Depressive symptoms and quality of life prior to metabolic surgery in Cape Town, South Africa.

Background: Depression has been shown to have a negative impact on the outcomes of metabolic surgery and quality of life (QOL). Currently, there are limited data on mental distress and QOL in metabolic surgery candidates in South Africa.

Aim: This study aimed to determine the prevalence of depressive symptoms at the time of presurgical assessment in participants undergoing metabolic surgery.

"So, you must understand that that group changed everything": perspectives on a telehealth group intervention for individuals with chronic pain.

Background: The Patient Education Empowerment Programme (PEEP) is an interdisciplinary group intervention for people living with chronic pain. As a result of the COVID-19 pandemic, lockdown and restrictions on in-person group-based health care delivery in South Africa, PEEP was modified to a telehealth electronic format (ePEEP) and offered to patients on a waiting list at two interdisciplinary chronic pain clinics in Cape Town, South Africa. The purpose of this study was to explore the feasibility and acceptability of ePEEP through the perspectives of individuals with chronic pain who participated in ePEEP.

Methods of deliberate self-harm in a tertiary hospital in South Africa.

Background: Little is known about the methods of deliberate self-harm (DSH) in South Africa (SA), despite the importance of means restriction as a public health strategy to reduce the morbidity and mortality associated with self-harm.

Aim: The aim of this study was to investigate the range of methods used in DSH and identify the socio-demographic and clinical factors associated with violent and non-violent methods of DSH among patients treated at a tertiary hospital in SA.

Setting: The study was conducted at an urban, tertiary level emergency department at Groote Schuur hospital in Cape Town, South Africa.

Substance use in pregnancy: The medical challenge.

Substance use contributes significantly to the global burden of disease. Growing numbers of women use nicotine, alcohol, and illicit substances. Women are the most vulnerable to problematic substance use in their reproductive years.

Correlates of emotional and behavioural problems in children with perinatally acquired HIV in Cape Town, South Africa.

In the antiretroviral era, youth perinatally infected with HIV (PHIV+) are surviving into adulthood and are at risk for emotional and behavioural problems. Few studies of these problems have been conducted in low- and middle-income countries and even fewer in sub-Saharan Africa. The aims of this study were to provide a quantitative description of emotional and behavioural problems in a group of PHIV+ youth (n = 78) in South Africa compared with a group of demographically matched HIV-negative controls (n = 30) and to identify correlates of emotional and behavioural problems.

Prevalence and patterns of medication use in children and adolescents with autism spectrum disorders in the Western Cape, South Africa.

Objective: This study was conducted to investigate the prevalence and patterns of medication use amongst a sample of school going children and adolescents with autism spectrum disorders (ASD) in the Western Cape, South Africa.

Method: This was a descriptive, quantitative, analytic study. A survey questionnaire and the Nisonger Child Behaviour Rating Form (NCBRF) were administered to parents of children and adolescents recruited from two schools for children with ASD in Cape Town and from the Autism Action database.