Adherence rates and risk factors for suboptimal adherence to secondary prophylaxis for rheumatic fever.

Aim: Secondary prophylaxis with 3-4 weekly benzathine penicillin G injections is necessary to prevent disease morbidity and cardiac mortality in patients with acute rheumatic fever (ARF) and rheumatic heart disease (RHD). This study aimed to determine secondary prophylaxis adherence rates in the Far North Queensland paediatric population and to identify factors contributing to suboptimal adherence.

Methods: A retrospective analysis of data recorded in the online RHD register for Queensland, Australia, was performed for a 10-year study period.

Adherence to Secondary Prophylaxis for Acute Rheumatic Fever and Rheumatic Heart Disease: A Systematic Review.

Background: Optimal delivery of regular benzathine penicillin G (BPG) injections prescribed as secondary prophylaxis for acute rheumatic fever (ARF) and rheumatic heart disease (RHD) is vital to preventing disease morbidity and cardiac sequelae in affected pediatric and young adult populations. However, poor uptake of secondary prophylaxis remains a significant challenge to ARF/RHD control programs.

Objective: In order to facilitate better understanding of this challenge and thereby identify means to improve service delivery, this systematic literature review explored rates of adherence and factors associated with adherence to secondary prophylaxis for ARF and RHD worldwide.

Identification of radiological alveolar pneumonia in children with high rates of hospitalized respiratory infections: comparison of WHO-defined and pediatric pulmonologist diagnosis in the clinical context.

Background: A reliable standardized diagnosis of pneumonia in children has long been difficult to achieve. Clinical and radiological criteria have been developed by the World Health Organization (WHO), however, their generalizability to different populations is uncertain. We evaluated WHO defined chest radiograph (CXRs) confirmed alveolar pneumonia in the clinical context in Central Australian Aboriginal children, a high risk population, hospitalized with acute lower respiratory illness (ALRI).

Rates of radiologically confirmed pneumonia as defined by the World Health Organization in Northern Territory Indigenous children.

Objective: To determine the burden of hospitalised, radiologically confirmed pneumonia (World Health Organization protocol) in Northern Territory Indigenous children.

Design, Setting And Participants: Historical, observational study of all hospital admissions for any diagnosis of NT resident Indigenous children, aged between > or = 29 days and < 5 years, 1 April 1997 to 31 March 2005.

Intervention: All chest radiographs taken during these admissions, regardless of diagnosis, were assessed for pneumonia in accordance with the WHO protocol.

Undernutrition and obesity in indigenous children: epidemiology, prevention, and treatment.

Over the past 50 years there has been a shift in nutritional problems amongst Indigenous children in developed countries from under-nutrition and growth faltering to overweight and obesity; the major exception is small numbers of Indigenous children predominately living in remote areas of Northern Australia. Nutritional problems reflect social disadvantage and occur with disproportionately high incidence in all disadvantaged subgroups. There is limited evidence of benefit from any strategies to prevent or treat undernutrition and obesity; there are a limited number of individual studies with generalizable high grade evidence of benefit.