<p>The use of high active antiretroviral therapy in people living with HIV/AIDS is increasing worldwide. In Rwanda, above 70 % of people in need of antiretroviral therapies is getting them. This drug therapy is associated with abnormal fat redistribution and metabolic complications which increase the risks of cardiovascular and diabetes diseases among these patients. The best recommended preventive and treating modality for these complications is physical activity participation. Despite this recommendation, there is lack of information about physical activity in HIV individuals under high active antiretroviral therapy. The current study aims to determine physical activity levels among people living with HIV treated with high active antiretroviral therapy in Kigali, Rwanda. A cross-sectional design using quantitative method was used. The participant&rsquo / s levels of physical activity participation and their association with anthropometric profiles were measured, using a structured self-administered questionnaire adapted from the Sub-Saharan Africa Activity Questionnaire. Based on a scientific calculation, 407 clients passing through the clinics were included in the study. A convenient sample of people attending the clinics approached to participate voluntarily in the study. The statistical package for social sciences version 19.0 and descriptive statistics were used to analyze the data. Inferential statistics like Chi-square test was used to determine the associations between physical activity levels and anthropometric profiles (p&lt / 0.05). Of the participants, 77% were female with a mean age of 38.82 years (SD=8.9. According to body mass index and weight hip ration, approximately 40% and 43% were obese and overweight respectively. Obesity was more common amongst the females (45%). The study found a high prevalence of inactivity in the following activities, of leisure-time (82.6%), household (71%), walking to/from work (61.7%) and work related physical activities (75%). Obesity was found to be strongly associated with inactivity in all types of activity. The findings of the current study highlighted the lack of motivation, lack of time and fear of worsening the disease amongst the strong barriers to physical activity participation. The current study recommends education about the benefits of physical activity participation and encouragement of patient treated with high active antiretroviral therapy in Rwanda to be emphasized on to improve their lives.</p>

HIV/AIDS, discovered in the early 1980s, has now become a world-wide epidemic. The most affected area is Africa, in particular sub-Saharan Africa. This exploratory research project examined the challenges facing grandmothers and focused on Zambia because with 1,291,079 orphans, Zambia has the highest proportions of orphans in the world. Evidence demonstrates that grandmothers care for approximately 43% of the 845,546 AIDS orphans. Young men and women aged between 15 and 49, despite good health and higher education, have continued to die from AIDS, leaving behind children who are cared for by their grandparents and in particular their grandmothers. The experiences of these grandmothers are not known due to a paucity of studies on the subject. This study is a scoping review of literature on HIV/AIDS in Zambia and its impact on the family. A number of journals, books, and reports were investigated. The major themes arising from the literature were identified and discussed; they include HIV/AIDS in sub-Saharan Africa and HIV/AIDS in Zambia, impact of HIV/AIDS on households and Zambia’s response to the epidemic. This research uses three perspectives: conflict theory, social capital and role conflict to guide the exploration of the social impact of HIV/AIDS on families and society. The study provided an opportunity to identify and examine the challenges facing grandmothers who care for their AIDS orphans and consequently to offer potential solutions. It also contributed to a broader understanding of the social significance of HIV/AIDS.

No description available.

Decision aids are intended to inform and empower healthcare consumers in their treatment decisions in an increasingly complex decision-making context where there are often numerous evidence-based treatment options across which to navigate risk/benefit tradeoffs. Evidence-based depression treatments now span several modalities including pharmacological and psychosocial approaches. Given a complex decision-making task, there is the need for consumer decision aids containing sufficient high quality evidence-based information presented in a balanced way in order to navigate options and make informed, values-congruent decisions. Of concern is the relative lack of decision support materials targeted toward adolescents and young adults (18-25 years of age), especially given high incidence rates of mental health problems and lower rates of treatment seeking. The purpose of this study was to examine young adults’ evaluations of the content of a new web-based depression treatment decision aid. The project involved a sequential exploratory mixed-methods design, consisting of a qualitative study followed by a quantitative study. Study 1 involved collection and framework analysis of interview data from a sample of 10 young adults with a history of depression treatment. Results are reported in terms of participants’ familiarity as well as approval for the clarity, amount, balance, trustworthiness, completeness, and helpfulness of the information. Participants also made numerous suggestions for improvement. These suggestions were vetted and many were incorporated into a revised decision aid which was then quantitatively evaluated in Study 2 by 175 Introductory Psychology students. Study 2 variables included participant ratings of the amount, clarity, balance, trustworthiness, and helpfulness of the information. Associations across sociodemographics, evaluative ratings, and time spent on topics were explored. The findings have implications regarding strategies to develop high quality, consumer sensitive information to facilitate informed decision making in young adults. Given that the Internet is increasingly used to search for health information, combined with research indicating acceptability of health websites by young adults, the availability of these materials on the Web may be particularly helpful to support decision-making about treatment for depression for this group.

The purpose of this investigation was to compare three typical modes of fitting hearing aids with respect to the amount of maximum gain which could be obtained before the onset of acoustic feedback. A group of 15 children and a group of 15 adults were used. Each subject was fitted with: (1) a regular ear level hearing aid, (2) a body hearing aid in the conventional mid-torso position, (3) a body hearing aid worn high and to one side of the torso, as is commonly done in binaural body hearing aid fittings. The hearing aid volume controls were increased to a point just prior to the onset of feedback. Once this procedure had been completed for all three hearing aid fittings the high frequency average gain was measured on Bruel and Kjaer equipment.The results indicated that there was no significant difference between the gain values for the two groups, adult versus children. There was, however, a significant difference between the gain values of the three test positions. The mid-torso position achieved the highest gain, the shoulder position was the next highest, and the ear level position achieved the least gain. There was a significant interaction effect between groups (adult, children) and placement (mid-torso, shoulder, ear level).

HIV/AIDS, discovered in the early 1980s, has now become a world-wide epidemic. The most affected area is Africa, in particular sub-Saharan Africa. This exploratory research project examined the challenges facing grandmothers and focused on Zambia because with 1,291,079 orphans, Zambia has the highest proportions of orphans in the world. Evidence demonstrates that grandmothers care for approximately 43% of the 845,546 AIDS orphans. Young men and women aged between 15 and 49, despite good health and higher education, have continued to die from AIDS, leaving behind children who are cared for by their grandparents and in particular their grandmothers. The experiences of these grandmothers are not known due to a paucity of studies on the subject. This study is a scoping review of literature on HIV/AIDS in Zambia and its impact on the family. A number of journals, books, and reports were investigated. The major themes arising from the literature were identified and discussed; they include HIV/AIDS in sub-Saharan Africa and HIV/AIDS in Zambia, impact of HIV/AIDS on households and Zambia’s response to the epidemic. This research uses three perspectives: conflict theory, social capital and role conflict to guide the exploration of the social impact of HIV/AIDS on families and society. The study provided an opportunity to identify and examine the challenges facing grandmothers who care for their AIDS orphans and consequently to offer potential solutions. It also contributed to a broader understanding of the social significance of HIV/AIDS.

No description available.

Thesis (MA)--Macquarie University, School of English and Linguistics, 1988. / Bibliography : p. 206-209. / Introduction -- The use of continuous discourse tracking to assess degree of FM advantage received by moderately to profoundly hearing impaired children in classroom conditions -- Subjective preferences of hearing impaired children for listening through FM systems using a paired comparison procedure -- Degree of FM advantage as measured using an adaptive speech test procedure with mildly o profoundly hearing impaired children -- Benefits and use of FM systems : a survey of teachers, children and parents -- Conclusions and recommendations. / Only very limited research has examined the issue of how well FM systems are decreasing the speech perception difficulties of hearing impaired children. A comprehensive study of the effectiveness of FM fittings and factors associated with benefit was therefore undertaken using 4 different measures. Tracking of continuous discourse in classroom settings (12 subjects) showed significant improvement when FM aids were used compared to hearing aids alone. Also, significantly greater gains in tracking rate were made over 4 sessions for the FM condition compared to the hearing aid only listening condition. In order to investigate the subjective response of listeners to various features of FM processed signals, another experiment was conducted using a paired comparison procedure in noise with 21 moderately to profoundly deaf children and using two different types of FM systems. Overall results showed significant preferences for combined mode above both VOX/SOX settings and FM microphone alone settings. There were no significant preferences for microphone style, and a significant volume control setting preference (for a 5 dB higher than recommended setting) was shown for one of the two types of FM systems evaluated. The most interesting result was that, overall, listeners did not significantly prefer any FM settings to their hearing aids alone and, in fact, most listeners actually significantly preferred the aid alone to the FM alone or VOX/SOX settings. These results occurred despite the fact that a large FM advantage was shown in terms of improved S/N ratio on all these settings. However, judgements tended to be different for experienced users of at least one of the types of FM being evaluated, who significantly preferred the FM on any mode compared to their hearing aid alone. These results are discussed with regard to clinical practices and the need for demonstration to, and training and encouragement of, new users to ensure the available FM advantage is realised. A third study evaluated the clinical usefulness and accuracy of an adaptive speech test (NU-CHIPS) in noise to verify and measure degree of FM advantage. Results from 31 mildly to profoundly hearing impaired children showed that significant signal-to-noise ratio advantage was obtained overall, and that the advantage was greater on the FM alone than the C setting. Over all listening conditions through the FM, there were 28 out of a possible 51 occurrences of hearing impaired listeners performing equal to or significantly better than 11 normal hearing children also tested using this procedure. The predictive accuracy and clinical feasibility of this approach are discussed. The way in which these FM advantages are moderated by interactions with users in practical situations are described by the results from questionnaires or interviews of 75 teachers, 52 children and 14 parents regarding use, perceived benefits and problems associated with FM systems. Factors which seemed to affect perceptions and use included feelings of self-consciousness about the FM as age of users increased, lack of confidence in the systems due to frequent breakages and faults in combination with lack of knowledge about how to check the systems effectively and efficiently, problems with being able to securely attach the systems to the body, and lack of knowledge about how to make the best use of the units in a variety of situations. On the basis of all of these findings, some suggestions on how to improve FM acceptance and use are offered. / Mode of access: World Wide Web. / 209 p. ill

Proefschrift Universiteit van Amsterdam. / Auteursnaam op omslag: David (Ing Swan) Kwa. Met bibliogr., lit. opg. - Met samenvatting in het Nederlands.

Thesis (Dip.App.Psych.) -- University of Adelaide, Department of Psychology, 1978.