bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025_split huggingface dataset:
Choroidal vessel density in unilateral hyperopic amblyopia using en-face optical coherence tomography
Authors: Araki Syunsuke , Miki Atsushi , Goto Katsutoshi , Yamashita Tsutomu , Yoneda Tsuyoshi , Fujiwara Atsushi , Haruishi Kazuko , Ieki Yoshiaki , Kiryu Junichi , Maehara Goro , Yaoeda Kiyoshi 
Published: December 2020

AbstractBackgroundStructural changes of the choroid, such as choroidal thickening, have been indicated in amblyopic eyes with hyperopic anisometropia as compared to fellow or healthy eyes. The purpose of the present study was to investigate choroidal vascular density (CVD) in children with unilateral hyperopic amblyopia.MethodsThis study included 88 eyes of 44 patients with unilateral amblyopia due to hyperopic anisometropia with or without strabismus and 29 eyes of 29 age-matched normal controls. The CVD of Haller’s layer was quantified from en-face images constructed by 3-dimensional swept-source optical coherence tomography images flattened relative to Bruch’s membrane. The analysis area was a 3 × 3-mm square of macula after magnification correction. Relationships between CVD and other parameters [best-corrected visual acuity (BCVA), refractive error and subfoveal choroidal thickness (SFCT)] were investigated, and CVDs were compared between amblyopic, fellow, and normal control eyes.ResultsMean CVD was 59.11 ± 0.66% in amblyopic eyes, 59.23 ± 0.81% in fellow eyes, and 59.29 ± 0.74% in normal control eyes. CVD showed a significant positive relationship with SFCT (p = 0.004), but no relationships with other parameters. No significant differences in CVD were evident among amblyopic, fellow, and normal control eyes after adjusting for SFCT (p = 0.502).ConclusionsCVD was unrelated to BCVA, and CVD did not differ significantly among amblyopic, fellow and normal control eyes. These results suggest that the local CVD of Haller’s layer is unaffected in unilateral hyperopic amblyopic eyes.
Acceptability of a feasibility randomized clinical trial of a microenterprise intervention to reduce sexual risk behaviors and increase employment and HIV preventive practices (EMERGE) in young adults: a mixed methods assessment
Authors: Jennings Mayo-Wilson Larissa , Coleman Jessica , Timbo Fatmata , Latkin Carl , Torres Brown Elizabeth R. , Butler Anthony I. , Conserve Donaldson F. , Glass Nancy E. 
Published: December 2020

Abstract
Background
Acceptability is a critical requisite in establishing feasibility when planning a larger effectiveness trial. This study assessed the acceptability of conducting a feasibility randomized clinical trial of a 20-week microenterprise intervention for economically-vulnerable African-American young adults, aged 18 to 24, in Baltimore, Maryland. Engaging MicroenterprisE for Resource Generation and Health Empowerment (EMERGE) aimed to reduce sexual risk behaviors and increase employment and uptake of HIV preventive behaviors.

Methods
Thirty-eight participants were randomized to experimental (n = 19) or comparison group (n = 19). The experimental group received text messages on job openings plus educational sessions, mentoring, a start-up grant, and business and HIV prevention text messages. The comparison group received text messages on job openings only. Qualitative and quantitative post-intervention, in-person interviews were used in addition to process documentation of study methods.

Results
Our results found that the study design and interventions showed promise for being acceptable to economically-vulnerable African-American young adults. The largely positive endorsement suggested that factors contributing to acceptability included perceived economic potential, sexual health education, convenience, incentives, and encouraging, personalized feedback to participants. Barriers to acceptability for some participants included low cell phone connectivity, perceived payment delays, small cohort size, and disappointment with one’s randomization assignment to comparison group. Use of peer referral, network, or wait-list designs, in addition to online options may enhance acceptability in a future definitive trial. Expanding administrative and mentoring support may improve overall experience.

Conclusion
Microenterprise interventions are acceptable ways of providing young adults with important financial and sexual health content to address HIV risks associated with economic vulnerability.

Trial registration
ClinicalTrials.gov. NCT03766165. Registered 04 December 2018.
‘I decided to go back to work so I can afford to buy her formula’: a longitudinal mixed-methods study to explore how women in informal work balance the competing demands of infant feeding and working to provide for their family
Authors: Luthuli Silondile , Haskins Lyn , Mapumulo Sphindile , Rollins Nigel , Horwood Christiane 
Published: December 2020

AbstractBackgroundIn South Africa almost 2 million women work informally. Informal work is characterised by poor job security, low earnings, and unsafe working conditions, with high rates of poverty and food insecurity. The peripartum period is a vulnerable time for many working women. This study explored how mothers navigate the tension between the need to work and the need to take care of a newborn baby, and how this affects their feeding plans and practices.MethodsA mixed methods longitudinal cohort method was employed. Informal workers were recruited in the last trimester of pregnancy during an antenatal visit at two clinics in Durban, South Africa. Data were collected using in-depth interviews and quantitative questionnaires at three time points: pre-delivery, post-delivery and after returning to work. Framework analysis was used to analyse qualitative data in NVIVO v12.4. Quantitative analysis used SPSSv26.ResultsTwenty-four participants were enrolled and followed-up for a period of up to 1 year. Informal occupations included domestic work, home-based work, informal trading, and hairdressing, and most women earned <R3000 (US$175) per month. Participants had good knowledge of the importance of breastfeeding for child health. Most women planned to take time off work after the birth of their babies, supporting themselves during this time with the child support grant (CSG) received for older children, their savings, and support from the baby’s father and other family members. However, financial pressures forced many mothers to return to work earlier than planned, resulting in changes to infant feeding practices. Several mothers tried expressing breastmilk, but only one was able to sustain this while away from the baby. Most participants introduced formula, other foods and fluids to their babies when they returned to work or stopped breastfeeding entirely, but some were able to change their work or adapt their working hours to accommodate breastfeeding.ConclusionsInterventions are needed within the social and work environment to support mothers with breastfeeding while they continue earning an income in the informal economy. The extension of the CSG to the antenatal period could assist mothers to stay at home longer post-delivery to breastfeed their babies.
Towards a comprehensive, person-centred assessment of health literacy: translation, cultural adaptation and psychometric test of the Dutch Health Literacy Questionnaire
Authors: Rademakers Jany , Waverijn Geeke , Rijken Mieke , Osborne Richard , Heijmans Monique 
Published: December 2020

Abstract
Background
Many health literacy instruments focus on reading skills, numeracy and/or information processing aspects only. In the Netherlands, as in other countries, the need for a comprehensive, person-centred measure of health literacy was observed and consequently the decision was made to translate the Health Literacy Questionnaire (HLQ) into Dutch. The HLQ has nine health literacy domains covering people’s experiences and skills. This research sought to translate, culturally adapt and psychometrically test the HLQ.

Methods
The translation and adaptation was done using a systematic approach with forward translation guided by item intents, blind back translation, and a consensus meeting with the developer. The Dutch version of the HLQ was applied in a sample of non-hospitalized, chronically ill patients. Descriptive statistics were generated to describe mean, standard deviation and floor and ceiling effects for all items. A Confirmatory Factor Analysis (CFA) model was fitted to the data. Scores on the nine domains of the HLQ were compared across demographic and illness characteristics as a form of known-groups validity. Psychometric analyses included Cronbach’s alpha, item-rest and item-remainder correlations.

Results
Using CFA, the Dutch HLQ psychometric structure was found to strongly align with the hypothesised (original) nine independent domains of the English version. The nine scales were found to be highly reliable (all scales had alpha between 0.83 and 0.94). Six of the nine HLQ-scales had items that show ceiling-effects. There were no ceiling effects present at the scale level. Scores on the scales of the HLQ differed according to demographic and illness characteristics: people who were older, lower educated and living alone and patients with multiple chronic diseases generally scored lower.

Conclusions
The Dutch version of the HLQ is a robust and reliable instrument that measures nine different domains of health literacy. The questionnaire was tested in a sample of chronically ill patients, and should be further tested in the general population as well as in different disease groups. The HLQ is a major addition to currently available instruments in the Netherlands, since it measures health literacy from a multi-dimensional perspective and builds on patients’ experiences and skills.
Clinical profiles of subclinical disease among pulmonary tuberculosis patients: a prospective cohort study in South Korea
Authors: Min Jinsoo , Chung Chaeuk , Jung Sung Soo , Park Hye Kyeong , Lee Sung-Soon , Lee Ki Man 
Published: December 2020

Abstract
Background
Subclinical tuberculosis (TB) is a potential target for public health intervention because its early identification may reduce TB transmission. We aimed to describe the clinical and laboratory findings of subclinical disease among pulmonary TB patients and compared treatment outcomes for subclinical and active diseases.

Methods
In this prospective cohort study, we enrolled adult patients aged ≥ 19 years with pulmonary TB between 2016 and 2018. Subclinical TB was defined as radiographic or microbiologic test results consistent with TB without clinical symptoms. We implemented a two-stage symptom assessment using a predefined TB symptom checklist. Demographic, clinical, and laboratory data were compared between subclinical and active diseases using multivariable binary logistic regression analysis. We evaluated treatment outcomes in the drug-susceptible cohort.

Results
Among 420 enrolled patients, 81 (19.3%) had subclinical TB. Multivariable analysis showed that age < 65 years was the only variable significantly associated with subclinical disease. Subclinical disease had a significantly lower proportion of acid-fast bacilli smear and culture positivity and multiple lobe involvement compared to active disease. The white blood cell counts, platelet counts, and C-reactive protein levels were significantly higher among patients with active disease than among those with subclinical disease. Among 319 patients with treatment success in the drug-susceptible cohort, six (1.9%) recurrent cases were identified, and all were active disease. Patients with subclinical disease had a higher proportion of favourable outcomes; however, its odds ratio was insignificant.

Conclusions
Nearly one-fifth of tuberculosis cases were subclinical in South Korea. Despite its milder clinical presentation and lower level of inflammatory markers, the treatment outcomes of subclinical TB were not significantly different from that of active disease.
Inguinal hernias in patients on continuous ambulatory peritoneal dialysis: is tension-free mesh repair feasible?
Authors: Chi Qiyu , Shi Zheng , Zhang Zhibo , Lin Chunzhong , Liu Guozhong , Weng Shangeng 
Published: December 2020

Abstract
Background
Continuous ambulatory peritoneal dialysis (CAPD), which often causes a common complication such as abdominal wall hernia, is a prevalent alternative therapy for end-stage renal failure patients. However, relevant studies are somewhat rare, and the peritoneal dialysis (PD) protocol during the perioperative period is still controversial. The aim of this study was to evaluate the effectiveness and perioperative management of tension-free mesh repair for inguinal hernias in CAPD patients.

Methods
Between January 2013 and December 2019, 18 CAPD patients with 20 inguinal hernias who underwent tension-free mesh repair were retrospectively analyzed. Data on demographics, perioperative features, the perioperative dialysis protocol and surgical complications were collected and assessed.

Results
All hernias were diagnosed after the start of CAPD, and the median duration from PD onset to hernia formation was 16 months (2–61 months). All patients underwent successful tension-free mesh repair, including 17 Lichtenstein and 3 anterior Kugel procedures. The median operation time was 62.5 min, and the median postoperative hospital stay was 3 days. Fifteen patients received low-exchange volumes and high-frequency exchanges from 1 to 3 days after surgery for 2 weeks with gradual resumption of the original CAPD regimen within 4 weeks. Complications included seroma (n = 2) and hematoma (n = 1). No wound or mesh infection or recurrence occurred during the follow-up period.

Conclusions
Tension-free mesh repair is safe and feasible for inguinal hernias in CAPD patients, The Lichtenstein mesh repair should be the first choice, and anterior Kugel repair may be considered an effective procedure. Bridging hemodialysis seems unnecessary except for emergency surgery.
Patient autonomy in dentistry: demonstrating the role for shared decision making
Authors: Benecke Mareike , Kasper Jürgen , Heesen Christoph , Schäffler Nina , Reissmann Daniel R. 
Published: December 2020

AbstractBackgroundEvidence-based practice, decision aids, patient preferences and autonomy preferences (AP) play an important role in making decisions with the patient. They are crucial in the process of a shared decision making (SDM) and can be incorporated into quality criteria for patient involvement in health care. However, there are few studies on SDM and AP in the field of dentistry. This study explored patients’ autonomy preferences in dentistry in comparison to other medical domains, comparing them with patient preferences in two other cohorts of patients with different conditions and in different health care settings.MethodsA sample of 100 dental patients attending 16 dentists was consecutively recruited in a university-based prosthodontic clinic. Patients’ and dentists’ preferences regarding their roles in dental decision making for commonly performed diagnostic and treatment decisions were compared using the Control Preference Scale (CPS). This was followed by cross sectional surveys to study autonomy preferences in three additional cohorts recruited from general practices (n = 100), a multiple sclerosis clinic (n = 109), and a university-based prosthodontic clinic (n = 100). A questionnaire with combined items from the Autonomy Preference Index (API) to assess general and the CPS to assess specific preferences was used in the additional cohorts.ResultsDentists were less willing to give patients control than patients were willing to enact autonomy. However, decisions about management of tooth loss were considered relevant for a shared decision making by both parties. When comparing cohorts from different samples, the highest AP was expressed by people with multiple sclerosis and the lowest by patients in dentistry (means: dentistry 2.5, multiple sclerosis 2.1, general practice 2.4,p = .035). There were considerable intra-individual differences in autonomy preferences referring to different decision types (p < .001). In general, more autonomy was desired for treatment decisions in comparison to diagnostic decisions, for trivial compared to severe conditions, and for dental care compared to general practice (all:p < .001).ConclusionThere is an important role of patient participation in decision making in dentistry. Furthermore, PA should be considered with respect to specific medical decisions instead of assessing autonomy preferences in general implying a need for communication skills training of health care professionals.
Cognitive biomarker prioritization in Alzheimer’s Disease using brain morphometric data
Authors:   for the ADNI, Peng Bo , Yao Xiaohui , Risacher Shannon L. , Saykin Andrew J. , Shen Li , Ning Xia 
Published: December 2020

AbstractBackgroundCognitive assessments represent the most common clinical routine for the diagnosis of Alzheimer’s Disease (AD). Given a large number of cognitive assessment tools and time-limited office visits, it is important to determine a proper set of cognitive tests for different subjects. Most current studies create guidelines of cognitive test selection for a targeted population, but they are not customized for each individual subject. In this manuscript, we develop a machine learning paradigm enabling personalized cognitive assessments prioritization.MethodWe adapt a newly developed learning-to-rank approach$${\mathtt {PLTR}}$$PLTRto implement our paradigm. This method learns the latent scoring function that pushes the most effective cognitive assessments onto the top of the prioritization list. We also extend$${\mathtt {PLTR}}$$PLTRto better separate the most effective cognitive assessments and the less effective ones.ResultsOur empirical study on the ADNI data shows that the proposed paradigm outperforms the state-of-the-art baselines on identifying and prioritizing individual-specific cognitive biomarkers. We conduct experiments in cross validation and level-out validation settings. In the two settings, our paradigm significantly outperforms the best baselines with improvement as much as 22.1% and 19.7%, respectively, on prioritizing cognitive features.ConclusionsThe proposed paradigm achieves superior performance on prioritizing cognitive biomarkers. The cognitive biomarkers prioritized on top have great potentials to facilitate personalized diagnosis, disease subtyping, and ultimately precision medicine in AD.
The persistence of child and adolescence mental healthcare: results from registry data
Authors: Dijk Hermien H. , Freriks Roel D. , Alessie Rob J.M. , Mierau Jochen O. 
Published: December 2020

Abstract
Background
Previous studies on the persistence of child and adolescent mental healthcare do not consider the role of time-invariant individual characteristics. Estimating persistence of healthcare using standard linear models yields biased estimates due to unobserved heterogeneity and the autoregressive structure of the model. This study provides estimates of the persistence of child and adolescent mental healthcare taking these statistical issues into account.

Methods
We use registry data of more than 80,000 Dutch children and adolescents between 2000 and 2012 from the Psychiatric Case Registry Northern Netherlands (PCR-NN). In order to account for autocorrelation due to the presence of a lagged dependent variable and to distinguish between persistence caused by time-invariant individual characteristics and a direct care effect we use difference GMM-IV estimation. In further analyses we assess the robustness of our results to policy reforms, different definitions of care and diagnosis decomposition.

Results
All estimation results for the direct care effect (true state-dependence) show a positive coefficient smaller than unity with a main effect of 0.215 (p<0.01), which indicates that the process is stable. Persistence of care is found to be 0.065 (p<0.05) higher for females. Additionally, the majority of persistence of care appears to be associated with time-invariant characteristics. Further analyses indicate that (1) results are robust to different definitions of care and (2) persistence of care does not differ significantly across subgroups.

Conclusions
The results indicate that the majority of mental healthcare persistence for children and adolescents is due to time-invariant individuals characteristics. Additionally, we find that in the absence of further shocks a sudden increase of 10 care contacts in the present year is associated with an average of less than 3 additional care contacts at some point in the future. This result provides essential information about the necessity of budget increases for future years in the case of exogenous increases in healthcare use.
Self-reported symptoms of depression and anxiety among informal caregivers of persons with dementia: a cross-sectional comparative study between Sweden and Italy
Authors: Wulff Joseba , Fänge Agneta Malmgren , Lethin Connie , Chiatti Carlos 
Published: December 2020

Abstract
Background
Around 50 million people worldwide are diagnosed with dementia and this number is due to triple by 2050. The majority of persons with dementia receive care and support from their family, friends or neighbours, who are generally known as informal caregivers. These might experience symptoms of depression and anxiety as a consequence of caregiving activities. Due to the different welfare system across European countries, this study aimed to investigate factors associated with self-reported depression and anxiety among informal dementia caregivers both in Sweden and Italy, to ultimately improve their health and well-being.

Methods
This comparative cross-sectional study used baseline data from the Italian UP-TECH (n = 317) and the Swedish TECH@HOME (n = 89) studies. Main outcome variables were the severity of self-reported anxiety and depression symptoms, as measured by the Hospital Anxiety and Depression Scale (HADS). HADS scores were investigated using descriptive and bivariate statistics to compare means and standard deviations. Linear regressions were used to test for associations between potential factors and self-reported symptoms of depression and anxiety.

Results
Italian informal caregivers reported more severe symptoms of depression and anxiety than Swedish caregivers. In Italy, a higher number of hours of caregiving was associated with anxiety symptoms (β = − 1.205; p = 0.029), being 40–54 years-old with depression symptoms (β = − 1.739; p = 0.003), and being female with symptoms of both depression (β = − 1.793; p < 0.001) and anxiety (β = 1.474; p = 0.005). In Sweden, a higher number of hours of caregiving and being < 39 years-old were associated with depression symptoms (β = 0.286; p < 0.000; β = 3.945; p = 0.014) and a higher number of hours of caregiving, the lack of additional informal caregivers and dementia severity were associated with anxiety symptoms (β = 0.164; p = 0.010; β = − 1.133; p = 0.033; β = − 1.181; p = 0.031).

Conclusion
Multiple factors are associated with self-reported symptoms of depression and anxiety among informal caregivers in Sweden and Italy. Factors found in this study partly differ between the two countries, suggesting the important role of cultural and social factors affecting the experience of caregiving. A deeper knowledge of these factors may increase the knowledge on potential protective and risk factors, provide information to policymakers and ultimately improve the psychological well-being of informal caregivers to people with dementia across Europe.