bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025_split huggingface dataset:
Capacity of the health facilities to manage Alzheimer’s and related dementia diseases in Mukono district: Challenges and recommendations
Authors: Jephthah D. , Ddumba I. 
Published: August 2023

IntroductionWith the projected increase in the number of older persons in both low and middle-income countries, the burden of Alzheimer’s and related dementia diseases (AD/ARDs) is projected to increase as well. However, the health systems are inadequately prepared to offer optimal care for patients with AD/ARDs, despite the growing disease burden.ObjectivesThe aim of this study was to assess the capacity of the health facilities to optimally manage Alzheimer’s and related dementia diseases in the Mukono districtMethodsWe conducted a cross-sectional between August and December 2018. A survey of 32 facilities (3 hospitals, 2 health center IV (HCIV), 15 health center III (HCIII) and 6 health center II (HCII), and 6 Private health facilities) in Mukono district. We conducted a thorough assessment of medical records, interviewed heads of the facilities, and a questionnaire was administered to 46 health workers. The study assessed the service provision for AD/ARDs, Knowledge of AD/ARDs management, challenges, and opportunities.ResultsOut of 32 health facilities assessed, 4 in 10 (42%) facilities reported managing (diagnosing/treating) clients with AD/ARDs, and the majority (90.2%) were run by Non-Physician Health Workers (NPHW). Only 2 in 10 had guidelines for managing AD/ARDs. Less than half (46.4%) had AD/ARDs medicines in stock (mainly Haloperidol) and all of the private facilities lacked essential medicine to treat AD/ARDs. All health center IIs lacked drugs for AD/ARDs. A significant knowledge gap in assessing and diagnosing AD/ARDs was observed among all the health workers. All health workers highlighted the need for additional training in AD/ARDs. A multitude of client and health provider challenges were observed in this studyConclusionsHealth facilities in Mukono district are inadequately prepared to offer optimal services for the management of AD/ARDs. AD/ARDs drugs, knowledge gap, and human resources for health presented a great challenge. In order to address the inadequately capacity to manage AD/ARDs, emphasis should be dwelt on strengthening the health facilities.Disclosure of InterestNone Declared
Developing and Validating for Cognitive Screening Tools for Identifying and Intervening Dementia among Older Persons in Rural Uganda.
Authors: Jephthah D. , Ddumba I. 
Published: August 2023

Introduction: BackgroundAlthough risk of developing dementia increase in later years, identification and assessment of older persons with dementia in developing countries is still low. Access to easy and user friendly cognitive screening tools by the health care professional in developing countries is difficult.ObjectivesThe study aimed to develop, validate and field test the cognitive screening tool for use in outpatient departments within health facilities in Uganda.MethodsIn the rural eastern region of Uganda, twenty-three (23) purposively selected health facilities and administered a scientifically derived cognitive screening tools to all eligible older persons. We conducted an inter-rater reliability in all the health facilities using three raters. Diagnosis of dementia (DSM-IV) was classified as a major cognitive impairment and was quality checked by physiatrist who were blinded to results of the screening assessment.ResultsThe area under the receiver operating characterizes (AUROC) curve in health facilities was 0.912. The inter-rater reliability was good (Intra-class correlation coefficient of 0.692 to 0.734). the predictive accuracy of the tool to discriminate between dementia and other cognitive impairment was 0.892. In regression modal, the cognitive screening tool, didn’t appear to be biased by age.ConclusionsThe cognitive screening tool if performed well among the older persons, can be proved useful for screening dementia in other developing countriesDisclosure of InterestNone Declared
PTSD and prospective memory among Afghan students in the Kyrgyz Republic
Authors: Molchanova E. 
Published: August 2023

IntroductionProspective memory is a memory for actions to be performed in the future, such as composing an abstract for Congress. Various studies (see, for instance, Khan, A, 2020) showed that deficits in prospective memory are part of depressive cognitive deficits. This study is devoted to the prospective memory characteristics of migrants - students from Afghanistan who study at American University in Central AsiaObjectivesThe study’s objective was to test the hypothesis of the existing connections between PTSD and prospective memory.MethodsOne hundred and fifty students submitted informed consent for participation in the study, which the local IRB approved. Twenty-five had been diagnosed with PTSD; others also experienced traumatic stress but did not present the complete clinical picture of PTSD.The research was quantitative; a variety of self-questioners were used, including the one Dr developed by Azzizudin Khan in 2021 (Khan and others, 2021) to measure traumatic stress level, depression, anxiety, and subjective perception of the prospective memory.ANOVA and family of regression statistics helped to establish connections between several variables.One hundred and fifty students submitted informed consent for participation in the study, which the local IRB approved. Twenty-five had been diagnosed with PTSD; others also experienced traumatic stress but did not present the complete clinical picture of PTSD. The research was quantitative; a variety of self-questioners were used, including the one Dr developed by Azzizudin Khan in 2021 (Khan and others, 2021) to measure traumatic stress level, depression, anxiety, and subjective perception of the prospective memory. ANOVA and family of regression statistics helped to establish connections between several variables.ResultsThe study’s preliminary results, which are still in progress, showed that the perceived level of traumatization predicts the perceived failure in prospective memory. However, there are also a lot of statistical outcomes which need to be analyzed. Among those are, for instance, the connection between depression and prospective memory and the connection between prospective memory and anxiety.ConclusionsProspective memory deficiency is a part of a traumatic cognitive deficit. More research is needed to investigate cognitive distortion in PTSD.Disclosure of InterestNone Declared
The mechanisms of influence in intergenerational trauma transmission from mother to baby after the war in Bosnia-Herzegovina: what have we learned since then?
Authors: Le Roch K. 
Published: August 2023

IntroductionAfter the war in Bosnia-Herzegovina that lasted from 1992 to 1995, the populations gradually rebuilt their lives haunted by the spectrum of personal and collective painful souvenirs. Regarding the children who were born after the war, some mothers would rather not talk about it to protect their children from what they might be feeling while others would definetely share what they have experienced to protect their children. Because the intergenerational transmission of war trauma from mother to baby has been poorly explored among populations who recently lived in a warzone, we seeked to highlight the particularity of the interpersonal relations between the mother and her child in connection with maternal psychotrauma, by searching the factors of influence on the functioning of the dyad.ObjectivesThe main objective of this study is to determine and conceptualize the modes of transmission of trauma from the study of mother-baby interactions in a Bosnian environment, after the war in Bosnia-Herzegovina.MethodsIn 2003, 40 mothers and their babies aged 2 to 36 months living in Sarajevo were enrolled in the study. Among these mothers, 31 lived in or near the warzone and 9 were either displaced in other areas of the country or were refugees in foreign countries. We assessed the level of severity of post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) using the Clinician Administered PTSD Scale (Blake et al, 1998). In order to examine the quality of the mother-child dyads of mothers who lived through the war, we videorecorded a 10-minute free play of 23 dyads in their home environment. Then the interactions were coded using the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development observation grid by two independent raters.ResultsThe results showed that all mothers who lived through the war presented post-traumatic symptoms but only half of them showed a PTSD. Videotaped observations of mother-child interactions during playtimes revealed that their interactions are less linked to the mother’s PTSD than to the influence of PTSD on maternal attitudes and thereby extending to those of their infant. They are less sensitive to their children’s signals. They are also more intrusive and detached. Overall, they are more focused on themselves than on their child when they are interacting. As a result, their children are more focused on play and less actively engaged in communicating with their mothers.ConclusionsThe interactions between the mother and her child cover a set of relatively complex processes during which the two partners influence each other. When a mother lives through the war, she will pass on to her child an often painful life story. And thus, it is not only the content but also the way she transmits it that influences how the child receives the objects of the transmission.Disclosure of InterestNone Declared
Risk of childhood trauma exposure and severity of bipolar disorder in Colombia
Authors: Guillen F. , Galvez-Florez J. F. 
Published: August 2023

IntroductionBipolar disorder (BD) is higher in developing countries. Childhood trauma exposure is a common environmental risk factor in Colombia and might be associated with a more severe course of bipolar disorder in Low-Middle Income-Countries. We carried out the first case-control study (114 BD patients and 191 controls) in Colombia using a structural clinical interview and the Childhood Trauma Questionnaire-Short Form (CTQ-SF) to describe the prevalence and association between trauma exposure during childhood with a severe course of illness in a sample of BD patients.Objectivesto describe the prevalence and association between trauma exposure during childhood with a severe course of illness in a sample of BD patients.MethodsA case-control study (114 controls versus 191 controls) that assessed outpatients between 18 and 65 years old, at a teaching hospital in Barranquilla, Colombia was carried-out. All participants were assessed with the SCID-5-CV, the Young Mania Rating Scale (YMRS), and the Bipolar Depression Rating Scale (BDRS). Additionally, exposure to childhood trauma was assessed using The Childhood Trauma Questionnaire-Short Form (CTQ-SF). The CTQ-SF is a brevity 28-item Likert-type, with a five-factor structure: emotional abuse EA, physical abuse PA, sexual abuse SA, physical neglect PN, and emotional neglect EN, self-administered instrument in order to assess multiple types of trauma during childhood.We generate an outcome variable named severe bipolar disorder defined by course severe of bipolar disorder as the presence of any clinical indicator of severity, previously delimited by the research team (early-onset, rapid cycling, ideation or suicide attempt, or 3 or more hospitalizations per year). Also, we carried out bivariate and regression analyses with each clinical indicator of severity as an outcome.ResultsCases included 61.4% BD type I and 38.6% BD type II. The median age was 31.5 years (IQR, 75-24) for BD patients and 31 years old (IQR, 38-24) for healthy controls. A higher prevalence of childhood trauma was evidenced in cases compared to controls.Multivariate logistic regression model in severe bipolar disorderSevere Bipolar DisorderVariableBSEOR95% CIp valuep modelR2Emotional Abuse0.830.362.301.753.03<0.001<0.0010.10Physical Abuse1.070.432.921.545.53<0.001<0.001Sexual Abuse1.610.445.044.735.36<0.001<0.001Physical Neglect0.280.491.320.931.870.117<0.001Emotional Neglect1.240.383.452.285.23<0.001<0.001ConclusionsThis is the first association study between childhood trauma exposure as a higher risk for a severe course of illness in BD patients in Colombian. Our findings highlight the importance of screening and evaluating childhood trauma exposure during the course of BD patients.Disclosure of InterestNone Declared
Do prospective longitudinal studies of bipolar disorder support the hypothesis of neuroprogression?
Authors: Melle I. , Lagerberg T. V. , Etain B. , Lyngstad S. H. , Wold K. F. 
Published: August 2023

IntroductionBipolar I disorder is a mental disorder with the risk of severe clinical outcomes. Bipolar disorder was initially defined based on having a better outcome than schizophrenia. However, while recent longer-term findings in schizophrenia do not support neuroprogression, bipolar disorder is increasingly depicted as having neuroprogressive elements. There are, however, remarkably few prospective longitudinal studies of representative bipolar I cohorts followed from the first treatment.ObjectivesTo study the clinical development of a representative cohort of bipolar disorder patients recruited at their first treatment.MethodsPatients with DSM-IV Bipolar I or Bipolar NOS were consecutively recruited from in-and outpatient units in the larger Oslo area during their first treatment year and extensively clinically characterized at baseline. They then participated in personal one- and ten-year follow-ups.ResultsSixty-nine patients participated in the 10-year follow-up. Age at follow-up was 39.0 (+ 9.6) years, 59% were females. A total of 12% had unipolar mania, 58% had psychotic bipolar disorder, and 20% had experienced rapid cycling. At follow-up, 75% were in full affective remission, 60% had regained full functioning, and 54% were in stable full recovery.Mood episode relapses clustered around the first episode. Despite occasional relapses, 2/3 were mainly euthymic during the follow-up period. A small sub-group was highly affected from the first 2-3 years of treatment, but there were no apparent signs of kindling effects or indications of neuroprogressionConclusionsThe follow-up of this cohort of first-treatment Bipolar I patients does not support the hypothesis of neuroprogression.Disclosure of InterestNone Declared
Examining Brain Structural Connectivity in Early-life Interpersonal Stress
Authors: Lim L. , Talozzi L. , Howells H. 
Published: August 2023

IntroductionEarly-life interpersonal stress, particularly childhood maltreatment (CM), is associated with social cognition deficits as well as neurobiological abnormalities including alterations in brain structure and function and heightened inflammation. However, few studies have investigated whether peer victimisation (PV) has similar effects.ObjectivesThis study first examines the associations between white matter tract abnormalities and childhood interpersonal stress from carers (CM) and peers (PV). Next, it explores how the observed tract alterations are in terms related to cytokine IL-6 level and theory of mind (ToM) performance in the CM and PV groups.MethodsData were collected from 107 age-and gender-matched youths (34 CM, 35 PV and 38 controls). Tractography and whole-brain tract-based spatial statistics (TBSS) analyses were conducted.ResultsTractography showed that both CM and PV groups had smaller right inferior longitudinal fasciculus (ILF) tract volume than controls, which was furthermore associated with longer maltreatment duration within the CM group. At the microstructural level, the CM group had higher fractional anisotropy (FA) of bilateral anterior thalamic radiation (ATR) than both PV and control groups, which were associated with enhanced affective ToM performance in maltreated individuals only. Reduced left ATR FA, however, was associated with greater emotional and behavioural difficulties in the PV group. Using TBSS, the CM group had higher FA than both PV and control groups in predominantly right-hemispheric limbic tracts (UF, ATR, ILF, cingulum bundle and inferior fronto-occipital fasciculus), corpus callosum and corona radiata, which were furthermore associated with heightened cytokine IL-6 level within the CM group.ConclusionsEarly-life interpersonal stress, particularly from carers, is associated with widespread alterations of neural pathways connecting the frontal, temporal and occipital cortices involved in cognitive and affective control. The adverse caregiving experience may conceivably contribute to enhanced mental-state decoding but there exists a hidden cost of heightened inflammation in these seemingly healthy maltreated youths. Our findings thus underscore the need to further examine the mental and physical well-being of healthy individuals exposed to early-life stress as they may still be vulnerable to psychopathology later on.Disclosure of InterestNone Declared
Adverse Childhood Experiences and Anxiety Symptoms in Adolescents during COVID-19
Authors: Marini A. , Farmakopoulou I. , Theodoratou M. , Gintoni E. , Chalkiopoulos K. 
Published: August 2023

IntroductionAdverse Childhood Experiences (ACEs) are potential traumatic events that occur from birth to the end of adolescence (0-18 years), including various types of neglect, abuse and violence in a child’s domestic and community life. Experiencing Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACEs) is associated with the onset of anxiety in adolescence. According to recent studies, pandemic COVID-19 is a novel ACE that has been found to increase anxiety in adolescents.ObjectivesTo investigate the relationship between ACEs and COVID-19 in the development of anxiety in adolescenceMethodsΑ cross-sectional study was designed in a community sample of 248 adolescent boys and girls, aged 12 to 15 years (Mean: 13.5 years), from five High Schools in Eastern Attica. Four Questionnaires were used: 1) Demographic Questionnaire, 2) State-Trait-Anxiety-Inventory for Children - STAIC, 3) Adverse Childhood Experiences Questionnaire, and 4) Impact of COVID-19 Questionnaire.ResultsThe results demonstrated a strong correlation between the total number of ACEs and Anxiety (Trait and State) in adolescence (Trait Anxiety: rho=,37, p <0.001, State Anxiety: rho=,29, p<0.001).Girls scored significantly higher in Trait (U=4353, p <0.001) and State Anxiety (U=5822.5, p = 0.014), presenting higher anxiety compared to boys. Finally, a significant relationship was observed between the number of ACEs and the impact of COVID-19 (β=0.025, p <0.001).ConclusionsThe findings of the present study can be used to design and implement future effective, preventive and therapeutic programs for adolescents with anxiety symptoms, who have experienced the multitude of Adverse Childhood Experiences and the COVID-19 pandemic during their adolescence.Disclosure of InterestNone Declared
Research of the preferred style of coping stress in relation to locus of control among healthcare workers during the COVID-19 pandemic
Authors: Muric D. 
Published: August 2023

IntroductionThe locus of control is associated with a variety of psychological concepts, theories and researches, including learned helplessness, which is explained in way that person has learned to act helpless even when they actually have control over their situation or the ability to change a circumstance or outcome. In this scientific work, the aim is to examine the corelation between the locus of control and stress coping strategies in a group of health care workers. A sample is 110 respondents, of different age, gender, ages and educational degrees.ObjectivesIn this research, the aim is to examine the connection between locus of control and coping strategies among healthcare workers during the Covid-19 epidemic. The research results showed that there are no statistically significant differences in the relationship between stress coping strategies and locus of control in relation to men and women and age. Also, there is a statistically significant difference in the stress coping strategy focused on avoidance in relation to the locus of control, i.e. it turned out that the coping strategy focused on avoidance is more pronounced in respondents with an internal locus of control than in those with an external locus of control.MethodsThe research was conducted at the Clinical Center of Montenegro, in Podgorica, in March 2022, through an online program, due to the epidemiological situation. The sample consists of 110 respondents, of both sexes and aged from 20 to 65 years old, who were chosen by the method of random selection. The CISS and RI-E scales were used.ResultsThe research showed that there is a connection between the locus of control and strategies for overcoming stress, but that there are no statistically significant differences in the connection between strategies for overcoming stress and locus of control in relation to men and women and their age, as well as that there is a statistically significant difference in the strategy coping with stress focused on avoidance in relation to locus of control, i.e. it was shown that the coping strategy focused on avoidance is more pronounced in respondents with an internal locus of control than in those with an external locus of control.Image:Image 2:Image 3:ConclusionsThis research actually confirmed the importance of individuality and various factors that can affect a person, and because of this, it was very likely that not all hypotheses could be answered in the way the author expected before the research began. With this, it can be assumed that the personality of a person can hardly be related to broad styles of coping with stress, and that generalizations regarding gender, age, education and work experience cannot be made, because there are predominantly individual differences in the development of an individual.Disclosure of InterestNone Declared