Toward schistosomiasis control: Assessment of infection-associated voiding symptoms, quality of life and the impact of exercise coupled with water intake on egg recovery in an endemic community in Ghana.

Assessment of the burden of disease and techniques for clinical diagnosis could ultimately help in schistosomiasis control. This study assessed the impact of exercises and water intake on ova recovery during laboratory diagnosis and schistosomiasis-associated urinary symptoms and quality of life (QOL) among inhabitants of Dendo, an endemic community in Ghana. The clinical findings and responses of 400 randomly selected participants were used for the study.

Evaluation of a Mobile Phone-Based Microscope for Screening of Infection in Rural Ghana.

AbstractSchistosomiasis affects over 170 million people in Africa. Here we compare a novel, low-cost mobile phone microscope to a conventional light microscope for the label-free diagnosis of infections in a rural Ghanaian school setting. We tested the performance of our handheld microscope using 60 slides that were randomly chosen from an ongoing epidemiologic study in school-aged children.

Prevalence and correlates of alcohol use disorders in the Singapore Mental Health Survey.

Aims:   To establish the prevalence, correlates, comorbidity and treatment gap of alcohol use disorders in the Singapore resident population.

Design:   The Singapore Mental Health Study is a cross-sectional epidemiological survey.

Setting:   A nationally representative survey of the resident (citizens and permanent residents) population in Singapore.

The positive mental health instrument: development and validation of a culturally relevant scale in a multi-ethnic Asian population.

Background: Instruments to measure mental health and well-being are largely developed and often used within Western populations and this compromises their validity in other cultures. A previous qualitative study in Singapore demonstrated the relevance of spiritual and religious practices to mental health, a dimension currently not included in exiting multi-dimensional measures. The objective of this study was to develop a self-administered measure that covers all key and culturally appropriate domains of mental health, which can be applied to compare levels of mental health across different age, gender and ethnic groups.