The Department of Education is promoting HIV/AIDS education programmes in the public schools of South Africa, particularly through the subject Life Orientation. Therefore, this study investigates the role of Life Orientation in addressing HIV/AIDS in KwaZulu-Natal secondary schools. Different role-players were evaluated to ascertain their attitudes and beliefs about Life Orientation and HIV/AIDS. The examination of different role-players was undertaken to establish the significance of their attitudes and beliefs on the success or failure of the Life Orientation based sex and HIV education programmes in the schools. An attempt was also made to find a relevant definition of the subject Life Orientation that contains the meaning and the purpose of the subject. Teachers were found to be uncertain about an appropriate definition that carries the meaning of Life Orientation; hence they tend to define it by its components such as Life skills, physical education, decision-making, HIV education and others. The study also sought to establish the impact of sex education embedded in Life Orientation on the fight against HIV/AIDS. Sex education was examined to determine whether it encourages or reduces youth sexual activities. In order for teachers to be able to use Life Orientation content to drive sex and HIV education programmes, it had to be ascertained if they were informed or not about HIV/AIDS. The questionnaire carried out an extensive assessment of teachers’ knowledge, attitudes and their personal stance on HIV/AIDS. This study established that training of teachers in both Life Orientation and HIV/AIDS provides them with knowledge which enables them to positively handle sex and HIV education programmes in the classroom. It was for this reason that the study made recommendations with regard to training and support programmes to ensure that teachers are adequately equipped for effective implementation of the subject Life Orientation in the National Curriculum Statement. / Educational Studies / D. Ed. (Curriculum Studies)

Tobacco use is closely related to changes in body weight. Undesired weight gain following smoking cessation occurs in most patients. The mechanism responsible for changes in body weight post cessation are only partially understood. Several hypotheses have suggested a temporary increase in blood pressure following smoking cessation. In addition, weight concerns after quitting are common, and may affect tobacco dependence treatment outcomes. The aim of our study was to monitor changes in body weight, blood pressure, incretins and selected hormonal parameters among ex-smokers after three months of abstinence. We also examined factors associated with smoking-related weight concerns. We monitored and evaluated selected parameters (personal history, questionnaires, anthropometric, biochemical, hormonal) and compared before and after tobacco dependece treatment, if patients underwent such treatment. We found that smoking cessation was associated with weight gain. Smokers who were more tobacco dependent or more sedentary were at increased risk. The prevalence of diagnosis hypertension did not differ among non-smokers, former smokers and smokers adjusting for age and BMI. In the pilot phase of our study we demonstrated that three months of smoking abstinence was associated with an increase in serum leptin...

Bakgrund: Alkoholkonsumtionen bland ungdomar har sedan 2000-talets början minskat. Hur detta har påverkat ungdomarnas hälsa är i dagsläget okänt, då det råder brist på vetenskapligt underlag inom området. Emellertid har tidigare studier undersökt hälsan hos ungdomar som inte dricker alkohol i andra kontexter och tidsperioder, vilket indikerat på en koppling till hälsobrister snarare än hälsovinster framförallt vad gäller psykisk hhälsa. Syfte: Denna studie syftar till att undersöka huruvida avhållsamhet från alkohol bland ungdomar i årskurs två på gymnasiet är associerat med psykisk hälsa, samt om deras psykiska hälsa har förändrats från 2004 till 2012. Metod: För att undersöka sambandet mellan ungdomars avhållsamhet från alkohol och psykisk hälsa användes en kvantitativ metod med upprepade tvärsnittsstudier som studiedesign. Data från hälsoundersökningen Liv och Hälsa Ung Västmanland användes, med 2533 elever i årskurs två år 2004 och 2193 elever år 2012. Resultat: Andelen elever i årskurs två på gymnasiet som avhöll sig från att dricka alkohol var endast marginellt större år 2012 än 2004. Ungdomar som inte dricker alkohol uppvisade i mindre utsträckning antisocialt beteende jämfört med de som dricker, vilket gällde för båda åren. Dock i mindre utsträckning år 2012 än 2004, varvid alkoholkonsumtionen inte tycks ha varit av lika stor betydelse för graden av antisocialt beteende vid det senare undersökningsåret. Med avseende på psykosomatiska besvär och depression var ungdomars avhållsamhet från alkohol endast associerat med hälsofördelar det första undersökningsåret. År 2012 var icke-drickande snarare associerat med en högre grad av psykosomatiska besvär. Slutsatser: Ungdomars avhållsamhet från alkohol tycks inte vara associerat med några påtagliga hälsoeffekter bland ungdomar i årskurs två, med undantag för antisocialt beteende. Möjligtvis beror avsaknaden av hälsoeffekter 2012 på en ökad psykisk ohälsa bland både drickare och icke-drickare. / Background: Alcohol consumption among adolescents has declined since the beginning of the twenty-first century. Whether this has affected the health among the adolescents is currently unknown, due to the lack of empirical evidence regarding this area. However, previous studies have investigated the health of non-drinking adolescents in other contexts and time periods, which have indicated a connection to health deficiencies rather than health benefits. Especially regarding mental health. Aim: The aim of this study is to investigate whether alcohol abstinence among adolescents in the second year of upper secondary school is associated with mental health and whether their mental health has changed from 2004 to 2012. Method: In order to investigate the relationship between alcohol abstinence among adolescents, a quantitative method with a repeated cross-sectional design was used. Data from the Survey of Adolescent Life in Vestmanland was used, including 2533 second year students in 2004 and 2193 second year students in 2012. Results: The proportion of students in the second year of upper secondary school who abstained from drinking alcohol was only marginally greater 2012 than 2004. Non-drinking adolescents presented an antisocial behavior to a lesser extent than their drinking peers, which was applicable to both years. However, to a lesser extent in 2012 than 2004, where Conclusions: Alcohol abstinence among adolescents does not seem to have substantially affected the mental health of adolescents, except concerning anti-social behavior. Lack of health effects among the adolescents in 2012, may instead depend on a decrease in mental health among drinkers, as well as non-drinkers. Keywords: adolescents, alcohol abstinence, antisocial behavior, depression, mental health, psychosomatic symptoms.

Condom use is promoted as an effective method for prevention and contraception for people who practice or are at risk of practicing high-risk sexual behaviors. According to the UNAIDS (2009) report, condoms are the only resource available to prevent the sexual spread of the HI-Virus; and with regard to family planning, the same report proposes that condoms expand the choices, have no medical side effects, and thus provide dual protection against pregnancy and disease. However, in Africa as elsewhere in the world, condom use has been fiercely debated. The debates on the accessibility, availability and distribution of condoms in schools are not new nor are they uncontested. In Namibia, the HIV and AIDS policy in education does not explain how, when and by whom condoms should be made available to learners. This leaves it to schools to decide on how (and whether) to make condoms available to learners. As a result, individual school‘s choices not only vary, but are mediated by different factors that are not always in the best interest of learners who, as the foregoing discussion suggests, continue to participate in behaviour that, amongst other things, puts them at risk of HIV infection and falling pregnant. Relying on Foucault‘s theory of discourses, this study investigated the dominant discourses that shape learner, teacher, parent religious and traditional leader and traditional healer perspectives, responses, and experiences with regard to the accessibility, availability, and distribution of condoms in school. The study was conducted in nine schools in Kavango Region in Namibia using a mixed methods approach. The study used triangulation in the data collection process through the use of questionnaires where 792 learners participated in this component, and focus group discussions and individual interviews targeting four groups namely, learners, teachers, parents and religious leaders, traditional leaders and traditional healers. The quantitative data were analyzed using the Statistical Packages for Social Sciences (SPSS), and findings from the focus group discussions and individual interviews were analyzed identifying themes and patterns and then organizing them into coherent categories with sub-categories. The study revealed that the majority of adult participants opposed the idea of making condoms available in schools; advocating abstinence instead. This was despite evidence on the prevalence of sexual activity amongst youth in the community. Reasons had to do with various competing and hierarchized discourses operating to shape participant beliefs, perspectives, and responses in a highly regulated and surveilled social and cultural context. Put differently, the dominant discourses invoked a particular sexual subject; authorized and legitimated who invoked such a subject; who was and was not allowed to speak on sexual matters; as well as how sexual matters were brought into the public space of schools. Such authorization and legitimation regulated the discursive space in which discussions on sexual health, safe sex, and resources such as condoms were permitted; with negative consequences for the sexual well-being of youth in Kavango Region. The study also highlighted the tension between freedom, choice, and rights, showing how complex in fact is decision to make condoms available in school. On the one hand, teenagers positioned themselves as capable subjects who had the right to exercise choice over their sexual lives. Requesting parent consent was thus viewed as a violation of this right to choose. Such a position displayed authority and agency by learners that was pitted against views amongst adults in this study that positioned youth as having no agency. In their view, youth (a) were still children and thus innocent and pure, (b) ought to abstain, and (c) were difficult to control given the modern context. Adults believed that early sexual involvement by learners did not result from lack of vigilance and control on their part, but rather from exposure to modern social mores. The study concluded that (a) schools remain difficult spaces not only for mediating discussions of sex and sexuality, but also for providing resources to mitigate sexual risk amongst leaners, (b) in highly regulated societies, dominant religious discourses are produced and reproduced in and through existing institutions such as family, church, and schools; highlighting how these serve to normalize beliefs and perspectives, (c) the dominant discourses shaping communities in which schools find themselves remain inconsistent with school discourses that are shaped by modernist conceptions of childhood and youth, and (b) adult choices to sanction and obstruct schools from making condoms available (and in the case of teachers, not accessible and distributable) put the very children at risk that they propose to be protecting.

Background: A randomized controlled study (RCT) recently showed that short-term heart rate variability (HRV) biofeedback in addition to standard rehabilitation care for alcohol dependence can reduce craving, anxiety and improve cardiovascular autonomic function. In this one-year follow-up study we aimed to explore whether completion of 2-week HRV-Biofeedback training is associated with long-term abstinence. Furthermore, we sought to identify potential predictors of post-treatment abstinence. Methods: We conducted a survey on abstinence in patients with alcohol dependence 1 year after completion of an RCT comparing HRV-biofeedback in addition to inpatient rehabilitation treatment alone (controls). Abstinence rates were compared and analysed for association with demographic data as well as psychometric and autonomic cardiac assessment before and after completion of the biofeedback training using bivariate and multivariate regression analyses. Results: Out of 48 patients who participated in the RCT, 27 patients (9 females, ages 42.9 ± 8.6, mean ± SD) completed our one-year follow-up. When including in the analysis only patients who completed follow-up, the rate of abstinence tended to be higher in patients who underwent HRV-biofeedback 1 year earlier compared to those who received rehabilitative treatment alone (66.7% vs 50%, p = ns). This non-significant trend was also observed in the intention-to-treat analysis where patients who did not participate in the follow-up were assumed to have relapsed (46,7% biofeedback vs. 33.3% controls, p = ns). Neither cardiac autonomic function nor psychometric variables were associated with abstinence 1 year after HRV-biofeedback. Conclusion: Our follow-up study provide a first indication of possible increase in long-term abstinence after HRVbiofeedback for alcohol dependence in addition to rehabilitation. Trial registration: The original randomized controlled trial was registered in the German Clinical Trials Register (DRKS00004618). This one-year follow-up survey has not been registered.

Background: A randomized controlled study (RCT) recently showed that short-term heart rate variability (HRV) biofeedback in addition to standard rehabilitation care for alcohol dependence can reduce craving, anxiety and improve cardiovascular autonomic function. In this one-year follow-up study we aimed to explore whether completion of 2-week HRV-Biofeedback training is associated with long-term abstinence. Furthermore, we sought to identify potential predictors of post-treatment abstinence. Methods: We conducted a survey on abstinence in patients with alcohol dependence 1 year after completion of an RCT comparing HRV-biofeedback in addition to inpatient rehabilitation treatment alone (controls). Abstinence rates were compared and analysed for association with demographic data as well as psychometric and autonomic cardiac assessment before and after completion of the biofeedback training using bivariate and multivariate regression analyses. Results: Out of 48 patients who participated in the RCT, 27 patients (9 females, ages 42.9 ± 8.6, mean ± SD) completed our one-year follow-up. When including in the analysis only patients who completed follow-up, the rate of abstinence tended to be higher in patients who underwent HRV-biofeedback 1 year earlier compared to those who received rehabilitative treatment alone (66.7% vs 50%, p = ns). This non-significant trend was also observed in the intention-to-treat analysis where patients who did not participate in the follow-up were assumed to have relapsed (46,7% biofeedback vs. 33.3% controls, p = ns). Neither cardiac autonomic function nor psychometric variables were associated with abstinence 1 year after HRV-biofeedback. Conclusion: Our follow-up study provide a first indication of possible increase in long-term abstinence after HRVbiofeedback for alcohol dependence in addition to rehabilitation. Trial registration: The original randomized controlled trial was registered in the German Clinical Trials Register (DRKS00004618). This one-year follow-up survey has not been registered.

No description available.

Although addiction is treated by means of different treatment programmes in South Africa, the researcher discovered that the level of self-actualization and changes in addicts relationships, are questionable. A preliminary literature review indicated that the family of origin could be the cause of addiction. The above prompted the researcher to compile a treatment programme that addresses the family of origin as a cause of addiction. The treatment programme was divided into three phases. Phases one and two were included to provide therapists with guidelines on how to assist clients to reach abstinence, as well as how to function effectively in their life-worlds, while phase three addressed the family of origin as a cause of addiction. The family systems and relations theories served as the theoretical framework of the study. Phase three of the treatment programme was implemented by therapists during an empirical investigation to determine the effectiveness of the treatment programme. / Teacher Education / D Ed. (Psychology of Education)

No description available.

This study examined healthcare professionals’ perceptions on feeding difficulties experienced by infants with NOWS, the involvement of SLP in care, knowledge and experience levels of professionals, and trends in education and follow up care. A 34-question survey was developed to obtain data from participants involved in the care of exposed infants using the secure webbased RedCap™ platform. Nonparametric inferential statistics and descriptive analysis were used to interpret data. Feeding difficulties in infants exposed were reported by all respondents with SLP involvement reported by 42.2%. Results found that 51.9% of respondents were confident in their ability to educate families about feeding difficult with 60% reported inadequate time to provide education. Discharge follow up was inconsistent amongst facilities. The study supports early involvement of SLPs to address feeding difficulties and improve education.