Family Patterns and Suicidal and Violent Behavior among Adolescent Girls-Genogram Analysis

Association Between Atopic Dermatitis and Suicidal Behaviors in North Korean Adolescent Defectors From 2011 to 2019

OBJECTIVE

To evaluate the association between atopic dermatitis (AD) and suicidal behaviors in adolescent defectors among residents who escaped from North Korean (adolescent defectors, n=423) and adolescents with South Korean parents (Korean adolescents, n=540,265).

METHODS

The study used data from the Korea Youth Risk Behavior Survey conducted from 2011 to 2019. Differences in general characteristics, health behaviors, suicidal ideation, suicide plans, suicide attempts, and AD between adolescent defectors and Korean adolescents were examined. Multiple logistic regression analysis was used to determine the association between AD and suicidal behaviors.

RESULTS

The adolescent defectors group had lower AD (16.3% vs. 24.2%), poorer subjective health (10% vs. 6%), smoked more (47% vs. 18%), drank more (60% vs. 43%), lived with family less frequently (56% vs. 96%), and were more than twice as likely to have depression (42% vs. 27%), suicidal ideation (30% vs. 14%), a suicide plan (23% vs. 5%), or have made a prior suicide attempt (19% vs. 3%) compared with the Korean adolescent group (p<0.001). The adjusted odds ratio for the adolescent defectors group compared to the Korean adolescent group was 1.66 for suicidal ideation, 3.59 for suicide plans, and 4.34 for suicide attempts (p<0.001). AD was found to be associated with suicide plans and attempts in adolescent defectors and associated with suicidal ideation in Korean adolescents.

CONCLUSION

AD was significantly associated with suicide plans and suicidal attempts among adolescent defectors and suicidal ideation in Korean adolescents, based on a random sample of middle- and high-school students.

Exploring parents' experience in the decision-making process for children with haematological diseases receiving haematopoietic stem cell transplantation in China based on genograms

PURPOSE

To explore parents' experience in the decision-making process for children with haematological diseases receiving haematopoietic stem cell transplantation (HSCT) based on genograms.

DESIGN AND METHODS

A qualitative study based on genogram was conducted. Seven pairs of parents completed their genogram and a semi-structured interview. Two related donors were interviewed to discuss their experiences in the decision-making process of donating bone marrow to their loved ones. Interviews were transcribed verbatim and analysed using interpretative phenomenological analysis.

RESULTS

The genogram presents the complete family structure, family member relationships and incident-related conflicts. Two superordinate themes emerged from the data analysis. The first theme was transplantation decision motivations, including four subthemes: the values of life priority, empathy based on kinship, inheritance of family blood, trust in doctors and medical science. The second theme was transplantation decision conflicts, including four subthemes: decision-making conflicts among family members, related-donor decision-making conflicts, risk-benefit game, blind optimism and insufficient cognition conflict.

CONCLUSIONS

Genogram can show the hidden resources and conflicts of each family and help the care providers better understand parents' experience and the decision-making dilemmas in the decision-making process for children with haematological diseases receiving HSCT. The needs of transplant families for treatment-related information were not fully met.

PRACTICE IMPLICATIONS

It is necessary for medical staff to increase psychological and informational support for donors and their families when the parents of patients make bone marrow transplant decisions. Medical staff should engage in family-focused systematic interventions to reduce the psychological burden and conflicts of decision makers.

BEAUTY and the breast: is adjuvant chemotherapy the right time for a beauty boost? Lessons learned from a large randomized controlled trial

PURPOSE

Beauty care (BTC) is offered at many cancer hospitals having a great uptake among patients. Nevertheless, its benefits in the Quality of life (QoL) of cancer survivors have not been assessed so far.

METHODS

Our study aims to determine whether BTC improves patients' QoL related to their body image measured by the BRBI scale of the QLQ-BR23 questionnaire at the end of adjuvant chemotherapy, after breast cancer (BC) surgery. The BEAUTY study is a prospective, randomized, controlled intervention trial. The following patient-reported outcomes were filled before initiation of chemotherapy (T1) and after their last cycle (T2): EORTC QLQ-C30, QLQ-BR23, and Body Image Scale (BIS). Primary objective was improvement in the BIS of BR23 (BRBI). A qualitative assessment of patients' experience was performed at each cycle through a relevant questionnaire.

RESULTS

In total, 269 (67%) patients filled BRBI at T1 and T2. Mean BRBI scores substantially decreased between T1 and T2 and were not different with or without BTC (p = 0.88). Qualitative assessment suggests impact of BTC in physical well-being and avoids thoughts related to the disease.

CONCLUSION

A substantial proportion of patients have a poor body image and chemotherapy induced a substantial degradation of BRBI scores. Although BTC does not seem to impact BRBI scores, the qualitative assessment suggests some benefit of BTC in other domains. Our study highlights the need to assess patients-perceived body image and build tailored interventions at this critical phase of their disease and generates hypothesis for the impact of BTC among BC patients. Clinical trial registration The study is registered at ClinicalTrials.gov under the NCT01459003 number since October 25, 2011.

Relationship between Family and Myopia: Based on the Jiangsu School Student Myopia Study

Purpose

This study aims to increase our understanding of the relationship between family and myopia in Chinese children.

Methods

Students had a physical examination and were required to provide the necessary demographic information. Children and their guardians from different family types were required to fill in a questionnaire concerning myopia factors.

Results

In this study, the prevalence of myopia in enrolled students aged 6-17 is 55.5%. The proportion of the nuclear family, extended family, single-parent family, and left-behind family is 40.6%, 43.7%, 11.1%, and 4.6%, respectively. Myopia rates from different family types by the order (nuclear family, extended family, single-parent family, and left-behind family) are 60.0%, 52.0%, 54.7%, and 50.9% taking on a decreasing trend, which shows an opposite trend comparing with elevated blood pressure, dental caries, and obesity. The interaction effect of the family type and region, physical examination, lifestyle (including diet habits, near work, outdoor activities, and sleep), and types of lamps and whether scolded by parents can have a significant impact on myopia. For primary school students (grade: 1-5), the prevalence of myopia in the nuclear family was a bit higher than that of myopia in the left-behind family, but for children in junior and senior high schools, both prevalences stayed similar.

Conclusions

In this study, education pressure and time outdoors are still at play, and this kind of effect shows different phenomena in different families. Therefore, previous interventions would still work, and then the most critical challenge would be to ensure that left-behind children completed more schooling.