific community regarding their possibility of insertion in the educational field. In this way, this review article analyzes the scientific production on the practice of meditation offered at school in adolescents, since the appropriation of studies that point to reflections and perspectives of meditative practice can favor the development of new pedagogical trajectories in the school environment.

Content: The electronic databases VHL, PubMed, and CAPES were consulted, using the combination of the terms related to meditation, adolescents, and school. This analysis resulted in eight articles, including field research and reviews, published between 2010 and 2021.

Summary: The articles showed improvement in emotional coping skills, social relationships, self-regulation, control of mood levels, stress, depression, and anger, and significant gains in self-reflection and academic attention. They pointed out that elementary and high school students present more significant responses, and these factors, such as duration, frequency, and systematization of the session, can interfere with these responses.

Outlook: These results indicate that meditation practice in adolescents can be a valuable strategy for health promotion and educational training in the school environment.

Objectives: Excessive Internet use is a health concern among higher education students leading to reduced academic performance and problems in everyday life. This study aimed to explore the relationship between health and problems of studying and daily rhythm caused by time spent online among students (n=3,050).

Methods: A cross-sectional survey was carried out. The data were analyzed using descriptive and chi-square tests and logistic regression analyses.

Results: Findings indicated that one fifth of students reported having problems of studying and daily rhythm caused by time spent online. Psychological health symptoms such as anxiety (p<0.001) and physical health symptoms including lower back problems (p<0.001) were associated with these problems. According to the logistic regression analyses, problems of studying and daily rhythm caused by time spent online and higher amount of Internet use by time were associated with psychological and physical health symptoms.

Conclusions: The findings suggest that problems of studying and daily rhythm and spending more time online are related to health symptoms among the students. The study's findings can be used from a prevention standpoint for early identification and further to identify the need for seeking professional treatment.

Objectives: The inability to adapt to difficult and stressful situations in the environment leads to low resilience ability in street children. Knowing the influencing factors is important to help them achieve optimal resilience. This study aims to analyze the relationship between factors related to street children's resilience.

Methods: This study used a correlational design with a cross-sectional approach. The population was street children in two halfway-home in Surabaya (Kampung Anak Negeri and Sanggar Alang-Alang). The sample was 129 respondents obtained using simple random sampling. The independent variables were unpleasant past experience, antisocial behavior, level of depression, age, sex, length of time being street children and positive support. The dependent variable was resilience. Data were collected using questionnaires and analyzed by Spearman Rho-test with p<0.05.

Results: The result showed, that unpleasant past experiences (p=0.00 and r= -0.313), level of depression (p=0.00 and r= -0.279) and positive support have an association with resilience (p=0.000 and r=0.331). The lowest unpleasant past experiences and depression levels and the higher positive support will make higher resiliency in street children.

Conclusions: This study has explained the unpleasant past experiences and depression levels as risk factors and the positive support as a supportive factor for street children's resilience.

Objectives: Pubertal age carries the risk of different challenges and experiences. However, lack of data on the subject made it necessary to estimate the magnitude of pubertal problems and its determinants.

Methods: A mixed methods study was conducted among the school students aged 10-17 years during May 2022 in three selected schools of Shillong. The cross-sectional quantitative component (pre-designed semi-structured questionnaire) included 418 students and eight students were selected purposively for the qualitative component (in-depth interviews).

Results: The mean age of the students was 13.5 years with 52.9% boys. At least one of the pubertal problems was present among 57.2% (95%CI: 52.3-69.2%). With regards to physical, hormonal/behavioural and mental problems, the prevalence was reported to be 34.2, 31.8 and 12.0% respectively. Premenstrual symptoms were present among 89.4% girls. Mental problems were significantly higher among the girls [PR: 1.83 (95%CI: 1.06-3.13; p=0.02)] and the hormonal problems were significantly lesser among the girls [PR: 0.41 (95%CI: 0.29-0.57; p<0.001)]. With regards to age, the mental and hormonal problems was significantly higher among the late adolescents. About 55.2% sought help for their problems of which 56.9% primarily sought help from parents. In-depth interviews yielded five themes for the problems of puberty which included individuals related (hormonal, impulse control etc.), school related (safety, relationship with teachers), family related (behavioural regulations, literacy etc.), friends/peers related (networks/relationships) and coping behaviours.

Conclusions and recommendations: Pubertal problems were reported among a considerable proportion of students which provides policy implications for addressing behavioural problems, interpersonal relationships and cordial school environment.

In Afghanistan, adolescents and young people are the most important at risk groups for substance abuse. Considering the importance of model-based interventions in this group, this study aims to design and validate a questionnaire based on the Health Belief Model (HBM) for assessing the beliefs of Afghan students regarding substance abuse prevention behavior. This study was conducted in two stages. In the first stage, the items of the questionnaire were designed by conducting a combined documentary literature review and qualitative study. In the next step, its psychometric properties were evaluated through qualitative and quantitative face and content validity (CVR & CVR) and structural validity (exploratory factor analysis). Finally, internal consisitency through Cronbach's alpha as well as reliability was assessed. To above steps, the SPSS version 18 was applied. 57 items were obtained for the questionnaire by performing a qualitative study and using existing scientific sources for literature review. In checking the face validity of the questionnaire items quantitatively (calculating the impact score), the impact score of all items was above 1.5. The CVR of each item was more than 0.8 and their CVI was more than 0.79. In EFA (using the information of 408 students with average age of 23 years old), the final model was confirmed with 38 related to the main HBM constructs in 5 factors, which covered about 40% of the variance. Acceptable values of Cronbach's alpha between 0.71 and 0.81 for all factors confirmed the reliability of the questionnaire. The HBM-SAPQA obtained the acceptable validity/reliability to apply the beliefs of Afghan students regarding substance abuse preventive behavior.

Introduction: Around 1,7 million adolescents aged 10-19 years worldwide are infected with HIV, 84% of them living in Sub-Saharan Africa. Mozambique is one of the countries with the highest prevalence of HIV in the world. According to UNAIDS, HIV services for adolescents should be tailored and specifically designed for them.

Methods: We aimed to evaluate a package of activities to enhance the retention of HIV-infected adolescent in Mozambique. We retrospectively reviewed routine data from 7 health centers involved in 26 months, from March 2020 to May 2022. A package of tailored interventions was implemented in all the sites. We reviewed activity data from the included centers.

Results: The median number of patients per center was 343 (IQR: 289-466) at the beginning of the period and 395 (IQR: 322-453) at the end. The median overall retention in care and rate of lost to follow-up at the beginning and the end of the period were respectively: 94.2% (IQR 91.9-97.3%) to 99.0% (IQR 96.8-99.5%), 1.5% (IQR 1-3.2%) to 0% (IQR 0.0-0.3%). The total number of deaths increased reaching a plateau after September 2021. All the indicators improved after the beginning of the intervention, also during COVID-19 pandemic.

Conclusions: Our data support the idea that enhancing retention in care for HIV positive adolescents need tailored interventions, based on deep rooting in the specific social context. Tailored intervention can resist external shock such as COVID-19.

Objectives: To determine the relationship between the COVID-19 anxiety and the quality of life among adolescent pregnant women in Dashtiari city, Iran.

Methods: In this cross-sectional study, 216 adolescent pregnant women in Dashtiari city, Iran in 2021 who met the inclusion criteria participated in a multi-stage sampling. Data collection tools included: demographic information, COVID-19 Anxiety Scale and a questionnaire of quality of life. Finally, the obtained data were analyzed in SPSS software version 21 using descriptive, Chi-square, Tukey and logistic regression tests.

Results: The results showed that 74 (34.3%) adolescent pregnant women had weak COVID-19 anxiety, 23 (10.6%) had moderate COVID-19 anxiety and 119 (55.1%) had severe COVID-19 anxiety. The results also showed that gestational age (OR=2.2, p=0.03), history of COVID-19 infection among adolescent pregnant women (OR=1.6, p=0.02), history of family and friends (OR=1.7) (p=0.04), quality of life (OR=4.3, p=0.001), increases the probability of COVID-19 anxiety.

Conclusions: Considering the psychological consequences of the post-COVID-19 era and the psychological events that occur in this period, by identifying and predicting these issues, strategies should be considered for optimal intervention and reduction of injuries in the post-crisis era.

Objectives: The transition from childhood to adulthood is complex and presents challenges to young people's mental health. Mental health impacts and is impacted by a range of contextual and personal factors. Adolescence and young adulthood also coincide with increased experimentation with sex, sexuality and substance use. Addressing the mental health, sexual health and substance-use challenges experienced by young people therefore necessitates an understanding of how these elements relate to one another. By collecting and analysing existing literature, this review aims to identify associations between young people's mental health and sexual health, their mental health and substance use and any resulting gaps-in-knowledge.

Content: Seven electronic databases were searched between March and May 2021 and updated in May 2022 with terms collated under the categories of "young people", "mental health", "sexual health" and "substance use". English-language articles, presenting data from the UK & Ireland, on young people aged 16-24 years inclusive were screened and subjected to a selection process in accordance with PRISMA guidelines (preregistered on PROSPERO, ref. number CRD42021245096). The quality of the resulting articles were assessed using the Mixed Methods Appraisal Tool (MMAT) and findings were tabulated through a data extraction process.

Summary: 27 articles were included in the review. Various mental health indices such as depression, anxiety, self-harm, psychotic-like experiences, hypomanic symptoms and binge-purge type eating disorders were found to be associated with higher use of substances such as alcohol, cannabis, ecstasy and generalised drug use. Additionally, mental health indices such as depression, anxiety and self-harm were found to be associated with sex before age 16 and/or unprotected sex at age 16, positive Chlamydia infection and higher levels of sexual activity at a younger age. Overall, cross-sectional associations were stronger than the longitudinal associations presented in the articles.

Outlook: This review into the specific relations between young people's mental health, sexual health and substance use has revealed the complex and bi-directional nature of these associations, with some conditions and substances having been more extensively investigated (e.g., alcohol and depression/anxiety) as opposed to the relations between young people's sexual health and mental health which is lacking in the UK and Irish context. The findings can help inform mental health related policies and service provisions targeted at young people in the UK and Ireland. Areas for future work are suggested.

Objectives: The COVID-19 pandemic has brought a significant impact on people's behaviour and lifestyles. Limited research has been conducted on the impact of COVID-19 on Malaysian university students' lifestyle modifications. This study aims to identify the impact of COVID-19 on dietary intake, sleeping patterns and physical activity levels among Malaysian university students.

Methods: A total of 261 university students were recruited. Sociodemographic and anthropometric data were collected. Dietary intake was assessed using PLifeCOVID-19 questionnaire, sleep quality was assessed using Pittsburgh Sleep Quality Index Questionnaire (PSQI) while physical activity level was assessed using International Physical Activity Questionnaire-Short Forms (IPAQ-SF). SPSS was used to perform statistical analysis.

Results: 30.7% of the participants adhered to the unhealthy dietary pattern, 48.7% had poor quality of sleep and 59.4% engaged in low physical activity levels during the pandemic. Unhealthy dietary pattern was significantly associated with a lower IPAQ category (p=0.013), and increased time spent sitting (p=0.027) during the pandemic. Participants being underweight before the pandemic (aOR=2.472, 95% CI=1.358-4.499), increased takeaway meal consumption (aOR=1.899, 95% CI=1.042-3.461), increased snacking between meals consumption (aOR=2.989, 95% CI=1.653-5.404) and engaged in a low level of physical activity during pandemic (aOR=1.935, 95% CI=1.028-3.643) were the predictors of unhealthy dietary pattern.

Conclusions: The university students' dietary intake, sleeping patterns, and physical activity levels were impacted in different ways during the pandemic. Strategies and interventions should be developed and implemented to improve the dietary intake and lifestyle of the students.