Oxytocin bolus versus oxytocin bolus and infusion for control of blood loss at elective caesarean section: double blind, placebo controlled, randomised trial.

Objectives: To determine the effects of adding an oxytocin infusion to bolus oxytocin on blood loss at elective caesarean section.

Design: Double blind, placebo controlled, randomised trial, conducted from February 2008 to June 2010.

Setting: Five maternity hospitals in the Republic of Ireland.

Multiple method contraception use among African American adolescents in four US cities.

We report on African American adolescents' (N = 850; M age = 15.4) contraceptive practices and type of contraception utilized during their last sexual encounter. Respondents completed measures of demographics, contraceptive use, sexual partner type, and ability to select "safe" sexual partners.

African American adolescents and new media: associations with HIV/STI risk behavior and psychosocial variables.

Objectives: Cell phones and online media are used frequently but we know little about their use among African American adolescents. This study examines the frequency of such use and its relationship to psychosocial variables and STI/HIV risk behavior.

Setting/participants: 1,518 African American, aged 13-18 years, from 2 Northeast US cities (Providence, RI; Syracuse, NY) and 2 Southeast US cities (Columbia, SC; Macon, GA), were assessed from 2008-2009.

Predicting condom use using the Information-Motivation-Behavioral Skills (IMB) model: a multivariate latent growth curve analysis.

Background: The Information-Motivation-Behavioral Skills (IMB) model often guides sexual risk reduction programs even though no studies have examined covariation in the theory's constructs in a dynamic fashion with longitudinal data.

Purpose: Using new developments in latent growth modeling, we explore how changes in information, motivation, and behavioral skills over 9 months relate to changes in condom use among STD clinic patients.

Methods: Participants (N = 1281, 50% female, 66% African American) completed measures of IMB constructs at three time points.

Self-defining as sexually abused and adult sexual risk behavior: results from a cross-sectional survey of women attending an STD clinic.

Objective: Childhood sexual abuse (CSA) is associated with increased sexual risk behavior in adulthood, and this association may be mediated by traumagenic dynamics constructs (i.e., traumatic sexualization, trust, guilt, and powerlessness).

Long term effects of community-based STI screening and mass media HIV prevention messages on sexual risk behaviors of African American adolescents.

We examined the long-term effects of two interventions designed to reduce sexual risk behavior among African American adolescents. African American adolescents (N = 1383, ages 14-17) were recruited from community-based organizations over a period of 16 months in two northeastern and two southeastern mid-sized U.S.

Intimate partner violence and condom use among women: does the information-motivation-behavioral skills model explain sexual risk behavior?

Intimate partner violence (IPV) undermines women's ability to enact safer sex and increases their vulnerability to HIV and other STDs. To better understand the relationship between IPV and sexual risk behavior, we investigated whether the Information-Motivation-Behavioral Skills (IMB) model differentially predicted risk behavior among women who had and had not recently experienced IPV. Data from 717 women who were recruited from a public health clinic showed that 18% reported IPV by a sexual partner in the past 3 months, 28% in the past year, and 57% lifetime.

Determining the mechanism by which fish diversity influences production.

Understanding the ability of biodiversity to govern ecosystem function is essential with current pressures on natural communities from species invasions and extirpations. Changes in fish communities can be a major determinant of food web dynamics, and even small shifts in species composition or richness can translate into large effects on ecosystems. In addition, there is a large information gap in extrapolating results of small-scale biodiversity-ecosystem function experiments to natural systems with realistic environmental complexity.

Cushing and the treatment of brain wounds during World War I.

Harvey Cushing, perhaps the most important founder of American neurosurgery, was an Army neurosurgeon in France from 1917 to 1918. Over a 3-month period in 1917 he and his team operated on 133 soldiers with a brain wound. The operative mortality rate for their last 45 patients was 29%, considerably lower than the usual postoperative mortality rate of approximately 50% for those with a brain wound.

HIV knowledge and its contribution to sexual health behaviors of low-income African American adolescents.

Objectives: Although many factors contribute to racial disparities in human immunodeficiency virus (HIV)/AIDS among young African Americans, knowledge is a particularly modifiable factor. However, little information has been published about the current HIV knowledge of African American teens or to what extent knowledge independently contributes to their sexual behavior and health. This study aimed to describe the level of knowledge among this at-risk population and determine whether knowledge contributes to variance in sexual behavior and health beyond that of sociodemographic and psychological factors.

Mediators of the relation between partner violence and sexual risk behavior among women attending a sexually transmitted disease clinic.

Background: Intimate partner violence (IPV) is associated with a wide range of negative outcomes, including sexual risk behavior. This cross-sectional study explored mediators of the relationship between IPV and risky sexual behavior in 717 women recruited from a sexually transmitted disease (STD) clinic.

Methods: Participants were recruited from a public STD clinic in upstate New York as part of a randomized controlled trial that was designed to evaluate several sexual risk reduction interventions.

Anger toward God: social-cognitive predictors, prevalence, and links with adjustment to bereavement and cancer.

Many people see themselves as being in a relationship with God and see this bond as comforting. Yet, perceived relationships with God also carry the potential for experiencing anger toward God, as shown here in studies with the U.S.

Interventions to reduce sexual risk for human immunodeficiency virus in adolescents: a meta-analysis of trials, 1985-2008.

Objective: To provide an updated review of the efficacy of behavioral interventions to reduce sexual risk of human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) among adolescents.

Design: We searched electronic databases, leading public health journals, and the document depository held by the Synthesis of HIV/AIDS Risk Reduction Project. Studies that fulfilled the selection criteria and were available as of December 31, 2008, were included.

Impact of HIV testing on sexual health communication in South Africa.

Objectives: The South African government recently launched a national campaign to test 15 million South Africans for HIV by 2011. Little is known about how receipt of HIV testing might influence interpersonal communication. To explore these questions, the authors examined the effects of prior HIV testing on sexual health communication among South Africans.

Can mental health nurses diagnose in Australia?

The naming of health related conditions has been the traditional province of the medical profession. Occasional concessions have been made in specific narrow domains, such as psychology or speech-related pathology, but diagnosis typically has been seen as medical practitioner business. "Ownership" of language is worthy of critical discussion.

Age of partner at first adolescent intercourse and adult sexual risk behavior among women.

Background: Adolescent females who have early sexual experiences with older male partners report high rates of sexual risk behavior during adolescence, but little is known about whether these early sexual experiences are associated with adult sexual risk behavior. The purpose of this study was to investigate whether having first consensual sex with an older partner was associated with sexual risk behavior in adulthood.

Methods: Participants were 292 women (66% African American, mean age = 26 years) attending a public sexually transmitted disease (STD) clinic who reported having voluntary vaginal sex before age 18.

Brief alcohol interventions for mandated college students: comparison of face-to-face counseling and computer-delivered interventions.

Aims: College students who violate alcohol policies are often mandated to participate in alcohol-related interventions. This study investigated (i) whether such interventions reduced drinking beyond the sanction alone, (ii) whether a brief motivational intervention (BMI) was more efficacious than two computer-delivered interventions (CDIs) and (iii) whether intervention response differed by gender.

Design: Randomized controlled trial with four conditions [brief motivation interventions (BMI), Alcohol 101 Plus™, Alcohol Edu for Sanctions(®), delayed control] and four assessments (baseline, 1, 6 and 12 months).

Native fish diversity alters the effects of an invasive species on food webs.

Aquatic communities have been altered by invasive species, with impacts on native biodiversity and ecosystem function. At the same time, native biodiversity may mitigate the effects of an invader. Common carp (Cyprinus carpio) is a ubiquitous, invasive fish species that strongly influences community and ecosystem processes.

Sexual partner concurrency of urban male and female STD clinic patients: a qualitative study.

Partner concurrency (i.e., overlapping sexual partnerships) facilitates the spread of STDs, including HIV.

Magnesium-agarose electrophoretic mobility shift assay (EMSA) of transcription factor IID binding to DNA.

The general transcription factor IID (TFIID) is a key target for regulation because its binding to a core promoter is the nucleating step in transcription complex assembly. Many eukaryotic activators stimulate recruitment of the TFIID when its concentration is made limiting at a promoter in vitro. Magnesium-agarose gels can separate large complexes containing TFIID, TFIIA (the DA complex), and TFIIB (the DAB complex) and permit a quantitative measurement of how activators stimulate assembly of such complexes.

CDK9 regulates AR promoter selectivity and cell growth through serine 81 phosphorylation.

Previously we determined that S81 is the highest stoichiometric phosphorylation on the androgen receptor (AR) in response to hormone. To explore the role of this phosphorylation on growth, we stably expressed wild-type and S81A mutant AR in LHS and LAPC4 cells. The cells with increased wild-type AR expression grow faster compared with parental cells and S81A mutant-expressing cells, indicating that loss of S81 phosphorylation limits cell growth.

Child maltreatment and women's adult sexual risk behavior: childhood sexual abuse as a unique risk factor.

This study investigated (a) whether childhood sexual abuse (CSA) was uniquely associated with adult sexual risk behavior, after controlling for other types of childhood maltreatment and (b) whether there were additive or interactive effects of different types of maltreatment on adult sexual risk behavior. Participants were 414 women (M age = 28 years) attending a publicly funded STD clinic. All women completed a computerized survey assessing childhood maltreatment (sexual, physical, psychological abuse, and neglect) and sexual risk behavior.

Risk behaviors among adolescent girls in an HIV prevention trial.

Adolescent girls remain vulnerable to HIV and other sexually transmitted infections. Understanding their sexual and substance use behaviors is essential to designing effective interventions to reduce their risk. In this study, baseline data were analyzed from 738 adolescent girls ages 15 to 19 years in Rochester, New York.

A network-individual-resource model for HIV prevention.

HIV is transmitted through dyadic exchanges of individuals linked in transitory or permanent networks of varying sizes. A theoretical perspective that bridges key individual level elements with important network elements can be a complementary foundation for developing and implementing HIV interventions with outcomes that are more sustainable over time and have greater dissemination potential. Toward that end, we introduce a Network-Individual-Resource (NIR) model for HIV prevention that recognizes how exchanges of resources between individuals and their networks underlies and sustains HIV-risk behaviors.

Smoking behavior among low-income black adults: patterns and correlates of smoking trajectories.

Introduction: Limited research has focused on identifying smoking patterns and correlates of cigarette use among low-income Blacks. Identifying smoking patterns and correlates of use would assist health providers to develop more culturally sensitive interventions.

Methods: A semiparametric group-based trajectory modeling strategy was used to empirically identify patterns of cigarette use among 947 low-income Black adults (47% women) enrolled in a sexual risk reduction intervention at a sexually transmitted disease clinic.