Articles: disease.
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Comparative Study
Demographic and AIDS-related characteristics of consenters to a population-based HIV-survey: results from a pilot study in Arusha, Tanzania.
The aim was to compare demographic and AIDS-related characteristics of people who consented to HIV-testing as part of a population survey with those who did not consent to HIV-testing. Subjects, aged 15-54 years, living in ten randomly selected clusters of households in one ward of Arusha town were asked to participate in a structured interview and to provide a blood sample for HIV-testing. Measurements included demographic variables and AIDS-related factors, such as knowledge of AIDS and sexual behaviour, and HIV-testing with Western Blot confirmation. ⋯ No other demographic or AIDS-related differences were observed between HIV-test consenters and non-consenters. At least in this pilot, non- consenters did not appear to be at any higher risk for HIV-infection than the consenters. Future population-based HIV-surveys might have to compromise on maximizing participation rate in order to secure informed, non-coerced consent from participants.
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To assess effects of fallout from Chernobyl on incidence of childhood leukaemia in Finland. ⋯ An important increase in childhood leukaemia can be excluded. Any effect is smaller than eight extra cases per million children per year in Finland. The results are consistent with the magnitude of effect expected.
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To estimate the effects of the HIV-1 epidemic on mortality in children under 5 years of age in urban and rural populations in eastern and central, and southern Africa. ⋯ There are likely to be substantial increases in child mortality in sub-Saharan Africa as a result of HIV-1 infection. The main determinant of childhood infection is the scale of the epidemic among adults. Increases in mortality will depend on local adult seroprevalence but are hard to predict precisely because of possible variation in death rates among HIV-1-infected children. In rural areas with low seroprevalence other diseases will remain the main cause of mortality. However, in urban areas families and health services will have to face considerably increased demands from ill and dying children.
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In addition to the acute adverse consequencesof ectopic pregnancy, the subsequent reproductive potential of the affected women has continued to attract the attention of medical scientists in recent times. In a study to evaluate the fertility potentials in 138 patients treated for ectopic pregnancy in the King Khalid University Hospital (KKUH) Riyadh, 105 (76.1%) of the patients had follow-up management for periods varying from 12 to 60 months. ⋯ Of these, 51 (48.6%) eventually became pregnant and produced 63 viable pregnancies, 18 abortions and one repeat ectopic pregnancy. Many of those who failed to become pregnant over the follow-up period probably had tubal damage due to the antecedent pelvic inflammatory disease (PID),perhaps compounded by the effects of the ectopic pregnancy and the management, among other factors.
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The objective of the present methodological study was to construct and validate a scale of attitudes of people concerning AIDS, to aid in the diagnosis of favourable and unfavourable attitudes and evaluation of educational programs related to AIDS. The steps followed to develop the Likert-type scale were: elaboration of items related to knowledge, feelings and reactions about AIDS; apparent validation and verification of content; application of the instrument in a sample of people; evaluation of the ability to discriminate the items; study of the internal reliability of the scale; factor analysis of the scale to establish the fundamental dimensions of the instrument. The final scale contained 25 items. This instrument showed a high coefficient of reliability and validity.