Team Science Process Builds Research Coordinators' Voices in a National Pediatric Clinical Trials Network.

Geographically-dispersed teams have become the norm in clinical research collaborations. The Institutional Development Awards (IDeA) Program, first authorized by Congress in 1993 and managed by the National Institute of General Medical Sciences, has been developed for the purpose of broadening the geographic distribution of National Institutes of Health (NIH) funding for biomedical and behavioral research by enhancing the competitiveness for research funding of institutions located in states in which the aggregate success rate for grant applications to the NIH has historically been low. The IDeA States are composed of the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico and the following 23 states: Alaska, Arkansas, Delaware, Hawaii, Idaho, Kansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Maine, Mississippi, Montana, Nebraska, Nevada, New Hampshire, New Mexico, North Dakota, Oklahoma, Rhode Island, South Carolina, South Dakota, Vermont, West Virginia, Wyoming.

Introducing Juice and Sugar-Sweetened Beverages in Early Infancy: Parental Knowledge and Intended Behaviors.

Objective: Assess caregivers' knowledge about juice and sugar-sweetened beverages (SSBs) and identify factors that contribute to their early introduction.

Methods: One hundred forty-four parents of young infants completed a 45-item questionnaire focused on infant nutrition.

Results: Seventy-two percent of parents plan to give juice to their babies starting in the first year of life; only 16% plan to introduce SSBs.

Incidence of Crohn's Disease and Ulcerative Colitis in Rhode Island: Report from the Ocean State Crohn's and Colitis Area Registry.

Background: Studies describing the incidence of Crohn's disease (CD) and ulcerative colitis (UC) are uncommon in the United States. We sought to determine the incidence of CD and UC in the state of Rhode Island.

Methods: The Ocean State Crohn's and Colitis Area Registry is a state-based inception cohort of patients newly diagnosed with inflammatory bowel disease (IBD) in Rhode Island.

Depressive symptoms in youth with inflammatory bowel disease compared with a community sample.

Background: Previous investigations have produced mixed findings on whether youth with inflammatory bowel disease (IBD) experience elevated rates of depressive symptoms. Our first aim was to compare self-report of depressive symptoms by youth with IBD with a community sample. The second aim was to examine the relationship between symptoms of depression and measures of disease activity.

Stability of Emotional and Behavioral Functioning in Youth with Inflammatory Bowel Disease.

This study prospectively examined stability of psychological and behavioral functioning in two matched cohorts of youth with inflammatory bowel disease (IBD): (1) newly-diagnosed and (2) previously-diagnosed patients. Youth and their parents completed measures of emotional and behavioral functioning at Time 1 and 6-months later. Mean-level analyses indicated that scores at Time 1 and Time 2 were within the nonclinical range.

6-Thioguanine levels in pediatric IBD patients: adherence is more important than dose.

Background: Thiopurine immunosuppressants such as 6-mercaptopurine (6-MP) are widely used to maintain remission in children with both Crohn's disease and ulcerative colitis. Therapeutic efficacy is associated with higher red blood cell levels of the thiopurine metabolite 6-thioguanine (6-TGN). Studies in both children and adults have inexplicably failed to demonstrate a significant correlation between prescribed dose and level of 6-TGN.

Rates and predictors of oral medication adherence in pediatric patients with IBD.

Background: Symptoms of inflammatory bowel disease (IBD) include bloody diarrhea, fatigue, abdominal pain, and weight loss. Long-term management of remission for most patients requires adherence to taking 1 or more oral medications daily, in the absence of symptoms. We investigated whether disease characteristics and behavioral characteristics predict adherence to prescribed medical regimens.