Publications by authors named "Cooper Peter"

Background: The identification of predictors of treatment response is crucial for improving treatment outcome for children with anxiety disorders. Machine learning methods provide opportunities to identify combinations of factors that contribute to risk prediction models.

Methods: A machine learning approach was applied to predict anxiety disorder remission in a large sample of 2114 anxious youth (5-18 years).

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  • Violence is a significant global public health issue, especially in low- and middle-income countries, with parenting programs in high-income nations shown to reduce risks associated with child aggression.
  • A study evaluated two low-cost parenting programs (ACT and DBS) in Brazil to see their effects on child aggression and parenting outcomes, involving 369 children and using various assessment methods.
  • Results showed that while ACT slightly decreased harsh parenting, it had no significant impact on child aggression, and DBS enhanced book-sharing practices, but neither program showed improvements in other child development or stress outcomes.
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Background: Research in the neurosciences has highlighted the importance of intersubjective relationships in promoting neuromental development of the child. Children's learning in early childhood occurs mainly in a dyadic context of an interaction with their parents: from this perspective, good dialogic parent-child communication is required to be promoted also through good educational practices. Dialogic Book-Sharing (DBS), a dialogic form of parent-child communication through the use of wordless picture books, provides a privileged 'intersubjective' space and is highly effective in promoting communication, language, attention, behavioural development and the parent-child relationship.

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Background: Long-term effects of early, recurrent human exposure to general anaesthesia remain unknown. The Australasian Cystic Fibrosis Bronchoalveolar Lavage (ACFBAL) trial provided an opportunity to examine this issue in children randomly assigned in infancy to either repeated bronchoalveolar-lavage (BAL)-directed therapy with general anaesthesia or standard care with no planned lavages up to 5 years of age when all children received BAL-directed therapy under general anaesthesia.

Methods: This multicentre, randomised, open-label phase 4 trial (CF-GAIN) used the original ACFBAL trial randomisation at 3·6 months (SD 1·6) to BAL-directed therapy or standard-care groups to assess the impact of general anaesthesia exposures over early childhood.

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Background: Children and adolescents demonstrate diverse patterns of symptom change and disorder remission following cognitive behavioural therapy (CBT) for anxiety disorders. To better understand children who respond sub-optimally to CBT, this study investigated youths (N = 1,483) who continued to meet criteria for one or more clinical anxiety diagnosis immediately following treatment or at any point during the 12 months following treatment.

Methods: Data were collected from 10 clinical sites with assessments at pre-and post-treatment and at least once more at 3, 6 or 12-month follow-up.

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  • The study focuses on improving child health and development in rural Lesotho, where extreme poverty and high rates of HIV/AIDS challenge caregivers' ability to nurture their children.
  • A community-based parenting intervention was tested through a randomized controlled trial involving 34 community clusters, where caregiver-child pairs participated in sessions aimed at enhancing child HIV testing, language development, and attention.
  • The results included a total of 1,040 children enrolled from 2015 to 2017, with assessments conducted to measure the intervention's effectiveness on child outcomes over time.
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Objective: Evidence shows that dialogic book-sharing improves language development in young children in low-middle income countries (LMICs), particularly receptive and expressive language. It is unclear whether this intervention also boosts development of other neurocognitive and socio-emotional domains in children. Using a randomized controlled trial (RCT) nested in the Drakenstein Child Health Study (DCHS), a book-sharing intervention was implemented in caregivers of 3.

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Background: In people with cystic fibrosis (CF), regular nebulisation of 6% or 7% saline improves lung function; however, these concentrations are not always tolerable. Clinically, some CF patients report using lower concentrations of saline to improve tolerability, yet the effects of lower concentrations are unknown. This study therefore aimed to evaluate the relative effectiveness and tolerability of 0.

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Background: Short-term psychodynamic psychotherapy (STPP) is frequently used to treat depression, but it is unclear which patients might benefit specifically. Individual participant data (IPD) meta-analyses can provide more precise effect estimates than conventional meta-analyses and identify patient-level moderators. This IPD meta-analysis examined the efficacy and moderators of STPP for depression compared to control conditions.

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  • A significant portion of general intelligence (g) is influenced by environmental factors, particularly through parent-child interactions such as parental scaffolding, which helps shape child behaviors.
  • Researchers studied 162 parents with children aged 2-4 during a book-sharing activity to measure the effects of different parental behaviors on children's cognitive skills.
  • Despite factors like parental intelligence and income also impacting child development, the study found that parental scaffolding independently predicted children's cognitive abilities but did not have an effect on pro-social behaviors.
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Youth worldwide are struggling with increased mental health concerns. As youth in low- and middle-income countries make up more than 20% of the world's population, finding ways to improve their psychosocial wellbeing is crucial. CorStone's Youth First program is a school-based psychosocial resilience program that seeks to improve the mental, physical, social, and educational wellbeing of early adolescents.

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  • A study investigated the effect of azithromycin, given to infants with cystic fibrosis, on reducing lung disease as seen in chest CT scans from diagnosis until age 36 months.
  • The trial was a phase three, double-blind, placebo-controlled study involving 130 infants across eight centers in Australia and New Zealand, comparing outcomes between those receiving azithromycin and a placebo.
  • Results showed no significant difference in the prevalence of bronchiectasis between the two groups at 36 months, with 88% of the azithromycin group and 94% of the placebo group affected.
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  • Acute changes in heart and lung blood flow, indicated by tricuspid regurgitant jet velocity (TRV), are common during sickle cell pain crises and acute chest syndrome (ACS), with arginine supplementation potentially enhancing nitric oxide levels to improve blood flow.
  • A study involving 66 children with sickle cell anemia evaluated the effects of oral arginine versus a placebo on cardiopulmonary function by measuring blood markers and echocardiographic indices before and after treatment.
  • Results showed that the arginine group experienced a significant reduction in TRV and improved indices of heart and lung function, suggesting that arginine supplementation may be beneficial during sickle cell complications.
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Background: Despite improvements in general health and life expectancy in people with cystic fibrosis (CF), lung function decline continues unabated during adolescence and early adult life.

Methods: We examined factors present at age 5-years that predicted lung function decline from childhood to adolescence in a longitudinal study of Australasian children with CF followed from 1999 to 2017.

Results: Lung function trajectories were calculated for 119 children with CF from childhood (median 5.

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Parental reading to young children is well-established as being positively associated with child cognitive development, particularly their language development. Research indicates that a particular, "intersubjective," form of using books with children, "Dialogic Book-sharing" (DBS), is especially beneficial to infants and pre-school aged children, particularly when using picture books. The work on DBS to date has paid little attention to the theoretical and empirical underpinnings of the approach.

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This study evaluated the impact of a parenting intervention on children's cognitive and socioemotional development in a group of caregivers and their 21-to-28-month-old children in a low-income South African township. A randomized controlled trial compared an experimental group (n = 70) receiving training in dialogic book-sharing (8 weekly group sessions) with a wait-list control group (n = 70). They were assessed before the intervention, immediately following it, and at a six month follow-up.

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Purpose Of Review: Radiofrequency ablation (RFA) has become an increasingly widespread treatment tool for various chronic pain syndromes within the last two decades with the majority of publications on the topic coming after 2006. Not only are clinicians using RFA to treat more peripheral nerve pain syndromes but the technology itself is evolving quickly to the point that it is nearly impossible to stay abreast on the complexity of such a diversely utilized instrument. This review summarizes studies that focus on the use of RFA for peripheral nerve neurotomy and anatomical studies regarding RFA published between 2015 and 2020.

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Background: Child cognitive development is often compromised in contexts of poverty and adversity, and these deficits tend to endure and affect the child across the life course. In the conditions of poverty and violence that characterise many low- and middle-income countries (LMIC), the capacity of parents to provide the kind of care that promotes good child development may be severely compromised, especially where caregivers suffer from depression. One avenue of early intervention focuses on the quality of the early mother-infant relationship.

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A pilot randomized controlled trial (RCT) was conducted in El Salvador of an intervention ('Thula Sana') previously shown to enhance maternal sensitivity and infant security of attachment in a South African sample. In El Salvador, trained community workers delivered the intervention from late pregnancy to 6 months postpartum as part of a home-visiting programme. The sample comprised 64 pregnant adolescent women, aged 14-19 years, living in predominantly rural settings.

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Unlabelled: Sickle cell anaemia (SCA) patients generally have lower blood pressures compared to those with the AA haemoglobin genotype. However, during vaso-occlusive crises (SCA-VOC), blood pressures (BP) may elevate transiently to levels beyond the 95 percentile. The risk of stroke or even death increases with increasing systolic BP in SCA.

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Low arginine bioavailability is associated with vaso-occlusive painful crisis (VOC) severity in sickle cell anemia (SCA) and predicts need for pediatric hospitalization. Intravenous arginine therapy has opioid-sparing effects and was found to significantly decrease pain scores in children hospitalized with SCA-VOC in a phase-two randomized placebo-controlled trial (RCT). Efficacy of oral arginine is unknown.

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Background: Maternal-infant feeding interactions are a primary context for engagement between mothers and their infants, and constitute a unique space in which reciprocity, attunement and maternal sensitivity can be expressed. Increasingly, research demonstrates the importance of the psychological and social nature of the feeding context, and how it may be affected by maternal mental state, feeding skills and sensitivity. As such, feeding interactions may provide useful contexts for observations of maternal sensitivity, reflecting well on day-to-day maternal sensitivity.

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Inherited protein C (PC) deficiency increases risk of venous thromboembolism (VTE) by 5 to 10-fold in thrombosis-prone families; however, heterozygous PC deficiency alone does not determine that a subject has thrombophilia. Protein C deficient subjects, who lack additional inherited risk factors such as factor V Leiden or have no major acquired risk factors, may not suffer from VTE. In addition, PC deficiency may be acquired, often due to vitamin K antagonist treatment or liver disease.

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Background: Sickle cell anaemia is characterised by frequent, sometimes serious events referred to as "crisis". Cardiopulmonary consequences such as pulmonary hypertension and myocardial ischaemia may accompany a serious crisis.

Objective: To determine the cardiovascular changes that occur during a severe sickle cell crisis.

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Little is known about early predictors of later cystic fibrosis (CF) structural lung disease. This study examined early predictors of progressive structural lung abnormalities in children who completed the Australasian CF Bronchoalveolar Lavage (ACFBAL) clinical trial at age 5-years and participated in an observational follow-up study (CF-FAB).Eight Australian and New Zealand CF centres participated in CF-FAB and provided follow-up chest computed-tomography (CT) scans for children who had completed the ACFBAL study with baseline scans at age 5-years.

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