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"Supposed to make you better but it doesn't really": HIV-positive youths' perceptions of HIV treatment.

PURPOSE: Half of new HIV infections worldwide occur among young people. Youth, particularly young women aged 15-29 years, represent a growing population to experience HIV. This study investigated HIV-positive youths' perceptions of, and experiences with, antiretroviral treatment. METHODS: A community-based, participatory approach was used to conduct a mixed methods research study. Thirty-four qualitative, in-depth, semi-structured interviews were conducted with HIV-positive youth (ages 12-24 years) in Ontario, Canada. Brief structured demographic surveys were also administered. A research team of HIV-positive youth, professionals, and researchers collaboratively analyzed the data for emerging themes. RESULTS: Four major themes emerged: Treatment knowledge: confusion and skepticism. Many participants did not understand, or believe in, antiretroviral treatment. Some youth on treatment did not understand why they were taking medications. Treatment decision-making: lack of choice and feeling emotionally unprepared. Some youth did not feel that they had choices about treatment, and others did not feel ready to make treatment decisions. Difficulties taking medications. Youth had problems with social routine disruption, feeling "different" and side effects. Many viewed costs of medications as a barrier to treatment. Inconsistent treatment adherence and treatment interruptions, which were common amongst participants. CONCLUSIONS: Youth may need support for managing difficulties with treatments, such as side effects, social impacts, and adherence. Developmentally appropriate, empowerment-based treatment education may be helpful for HIV-positive youth. The availability of social programs to provide treatment access does not guarantee that youth will be aware of them. This may indicate a need for youth-specific outreach.

Adolescent↗

The transition to Web-based education: enhancing access to graduate education for women's health providers.

Nurse-midwives and women's health nurse practitioners have a long history as positive change agents in health care as well as education. This article chronicles the transition of a traditional face-to-face nurse-midwife and women's health nurse practitioner graduate curriculum to a Web-based format with campus seminars and clinical laboratories. This change was made to increase access to these graduate programs. A total of 20 courses, including both graduate core and specialty courses, was converted to the Web-based format over a 3-year period. Practical considerations for implementing a similar program, including faculty development and support, student orientation and ongoing support, development of a learning community, and time management, are discussed. The importance of listening to student feedback and partnering with them as the program continues to develop is emphasized as a key element of program evaluation and improvement.

Academic Medical Centers↗

Health care and illegality: a survey of undocumented pregnant immigrants in Geneva.

Little is known about the conditions of life and the specific health problems of pregnant, undocumented immigrants. This study describes the socio-demographic characteristics and health problems encountered during pregnancy among uninsured, undocumented immigrants in Geneva, Switzerland. A socio-demographic questionnaire was completed by 134 pregnant and undocumented women (mean age 27.8 years) who attended a free antenatal facility between October 2002 and October 2003. The first control of pregnancy was at a median of 10.5 weeks (range 5-33) of amenorrhoea. They were mostly Latino-American (78%), had a median 12 years of education but almost exclusively performed domestic work (91%) after an average residence in Geneva of 18 months. Half of the 62 mothers had left at least one child in their home country. One out of three had never had a cervical smear test and 13% were not immune to rubella. Unintended pregnancies (83%), mostly resulted from lack of contraception (70%). All but one delivery were simple, with a median maternity inpatient stay of 5 days (range 2-10). This population of undocumented, pregnant immigrants comprised mostly highly educated, young, Latino-American women living in poor housing conditions and wages below the legal minimum. The study identified the high proportion of unintended pregnancies as a major health issue. Future research should target these issues and programs addressing lack of access to preventive measures. As well as this, the specific needs of this hard-to-reach population, such as contraception advice, rubella vaccination and cervical cancer screening, should be supported.

Adult↗

Gender and HIV risk behavior among intravenous drug users in Sichuan Province, China.

Using data from a community-based study of injection drug users (IDUs) in Sichuan Province in China, this study compared the level of HIV risk behavior (needle sharing and unsafe sex) amongst female and male IDUs, and examined the risk factors separately for these two groups. Five risk factors were examined in the analysis, including a lack of family support, having an IDU primary sex partner, economic pressure, lack of access to a methadone program, and younger age. Regression results showed that male and female IDUs had different risk factors. For male IDUs, younger age and a lack of family support increased their level of HIV risk behavior. For female IDUs, having an IDU primary sex partner and economic pressure were predictive of their HIV risk behavior. Sex differences in risk factors are explained with respect to gender norms surrounding HIV risk behavior in the context of social relations. Female IDUs who were sex workers suffered additional HIV risk due to their powerlessness in negotiating safe sex with male customers. Practical implications of the findings for HIV/AIDS prevention and intervention work in China are discussed.

Adult↗

Quit attempts among African American teenage smokers seeking treatment: gender differences.

BACKGROUND: African Americans experience disproportionate smoking-related mortality. Because established smoking during youth predisposes to adult smoking and serious health consequences, characterizing ethnic differences in adolescent smokers' self-quit attempts may inform ethnic-specific approaches to youth smoking cessation. METHODS: African American and European American teenage smokers applying to a teenage smoking cessation study (2000-2003) provided smoking-related data, including characteristics of previous cessation attempts and prior use of nicotine replacement therapy (NRT). Tobacco dependence was assessed using the Fagerstrom Test of Nicotine Dependence (FTND). RESULTS: Of 980 (15.5 +/- 1.3 years, 41.8% African American, 59.9% female) participants, African Americans boys were significantly less likely than European American boys to report a prior quit attempt (OR = 0.35, 95% CI 0.17-0.73, P = 0.0049) or to have used NRT (OR = 0.60, 95% CI 0.36-0.998, P = 0.049) after adjusting for years smoked and FTND score. African American girls were more likely to report a prior request for cessation treatment than European American girls after adjusting for FTND and years smoked (OR = 2.19, 95% CI 1.37-3.48, P = 0.001). CONCLUSIONS: While increasing education and outreach to African American boys and enhancing access to formal cessation programs for African American girls who smoke may be beneficial, our findings warrant extension to non-treatment-seeking teenage smokers.

Adolescent↗

Use of the Internet for teaching in nuclear medicine.

The Internet provides several new capabilities for education in nuclear medicine, including learning at a distance, facilitation of collaboration, increased availability of training resources, and ability to develop interactive teaching materials. Dedicated case-authoring software aided development of digital teaching files at the Mallinckrodt Institute of Radiology and the Joint Program in Nuclear Medicine. Accesses to these two teaching files from sites around the world have grown rapidly. Improvements in the speed of the Internet will allow inclusion of more images at higher resolution and more extensive use of cine. Development of server-based software will allow simulation of the actual image-reading environment. A better understanding of how to use this new media will spur continued expansion in use of the Internet for nuclear medical education.

CD-ROM↗

Gender and HIV/AIDS.

The impact of gender on HIV/AIDS is an important dimension in understanding the evolution of the epidemic. How have gender inequality and discrimination against women affected the course of the HIV epidemic? This paper outlines the biological, social and cultural determinants that put women and adolescent girls at greater risk of HIV infection than men. Violence against women or the threat of violence often increases women's vulnerability to HIV/AIDS. An analysis of the impact of gender on HIV/AIDS demonstrates the importance of integrating gender into HIV programming and finding ways to strengthen women by implementing policies and programs that increase their access to education and information. Women's empowerment is vital to reversing the epidemic.

Acquired Immunodeficiency Syndrome↗

Syllable frequency and syllable structure in apraxia of speech.

Recent accounts of the pathomechanism underlying apraxia of speech (AOS) were based on the speech production model of Levelt, Roelofs, and Meyer, and Meyer (1999)1999. The apraxic impairment was localized to the phonetic encoding level where the model postulates a mental store of motor programs for high-frequency syllables. Varley and Whiteside (2001a) assumed that in patients with AOS syllabic motor programs are no longer accessible and that these patients are required to use a subsyllabic encoding route. In this study, we tested this hypothesis by exploring the influence of syllable frequency and syllable structure on word repetition in 10 patients with AOS. A significant effect of syllable frequency on error rates was found. Moreover, apraxic errors on consonant clusters were influenced by their position relative to syllable boundaries. These results demonstrate that apraxic patients have access to the syllabary, but that they fail to retrieve the syllabic motor patterns correctly. Our findings are incompatible with a subsyllabic route model of apraxia of speech.

Apraxias↗

A SAS macro for the analysis of cell survival curves.

This paper describes a SAS macro for the statistical analyses of cell survival data obtained after radiation treatment using the methods of R.E. Tarone et al. (Mutation Research 111 (1983) 79-96). These analyses are usually required on a routine basis by all biomedical research laboratories involved in cell survival assays generating dose-response curves aimed at characterizing radiosensitive mutant cell strains or individuals whose body cells exhibit enhanced sensitivity to radiation and other genotoxic agents. Statistical methods of linear regression are applied to data from repeated experiments with a cell line/strain and weighted estimates of a common slope and its variance are obtained. The methods are currently implemented in two APL programs. These programs are not easily accessible to most biomedical statisticians and researchers because APL is not a common software tool for statistical analysis. Implementation of these methods in SAS, a widely used commercial software for statistical analysis, is expected to help resolve this issue. We illustrate the application of the macro using an example data set obtained in our laboratory, and hope that other investigators may find it useful in analyzing their data.

Cell Survival↗

Changing patient characteristics with increased methadone maintenance availability.

Over the past several years there have been repeated calls for expansion of availability of methadone maintenance in several jurisdictions. Important stakeholders in the expansion of methadone maintenance treatment (MMT) are existing treatment providers. This study describes the impact of the rapid expansion in treatment availability in Ontario on the long-standing MMT program of the Centre for Addiction and Mental Health (CAMH). This expansion occurred through enlarging existing treatment programs, the provision of MMT in private physicians' offices and the establishment of new clinics. With expansion in the community, demand for the clinic-based treatment of the CAMH MMT program did not drop, in fact the patient population was able to continue to grow. There was a broadening of the patient profile in the program including patients who were better educated, more likely to be employed and less likely to be currently injecting (although with a significant history of past injection drug use). Moreover, in the face of these changes, excellent treatment retention was maintained. This suggests that the expansion in treatment availability did not impact negatively on the existing program but rather enabled access for a group of higher functioning opioid dependent patients who were previously being deterred from treatment entry by the large waiting lists and the need for priority access for pregnant and HIV positive heroin users. These findings should provide encouragement for MMT providers in jurisdictions anticipating or undergoing expansion of treatment availability.

Adult↗

Structure and presentation of a World Wide Web database of CSF virus isolates held at the EU reference laboratory.

A computerized database was generated with the epidemiological data of more than 600 CSF virus strains and isolates kept in the EU Reference Laboratory for Classical Swine Fever in Hanover. In addition, as sequence data from defined regions of the genome are increasingly being used for genetic typing of new isolates and are thus being published, it was decided to integrate them into the database. In order to make the epidemiological and the sequence data available to other laboratories through the World Wide Web, a searchable web interface was programmed, which can be accessed using an Internet browser like Netscape or Internet Explorer. The possibility to exchange data via the web has the potential to increase our knowledge concerning genetic and epidemiological links between outbreaks worldwide.

Animals↗

Nutrition and brain development: social policy implications.

Undernutrition among young children is widespread in the United States and has a detrimental impact on brain development. This article explores the risks associated with undernutrition and the potential for recovery when diet and the environment improve. Three policy implications are discussed: (a) increasing access to federal food programs, (b) promoting breastfeeding, and (c) working toward reducing child poverty.

Anemia, Iron-Deficiency↗

Failure to seek health care among the mentally ill.

This study describes failure to seek health care among 673 new adult clients seeking mental health services in the San Francisco Bay area. Overall, 49% (n = 328) reported a failure to seek health care they believed was needed in the past year. People with dual diagnosis, severe depression, chronic physical illness, fear of coercive treatment, private insurance, and no insurance were more likely to fail to seek health care. Greater use of private physicians decreased the odds of failure to seek health care. These findings highlight the need to target groups at risk for failure to seek health care and the need to design nonthreatening programs to improve health access for people with mental illness.

Adult↗

Could you hold the door for me? Including disability in diversity.

This article is intended to help those unfamiliar with disability studies by providing a context for disability on which psychologists can build. The 1st part presents data on disability training in graduate clinical programs and on training accessibility for graduate students with disabilities. The 2nd part is an introduction to disability studies and includes 3 core concepts of disability issues in psychology: (a) the framing of disability from 3 models (the moral, medical, and social models); (b) the ways in which disability is like and unlike other minority groups; and (c) the language that is used to describe disability. These 2 parts taken together constitute a brief introduction to disability issues within psychology.

Activities of Daily Living↗

From proteins to proteomes: large scale protein identification by two-dimensional electrophoresis and amino acid analysis.

Separation and identification of proteins by two-dimensional (2-D) electrophoresis can be used for protein-based gene expression analysis. In this report single protein spots, from polyvinylidene difluoride blots of micropreparative E. coli 2-D gels, were rapidly and economically identified by matching their amino acid composition, estimated pI and molecular weight against all E. coli entries in the SWISS-PROT database. Thirty proteins from an E. coli 2-D map were analyzed and identities assigned. Three of the proteins were unknown. By protein sequencing analysis, 20 of the 27 proteins were correctly identified. Importantly, correct identifications showed unambiguous "correct" score patterns. While incorrect protein identifications also showed distinctive score patterns, indicating that protein must be identified by other means. These techniques allow large-scale screening of the protein complement of simple organisms, or tissues in normal and disease states. The computer program described here is accessible via the World Wide Web at URL address (http:@expasy.hcuge.ch/).

Amino Acids↗

The patient transit assistance scheme: the clerk's perspective.

The Patient Transit Assistance Scheme (PTAS) is an important government program designed to ensure equity of access for residents in rural and remote Queensland to essential healthcare services. Where specialist services cannot be provided at recognised hospitals, PTAS ensures equity by accepting the responsibility for assisting with the transport and accommodation of patients and at times their escort, to locations where such services are available. This article presents research findings on the concerns of clerks involved in administering PTAS for patients with leukaemia and associated haematological disorders. The findings indicate that there are many problems with this scheme that need attention and can be remedied.

Administrative Personnel↗