Publications by authors named "A Pretorius"
This paper focused on the prevention of HIV transmission for adolescent girls and young women (AGYW), through a layered approach which included economic strengthening as a core strategy, especially for the most vulnerable. Based on multi-year data in KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa, we assessed the outcomes of an economic strengthening model developed by TB HIV Care (THC) in the Determined, Resilient, Empowered, AIDS-free, Mentored and Safe (DREAMS) HIV prevention programme. The methods used are primarily qualitative.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFPsychotic symptoms are of increasing interest in mental health due to their predictive value for future psychotic disorders. While these symptoms are prevalent in the general population, their occurrence varies globally. This study aimed to explore the prevalence and factors associated with psychotic symptoms among individuals identified as substance-naïve and recent abstainers without a history of psychosis.
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- The research looks at how many people in Africa experience psychological distress, which includes feelings of anxiety and depression.
- The study focused on participants from clinics in Uganda, Kenya, Ethiopia, and South Africa to gather data and find patterns.
- They discovered different levels of distress among participants, with results showing various factors like age, gender, and education level can affect mental health.
We deployed the Blended Genome Exome (BGE), a DNA library blending approach that generates low pass whole genome (1-4× mean depth) and deep whole exome (30-40× mean depth) data in a single sequencing run. This technology is cost-effective, empowers most genomic discoveries possible with deep whole genome sequencing, and provides an unbiased method to capture the diversity of common SNP variation across the globe. To evaluate this new technology at scale, we applied BGE to sequence >53,000 samples from the Populations Underrepresented in Mental Illness Associations Studies (PUMAS) Project, which included participants across African, African American, and Latin American populations.
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- The study evaluated the psychometric properties of the University of California, San Diego Brief Assessment of Capacity to Consent (UBACC) in low and middle-income countries, focusing on its reliability and factor structure among 32,208 adults across Ethiopia, Kenya, South Africa, and Uganda.
- Findings indicated that the UBACC could be represented by both two-factor and three-factor models, depending on the stratification of countries, genders, and language groups, with a three-factor model showing adequate fit overall.
- Despite showing some structural validity, the UBACC exhibited low internal consistency and discriminating abilities for many items, pointing to the need for further exploration of cultural factors affecting its effectiveness.