Feeding habits of Guiana dolphins, Sotalia guianensis, from south-eastern Brazil: new items and a knowledge review

This study presents new information on feeding habits of Guiana dolphins, Sotalia guianensis, in south-eastern Brazil, together with new regression equations to evaluate the weight and length of fish from otoliths, showing an overview on the knowledge about this species' diet in this area. Eighteen stomach contents had been analysed and compared to 180 samples collected in another eight feeding studies. The analysed specimens were either incidentally caught in gillnets used in coastal waters by the fleet based in the Cananeia main harbour (25 degrees 00'S 47 degrees 55'W), south of Sao Paulo State, or found dead in inner waters of the Cananeia estuary between 2003 and 2009. Based on the index of relative importance analysis, the most important fish species were the banded croaker, Paralonchurus brasiliensis. Doryteuthis plei was the most representative cephalopod species. Stellifer rastrifer was the most important fish species observed in dolphins in inner estuarine waters and P. brasiliensis in recovered dolphins from coastal waters. Loliguncula brevis is the only cephalopod species reported from dolphins found in inner estuarine waters up to date. Doryteuthis plei was the most important cephalopod species observed in coastal dolphins. When considering other feeding studies, the most representative fish family in the diet of S. guianensis was Sciaenidae, which is mainly represented by demersal fishes. The main preys of S. guianensis are abundant in the studied areas, which may indicate an opportunistic feeding habit. The majority of them are not the most important target species by the commercial fishery in south-eastern Brazil.

ARE TWO ITEMS SUFFICIENT TO SCREEN FOR DEPRESSION WITHIN THE HOSPITAL CONTEXT?

Objective: to determine the ability of the reduced form of a screening instrument, the Patient Health Questionnaire-2 (PHQ-2), to assess the presence of depressive disorders in patients admitted to a general hospital. Method: A sample of 227 patients admitted to the clinical wards of a Brazilian general university hospital were assessed with Module A of the Diagnostic Structured Interview for the DSM-IV (SCID-IV) and filled out the PHQ-9 and PHQ-2. Results: The PHQ-2 demonstrated an area under the ROC curve of 0.89 (p < 0.0001), with a cutoff point of three or more being the one that best equilibrated the sensitivity (0.86) and specificity (0.75) values. The agreement index between the PHQ-2 and module A of SCID-W was 78.4% and the Kappa value was 0.51. Regarding reliability, the Cronbach alpha value obtained was 0.64 and the intraclass correlation coefficient was 0.52. Conclusion: PHQ-2 proved to be an instrument with good psychometric properties comparable to those of PHQ-9, being superior to the latter regarding the rate of false-positive results. In addition, it is a brief instrument that elicits little resistance on the part of the patient, being inexpensive and requiring little time, thus being of important help to the treatment teams for the detection of depressive disorder, being suitable for incorporation into hospital admission protocols and thus possibly favoring more immediate interventions. (Int'l J. Psychiatry in Medicine 2012;44:141-148)