The effectiveness of mindful parenting training on attention deficit/hyperactivity disorder symptoms in male students

OBJECTIVE

One of the main influential factors in the occurrence of behavioral problems in children with attention deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) is the behavior related to the parenting styles. This study aimed at investigating the effect of mindful parenting training on mothers of children with ADHD in reducing the symptoms of hyperactivity/impulsivity and inattention behaviors.

MATERIALS AND METHODS

The research method was quasi-experimental with a pretest-posttest control group. The study population consisted of all mothers of children from 8 to 12 years. Therefore, 24 mothers of children with ADHD whose scores in the Connors questionnaire (parent form) were above the cut-off point score and diagnostic interview were selected and randomly paired and assigned into two experimental and control groups. All the mothers were between 30 to 38 years old. The research tools included the Connors questionnaire. Mindful parenting training was accomplished in eight 90-minute sessions for the experimental group. In the end, the two groups completed the questionnaires as post-test. Analysis of covariance was used to analyze the data.

RESULTS

The analysis of the results showed the effect of mindful parenting training on reducing the symptoms of hyperactivity/impulsivity and inattention behaviors of children with ADHD in the experimental group compared to the control group (p-value <0.05).

CONCLUSIONS

The educational and behavioral methods that parents and especially mothers use in response to their children's problematic and undesirable behaviors can increase the incidence of these behavioral problems in the long run. Hence, it is addressed in this study due to the great importance of changing the behavioral and educational methods of such parents. The findings generally show that mindful parenting education has affected the emotional climate governing parent-child interactions and has reduced behavioral problems in children suffering from ADHD.

Simultaneous parameter estimation and variable selection via the logit-normal continuous analogue of the spike-and-slab prior

We introduce a Bayesian prior distribution, the logit-normal continuous analogue of the spike-and-slab, which enables flexible parameter estimation and variable/model selection in a variety of settings. We demonstrate its use and efficacy in three case studies—a simulation study and two studies on real biological data from the fields of metabolomics and genomics. The prior allows the use of classical statistical models, which are easily interpretable and well known to applied scientists, but performs comparably to common machine learning methods in terms of generalizability to previously unseen data.

Defining vitamin D status using multi-metabolite mathematical modelling: A pregnancy perspective

Vitamin D deficiency is linked to adverse pregnancy outcomes such as pre-eclampsia (PET) but remains defined by serum measurement of 25-hydroxyvitamin D3 (25(OH)D3) alone. To identify broader changes in vitamin D metabolism during normal and PET pregnancies we developed a relatively simple but fully parametrised mathematical model of the vitamin D metabolic pathway. The data used for parametrisation were serum vitamin D metabolites analysed for a cross-sectional group of women (n = 88); including normal pregnant women at 1 st (NP1, n = 25) and 3rd trimester (NP3, n = 21) and pregnant women with PET (n = 22), as well as non-pregnant female controls (n = 20). To account for the effects various metabolites have upon each other, data were analysed using an ordinary differential equation model of the vitamin D reaction network. Information obtained from the model was then also applied to serum vitamin D metabolome data (n = 50) obtained from a 2nd trimester pregnancy cohort, of which 25 prospectively developed PET. Statistical analysis of the data alone showed no significant difference between NP3 and PET for serum 25(OH)D3 and 24,25(OH)₂D3 concentrations. Conversely, a statistical analysis informed by the reaction network model revealed that a better indicator of PET is the ratios of vitamin D metabolites in late pregnancy. Assessing the potential predicative value, no significant difference between NP3 and PET cases at 15 weeks gestation was found. Mathematical modelling offers a novel strategy for defining the impact of vitamin D metabolism on human health. This is particularly relevant within the context of pregnancy, where major changes in vitamin D metabolism occur across gestation, and dysregulated metabolism is evidenced in women with established PET.

Effects of oral clonidine premedication on haemodynamic response to laryngoscopy and tracheal intubation: a clinical trial

The objective of this study was to evaluate the efficacy of pre-anesthetic orally administration of clonidine on pulse rate and blood stress response to laryngoscopy and tracheal intubation. In a double-blinded, randomized study, 274 ASA I and II subjects with age of 18 to 45 years scheduled for elective surgery under general anesthesia were enrolled. They were randomly allocated to receive oral clonidine (0.2 mg) or placebo as premedication 90-120 min before surgery. All the patients received Succinylcholine (1.5 mg kg(-1)) after induction of anesthesia with Fentanyl (50 microg) and Thiopentone (5 mg kg(-1)). The anesthesia was maintained with halothane (1.5 Mac) in 50% mixture of N2O/O2. Heart rate and systolic blood pressure were recorded before, immediately after and then every 5 min after intubation until 20 min. The Clonidine group showed a significant superiority over placebo in the prevention of increase in systolic blood pressure as well as heart rate over the intubation. A significant difference was observed in both heart rate and systolic blood pressures were significantly higher in Control group at three subsequent measurements following intubation. The results of this study suggest that orally administered clonidine in preanesthetic period, provides more haemodynamic stability and attenuates the stress response to laryngoscopy and intubation.