Breast is Best? Reasons Why Mothers Decide to Breastfeed or Bottlefeed their Babies and Factors Influencing the Duration of Breastfeeding.

Breastfeeding is known to confer benefits, both in the short term and long term, to the child and also to the mother. Various health-promotion initiatives have aimed to increase breastfeeding rates and duration in the United Kingdom over the past decade. In order to assist in these endeavours, it is essential to understand the reasons why women decide whether to breastfeed and the factors that influence the duration of breastfeeding. This study reports breastfeeding initiation and duration rates of mothers participating in the Growth, Learning and Development study undertaken by the Child Health & Welfare Recognised Research Group. Although this study cannot provide prevalence data for all mothers in Greater Belfast, it can provide useful information on trends within particular groups of the population. In addition, it examines maternally reported reasons for choosing to breastfeed and for breastfeeding cessation. The likelihood of mothers initiating breastfeeding is influenced by factors such as increased age, higher educational attainment and higher socio-economic grouping. The most common reason cited for breastfeeding is that it is “best for baby”. Returning to work is the most important factor in influencing whether mothers continued to breastfeed. Women report different reasons for cessation depending on the age of their child when they stopped breastfeeding. This information should inform health-promotion initiatives and interventions.

Successful colonoscopy; completion rates and reasons for incompletion

Factors such as poor bowel preparation or obstructing colonic disease may confound the reporting of colonoscopy completion rates, as these factors are outside of the control of the endoscopist performing the procedure. By adjusting for these factors when calculating a colonoscopy completion rate, it may be possible to make a more accurate assessment of a unit's or individuals' competence. Details of two thousand two hundred and sixteen colonoscopies performed by four consultants and their trainees between 1993-2000 were analysed retrospectively from a prospective endoscopy database. Crude (all cases) and adjusted (excluding poor bowel preparation and disease as causes of incompletion) rates were recorded for each sex, and by age according to cause. Overall crude and adjusted completion rates were 77.9% and 85.0% respectively. There was a significant difference between male and female completion rates due to a difference in the incidence of excess looping and intolerance of the procedure (adjusted rate 88.9% in males vs. 81.6% in females, p

Reasons for the variability in growth hormone (GH) responses to GHRH challenge:the endogenous hypothalamic-somatotroph rhythm (HSR)

The aims of this study were: (1) to test the possibility that pre-GHRH plasma GH values could reflect the functional status of the hypothalamic-somatotroph rhythm (HSR) at testing, and thus explain if it is responsible for the marked variability in GH responsiveness to GHRH challenge and (2) to see if exogenous somatostatin (SS) could disrupt this endogenous HSR and thus make the GH responses homogeneous. (1) Two to 14 GHRH acute tests (GRF-29, 1 µg/kg, i.v. bolus) were performed in 12 normal men and 10 normal women at the same time (0830 h) at random intervals (2 to 60 days). Blood samples to measure plasma GH were drawn at 15 min intervals before and after GHRH challenge. Given that the increments in pre-GHRH plasma GH values (I = value at 0 min minus value at -15 min) were highly correlated with either GHRH-elicited peaks of GH (men, r = 0.81; women, r = 0.69; P

Reasons for non-participation in the Northern Ireland Bowel Cancer Screening Programme: a qualitative study

OBJECTIVES: To identify the reasons why some people do not participate in bowel cancer screening so that steps can be taken to improve informed decision-making.

DESIGN: Qualitative study, using focus groups with thematic analysis of data to identify, analyse and report patterns. Transcripts were repeatedly read and inductively coded using a phenomenological perspective, and organised into key themes.

SETTING: Belfast and Armagh, two areas of Northern Ireland with relatively low uptake of bowel cancer screening.

PARTICIPANTS: Ten women and 18 men in three single-gender focus groups (two male and one female), each with 9-10 participants. Study participants were recruited by convenience sampling from the general public and were eligible for, but had not taken part in, the Northern Ireland Bowel Cancer Screening Programme.

RESULTS: Key themes identified were fear of cancer; the test procedure; social norms; past experience of cancer and screening; lack of knowledge or understanding about bowel cancer screening; and resulting behaviour towards the test. Fear about receiving bad news and reluctance to conduct the test themselves were reactions that participants seemed willing to overcome after taking part in open discussion about the test.

CONCLUSIONS: We identified barriers to participation in bowel cancer screening and used these insights to develop new materials to support delivery of the programme. Some of the issues raised have been identified in other UK settings, suggesting that knowledge about barriers, and strategies to improve uptake, may be generalisable.

How do Facebook users interact and what are the underlying reasons that trigger these interactions

This research was conducted to understand how Facebook users interact and the underlying reasons for doing so with a focus on one-to-mass communication interactions. Different methods and sources were used to generate accurate and valid insights. It was discovered that liking, groups, commenting, events and sharing are essential interactions, whereby liking, commenting and sharing were investigated in more detail. This investigations proves that emotions do trigger these three interactions; The most influencing emotions are Surprise/Wonder, Deep Respect/ Impressiveness and Fun/Joy. Moreover a variety of specific factors that trigger each of the interactions are revealed.

Challenges of converting nonprofit in for-profit-reasons decision making and key success factores of a conversion

Due to external constraints (opposed by the market and legal system) and internal changes nonprofit organizations have been converting to for-profit entities combining commercial revenue and social value creation. To create an understanding of the conversion process considering its challenges, the reasons, the decision-making process and key success factors of a conversion are examined. Therefore, a two-step research procedure is used combining literature research and a multiple case study approach based on expert interviews with known companies. The outcome is a helpful guideline (including a decision matrix) for social entrepreneurs that might face a conversion.

Understanding churn and its reasons: The GuestU case

In the age of computerisation, entrepreneurs around the world aim to revolutionise their field with ground-breaking ICTs. GuestU is one of those offering mobile application development to small and medium-sized tourism enterprises. To assure the young start-ups steady growth this paper aims to identify reasons for the high customer churn risk. Primary data is used to analyse end-user behaviour and particularly the success of acquisition and activation. Results show troubling download quantities as well as retention rates leading to the recommendations for GuestU to incentivise and guide their customers in increasing promotion for the applications.