Adolescent Health, Medicine and Therapeutics最新文献

Background: Human papillomavirus (HPV) is the putative case of cervical cancer. However, uptake of HPV vaccination is reportedly low in Uganda. This study explored the predictors of HPV vaccination uptake among female adolescents aged 15-18 years in Gulu Municipality, in northern Uganda.

Methods: This was an analytical cross-sectional survey that was conducted among adolescents aged 15-18 years in Gulu Municipality. A structured questionnaire was used. Data were analyzed using Statistical Package for the Social Sciences (SPSS) version 25. Descriptive statistics and a log binomial model were used to analyze the factors associated with HPV vaccination uptake.

Results: Less than a quarter of the female adolescents (22%) aged 15-18 years in Gulu municipality, Gulu district, had been vaccinated with the human papillomavirus vaccine. HPV vaccination uptake was lower by 23% among adolescents who stayed with their mothers only (aPR = 0.769, CI = 0.595-0.995, P = 0.046), and by 14% among adolescents whose parents were unmarried (aPR 0.859, CI = 0.776-0.951, P=0.003).

Conclusion: This study reports a low HPV vaccination coverage among adolescents in Gulu Municipality, which is associated with parental perceptions and marital status. Efforts to increase uptake should focus on parents of adolescents.

Background: Child sexual abuse is a serious breach of basic human rights and is responsible for numerous adverse squeals and widespread global public health concern. The highest prevalence of child sexual abuse was seen in Africa. In Ethiopia, a study was conducted in Jimma town, and the study indicates that the prevalence of violence among high-school children was 62.5%. Despite this fact, it often remains unrecognized and unidentified. Thus, the aim of the study was to assess the magnitude of child sexual abuse and its associated factors among children treated in public hospitals of Addis Ababa, Ethiopia.

Methods: An institutional-based cross-sectional quantitative design study was conducted on 422 children. Study participants were selected by systematic random sampling. The data were collected through a face-to-face interview. The data were analyzed by SPSS version 26. By considering a 95% confidence level and a P value of <0.05, binary logistic regression was used to identify factors associated with child sexual abuse.

Results: A total of 422 children participated. Among these, 42.7% of them experienced sexual abuse. Children older than 15 years were 2 times more likely to face sexual abuse than those whose age is less than 10 years [AOR = 2.27 (95% CI: 1.23-4.19)]. Children who chew khat and smoke were abused more likely compared with their counterparts. The odds of having sexual abuse in a child with mental illness were six times more likely than children who do not have mental illness [AOR = 5.945 (95% CI: 1.642-21.528)].

Conclusion and recommendations: The magnitude of child sexual abuse in Addis Ababa was high. Children age, sex, khat chewing, physical disability, mental illness, smoking, and alcohol use were factors associated with child sexual abuse. Children with mental illness and physical disabilities should be treated and supported with special attention.

A 15-year-old female experiencing lumbar pain without prior trauma. Despite being prescribed strong analgesics by her family physician, the symptoms intensified, and she was referred to diagnostic imaging. Magnetic resonance imaging revealed an intradural extramedullary tumor in the spinal canal, located behind the L3 corpora. The patient underwent neurosurgery with a complete resection of the tumor. The histopathologic examination revealed Ewing sarcoma by identifying EWSR1 gene in the extracted tissue. The patient was subsequently referred for extensive specialized oncological treatment including photon irradiation therapy and chemotherapy. Thirty-six months on from the initial diagnosis, the patient is doing well and suffers no sequelae apart from hypogonadism.

Background: Despite the purported advantages and potential efficacy of mHealth interventions to promote wellness in children, adolescents, and young adults, it is not clear what areas have been explored and the challenges reported in the biomedical literature.

Methods: We conducted a scoping review of publications between 2015 and 2019.

Results: We identified 54 papers that met our inclusion criteria. Studies were conducted in 21 countries and ranged in size from six to 9851 participants (median: 184). A total of 41% of studies enrolled adolescents only (n = 19). Of the seven types of mHealth interventions identified, apps were the most common intervention (59%; n = 32) evaluated and 44% of the studies evaluated two or more interventions. The most common topic of the studies reviewed was sexual and reproductive health (24%; n = 13).

Conclusion: Most pediatric mHealth intervention studies are conducted in adolescents in large part, and sexual and reproductive health is the most commonly studied topic. With the easy and widespread accessibility to smartphone technology, the use of mobile apps for wellness interventions will likely continue to expand to other wellness topics.

Background: It has been well documented that social media use among adolescents is rising. However, most research has focused on social media use among typically developing adolescents and less on its use among adolescents with autism spectrum disorder (ASD). The goal of this study was to compare the time spent as well as to identify the purpose of social media use in adolescents with ASD compared to non-ASD adolescents.

Methods: This was a cross-sectional study of adolescents between ages 13-18 who were attending a hospital-based child and adolescents psychiatry clinic. Participants completed a self-report 18-item questionnaire to assess the pattern and reasons for using social media sites. The sample size was 26 for ASD and 24 for the non-ASD group.

Results: We found that the time spent on social media among adolescents with ASD was comparable to those without ASD diagnosis. However, participants with ASD differed from their non-ASD counterparts in both preferred social media sites as well as reasons for use. The most favourable social media site for ASD adolescents was YouTube. In contrast, the preferred social media site among adolescents without ASD was Snapchat. About 92.3% of participants without ASD reported using social media sites for primarily social interactions. In contrast, 59.1% of participants with ASD reported entertainment purposes as their primary reason for choosing a social media site.

Conclusion: Although the current study is based on a small sample of participants, the findings suggest that the pattern of usage and reasons for using social media differ significantly between the two groups. There is, therefore, a definite need for further research with a larger sample size to examine the implications of these differences and to determine how social media could be used as a tool for learning social skills and its efficacy and safety in the ASD population.

Background: Adolescence is a time of tremendous physical growth and mental development, with high nutrient requirements. Ethiopia is among the countries with a high prevalence of nutritional deficiencies among the women of reproductive age group, whilst adolescent girls from rural areas suffered disproportionately. However, there is a dearth of evidence regarding the barriers that hinder adolescent girls to utilize the available nutritional services.

Purpose: The current study aimed to qualitatively explore the range of barriers for the uptake of nutritional interventions among adolescent girls in rural communities of Tigray, Northern Ethiopia.

Methods and participants: We employed an explorative qualitative study among purposively selected adolescent girls and school teachers from rural districts of Tigray region. We conducted 11 focused group discussions with adolescent girls, 17 in-depth interviews (seven with teachers, seven with in-school adolescent girls, and three with out-of-school adolescent girls) using a semi-structured guide. Data was audio-taped, transcribed verbatim in local language, translated into English, and imported into ATLAS.ti version 7.5 qualitative data analysis software for analysis.

Results: Adolescents perceived that stunting, anemia, and thinness are among the main nutritional problems in their community. Food insecurity, limited nutrition awareness in the community, limited access to a water source, high workload, service provider's little attention for adolescents' nutrition, and food taboo have emerged as barriers for the uptake of adolescent girls' nutritional interventions. Though limited in reach, available nutritional interventions include awareness creation, nutritional supplementation, and disease prevention.

Conclusion: Food insecurity poses a strong challenge to adolescent girls' nutrition. As access to safe drinking water continues to be a considerable bottleneck for nutritional interventions, a multi-sectoral response to integrate water, sanitation, and hygiene (WASH) services is required. Bounded by food taboo, high burden of workload among the adolescent girls, women empowerment and nutritional status seem to be the unfinished agenda in resource limited settings such as the rural areas of Tigray region.

Background: Thyme tea, locally known as "tossign tea", is one of the most popular herbal-tea in Ethiopia used for the medicinal attribute, besides adding aroma and flavor to the tea. Therefore, this study aimed to assess the effect of thyme tea-drinking and other dietary factors of school girls on primary dysmenorrhea.

Methods: An institutional case-control study was conducted from December 2019 to March 2020 in the suburbs of Debre Berhan town, Ethiopia. Data were collected through a face-to-face interview using a pre-tested semi-structured questionnaire on 252 (86 cases and 166 controls) study participants. Data were entered to Epi Data version 3.1 and then exported to IBM SPSS version 24 for analysis. Bivariable and multivariable logistic regressions were carried out to identify factors significantly associated with primary dysmenorrhea.

Results: The mean (±SD) age of cases was 15.98 (±1.60) years and controls was 15.73 (±1.35) years. Thyme tea drinking was reported by 19 (22.1%) of cases and 56 (33.7%) of controls. Thyme tea-drinking decreased the risk of primary dysmenorrhea by 63.2% (AOR: 0.368, 95% CI: 0.145-0.934). Coffee drinking tends to increase the odds of severe dysmenorrhea on young female students. Besides, age, age at menarche, meal frequency, and residence were significantly associated with primary dysmenorrhea.

Conclusion: Thyme tea-drinking, consumption of vegetables and fruits had primary dysmenorrhea related pain-relieving tendency. Delayed onset of menarche decreased the risk of primary dysmenorrhea. Coffee drinking was positively associated with primary dysmenorrhea. Further studies on the effect of thyme tea on primary dysmenorrhea are required.

Purpose: This article describes steps taken by a mental health inpatient multidisciplinary team to develop a clinical pathway for the assessment and management of suicidality in a pediatric psychiatric inpatient unit.

Patients and methods: The setting for this project is a 19-bed inpatient psychiatry unit providing care for children and adolescents (6-17 years of age) in a tertiary care pediatric hospital in Ontario, Canada. Three Lean methodologies were used: 1) The A3 process was used to articulate a problem statement and help clarify expectations, determine goals, and uncover, address and encourage discussion of potential issues; 2) Process mapping was used to show how work process activities are sequenced from the time of the patient's admission to discharge; and 3) Standard work, where consideration was given to the breakdown of the work into categories which are sequenced, organized and repeatedly followed. Generally accepted methodologies for developing clinical pathways were used to create a framework and algorithm for the assessment and management of suicidality in psychiatrically hospitalized children and adolescents.

Results: The clinical pathway development resulted in six steps from admission to discharge: intake process, inclusion/exclusion criteria, data integration and treatment formulation, interventions, determination of readiness for discharge, and the discharge process.

Conclusion: This framework, developed with the aim to standardize care for psychiatrically admitted suicidal children and adolescents, may serve as a flexible template for use in similar settings and could be adapted according to local realities and resources.

School adolescents who are in the formative years of their lives are in stark need of appropriate and innovative skills-based health education and information. In this paper, we aim to explain how the participatory video (PV) approach was used in exploring the issues concerning adolescent reproductive health, particularly on menstrual hygiene among school adolescents in Chitwan district of Nepal. The students were engaged in the PV process for more than 6 months. They were given smart android phones with a 15-megapixel camera to shoot the video. The school adolescents regarded PV as an innovative and participatory medium for developing their critical thinking skills, collaborative skills, communication skills, and creative skills, which are required in the twenty-first century.