Necessidades interpessoais e risco de suicídio numa amostra clínica de idosos

O objetivo desta investigação é testar o contributo das necessidades interpessoais - os sentimentos de não pertença e a perceção de ser um fardo – para o risco de suicídio, avaliado através da ideação suicida. Também se pretende investigar a possível interação entre as necessidades interpessoais e respetivos efeitos quadráticos, controlando o impacto de um conjunto de variáveis que apresentam, muitas vezes, uma correlação significativa com a ideação suicida. Neste estudo participaram 80 utentes idosos em recuperação de uma doença aguda. De acordo com os resultados, os sentimentos de não pertença e a perceção de ser um fardo correlacionam-se com a ideação suicida. No entanto, quando numa análise da regressão múltipla se considera simultaneamente o efeito de ambas as variáveis, apenas os sentimentos de não pertença contribuem significativamente na previsão da ideação suicida. Não se verificaram efeitos de interação nem efeitos quadráticos entre as variáveis necessidades interpessoais; Abstract: “Interpersonal needs and suicide risk in a sample of elderly patients” The aim of this study is to test the contribution of interpersonal needs - thwarted belongingness and perceived burdensomeness - to the risk of suicide, assessed by the presence of suicidal ideation. It also intends to investigate the possible interaction between interpersonal needs and the respective quadratic effects, by controlling the impact of a set of variables which have, many times, a significant correlation with suicidal ideation. In this study participated 80 elderly patients recovering from an acute medical condition. According to the results, thwarted belongingness and perceived burdensomeness are correlated with suicidal ideation. However, when in a multiple regression analysis we considerate simultaneously the effect of both variables, only thwarted belongingness contributes significatively to suicide ideation prediction. No interactions effects or quadratic effects were observed between interpersonal needs variables.

A Soft Computing Approach to Acute Coronary Syndrome

Acute Coronary Syndrome (ACS) is transversal to a broad and heterogeneous set of human beings, and assumed as a serious diagnosis and risk stratification problem. Although one may be faced with or had at his disposition different tools as biomarkers for the diagnosis and prognosis of ACS, they have to be previously evaluated and validated in different scenarios and patient cohorts. Besides ensuring that a diagnosis is correct, attention should also be directed to ensure that therapies are either correctly or safely applied. Indeed, this work will focus on the development of a diagnosis decision support system in terms of its knowledge representation and reasoning mechanisms, given here in terms of a formal framework based on Logic Programming, complemented with a problem solving methodology to computing anchored on Artificial Neural Networks. On the one hand it caters for the evaluation of ACS predisposing risk and the respective Degree-of-Confidence that one has on such a happening. On the other hand it may be seen as a major development on the Multi-Value Logics to understand things and ones behavior. Undeniably, the proposed model allows for an improvement of the diagnosis process, classifying properly the patients that presented the pathology (sensitivity ranging from 89.7% to 90.9%) as well as classifying the absence of ACS (specificity ranging from 88.4% to 90.2%).