PROTOCOL: The support needs of families living with parental mental illness: A qualitative systematic review.

This is the protocol for a Campbell systematic review. The objectives are as follows: To review existing qualitative research on the experiences of families living with parental mental illness from the perspective of (i) children, (ii) parents who have a mental illness) and (ii) the well parent. To synthesise qualitative evidence on the experience of living with parental mental illness and the experience of and attitude towards services from the perspective of (i) children, (ii) parents who have a mental illness and (ii) the well parent in order to develop the understanding of the needs of families and the implications for service provision.

New psychoactives within polydrug use trajectories-evidence from a mixed-method longitudinal study.

Aims: To provide public health-related research evidence on types and usage patterns of new psychoactive substances (NPS), developmental pathways into NPS and decision-making factors for, and associated harms of, NPS use.

Design: Three-phase mixed-methods design, including a latent class analysis (LCA) of the longitudinal Belfast Youth Development Study (BYDS), a narrative analysis of interviews with NPS users and a three-step approach manual method modelling using regressions to reveal classes of substance use and their associated predictors and outcomes.

Setting: Northern Ireland.

School bonding and ethos in trajectories of offending: Results from the Belfast Youth Development Study.

Background: Aspects of the school environment, such as school attachment levels, are linked to adolescent offending. Previous research has not clarified whether a school- or individual-level intervention approach to improving pupil school attachment and commitment is most likely to reduce adolescent offending.

Aim: The present study assessed the impact of individual- and school-level variables on offending behaviour from ages 14-16 years.

Inhibition of ErbB kinase signalling promotes resolution of neutrophilic inflammation.

Neutrophilic inflammation with prolonged neutrophil survival is common to many inflammatory conditions, including chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD). There are few specific therapies that reverse neutrophilic inflammation, but uncovering mechanisms regulating neutrophil survival is likely to identify novel therapeutic targets. Screening of 367 kinase inhibitors in human neutrophils and a zebrafish tail fin injury model identified ErbBs as common targets of compounds that accelerated inflammation resolution.

Longitudinal Social Network Analysis of Peer, Family, and School Contextual Influences on Adolescent Drinking Frequency.

Purpose: The aim of the study was to identify the mechanisms relating to parental control, adolescent secrecy, and school context that shape patterns of adolescent drinking frequency and appraise the implications for systems-level intervention.

Methods: The Belfast Youth Development Study collected information on friendship networks in schools, alcohol use, and Stattin and Kerr's parental monitoring subscales across 5 years of postprimary school education in annual waves from age 11-15 years. Stochastic Actor-Oriented Models were fitted to 22 schools (N = 3,220) to assess friendship formation and peer influence processes related to drinking frequency and their variation by parental control or child secrecy.

The longitudinal relationship of alcohol problems and depressive symptoms and the impact of externalising symptoms: findings from the Belfast Youth Developmental Study.

Purpose: The aim of the present study was to contribute to the inconsistent literature on the comorbid relationship of alcohol problems and depressive symptoms from late adolescent to emerging adulthood by accounting for their trajectories and their conjoint relationship while controlling for the influence of externalising symptoms.

Methods: We utilised data, from a longitudinal school cohort from Northern Ireland (Belfast Youth Developmental Study), over three time points where the participants were 16, 17 and 21 years of age. A total of 3118 participants were included, 1713 females and 1405 males.

The Belfast Youth Development Study (BYDS): A prospective cohort study of the initiation, persistence and desistance of substance use from adolescence to adulthood in Northern Ireland.

Background: Substance misuse persists as a major public health issue worldwide with significant costs for society. The development of interventions requires methodologically sound studies to explore substance misuse causes and consequences. This Cohort description paper outlines the design of the Belfast Youth Development (BYDS), one of the largest cohort studies of its kind in the UK.

Validity and Reliability of Baseline Testing in a Standardized Environment.

Objective: The Immediate Postconcussion Assessment and Cognitive Testing (ImPACT) is a computerized neuropsychological test battery commonly used to determine cognitive recovery from concussion based on comparing post-injury scores to baseline scores. This model is based on the premise that ImPACT baseline test scores are a valid and reliable measure of optimal cognitive function at baseline. Growing evidence suggests that this premise may not be accurate and a large contributor to invalid and unreliable baseline test scores may be the protocol and environment in which baseline tests are administered.

NR4A orphan nuclear receptor family members, NR4A2 and NR4A3, regulate neutrophil number and survival.

The lifespan of neutrophils is plastic and highly responsive to factors that regulate cellular survival. Defects in neutrophil number and survival are common to both hematologic disorders and chronic inflammatory diseases. At sites of inflammation, neutrophils respond to multiple signals that activate protein kinase A (PKA) signaling, which positively regulates neutrophil survival.

Sandbagging on the Immediate Post-Concussion Assessment and Cognitive Testing (ImPACT) in a high school athlete population.

The Immediate Post-Concussion Assessment and Cognitive Testing (ImPACT) is a computerized neuropsychological test battery commonly used to assess cognitive functioning after a concussion. It is recommended that application of ImPACT utilizes a baseline administration so athletes have an individualized baseline with which to compare post-injury results should they sustain a concussion. It has been suggested that athletes may provide suboptimal effort, called "sandbagging," in order to return to their baseline cognitive scores, and thus to play, more quickly.

Health and Social Care workers' perceptions of NPS use in Northern Ireland.

Background: The EU Early Warning System currently monitors more than 560 new psychoactive substances, far outweighing the total number of illicit drugs under international control. Due to the recent emergence of NPS and rapidly changing nature of the market, evidence about the way in which the emerging drugs are managed in health and social care settings is limited.

Methods: The study adopted a mixed methods design, utilising a cross sectional survey and telephone interviews to capture data from staff working in drug and alcohol related services in statutory and voluntary sectors, across the five Health and Social Care (HSC) Trust areas in Northern Ireland.

Cross-section and panel estimates of peer effects in early adolescent cannabis use: With a little help from my 'friends once removed'.

Peer effects in adolescent cannabis are difficult to estimate, due in part to the lack of appropriate data on behaviour and social ties. This paper exploits survey data that have many desirable properties and have not previously been used for this purpose. The data set, collected from teenagers in three annual waves from 2002 to 2004 contains longitudinal information about friendship networks within schools (N = 5020).

Assessing elements of a family approach to reduce adolescent drinking frequency: parent-adolescent relationship, knowledge management and keeping secrets.

Aims: To estimate (1) the associations between parent-adolescent relationship, parental knowledge and subsequent adolescent drinking frequency and (2) the influence of alcohol use on parental knowledge.

Design: Path analysis of school based cohort study with annual surveys.

Setting: Post-primary schools from urban and intermediate/rural areas in Northern Ireland.

Adolescent ecstasy use and depression: cause and effect, or two outcomes of home environment?

Background: This study assessed the association between adolescent ecstasy use and depressive symptoms in adolescence.

Methods: The Belfast Youth Development Study surveyed a cohort annually from age 11 to 16 years. Gender, Strengths and Difficulties Questionnaire emotional subscale, living arrangements, parental affluence, parent and peer attachment, tobacco, alcohol, cannabis and ecstasy use were investigated as predictors of Short Mood and Feelings Questionnaire (SMFQ) outcome.

Hypoxia-inducible factor 2α regulates key neutrophil functions in humans, mice, and zebrafish.

Neutrophil lifespan and function are regulated by hypoxia via components of the hypoxia inducible factor (HIF)/von Hippel Lindau/hydroxylase pathway, including specific roles for HIF-1α and prolyl hydroxylase-3. HIF-2α has both distinct and overlapping biological roles with HIF-1α and has not previously been studied in the context of neutrophil biology. We investigated the role of HIF-2α in regulating key neutrophil functions.

School-related predictors of smoking, drinking and drug use: evidence from the Belfast Youth Development Study.

Objective: To examine whether students' school engagement, relationships with teachers, educational aspirations and involvement in fights at school are associated with various measures of subsequent substance use.

Methods: Data were drawn from the Belfast Youth Development Study (n = 2968). Multivariate logistic models examined associations between school-related factors (age 13/14) and substance use (age 15/16).

Substance use behaviors of young people with a moderate learning disability: a longitudinal analysis.

Substance use behaviors of young people attending a special school are reported over a 4-year period from the age of 12-16 years. The article investigated these behaviors by surveying a cohort of young people with a statement for moderate learning disabilities annually during the last 4 years of compulsory schooling. The findings show that these young people consistently reported lower levels of tobacco, alcohol, and cannabis use compared with those attending mainstream school.

Frequent cannabis use among 14/15 years old in Northern Ireland.

The relatively high levels of cannabis use among young people is a cause of concern because of the positive relationship between its early onset use, antisocial behaviours and associated lifestyle. Amongst a survey of 3919 young people at school year 11 in Northern Ireland (aged 14/15 years) 142 reported daily cannabis use. These young people also reported particularly high levels of legal and illegal drug use and accounted for a high proportion of use of hard drugs such as cocaine and heroin for the full school cohort.

Brief report: School exclusion drug use and delinquency in adolescence.

Fifty-one young people aged 14-15 years considered to be at a high risk to substance abuse and exhibiting antisocial behavior, primarily because they longer attended mainstream school, participated in this research by completing a questionnaire to measure drug use and delinquent behaviour. The findings suggest that many of them may have already developed a high propensity to drug abuse and antisocial behaviour compared with their peers in mainstream education. As they were all excluded from school, they were not accessing school based prevention programmes delivered to their contemporaries at school suggesting that additional and specialized resources are required to fully meet their needs.

Response consistency in young adolescents' drug use self-reports: a recanting rate analysis.

Aims: To assess the reliability of drug use reports by young respondents, this study examined the extent of recanting previous drug use reports within an ongoing longitudinal survey of adolescent drug use. Here, recanting was defined as a positive report of life-time drug use that was subsequently denied 1 year later. The covariates of recanting were also studied.

Biomechanical effects of unipedicular vertebroplasty on intact vertebrae.

Study Design: To assess the biomechanical effects of unipedicular vertebroplasty on nonfractured vertebrae.

Objectives: To evaluate the potential benefits of vertebroplasty as a preventative treatment. To evaluate the effects of cement volume and bone mineral density on the mechanics of augmented intact vertebral bodies.