Assessment of health-related quality of life and related factors in patients with chronic liver disease

Coordenação de Aperfeiçoamento de Pessoal de Nível Superior (CAPES)

Pain and quality of life in patients undergoing radiotherapy for spinal metastatic disease treatment

Background: Radiotherapy is an important tool in the control of pain in patients with spinal metastatic disease. We aimed to evaluate pain and of quality of life of patients with spinal metastatic disease undergoing radiotherapy with supportive treatment. Methods. The study enrolled 30 patients. From January 2008 to January 2010, patients selection included those treated with a 20Gy tumour dose in five fractions. Patients completed the visual analogue scale for pain assessment and the SF-36 questionnaire for quality of life assessment. Results: The most frequent primary sites were breast, multiple myeloma, prostate and lymphoma. It was found that 14 spinal metastatic disease patients (46.66%) had restricted involvement of three or fewer vertebrae, while 16 patients (53.33%) had cases involving more than three vertebrae. The data from the visual analogue scale evaluation of pain showed that the average initial score was 5.7 points, the value 30days after the end of radiotherapy was 4.60 points and the average value 6months after treatment was 4.25 points. Notably, this final value was 25.43% lower than the value from the initial analysis. With regard to the quality of life evaluation, only the values for the functional capability and social aspects categories of the questionnaire showed significant improvement. Conclusion: Radiotherapy with supportive treatment appears to be an important tool for the treatment of pain in patients with spinal metastatic disease. © 2013 Valesin Filho et al; licensee BioMed Central Ltd.

Modelo da velocidade crítica em testes de caminhada: validade, reprodutibilidade e aplicabilidade em pacientes de Unidades de Saúde

Conselho Nacional de Desenvolvimento Científico e Tecnológico (CNPq)

Estudo da qualidade de vida de religiosas idosas

Coordenação de Aperfeiçoamento de Pessoal de Nível Superior (CAPES)

Qualidade de vida de mulheres alcoolistas atendidas em serviço ambulatorial

Pós-graduação em Saúde Coletiva - FMB

Nível de atividade física, sono e qualidade de vida em pacientes com doença de Alzheimer

Fundação de Amparo à Pesquisa do Estado de São Paulo (FAPESP)

Assessment of Quality of Life and Psychologic Aspects in Patients with Gestational Trophoblastic Disease

OBJECTIVE: To assess quality of life (QoL) and psychological aspects in patients with gestational trophoblastic disease (GTD).METHODS: This cross-sectional self-report study was conducted among 54 women. Validated questionnaires assessed QoL (WHO-QOL-bref), symptoms of depression (Beck Depression Inventory [BDI]) and anxiety (State-Trait Anxiety Inventory [STAI]).RESULTS: Most patients rated overall QoL as good (44.44%) anti were satisfied with their health status (42.59%). Mean QoL domain score was lowest for psychologic health (53.86 +/- 21.46) and highest for social relationships (65.74 +/- 22.41). BDI mean was 15.81 +/- 11.15, indicating dysphoria. STAI means were 46 +/- 6.46 for trait-anxiety and 43.72 +/- 4.23 for state-anxiety, both evidencing medium-high anxiety. Among employed patients, environment domain mean was the highest (p = 0.024). Presence of children resulted in lowest means for physical health (p = 0.041) and environment (p = 0.045). Patients desiring children showed significantly higher means for physical health (p = 0.004), psychological health (p = 0.021) and environment (p = 0.003). Chemotherapy had no significant influence on QoL (p > 0.05).CONCLUSION: This study evidenced psychological impact on GTD patients, suggesting specialized care centers should provide psychological interventions during treatment and follow-up of GTD patients, highlighting the importance of a multidisciplinary approach. (J Reprod Med 2009;54:239-244)

Assessment of health-related quality of life in children with functional defecation disorders

Objective: To evaluate the health-related quality of life in children with functional defecation disorders. Methods: One hundred children seen consecutively were enrolled and subdivided into three subsets according to the Roma II classification criteria: functional constipation (n = 57), functional fecal retention (n = 29) and nonretentive functional soiling (n = 14). The generic instrument Child Health Questionnaire - Parent Form 50 (CHQ-PF50®), was used to measure quality of life and to assess the impact of these disorders from the point of view of parents. The instrument measures physical and psychosocial wellbeing in 15 health domains, each of which is graded on a scale from 0 to 100, with higher values indicating better health and greater wellbeing. Ten of these are then used to obtain two aggregated and summary scores: the physical and psychosocial scores. Results: No statistically significant differences were detected between subsets in terms of demographic or anthropometric characteristics. In 14 domains, children with defecation disorders scored lower than healthy children. When subsets were compared, statistically significant differences were detected between children with nonretentive functional soiling (lower scores) and those with functional constipation. Physical and psychosocial scores for the entire sample were lower than those for the group of healthy children used as controls. Conclusions: The CHQ-PF50® was considered adequate for demonstrating compromised quality of life in children with functional defecation disorders, as has been reported for other diseases, being a useful tool for making treatment decisions and for patient follow-up. Copyright © 2006 by Sociedade Brasileira de Pediatria.

Comparative study of the life cycle assessment of particleboards made of residues from sugarcane bagasse (Saccharum spp.) and pine wood shavings (Pinus elliottii)

This paper presents a research on the environmental impacts of particleboards produced from wastes, based on a comparative Life Cycle Assessment study. The particleboards were manufactured in laboratorial scale from the following residues: sugarcane bagasse (Saccharum spp.) and pine wood shavings (Pinus elliottii). The study was developed following the methodological guidelines of ISO 14040. The functional unit adopted was the m2 of the particleboards produced and the impacts were evaluated by the Environmental Development of Industrial Products method. The results indicated that pine particleboard present the highest environmental impact potential. Our findings suggested that the factors that mostly aggravated the environmental impacts were: the distance between the raw materials and the production site, and formaldehyde emissions (FE). The first is related to the combustion of fossil fuel during the acquisition of raw material, which achieved the values of 2185.94 g/m2 for consumption of non-renewable resources for pine particleboard and 893.53 g/m2 for bagasse particleboard. The second is related to the use of urea-formaldehyde resin, responsible for the FE into the air during production. The FE is accountable for the contamination of approximately 7,800,000.00 m3 of air per m2 of particleboard produced, and was the factor with the greatest impact in human toxicity potential. © 2013 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Life cycle assessment applied to municipal solid waste management: a case study

This study analyzes the environmental performance of the Municipal Solid Waste Management System (MSWMS) of Piedade, São Paulo, from a systemic perspective. A life cycle assessment (LCA) technique was applied according to an attributional approach to evaluate both the current operational situation and different prospective scenarios, which were devised based on the application of targets for recycling dry and wet waste suggested by the pre-draft version of the Brazilian Plan for Solid Waste. The life cycle impact assessment method EcoIndicator 99, in association with normalization and weighting procedures, was used to conduct the analysis. It was observed that the adoption of goals of 30%, 50% and 70% for recovering of the recyclable dry waste, resulted in improvement of the environmental performance of the waste management system under analysis, respectively of 10%, 15% and 20%. It was also possible to detect an evolution in the order of 54% in reducing impacts resulting from the adoption of targets for composting. LCA proved to be effective for the evaluation of the environmental performance of MSWMS-Piedade. However, for future evaluations, the attributional approach should be replaced by the methodological practice of substitution to enable the avoided burdens to be considered in estimations of the environmental performance municipal solid waste management systems.

Mucociliary clearance and its relation with the level of physical activity in daily life in healthy smokers and nonsmokers

Fundação de Amparo à Pesquisa do Estado de São Paulo (FAPESP)

A new short and simple health-related quality of life measurement for paediatric rheumatic diseases: initial validation in juvenile idiopathic arthritis

Objective. To develop and validate a new short and simple measure of health-related quality of life (HRQL) in children with juvenile idiopathic arthritis (JIA).Methods. The Paediatric Rheumatology Quality of Life Scale (PRQL) is a 10-item questionnaire that explores HRQL in two domains: physical health (PhH) and psychosocial health (PsH). Validation of the parent proxy report and child self-report versions of the instrument was accomplished by evaluating 472 JIA patients and similar to 800 healthy children. Validation analyses included assessment of feasibility, face and content validity; construct and discriminative ability; internal structure and consistency; test-retest reliability; responsiveness to clinical change; and minimal clinically important difference.Results. The PRQL was found to be feasible and to possess both face and content validity. The PRQL score correlated in the predicted range with most of the other JIA outcome measures, thereby demonstrating good construct validity, and discriminated well between different levels of disease severity. Assessment of internal structure (factor analysis) revealed that the PhH and PsH subscales identify two unambiguously separated domains. The internal consistency (Cronbach's alpha) was 0.86. The intraclass correlation coefficient for test-retest reliability was 0.91. The PRQL revealed fair responsiveness, with a standardized response mean of 0.67 in improved patients. Overall, the PRQL appeared to be more able to capture physical HRQL than psychosocial HRQL.Conclusion. The PRQL was found to possess good measurement properties and is, therefore, a valid instrument for the assessment of HRQL in children with JIA. This tool is primarily proposed for use in standard clinical care.

Validation of the Brazilian versions of two inventories for measuring oral health-related quality of life of edentulous subjects

Fundação de Amparo à Pesquisa do Estado de São Paulo (FAPESP)

Three-Dimensional Ultrasonographic Assessment of Fetal Total Lung Volume as a Prognostic Factor in Primary Pleural Effusion

Objectives-The purpose of this study was to predict perinatal outcomes using fetal total lung volumes assessed by 3-dimensional ultrasonography (3DUS) in primary pleural effusion.Methods-Between July 2005 and July 2010, total lung volumes were prospectively estimated in fetuses with primary pleural effusion by 3DUS using virtual organ computer-aided analysis software. The first and last US examinations were considered in the analysis. The observed/expected total lung volumes were calculated. Main outcomes were perinatal death (up to 28 days of life) and respiratory morbidity (orotracheal intubation with mechanical respiratory support >48 hours).Results-Twelve of 19 fetuses (63.2%) survived. Among the survivors, 7 (58.3%) had severe respiratory morbidity. The observed/expected total lung volume at the last US examination before birth was significantly associated with perinatal death (P < .01) and respiratory morbidity (P < .01) as well as fetal hydrops (P < .01) and bilateral effusion (P = .01).Conclusions-Fetal total lung volumes may be useful for the prediction of perinatal outcomes in primary pleural effusion.

Assessment of Female Reproductive Endpoints in Sprague-Dawley Rats Developmentally Exposed to Diuron: Potential Ovary Toxicity

Fundação de Amparo à Pesquisa do Estado de São Paulo (FAPESP)