Publications by authors named "Adele Pretorius"

Psychotic 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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Article Synopsis
  • 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.
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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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Article Synopsis
  • 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.
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The Kessler Psychological Distress Scale (K10) has been widely used to screen psychological distress across many countries. However, its performance has not been extensively studied in Africa. The present study sought to evaluate and compare measurement properties of the K10 across four African countries: Ethiopia, Kenya, Uganda, and South Africa.

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Trauma exposure is widespread and linked to chronic physical and mental health conditions including posttraumatic stress disorder. However, there are major gaps in our knowledge of trauma exposure in Africa and on the validity of instruments to assess potentially life-threatening trauma exposure. The Life Events Checklist for the DSM-5 (LEC-5) is a free, widely used questionnaire to assess traumatic events that can be associated with psychopathology.

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Objective: Large-scale studies have revolutionized biomedical research, and neurocognitive tests can help elucidate the biological basis of neuropsychiatric diseases. However, studies have predominantly been conducted in Western settings. We describe the development and validation of a computerized battery (PennCNB) with the Xhosa population of South Africa.

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Background: Cell line immortalisation is a growing component of African genomics research and biobanking. However, little is known about the factors influencing consent to cell line creation and immortalisation in African research settings. We contribute to addressing this gap by exploring three questions in a sample of Xhosa participants recruited for a South African psychiatric genomics study: First, what proportion of participants consented to cell line storage? Second, what were predictors of this consent? Third, what questions were raised by participants during this consent process?

Methods: 760 Xhose people with schizophrenia and 760 controls were matched to sex, age, level of education and recruitment region.

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Pathological gambling is a prevalent and disabling mental illness, which is frequently associated with mood, anxiety, and substance use disorders. However, there is relatively little data on comorbidity in individuals with pathological gambling from low and middle income countries such as South-Africa. The Mini-International Neuropsychiatric Interview was used to assess the frequency of DSM-IV-TR disorders among 100 male and 100 female treatment-seeking individuals with pathological gambling in South-Africa.

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Objective: Various countries and states have established telephone counselling lines for people with pathological or problem gambling. Data from such services may contribute to describing systematically the nature of gambling problems in a particular area. To date, however, few data have been published on such a telephone counselling line in a low or middle income country.

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Background: Clinicians lack adequate data on the effectiveness of treatment for pathological gambling in low- and middle-income countries.

Methods: We evaluated a manualized treatment program that included components of cognitive-behavioral therapy, motivational interviewing, and imaginal exposure in a sample of 128 participants diagnosed with pathological gambling. Our team recruited participants via the helpline of the National Responsible Gambling Program (NRGP) of South Africa between May 2011 and February 2012.

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