Overweight, stunting, and concurrent overweight and stunting observed over 3 years in Vietnamese children.

Background: Malnutrition, both stunting and overweight/obesity, present a public health concern in many countries in the world.

Objective: This study aims to examine: (1) longitudinal changes in prevalence of overweight, stunting, and concurrent overweight and stunting among preschool children during 3 years and (2) secular changes in these prevalences of a specific age group of children aged 5.5-6.

Family Caregivers' Heavy and Overloaded Burden in Advanced Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease.

Background: Due to severe symptoms and poor prognosis in advanced cases, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) is today seen as a palliative diagnosis. The everyday lives of patients as well as their relatives are restricted and affected by significant psychosocial problems.

Objective: To obtain detailed knowledge about people's experiences, for example, transitions in relationships, responsibility, and possible changes in communication, caused by the illness.

Influences of patient education on exacerbations and hospital admissions in patients with COPD - a longitudinal national register study.

: Chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) contributes to impaired health-related quality of life (HRQoL). Patient education and smoking cessation programs are recommended to reduce the number of exacerbations and hospitalizations, but the effects of such programs have yet to be explored in larger samples. : The aim was to explore the longitudinal effects of patient education and smoking cessation programs on exacerbations and hospital admissions in patients with COPD.

The need for trust and safety inducing encounters: a qualitative exploration of women's experiences of seeking perinatal care when living as undocumented migrants in Sweden.

Background: Studies from around the world have shown that women living as undocumented migrants have limited and deficient access to perinatal care, increasing their risks of both physical and psychological complications during pregnancy and childbirth. Failures to provide equal access to healthcare have been criticized extensively by the United Nations. In 2013, undocumented migrants' rights to healthcare in Sweden were expanded to include full access to perinatal care.

Partnering with insiders: A review of peer models across community-engaged research, education and social care.

Within community-engaged research, education and social care, peer models that partner with local "insiders" are increasingly common. Peer models are composed of insider "lay" community members who often share similarities or background with a project's target population. Peers are not academically trained, but work alongside researchers and professionals to carry out specific tasks within a project, or in the truest sense of partnership, peers collaborate throughout the project from start to finish as an equal member of the team.

A Descriptive, Qualitative Study to Assess Patient Experiences Following Stoma Reversal After Rectal Cancer Surgery.

Standard surgical treatment for patients operated for rectal cancer is abdominoperineal excision of the tumor result- ing in a permanent colostomy or an anterior resection, often with construction of a temporary loop ileostomy. Both options impact bowel function. Living with a permanent colostomy has been studied in depth, but knowledge is limited about patients' experiences living with a resected rectum after stoma reversal and how it affects daily life.

Strategies to keep working among workers with common mental disorders - a grounded theory study.

Purpose: Most people with common mental disorders (CMDs) are employed and working, but few studies have looked into how they manage their jobs while ill. This study explores workers' experiences of strategies to keep working while suffering from CMDs.

Methods: In this grounded theory study, we interviewed 19 women and eight men with depression or anxiety disorders.

Living with a resected rectum after rectal cancer surgery-Struggling not to let bowel function control life.

Aims And Objective: To illuminate what it means to live with a resected rectum due to rectal cancer, after reversal of a temporary loop ileostomy.

Background: Today, treatment for rectal cancer is performed with increasing emphasis on sphincter-saving surgery, meaning that an anterior resection often includes construction of a temporary loop ileostomy that is later reversed. The majority of patients will subsequently have disordered bowel function, with symptoms ranging from urgency to faecal incontinence.

Adherence to optimal heart rate control in heart failure with reduced ejection fraction: insight from a survey of heart rate in heart failure in Sweden (HR-HF study).

Introduction: Despite that heart rate (HR) control is one of the guideline-recommended treatment goals for heart failure (HF) patients, implementation has been painstakingly slow. Therefore, it would be important to identify patients who have not yet achieved their target heart rates and assess possible underlying reasons as to why the target rates are not met.

Materials And Methods: The survey of HR in patients with HF in Sweden (HR-HF survey) is an investigator-initiated, prospective, multicenter, observational longitudinal study designed to investigate the state of the art in the control of HR in HF and to explore potential underlying mechanisms for suboptimal HR control with focus on awareness of and adherence to guidelines for HR control among physicians who focus on the contributing role of beta-blockers (BBs).

Departing from the essential features of a high quality systematic review of psychotherapy: A response to Öst (2014) and recommendations for improvement.

Öst's (2014) systematic review and meta-analysis of Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT) has received wide attention. On the basis of his review, Öst argued that ACT research was not increasing in its quality and that, in contradiction to the views of Division 12 of the American Psychological Association (APA), ACT is "not yet well-established for any disorder" (2014, p. 105).

Prevalence and incidence of overweight and obesity among Vietnamese preschool children: a longitudinal cohort study.

Background: A plateau in childhood overweight and obesity has been reported in some developed countries while in almost all developing countries this problem is on the rise. The aim of this paper is to describe the changes in prevalence of overweight and obesity within a cohort of preschool children followed for 3 years, and to estimate and compare the incidences in urban and rural children of Hanoi, Vietnam.

Methods: A longitudinal study of a cohort of 2677 children aged 3 to 6 years old at the beginning of the study was conducted in urban DodaLab and rural FilaBavi, Hanoi, Vietnam.

Larger right atrium than left atrium is associated with all-cause mortality in elderly patients with heart failure.

Background: While left atrial (LA) enlargement is known as an early sign of left heart disease with prognostic implications in heart failure (HF), the importance of right atrial (RA) enlargement is less well studied, and the prognostic implications of interatrial size comparison are insufficiently understood. The aim of this study was to test the hypothesis that RA area larger than LA area in apical four-chamber view is associated with all-cause mortality in elderly patients with HF independent of left ventricular ejection fraction (LVEF).

Methods: Retrospectively, 289 patients above 65 years hospitalized for HF between April 2007 and April 2008, and who underwent an echocardiogram, were enrolled.

New approaches in drug treatment for tuberculosis: Inhalation using liposomes only a future vision or soon in clinical practice?

A major change of therapy in respiratory medicine has been the transition from oral or parenteral to inhalation therapy, for example, in asthma. Inhalation of anti-infectious drugs has however not a key-role in the treatment of pulmonary infections such as tuberculosis (TB). The inhalation therapy provides several benefits; the target is reached directly with evasion of first-pass metabolism, thereby resulting in reduced systemic side effects.

Management of COPD, equal treatment across age, gender, and social situation? A register study.

Chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) is a progressive chronic disease where treatment decisions should be based on disease severity and also should be equally distributed across age, gender, and social situation. The aim of this study was to determine to what extent patients with COPD are offered evidence-based interventions and how the interventions are distributed across demographic and clinical factors in the sample. Baseline registrations of demographic, disease-related, and management-related variables of 7,810 patients in the Swedish National Airway Register are presented.

Relation between BCG vaccine scar and an interferon-gamma release assay in immigrant children with "positive" tuberculin skin test (≥10 mm).

Background: Immigrants from countries with high incidence of tuberculosis (TB) are usually offered screening when they arrive to low incidence countries. The tuberculin skin test (TST) is often used. The interferon gamma release assays (IGRAs) are more specific and not affected by BCG vaccination.

Nursing students' perceptions of caring for dying people, after one year in nursing school.

Aim: To describe Swedish nursing students' perceptions of caring for dying people after the first year of a three year in a nursing programme at three university nursing schools in Sweden.

Methods: Interviews (n=17) were undertaken with nursing students at the end of their first year. A phenomenographic approach was used to design and structure the analysis of the nursing students' perceptions.

Outbreak of tuberculosis in a closed setting: views on transmission based on results from molecular and conventional methods.

Background: This study describes an outbreak of tuberculosis (TB) in a nursing home for men with mental disorders where residency is lengthy or permanent. This type of setting can provide a model of transmission as contact with the rest of society is extremely limited.

Aim: To determine if cases of TB, diagnosed around the same time and in the same place, are linked based on results using molecular and conventional methods.

Allergic rhinoconjunctivitis continued to increase in Swedish children up to 2007, but asthma and eczema levelled off from 1991.

Aim: This study investigated whether allergies among schoolchildren increased in Sweden between 1979 and 2007 and whether the geographical differences observed in previous studies remained.

Methods: We collected questionnaire data on asthma, allergic rhinoconjunctivitis (ARC) and eczema in children aged seven to eight years from Mölndal, Gothenburg, in south-western Sweden and Kiruna in northern Sweden in 1979 (n = 4682), 1991 (n = 2481) and 2007 (n = 1029). The same regions and questions were used in all three studies, and extra questions on food allergy or intolerance were added in 2007.

Vietnamese mother's conceptions of childhood overweight: findings from a qualitative study.

Background: Childhood overweight and obesity is a new and emerging problem in Vietnam. The so far observed prevalence increases have pointed to the need for public health intervention strategies with parents as crucial resources for change.

Objective: The aim of this study was to understand mothers' conceptions of childhood overweight.

Preschool overweight and obesity in urban and rural Vietnam: differences in prevalence and associated factors.

Background: Childhood obesity may soon be an equally important health threat as undernutrition and infectious diseases. Accurate information about prevalence and risk factors of obesity in children is important for the design of prevention.

Objective: The aim of this study was to estimate prevalence of overweight and obesity for preschool children in two Vietnamese areas, one urban and one rural, and to identify risk factors.

Seasonal variations in vitamin D in relation to growth in short prepubertal children before and during first year growth hormone treatment.

Purpose: This study investigated the relationship between seasonal variations in 25-hydroxyvitamin D (25(OH)D) levels and growth in prepubertal children during both the pretreatment year and the first year of GH treatment.

Methods: The study included 249 short prepubertal children with a broad range of GH secretion, GH(max) during a 24 h profile median 23; range 1-127 mU/L, 191 boys (mean age ± SD, 8.6 ± 2.

Incidence, risk factors and hospital burden in children under five years of age hospitalised with respiratory syncytial virus infections.

Aim: Respiratory syncytial virus (RSV) infections are among the most common lower respiratory tract infections in infants, but few studies have determined the age-specific incidence of hospitalisation in defined populations. This study gathered Swedish data on RSV in Gothenburg and its 10 surrounding municipalities from 2004 to 2011.

Methods: Information was obtained from hospital databases of all patients up to five years of age who had a discharge diagnosis of an RSV infection and had a positive antigen detection or polymerase chain reaction test.

The HIV/AIDS caregiver identity as a double-edged sword: a discourse analysis on HIV/AIDS caregiving in South Africa.

This article discusses the identity of HIV/AIDS caregivers as constructed by a group of HIV/AIDS caregivers at a non-profit organisation in South Africa. During a 12-month period data were collected through interviews with the organisation's staff and volunteers. Using discourse analysis, the study identified a caregiver identity constructed by participants.

Interpersonal behaviors and socioemotional interaction of medical students in a virtual clinical encounter.

Background: The virtual clinical encounter (VCE) may function as an important support for medical students in or prior to clinical practice to train and ease communication and socioemotional interactions with patients. Few studies have however focused on the dynamics of interpersonal behaviors in clinical interviewing with a virtual patient (VP) and the affective responses evoked by such a learning experience. The study was designed to investigate the dynamics and congruence of interpersonal behaviors and socioemotional interaction exhibited during the learning experience in a VCE, and to evaluate which interaction design characteristics contribute most to the behavioral and affective engagement in medical students.