Bmc Public Health
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Randomized Controlled Trial
A feasibility study of short message service text messaging as a surveillance tool for alcohol consumption and vehicle for interventions in university students.
Practitioners who come into contact with the intoxicated, such as those in unscheduled care, often have limited resources to provide structured interventions. There is therefore a need for cost-effective alcohol interventions requiring minimal input. This study assesses the barriers, acceptability and validity of text messaging to collect daily alcohol consumption data and explores the feasibility of a text-delivered intervention in an exploratory randomised controlled trial. ⋯ The ubiquity of mobile telephones and the acceptability of text messaging suggests that this approach can be developed as a surveillance tool to collect high frequency consumption data to identify periods of vulnerability and that it can offer a platform through which targeted interventions can be delivered.
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Randomized Controlled Trial
Screening and brief interventions for hazardous and harmful alcohol use among hospital outpatients in South Africa: results from a randomized controlled trial.
High prevalence rates of hazardous and harmful alcohol use have been found in a hospital outpatient setting in South Africa. Hospital settings are a particularly valuable point of contact for the delivery of brief interventions because of the large access to patient populations each year. With this in mind, the primary purpose of this randomized controlled trial is to provide screening for alcohol misuse and to test the effectiveness of brief interventions in reducing alcohol intake among hospital outpatients in South Africa. ⋯ Given the lack of difference in outcome between control and intervention group, alcohol screening and the provision of an alcohol health education leaflet may in itself cause reduction in drinking.
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Randomized Controlled Trial
A cluster randomised controlled trial of the Climate Schools: Ecstasy and Emerging Drugs Module in Australian secondary schools: study protocol.
The use of ecstasy is a public health problem and is associated with a range of social costs and harms. In recent years, there has been growing concern about the availability and misuse of new and emerging drugs designed to mimic the effects of illicit drugs, including ecstasy. This, coupled with the fact that the age of use and the risk factors for using ecstasy and emerging drugs are similar, provides a compelling argument to implement prevention for these substances simultaneously. The proposed study will evaluate whether a universal Internet-based prevention program, known as the Climate Schools: Ecstasy and Emerging Drugs Module, can address and prevent the use of ecstasy and emerging drugs among adolescents. ⋯ To our knowledge, this will be the first evaluation of an Internet-based program designed to specifically target ecstasy and NED use among adolescents. If deemed effective, the Climate Schools: Ecstasy and Emerging Drugs Module will provide schools with an interactive and novel prevention program for ecstasy and emerging drugs that can be readily implemented by teachers.
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During Rwanda's genocide period in 1994, about 800,000 people were killed. People were murdered, raped and seriously injured. This retrospective study investigated prevalence and frequency of traumatic episodes and associated psychosocial effects in young adults in Rwanda over the lifetime, during the genocide period and in the past three years. ⋯ The participants in this population-based study witnessed or experienced serious traumatic episodes during the genocide, which influenced their life circumstances 17 years later. Such traumatic episodes are however still taking place. The reasons for this need further investigation.
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Comparative Study
Rice-eating pattern and the risk of metabolic syndrome especially waist circumference in Korean Genome and Epidemiology Study (KoGES).
Metabolic syndrome poses a serious health threat in Asian countries. Rice is a staple food in Korea, and carbohydrate intake is associated with the risk of MetS. We hypothesized that various rice-eating patterns in a carbohydrate-based diet would have different effects on the risk of MetS. ⋯ The risk for MetS was lower in the rice with beans and rice with multi-grains groups compared with the white rice group, particularly in postmenopausal women.