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At least 397 records · Page 22Linked to original sources
PubMed1994

The effect of a culture-specific education program to promote breastfeeding among Vietnamese women in Sydney.

The rate of breastfeeding among immigrant Vietnamese women in Western countries is low compared to those in Vietnam. To counteract this trend, a language and culture specific education program was developed. An experimental design was used to test the effectiveness of this program. The sample consisted of 182 prenatal Vietnamese women. Data collection included questionnaires and interviews. Results suggested that the education program had significant effects on knowledge, attitudes, planned and actual behaviour towards breastfeeding. However, the effect did not sustain until 6 months postpartum. Implications for nursing practice and further research are discussed.

Adult↗
PubMedDate not supplied

Cigarette smoking by adolescent females: implications for health and behavior.

Cigarette smoking rates among teenage females have risen progressively since 1968 until surpassing teenage males in 1979. Psychosocial factors underlying the initiation of smoking include peer pressure, adult role modeling and prosmoking messages in advertising, with smoking potentially representing a desired set of personality characteristics. Regular smoking leads to the development of a dependence process, with cessation often difficult to achieve and maintain. Preventing smoking onset is a responsibility of health professionals and educators. Social psychological approaches teaching social skills and techniques for resisting smoking have been effective in reducing rates of initiation in JHS experimental programs.

Adolescent↗
PubMed1987

Effects of social supports on attitudes and health behaviors of pregnant adolescents.

The influence of social support on maternal attitudes and behaviors was assessed in 57 third-trimester adolescent women attending an urban prenatal clinic. Sociodemographic characteristics, social support, self-esteem, and feelings about pregnancy were measured by questionnaire. The support and influence of the adolescent father was emphasized. Social support was measured as a multidimensional construct derived by a priori and empirical procedures. The outcomes measured were the amount of prenatal care, attendance at scheduled postpartum appointments, and pleasure with the pregnancy. Stepwise multiple-regression analyses were used to assess the contributions of the predictor to criterion variables. Pleasure with pregnancy was positively associated with the receipt of assistance from the adolescent's mother, favorable opinions of friends, and satisfaction with living arrangements. Attendance at postpartum visits was associated with high self-esteem. Notably absent as significant contributors were sociodemographic characteristics, receipt of emotional and tangible support from the adolescent father, and expectation of aid from social-assistance programs.

Adolescent↗
PubMedDate not supplied

The Africentric Transtheoretical model in a school-based pregnancy prevention program.

This article describes the use of a socio-culturally specific framework for a pregnancy prevention program for low income 10 to 12 year old African American middle school girls. The framework expands earlier (Johnson, 1995) conceptualizations by combining African and African American frames of reference with behavior change processes to influence sexual decision-making among young adolescents.

Adolescent↗
PubMed1989

Calculation of survival curves and statistical comparison of two censored populations: a computer program in BASIC.

In experimental aging research the handling of censored data imposes a serious problem in the calculation of survival curves of partly censored populations and the statistical comparison of such populations. The presented computer program combines a method to calculate a corrected survival curve and a test to compare two censored populations. In both methods, the proportion of the animals that survive or die during an interval and the number at risk at the start of that interval is used in the calculation of relative survival or death during that interval. The program is written in an elementary BASIC and will run on practically every computer programmable in BASIC. The presented method can be used for testing the difference between survival characteristics of two animal populations but might also be employed in evaluating the effect of a medical treatment.

Aging↗
PubMed1996

Do school-based health centers improve adolescents' access to health care, health status, and risk-taking behavior?

PURPOSE: The purpose of this investigation was to assess the School-Based Adolescent Health Care Program, which provided comprehensive health-related services in 24 school-based health centers. METHODS: The outcomes evaluation compared a cohort of students attending 19 participating schools and a national sample of urban youths, using logit models to control for observed differences between the two groups of youths. Outcome measures included self-reports concerning health center utilization, use of other health care providers, knowledge of key health facts, substance use, sexual activity, contraceptive use, pregnancies and births, and health status. RESULTS: The health centers increased students' access to health care and improved their health knowledge. However, the estimated impacts on health status and risky behaviors were inconsistent, and most were small and not statistically significant. CONCLUSIONS: School-based health centers can increase students' health knowledge and access to health-related services, but more intensive or different services are needed if they are to significantly reduce risk-taking behaviors.

Adolescent↗
PubMed1982

The demographic impact of the contraceptive distribution project in Matlab, Bangladesh.

This paper evaluates a study fielded in Bangladesh in 1975 to test the hypothesis that ubiquitous availability of pills and condoms in a rural, traditional, noncontracepting population would increase contraceptive use and reduce fertility. Treatment and comparison areas were designated in Matlab, an area with accurate and complete demographic data. Use prevalence peaked at 18 percent in the first three months of the project and declined thereafter. Project activities continued until 1977. Results show that between-treatment fertility differentials were 10 percent in the first year of program impact, but that effects dissipated with time.

Adolescent↗
PubMed1995

Fatal attraction: do high-technology treatments for end-stage renal disease benefit aboriginal patients in central Australia?

The health problems of Aboriginal Australians, like those of many indigenous peoples, resemble those of the developing world, yet they are dealt with using the tools, techniques, and high-technology medical solutions of first-world health. Such approaches ignore the social components of health and illness, including the need for preventive and educative programs at the primary health care level. The example of endstage renal disease provides a poignant example of the inadequacies of this approach. Central Australian Aboriginal people suffer from a high incidence of kidney disease from numerous causes including non-insulin-dependent diabetes mellitus and glomerulonephritis. The high incidence has led to numbers of people developing end-stage renal disease and moving into the Northern Territory-South Australia renal failure program for dialysis and/or transplantation. In requiring patients to leave their lands, communities and families, this program removes people from the religious and social support network that could ensure a reasonable quality of life in their final years, while offering only marginal extensions of those years. Expensive technology programs are of little benefit and of considerable cost to Aboriginal patients and draw attention away from efforts to reduce the exposure of at-risk Aboriginal people to the factors that facilitate the development of end-stage renal disease.

Adult↗
PubMed1998

Saving mothers' lives: things can go wrong.

One of the goals of Sierra Leone's primary care programme, established in the 1980s, was to reduce maternal mortality by 30% by the end of the twentieth century, but no significant progress has been made in this direction. The reasons are examined below in the light of a study conducted in one of the country's Chiefdoms.

Culture↗
PubMed1991

Improving the cost-effectiveness of AIDS health care in San Juan, Puerto Rico.

In an era of decreasing availability of funds and increasing demand, the AIDS epidemic threatens to overwhelm health-care services in some countries. We describe a comprehensive model for the treatment of AIDS in San Juan, Puerto Rico, and compare it with traditional hospital-based services. Given the existing allocation of funds, the comprehensive model emphasised prevention, education, surveillance, early detection, and outpatient care to reduce hospital care. In 1987, the last year of the traditional system, there were 95 admissions of AIDS patients to hospital, and in 1988, the first year of the comprehensive model, there were 100 admissions. The mean length of stay of AIDS inpatients was reduced from 22.3 days in 1987 to 11.3 days in 1988, a 46.8% reduction (p = 0.001). The annual mean (SE) cost of inpatient care per AIDS patient fell from $15,118 (1699) in 1987 to $3869 (659) in 1988. Savings were used to improve non-hospital services, including outreach, education, emergency and outpatient care, laboratory and epidemiological services, and research, and to introduce an employee incentive scheme. Management strategies that reduce the length of inpatient care and provide less costly treatment alternatives can improve AIDS health care in developing nations.

Acquired Immunodeficiency Syndrome↗
PubMed1993

Adolescent mothers and repeated childbearing: effects of a school-based intervention program.

This study examined the effectiveness of a public school program for pregnant teenagers in preventing rapid repeated childbearing. Students permitted to attend longer than seven weeks postpartum were much more likely to avoid having another child in the next five years than were students required to return to their regular schools. The results indicate the potential of school-based programs to improve life outcomes for adolescent mothers and their children.

Adolescent↗
PubMed1989

School-based clinic use and other factors affecting adolescent contraceptive behavior.

Adolescent risk taking, preventive behavior, and contraceptive use were investigated using a self-administered questionnaire in a sample of 260 inner-city high school students targeted by a school-based health clinic. Multivariate models consisting of individual and environmental variables significantly predicted sexual activity and contraceptive use. Older age at first intercourse, higher number of welfare benefits received by the household (including Medicaid, food stamps, and free or reduced price lunch), and use of the school-based clinic were significant positive predictors of more frequent contraceptive use by adolescents. Results of our study suggest that programs may be having some success in encouraging and enabling sexually active adolescents to use contraception and to use it more consistently. Rigorous program evaluations should help program planners and policy makers design and refine adolescent pregnancy-prevention efforts.

Adolescent↗
PubMedDate not supplied

Small-area analysis: targeting high-risk areas for adolescent pregnancy prevention programs.

CONTEXT: Traditional methods of identifying areas in need of adolescent pregnancy prevention programs may miss small localities with high levels of adolescent childbearing. METHODS: Birthrates for 15-17-year-olds were computed for all California zip codes, and the zip codes with birthrates in the 75th percentile were identified. Panels of local experts in adolescent pregnancy reviewed these "hot spots" for accuracy and grouped them into potential project areas, based on their demographics, geography and political infrastructure. RESULTS: In all, 415 zip codes exceeded the 75th-percentile cut-off point of 62.8 births per 1,000, and 210 of them differed significantly from the state average of 44.5 per 1,000 for 15-17-year-olds. While all had high adolescent birthrates, they varied greatly in racial and ethnic mix, poverty and educational attainment, and certain perinatal measures such as inadequate prenatal care and repeat pregnancy. CONCLUSIONS: The use of zip code-level data holds promise for more effective program planning and intervention.

Adolescent↗
PubMed1981

Adaptation to peripheral muscle training.

Ten healthy subjects underwent a 6-week dynamic exercise program designed to put a high relative load on individual muscle groups while maintaining low central circulatory stress levels. This was done to test the hypothesis that such "peripheral" training could produce skeletal muscle adaptation at low levels of myocardial work. Such a program may be useful in rehabilitating patients whose myocardial disease prevents adequate levels of participation in the traditional types of large muscle training. Strength testing, muscle biopsies and both submaximal and maximal bicycle ergometry were done to assess the effects of "peripheral" training. Heart rate during the training sessions decreased progressively over the 6 weeks (p less than 0.001). Quadriceps strength increased (p less than 0.02) with training as did both quadriceps (p less than 0.03) and gastrocnemius (p less than 0.008) fiber areas. Fiber composition was unchanged. Succinic dehydrogenase concentrations were unchanged while phosphorylase activity decreased in both muscle groups (p less than 0.03). Submaximum and maximum bicycle ergometry results were unchanged with training. The data show that dynamic training of small groups of muscles sequentially can produce significant skeletal muscle adaptation with little central circulatory stress. The effects of "peripheral" training in cardiac patients remain to be determined.

Adaptation, Physiological↗