This study focuses on the experiences that educators have of their relationships with adolescents involved in drug use. It has been recognised over time that school communities are becoming more important with regards to the impact they have on learners, in particular the impact that learner-educator relationships have on the wellbeing of learners. A qualitative, phenomenological design was therefore used in order to ascertain the educators’ lived experiences. In total, sixteen educators were purposely selected from a secondary school in the area of Delft in Cape Town. In-depth interviews were conducted with all sixteen participants after which a World Café group session was organised in which the same 16 educators participated. These methods collected rich information. The results of the study are reported in an article. The aim of the article was to explore educators’ lived experiences of their relationships with adolescent learners involved in drug use. The study has shown that educators can have positive relationships with learners involved in drug use despite the challenges they face. It seems that it is most likely to occur when the educator feels motivated to nurture these relationships – possibly experiencing personal well-being – and uses a variety of skills and strengths to attempt to achieve this goal. This has implications for how other cases with learners involved in drug use should be treated and how the educators and school can assist these learners. Recommendations that emerged as a result of this study are to make educators aware of their own personal well-being and the importance of nurturing their wellbeing, in order to enable them to, in turn, nurture positive relationships with learners involved in drug use. Schools themselves can also play a role in creating an organisational culture that places emphasis on the relational and personal well-being of teachers as well as students. / MA (Psychology), North-West University, Potchefstroom Campus, 2014

published_or_final_version / Social Work / Master / Master of Social Work

A study of data from 85 undergraduate and graduate students involved in church youth groups revealed a significant relationship between degree of religious belief and drug using behavior and attitudes. Highly religious subjects disapproved of drinking alcoholic beverages and used cigarettes and alcohol less than subjects professing lower religiosity. Protestant subjects had more negative attitudes and less personal use of tobacco and alcohol than Catholics. Similar findings pertaining to drug using behavior and attitudes were reported between groups for all other substances.

The focus of this study was to determine if certain personality traits could be detected within a population of substance-abusing adolescents. The Depression (d), Psychopathic Deviant (Pd), Paranoia (Pa), and Hypomania (Ma) scales of the Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory (MMPI) were utilized as indicators of psychopathological traits for this project. It was found that a significant degree of elevation on these scales was achieved by the subject, when compared to an ideal normative sample. It was concluded that this indicated the presence of certain psychopathological personality traits within this population. The implication that personality differences within this population can be detected could lead to a greater understanding of substance abuse among adolescents, and the potential for more appropriate counseling approaches with such substance abusers.

The treatment of schizophrenia today consists of a multi-component system of services. Mental health professionals generally agree that anti-psychotic medications are an essential treatment for schizophrenia. However, adherence to medication regimens by patients with schizophrenia is notoriously poor. To identify correlates and predictors of medication compliance, the Schedule for Affective Disorders and Schizophrenia (SADS), a semi-structured diagnostic interview, was administered to 90 outpatients with schizophrenia. The results suggest that there are specific variables (i.e., mood symptoms, psychotic symptoms, and socio-demographic variables) that predict medication compliance. In addition, the confirmation of these variables was effective (90.0%) at identifying non-compliant patients. The results suggest that schizophrenia is a complex disorder composed of heterogeneous symptoms. However, a specific group of symptoms is proposed which may provide a screening measure for predicting patients who are likely to be non-compliant with their medications.

Background: Healthy Spirituality helps to find identity, she led to inner harmony and also harmonizes the relationship to the world and external activity. Four dimensions act of faith - an autonomous source present grace, free response and social framework - will appear in therapeutic practice and may contribute to the development of a mature personality and eliminate substance abuse during adolescence and the next life. We can talk about that in difference from other religious direction Christianity has the personality of addictological terms of psychotherapeutic influence. The main aim of my thesis is an overview of the situation of substance use among adolescents from Christian oriented schools of Prague aged 13 to 16 years. Another objective is to compare the results with the results from the ESPAD study in 2011. Method of making data: For these purposes, we used a short questionnaire ESPAD (2007), Prague spirituality questionnaire (PSQ 30) and a standard questionnaire on religious attitudes M. Duda and Smely I. (2013). Participants: The research sample consisted of 96 students from Christian schools aged 13 to 16 years. Data analysis methods: The data were processed at the level of descriptive and mathematical and analytical statistics (chi-square) and the results reported in the tables and...

M.A. (Social Work) / Please refer to full text to view abstract

Orientadores: Ellen Hardy, Maria Jose Duarte Osis / Tese (doutorado) - Universidade Estadual de Campinas, Faculdade de Ciencias Medicas / Made available in DSpace on 2018-11-09T13:16:09Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 Bassi_FabianaGuariglia_D.pdf: 1703561 bytes, checksum: 492a5b1b282e8a5db7051f9283374f80 (MD5) Previous issue date: 2009 / Resumo: As crianças estão sujeitas a muitas das doenças de que sofrem os adultos e, muitas vezes, são tratadas com os mesmos medicamentos. Nos últimos 30 anos foram realizadas poucas pesquisas para se desenvolver medicamentos pediátricos. A medicina baseada em evidências tem sido ponto de referência de uma boa prática clínica. Entretanto, as crianças são excluídas dessa prática, uma vez que os tratamentos não foram cientificamente avaliados nesse grupo etário. A ausência de estudos pediátricos representa um dilema ético para o profissional responsável pela saúde dos menores, os medicamentos acabam sendo ministrados sem a garantia de serem adequados às necessidades de cada grupo etário. Estes profissionais não têm orientação oficial a respeito do melhor para as crianças: expô-las ao risco de tomar medicamentos não adequados ou ao risco de participar de um ensaio clínico. Objetivo: Conhecer a experiência e a opinião de docentes de Departamentos de Pediatria e de Neonatologia de Faculdades de Medicina brasileiras a respeito do desenvolvimento de ensaios clínicos, para avaliar fármacos e formas de administração em crianças. Sujeitos e métodos: Este estudo foi realizado em duas etapas: a primeira foi quantitativa de corte transversal, descritiva utilizando um questionário autorrespondido A segunda foi qualitativa, utilizando entrevistas semi-estruturadas. Essa segunda etapa foi realizada para obter informações que permitissem a melhor compreensão do significado das informações obtidas inicialmente. Quantitativa: Os sujeitos do estudo foram docentes-pediatras das Faculdades de Medicina do Brasil. Foi enviada, por correio eletrônico, uma carta-convite personalizada explicando o objetivo do estudo e em anexo o questionário a ser autorrespondido. Realizouse análise descritiva univariada que consistiu de tabelas de distribuição de frequências de todas as variáveis consideradas. Qualitativa: Para esta etapa foram convidados os docentes-pesquisadores que responderam ao questionário na Etapa Quantitativa e relataram que foram pesquisadores principais, nos últimos 24 meses, de um de ensaio clínico que incluiu voluntários que o pesquisador considerou crianças. Todos os pesquisadores que aceitaram o convite foram entrevistados pessoalmente através de uma entrevista semi-estruturada de questões abertas. Realizou-se a análise de conteúdo. Resultados: Dos 89 docentes-pediatras que responderam ao questionário, 31 relataram que nos últimos 24 meses tinham sido pesquisador principal de um ensaio clínico pediátrico. Entretanto, apenas 58% das pesquisas referidas correspondiam a um ensaio clínico segundo definido para esta pesquisa. Foi detectado que as opiniões dos docentes-pediatras estavam em harmonia com as orientações internacionais existentes atualmente, apesar de ter sido identificado que dentre os docentes-pesquisadores não havia um conhecimento apurado das normas existentes no Brasil e das normas internacionais para a realização de ensaios clínicos na população pediátrica. Houve um consenso quanto à necessidade cada vez maior de se realizar ensaios clínicos para essa população e, consequentemente, da necessidade de se regulamentar esse tipo de pesquisa no Brasil. Conclusões: Com uma regulamentação nacional que as crianças e adolescentes do Brasil poderão ter uma possibilidade de garantir seus direitos, como a proteção de sua integridade física, emocional e social. Como também o acesso a novas tecnologias que atendam às suas reais necessidades. / Abstract: Children are subjected to many of the diseases adults suffer from, and most of the times they are treated with the same medication. In the past 30 years there have been conducted few researches to develop pediatric medication. The medicine based on evidence has been a reference point of a good clinical practice. However, children are excluded of this practice once the treatments haven't been scientifically tested in this age group. The lack of pediatric studies represent an ethical dilemma for the professional responsible for the children's health, because the medication ends up being administered without the guarantee that they are appropriate for the needs of each group. These professionals don't have professional official orientation in respect of the best for the children's: expose them to the risk of taking medicine that are not appropriate or to the risk of participating in a clinical study. Objective: To find out about the experience and opinion of professors from Neonatology and Pediatric Departments of Brazilian Medical Schools in respect of clinical trials developments to evaluate medicine and administration methods in children. Subjects and methods: this study was conducted in 2 stages: the first was quantitative and in a transversal cut and descriptive, using a self responded questionnaire. The second was qualitative, using semi-structured interviews. This second stage was developed to obtain information that permitted the best understanding of the information's meaning obtained initially. QUANTITATIVE: The study's subjects were pediatrics professors of Brazil's Medical School. A personalized invitation letter was sent, via -mail, explaining the objective of the study and the questionnaire was attached. The unvaried descriptive analysis consisted of frequency distribution tables of all the considered variants. QUALITATIVE: For this stage, the research professors were invited to respond to the questionnaire in the Quantitative Stage and they reported they had been the main researchers, over the past 24 months, of a clinical trial that included volunteers that the researcher took children into account. All the researchers who accepted the invitation were interviewed in person, through a semi-structured interview of open questions. The content analysis was performed. Results: From the 89 pediatrics professors who responded to the questionnaire, 31 reported that over the past 24 months they had been the main researchers of a pediatric clinical trial. However, only 58% of the reported surveys corresponded to a clinical trial according to the one defined for this survey. It has been detected that the pediatric professors opinions were in harmony with the international orientation that exists nowadays, even though it had been discovered that among the pediatric professors there was no accurate knowledge of the existing norms in Brazil and the international norms for the conduction of clinical trials in the pediatric population. There was an agreement concerning the increasing need of carrying out clinical trials for this population and consequently the need of regulating this kind of research in Brazil. Conclusions: With a national regulation that children and adolescents from Brazil will have a possibility of guaranteeing their rights, as well as their social, emotional and physical integrity protection. And also the access to new technologies that suit their real needs. / Doutorado / Ciencias Biomedicas / Doutor em Tocoginecologia

No description available.

Hepatitis (HCV) is a communicable disease that impacts many Americans. The scholarly literature lacked the knowledge pertaining to the relationships between poverty and HCV diagnosis and prescription for HCV medication. The purpose of the study was to measure the magnitude and statistical significance of these relationships, as modeled by the health belief model and public health surveillance and action framework. Specifically, the study was designed to determine whether there is a statistically significant relationship between living below the poverty line and being diagnosed with HCV, as well as living being below the poverty line and being prescribed HCV medication. A total of 78 records of HCV-positive individuals from the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey dataset were evaluated by applying the statistical procedure of odds ratio (OR) analysis. The results of the analysis revealed that (a) there was not a statistically significant relationship between being below the poverty line and being diagnosed with HCV, OR = 0.99 (SE = 0.38, z = -0.03, p = .974); and (b) there was not a statistically significant relationship between being below the poverty line and being prescribed HCV medications, OR = 0.32 (SE = 0.55, z = -0.66, p = .507). Numerous recommendations for improving measurements of the relationship between poverty and HCV are provided. This study may promote positive social change by indicating the importance of poverty as an agenda item for public health policy and practice.