Search PubMed⌕ Search

SEARCH · Search PubMed

Results for “knowledge”

Search indexed PubMed citations on genomics, clinical trials, systematic reviews and public health. Explore titles, authors and supplied subject terms, then open the PubMed record.

Quote a phrase for an exact phrase match. Source license links do not imply unrestricted reuse.

At least 325 records · Page 18Linked to original sources

Oral health knowledge and habits of senior elementary school students.

Despite improvements in children's dental health, and significant resource allocation to health education programs, few recent studies have investigated the associations of oral health knowledge, behaviors, and status. This study of 11-year-old children (N = 6,329) in northeastern Ontario used a supervised self-complete questionnaire and a clinical examination to gather baseline data on, and test associations of, caries and periodontal knowledge, self-reported oral health behaviors and source of knowledge, and oral health status. Results show the children had poor knowledge of caries preventive measures such as water fluoridation, dental sealants, and choice of snack foods. Periodontal knowledge was better, but children confused plaque and calculus. Respondents claimed good oral health habits, with 73 percent claiming to brush at least twice daily, 88 percent claiming to use toothpaste, 42 percent claim to floss at least twice weekly, and 84 percent claiming an annual dental visit. Children with the best knowledge claimed dentist and school as the sources. High knowledge was associated with good oral health habits (P less than .001) and low DMFT score (P less than .001). Good habits were not related to DMFT score (P = .1095). Logistic regression showed high knowledge was associated with English cultural status, urban school area, good habits, having a dental sealant, and attending a fluoride-rinse school (P less than .05). Findings suggest a need to reinforce caries preventive teaching, to investigate the effect of cultural status, dental experience, and residence status on oral health knowledge, and to further test the efficacy of different oral health education programs delivered by different sources.

Analysis of Variance↗

Trends in students' knowledge, opinions, and experience regarding dental informatics and computer applications.

OBJECTIVE: This study investigated knowledge, opinions, and experience regarding dental informatics and computers among first-year dental students (D1s) and fourth-year dental students (D4s). DESIGN: First-year (N = 95) and fourth-year (N = 91) students in 1990 and first-year (N = 97) and fourth-year (N = 91) students in 1993 at a school of dentistry were surveyed. MEASUREMENTS: Demographic characteristics and computer ownership were assessed. Knowledge was measured using an 18-item scale (range 0-18). Opinions were measured using a 13-item scale (range 13-65; alpha = 0.81). Experience was measured using a 28-item scale (range 28-140). RESULTS: Response rates were all nearly 100%. Computer ownership by the D1s increased from 17.9% to 43.8% in the three years between surveys. Knowledge and opinions of the 1990 and 1993 D1s were similar, although the latter reported more experience with hardware and software. Experience with dental informatics applications was lacking in both groups. The 1993 D4s had completed more computer courses than had the 1990 D4s (2.3 vs 0.9), and demonstrated significantly more knowledge and experience. Opinion scores were nearly identical for these groups. The D4s in 1993 who had been D1s in 1990 had increased their knowledge of and experience with informatics applications during dental school. A difference in computer knowledge between the entering D1 males and females was observed in 1990, but was essentially gone by 1993 for the same individuals. CONCLUSIONS: Entering students had more computing knowledge and skill than their predecessors. Informatics knowledge and experience increased during dental school, and knowledge disparities between genders disappeared.

Adult↗

Differences in the technical and applied nutrition knowledge of older adults.

Although elder adults are much more knowledgeable about nutrition than ever before, diet behavior is not consistent with nutrition knowledge. One of the reasons for this inconsistency may be that the ability to apply technical nutrition knowledge is still inadequate. To test the hypothesis that technical nutrition knowledge is superior to applied nutrition knowledge, 96 volunteer seniors were given technical nutrition knowledge tests associated with heart disease, cancer, and high blood pressure. After the technical knowledge tests, subjects were asked to choose from among pairs the item that contained: (a) cholesterol, (b) more saturated fat, (c) more polyunsaturated fat, (d) substances that help to lower blood cholesterol, (e) more fiber, and (f) less sodium. Results support the notion that, in general, elder ability to apply nutrition knowledge is not as adequate as their technical nutrition knowledge.

Aged↗

The interactive effects of prior knowledge and text structure on memory for cognitive psychology texts.

BACKGROUND: Interest in the interactive effects of prior knowledge and text structure on learning from text is increasing but experimental manipulations of knowledge and structure variables often produce findings that do not help teachers to select expository texts for students. AIMS: We aimed to extend the ecological validity of previous findings by asking students with a high or low level of discipline-relevant knowledge to read texts characteristic of those they would normally encounter. A compensation effect was hypothesized, where high prior knowledge would compensate for a lack of text structure and text structure would compensate for a lack of prior knowledge. SAMPLES: One hundred and ninety-five undergraduate psychology students (144 Year 1 students and 51 Year 3 students) were allocated to a high knowledge (HiPK) or low knowledge (LoPK) group on the basis of their performance on a word association test. METHODS: Participants were randomly assigned to one of five text structure groups (compare/contrast, sequence, classification, enumeration, generalization) and asked to study two cognitive psychology passages before recalling the main points of the text immediately afterwards and after a delay of 2 weeks. The five text structures were placed on an 'organizational continuum' according to the degree of structure/organization in the 10 passages. RESULTS: A compensation effect did not emerge. Recall was high when texts were well structured and readers had prior knowledge, but recall was poor when texts were less structured, regardless of the level of prior knowledge. CONCLUSIONS: Readers benefit most from texts that challenge pre-existing mental representations.

Awareness↗

Sexuality of the aged and the attitudes and knowledge of nursing students.

Sexuality of the aged is one area of particular concern to nurse educators, because students' lack of knowledge and negative attitude can have far-reaching effects on nursing care of the elderly. This study examined the relationship of the dependent variables, attitude and knowledge, to the independent variables of ethnicity, age, experience in health care, family income, religious affiliation, religiosity, living arrangements, and level of education. One hundred fifty-eight female nursing students completed White's Aging Sexuality Attitude and Knowledge Scale. The study found that higher knowledge was related to more positive attitude scores (r = .25, P less than .004). Age was also significantly related to both positive attitude (r = .44, P less than .001) and higher knowledge (r = .54, P less than .001). Older students had a more positive attitude toward the elderly and were more knowledgeable about aged sexuality than younger students in the sample. One-way analysis of variance was used to test the significance between means of the dependent and independent variables. A statistically significant difference was found between ethnicity and attitude (f = 33.09, P less than .001) and ethnicity and knowledge (f = 18.36, P less than .001). Asian students in this study had a more negative attitude and were less knowledgeable about aged sexuality than Caucasian students. The study suggests that nurse educators need to pay special attention to the age and ethnicity of students when planning gerontological learning experiences designed not only to facilitate knowledge acquisition, but to promote positive attitudes toward the elderly.

Adult↗

Healthcare knowledge acquisition: an ontology-based approach using the extensible markup language (XML).

The healthcare enterprise requires a great deal of knowledge to maintain premium efficiency in the delivery of quality healthcare. We employ Knowledge Management based knowledge acquisition strategies to procure 'tacit' healthcare knowledge from experienced healthcare practitioners. Situational, problem-specific Scenarios are proposed as viable knowledge acquisition and representation constructs. We present a healthcare Tacit Knowledge Acquisition Info-structure (TKAI) that allows remote healthcare practitioners to record their tacit knowledge. TKAI employs (a) ontologies for standardisation of tacit knowledge and (b) XML to represent scenario instances for their transfer over the Internet to the server-side Scenario-Base and for the global sharing of acquired tacit healthcare knowledge.

Artificial Intelligence↗

Knowledge and attitude of undergraduate students towards sexually transmitted infections in Tirana, Albania.

AIM: To assess the knowledge and attitude of undergraduate students in Tirana, Albania, towards sexually transmitted infections (STI). METHODS: A sample of 729 students (76% women) at the University of Tirana were surveyed by the use of an anonymous questionnaire with 10 multiple-choice questions testing their knowledge and 27 statements testing their attitude towards STI (adapted to a 1-5 Likert scale, with a low score indicating poor attitude). Socio-demographic data were also collected. The survey was carried out in October and November 2002. Multiple regression analysis was used to assess the associations between socio-demographic factors on the one hand and attitude towards and knowledge about sexually transmitted infections, on the other. RESULTS: Men had poorer knowledge and attitude toward STI than women (beta= -4.59, p<0.001 for attitude, and beta= -0.38, p=0.006 for knowledge). Higher parental education and urban origin were strongly associated with better STI knowledge. After adjustment for age, sex, marital status, religion, income, and number of siblings, students whose parents had low and middle education level had a mean STI knowledge score of <1.16 (95% confidence interval [CI], 0.85-1.47) and <0.98 (95% CI, 0.74-1.23), respectively, which was significantly lower than the score of students with highly educated parents (p<0.001 for linear trend). Also, students born in rural areas had significantly lower mean STI knowledge score (<0.70, p=0.003) than students born in urban areas. CONCLUSION: Parental education and origin are strongly associated with knowledge and attitude of undergraduate students in Tirana towards sexually transmitted infections.

Adolescent↗

Knowledge and process management in health care organizations.

OBJECTIVE: Medical knowledge management and care process management have become to be considered as valuable strategic assets that can lead to sustained increase in Health Care Organization (HCO) performance. Thus, it is essential to investigate which are the enablers for promoting knowledge-based organizations (people, organization, process, and system perspectives). Although they are essential for a HCO to manage knowledge effectively, it is still unclear how to employ them in more principled fashion. This requires innovative management strategies to determine effective ways of utilizing knowledge resources and capabilities available both within and outside the organization. METHOD: This paper reviews knowledge and process management theories, methods, and technologies that are potentially effective in building high performance HCOs. They come from a variety of fields behind computer science and medical informatics, e.g. from business and organization sciences to psychological and cognitive sciences, from epistemology to sociology. However, the success in developing future Health Information Systems (HIS) requires their incorporation into a new conceptual framework after recognizing how peculiar are the characteristics of HCOs with respect to other organizations. Investigating the nature of knowledge, in general, and of medical knowledge, in particular, is essential to define which services the future HIS should provide to foster collaboration between patients and health professionals. The knowledge creation process is then described in order to emphasize its dynamic and social characteristics. The potential of workflow technology for building innovative HISs is analyzed together with several basic research issues which are very challenging for researchers in the field. RESULT: A framework for augmenting the conceptual analysis of theories, methods, tools and effects of knowledge management in building high performance HCOs.

Health Facility Administration↗

"Desktop knowledge": a new focus for medical education and decision support.

Physicians today are faced with "data overload" and, paradoxically, "information underload"--the inability to locate pertinent, needed knowledge in a sea of data with which they are inundated. Increasingly, the professional functions of the physician are becoming focused on the desktop workstation, in terms of its ability to provide "windows" into local databases and knowledge resources, and to serve as an access port to other networked resources. A challenge we now face is to develop means for structuring the vast potentially available knowledge resources in such a manner that access to pertinent knowledge can be facilitated, and to develop acceptable interfaces to the knowledge resources so that a user can effectively navigate through them. The complexity of this task is due to the nature of the knowledge resources--knowledge can be in a variety of forms, ranging from textual and pictorial material, to structured representations, to more dynamic embodiments in the form of procedures. In the Decision Systems Group we have focused on the development of a prototype desktop knowledge management environment known as Explorer-2, with the objective of providing a consistent interface for access to a wide variety of knowledge. Our accomplishments to date encompass the incorporation into the Explorer-2 environment of adaptations of textbook chapters and books, image data bases, simulations, and expert systems. Navigational aids are provided by a semantic net browser using both MeSH and augmented taxonomies and by a graphical overview map.(ABSTRACT TRUNCATED AT 250 WORDS)

Artificial Intelligence↗

The relationship between knowledge and reported behavior in childhood asthma.

Numerous educational interventions have been developed and tested to improve management of childhood asthma. Most programs assume that knowledge about asthma is related to initiating and/or maintaining recommended management behaviors. Although this assumption is widely accepted, some available evidence casts doubt upon its validity. We investigated the relationship between asthma management behaviors and (1) knowledge about asthma, (2) behavioral adjustment, (3) anxiety, and (4) health locus of control. Data were collected on 91 children 7 to 12 years of age with moderately severe asthma. After adjusting for covariates, reported asthma management behavior was significantly related only to knowledge about asthma (p less than .05). The relationship between knowledge and behavior is nonlinear: accurate knowledge is related to engaging in more of the recommended behaviors, but only up to a moderate level of knowledge. Also, the relationship between knowledge and asthma management behavior was especially strong for children who scored lower on behavioral adjustment. These results suggest that children's knowledge about asthma can influence behavior, but only under certain conditions. Educational interventions for children whose knowledge is already adequate may not increase adherence to recommended practices.

Anxiety↗

Cognitive and behavioral knowledge about insulin-dependent diabetes among children and parents.

Youngster's knowledge about insulin-dependent diabetes was assessed across three domains: (1) general information; (2) problem solving and (3) skill at urine testing and self-injection. These youngster's parents completed the general information and problem-solving components of the assessment battery. All test instruments were showed good reliability. The test of problem solving was more difficult than the test of general information for both parents and patients. Mothers were more knowledgeable than fathers and children. Girls performed more accurately than boys, and older children obtained better scores than did younger children. Nevertheless, more than 80% of the youngsters made significant errors on urine testing and almost 40% made serious errors in self-injection. A number of other knowledge deficits were also noted. Duration of diabetes was not related to any of the knowledge measures. Intercorrelations between scores on the assessment instruments indicated that skill at urine testing or self-injection was not highly related to other types of knowledge about diabetes. Furthermore, knowledge in one content are was not usually predictive of knowledge in another content area. The results of this study emphasize the importance of measuring knowledge from several different domains. Patient variables such as sex and age need to be given further consideration in the development and use of patient educational programs. Regular assessment of patients' and parents' knowledge of all critical aspects of diabetes home management seems essential.

Adolescent↗

Knowledge of nutrition among housewives in three South African ethnic groups.

Studies on housewives and other groups in Western populations have revealed: (i) a generally high level of claimed or "perceived' knowledge of nutrition; (ii) a much lower level of accurate knowledge; and (iii) an often unsatisfactory application of correct knowledge. Since little is known of knowledge of nutrition in South African populations. White, Indian and Coloured housewives were questioned by use of a questionnaire similar to that used overseas. While the local populations had a fair knowledge of the identity of most nutritional components, their knowledge about good sources of these components and of foods commendable for body building, energy, and slimming, or of those which promote fattening, was only moderately satisfactory. Misconceptions were similar to those reported elsewhere. Factors having a bearing on inadequate or incorrect information are discussed, as is the extent to which this may affect health and disease patterns in Third World and Western populations. Factors detrimental to progress are differences of opinion among nutrition experts and insufficient knowledge on the health/ill-health patterns of those who are knowledgeable of nutrition compared with those who are less knowledgeable.

Black or African American↗

[Longitudinal study of postpartum women knowledge needs--parity and time series perspectives].

The purpose of this study was to explore the knowledge needs of postpartum women. A postpartum knowledge needs questionnaire was administered to 70 postpartum women during the 1st and 4th week postpartum. Data were analyzed by factor analysis to determine the relationships within categories of knowledge needs. Data were also analyzed by 2-factor repeated measure analysis of variance (ANOVA). The two factors included parity and time (period of measurement). The results indicated that the knowledge needs of postpartum women can be categorized as follows: (1) Knowledge of caring for the baby, (2) Knowledge of caring for one's self and (3) Knowledge of caring for other family members. The women during the 1st week postpartum reported a significantly higher need in knowledge of infant care than women during the 4th week postpartum. Multiparas showed a significantly higher need in knowledge of caring for other family members than primiparas.

Adult↗

Test-retest reliability of a body knowledge instrument in school-age children.

The authors investigated the reliability of a body knowledge tool utilizing a test-retest design. Subjects were 86 children, 6-12 years old, who attended a rural elementary school in Southwestern Pennsylvania. Data consisted of children's perceptions of internal body parts as measured by responses to the Modified Gellert Body Knowledge Interview. A second set of body knowledge scores was generated when the children were retested 7 days after the original testing. A significant relationship (r = .70, p < .001) was found between the two body knowledge scores. Analysis of the body knowledge scores indicated that children's knowledge of the human body increases with age. A significant correlation was also found between grade level and body knowledge scores. Gender was unrelated to level of performance on the body knowledge instrument. The most commonly listed body parts were heart, brain, bones, veins, blood, and muscles. The reliability established for this instrument indicates that studies could be pursued to validate its effectiveness in determining school-age children's body knowledge.

Age Factors↗

Enormous knowledge base of disease diagnosis criteria.

One of the problems in the development of the medical knowledge systems is the limitations of the system's knowledge. It is a common expectation to increase the number of diseases contained in a system. Using a high density knowledge representation method designed by us, we have developed the Enormous Knowledge Base of Disease Diagnosis Criteria (EKBDDC). It contains diagnostic criteria of 1,001 diagnostic entities and describes nearly 4,000 items of diagnostic indicators. It is the core of a huge medical project--the Electronic-Brain Medical Erudite (EBME). This enormous knowledge base was implemented initially on a low-cost popular microcomputer, which can aid in the prompting of typical disease and in teaching of diagnosis. The knowledge base is easy to expand. One of the main goals of EKBDDC is to increase the number of diseases included in it as far as possible using a low-cost computer with a comparatively small storage capacity. For this, we have designed a high density knowledge representation method. Criteria of various diagnostic entities are respectively stored in different records of the knowledge base. Each diagnostic entity corresponds to a diagnostic criterion data set; each data set consists of some diagnostic criterion data values (Table 1); each data is composed of two parts: integer and decimal; the integral part is the coding number of the given diagnostic information, and the decimal part is the diagnostic value of this information to the disease indicated by corresponding record number. For example, 75.02: the integer 75 is the coding number of "hemorrhagic skin rash"; the decimal 0.02 is the diagnostic value of this manifestation for diagnosing allergic purpura. TABULAR DATA, SEE PUBLISHED ABSTRACT. The algebraic sum method, a special form of the weighted summation, is adopted as mathematical model. In EKBDDC, the diagnostic values, which represent the significance of the disease manifestations for diagnosing corresponding diseases, were determined empirically. It is of a great economical, practical, and technical significance to realize enormous knowledge bases of disease diagnosis criteria on a low-cost popular microcomputer. This is beneficial for the developing countries to popularize medical informatics. To create the enormous international computer-aided diagnosis system, one may jointly develop the unified modules of disease diagnosis criteria used to "inlay" relevant computer-aided diagnosis systems. It is just like assembling a house using prefabricated panels.

Artificial Intelligence↗

The 'Green Keyhole' revisited: nutritional knowledge may influence food selection.

INTRODUCTION: The food-marking symbol the 'Green Keyhole' has been in use since 1989 in Sweden, to make it easier for consumers to select low-fat and high-fibre alternatives. OBJECTIVE: To describe knowledge of the Green Keyhole symbol in a general population of both sexes and the association between knowledge and intake of Green Keyhole labelled foods. DESIGN: A cross-sectional study within the GOT-MONICA project 1995/96. SUBJECTS: 732 males and 859 females, aged 25-64 y. METHODS: Reported intakes of Green Keyhole labelled low-fat and fibre-enriched foods from a food frequency questionnaire, in relation to knowledge of the Green Keyhole symbol. RESULTS: 53% and 76% of the males and females, respectively, understood the meaning of the symbol. SUBJECTS with knowledge were significantly younger (P<0.0001) and (among women) thinner (P=0.0105), than those without knowledge. Intakes of Green Keyhole labelled low-fat foods were significantly higher in males (P=0.0443) and females (P<0.0001) with knowledge of the symbol than without. An interaction between education and knowledge of the Green Keyhole symbol was found for intake of low-fat marked foods (P=0.0088). CONCLUSIONS: Both males and females with knowledge of the symbol seem to have adopted its low-fat message. However, in certain sub-groups, particularly the less educated, the message of the symbol appears to have no association with dietary practices.

Adult↗

BioMedGraphica: An All-in-One Platform for Joint Textual Biomedical Prior Knowledge and Numeric Graph Generation.

Multi-omic data analysis is essential for scientific discovery in precision medicine. However, translating statistical results of omic data analysis into novel scientific hypothesis remains a significant challenge. Human experts must manually review analysis results and generate new hypothesis based on extensive and inter-connected biomedical prior knowledge, which is subjective and not scalable. While large language models (LLMs) can accelerate the discovery, their reasoning improves when grounded in structured, auditable and comprehensive biomedical prior knowledge. Biomedical knowledge, however, is scattered across heterogeneous databases that use diverse and inconsistent nomenclature systems, making it difficult to integrate resources into a unified format for scalable analysis. This fragmentation limits the ability of AI systems to fully leverage biomedical data for scientific discovery. To address these challenges, we developed BioMedGraphica , an all-in-one platform that harmonizes fragmented biomedical resources by integrating 11 entity types and 30 relation types from 43 databases into a unified knowledge graph containing 2,306,921 entities and 27,232,091 relations. In addition, to the best of our knowledge, this is the first work to propose a novel Textual-Numeric Graph (TNG) data-structure for multi-omics data analysis. In TNG, textual information captures prior biological knowledge (e.g., transcription start sites, functions, mechanisms), while numeric values represent quantitative biomedical features, and the integrated relations can help uncover mechanisms. By bridging prior knowledge with user-specific data, TNG is a novel and ideal data-structure for the development of graph foundation models, with the potential to improve prediction performance and interpretability, while also augmenting LLMs by supplying graph-structured mechanistic context to strengthen reasoning. The details for BioMedGraphica code can be accessed by github link: https://github.com/FuhaiLiAiLab/BioMedGraphica and BioMedGraphica knowledge graph data can be downloaded from huggingface dataset: https://huggingface.co/datasets/FuhaiLiAiLab/BioMedGraphica.

biomedical knowledge graph↗

Effect of educational leaflets and questions on knowledge of contraception in women taking the combined contraceptive pill: randomised controlled trial.

OBJECTIVE: To assess whether provision of educational leaflets or questions on contraception improves knowledge of contraception in women taking the combined contraceptive pill. DESIGN: Randomisation of women into three groups according to type of educational leaflet on contraceptive information. These groups were subdivided into two on the basis of questions on contraception asked by the doctor or practice nurse. The women were followed up by postal questionnaire 3 months later. SETTING: 15 general practices in South and West region. SUBJECTS: 636 women attending check up appointment for repeat prescription of the combined contraceptive pill. MAIN OUTCOME MEASURES: Knowledge of: factors causing pill failure, subsequent action, emergency contraception, and all the rules (pill rules) that apply to the contraceptive pill. RESULTS: 523 women returned completed questionnaires (response rate 82%). Knowledge of contraception with no intervention was low with only 10 (12%) women knowing all the pill rules. Educational intervention had a highly significant effect on knowledge of: factors causing pill failure (likelihood ratio chi2=22); subsequent action (21); emergency contraception (24); and all the pill rules (22) (P<0.01 in all cases). Improvement in knowledge of all the pill rules occurred with provision of the summary leaflet (28% knew all the rules, adjusted odds ratio 4.04, 95% confidence interval 1.68 to 9.75), the Family Planning Association's leaflet (27%, 3.43, 1.45 to 8.09), and asking questions (26%, 3.03, 1.30 to 7.00). Asking questions in addition to provision of leaflets improved knowledge of contraception further for the summary leaflet (39%, 6.81, 2.85 to 16.27) but not for the Family Planning Association leaflet (21%, 2.58, 1.07 to 6.18). CONCLUSION: Women attending check ups for repeat prescriptions of the contraceptive pill should be provided with educational leaflets on contraception or asked relevant questions to help improve their knowledge of contraception. Asking questions in addition to providing a summary leaflet is time consuming, but results in the most knowledge gained.

Adolescent↗