Prevalence of Adverse Life Events, Depression and Suicidal Thoughts and Behaviour among a Community Sample of Young People aged 15-24 Years

Objective: To provide prevalence data on several key mental health indicators for young people aged 15 to 24 years. Methods: A cross-sectional household survey, using telephone recruitment followed by a postal pencil-and-paper questionnaire. The overall response rate was 67.3%. Results: Difficulties with interpersonal relationships are common causes of distress for young people, in particular problems with parents, problems with friends and relationship break-ups. Depressive symptomatology is common among young people with approximately one in eight males and one in four females reporting current depressive symptomatology. One in three young people reported that they had had suicidal thoughts at some time in the past, 1.2% of young people reported that they had made a plan on how to kill themselves in the four-week period prior to completing the survey and 6.9% of young people reported that they had tried to kill themselves at some time during their life time (4.2% of males and 9.0% of females). Conclusions and implications: The prevalence figures for the various mental health indicators presented in this paper represent good baseline information upon which to examine the progress over time of interventions designed to improve the mental health of young people.

Age changes in personality traits and their heritabilities during the adult years: evidence from Australian Twin Registry samples

Short versions of four Eysenck personality scales had been included in questionnaires given to several adult samples from the Australian Twin Registry, comprising altogether some 5400 pairs. Means and regressions with age are compared for three samples at average ages of 23, 37, and 61 years, and for two samples of retested individuals, one tested twice at average ages of 29 and 37 years, and one tested three times at average ages of 45, 56, and 62 years, For both males and females the trends for Psychoticism (P), Extraversion (E), and Neuroticism (N) were generally downward with age, and for Lie (L), upward. However, in the longitudinal sample between ages 56 and 62 the trends for P, E, and I stopped or reversed, although N continued downward. Heritabilities were reasonably stable across age for P, E, and N, and the effects of shared environments negligible, but L showed some influence of shared environment as well as genes in all but the oldest age group. (C) 2001 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved.

Patterns of community integration 2-5 years post-discharge from brain injury rehabilitation

Outcome after traumatic brain injury (TBI) is characterized by a high degree of variability which has often been difficult to capture in traditional outcome studies. The purpose of this study was to describe patterns of community integration 2-5 years after TBI. Participants were 208 patients admitted to a Brain Injury Rehabilitation Unit between 1991-1995 in Brisbane, Australia. The design comprised retrospective data collection and questionnaire follow-up by mail. Mean follow-up was 3.5 years. Demographic, injury severity and functional status variables were retrieved from hospital records. Community integration was assessed using the Community Integration Questionnaire (CIQ), and vocational status measured by a self administered questionnaire. Data was analysed using cluster analysis which divided the data into meaningful subsets. Based on the CIQ subscale scores of home, social and productive integration, a three cluster solution was selected, with groups labelled as working (n = 78), balanced (n = 46) and poorly integrated (n = 84). Although 38% of the sample returned to a high level of productive activity and 22% achieved a balanced lifestyle, overall community integration was poor for the remainder. This poorly integrated group had more severe injury characterized by longer periods of acute care and post-traumatic amnesia (PTA) and greater functional disability on discharge. These findings have implications for service delivery prior to and during the process of reintegration after brain injury.

The child of uncertain sex: 17 years of experience

Objective: To review the common clinical presentations, investigations and final diagnosis of children presenting with genital ambiguity. Methodology: Retrospective search of the Royal Children's Hospital, Brisbane, Australia, medical records and personal medical database of one of the authors (MJT) between 1982 and 1999. Results: Fifty-one children aged 0.1-;14 (mean 3.9) years were identified. Twenty-two cases had a 46XX karyotype, and commonly presented with an enlarged phallus (77.2%), urogenital sinus (63.6%) and labioscrotal fold(s) (40.9%). Congenital adrenal hyperplasia (CAH) was the most common final diagnosis (72.7%) . Twenty-nine cases of genital ambiguity had a 46XY karyotype and commonly presented with palpable gonad(s) (75.8%), undescended testes (51.7%), penoscrotal hypospadias (51.7%) and a small phallus (41.3%). Androgen insensitivity and gonadal dysgenesis were the commonest final diagnosis both occurring at a frequency of 17.2%. Conclusions: The results emphasize the importance of CAH as the most common diagnosis in 46XX cases presenting with ambiguous genitalia. Those with 46XY had a wider range of diagnoses. Despite thorough investigation, 23.5% had no definite final diagnosis made.

Review of treatment of pterygium in Queensland: 10 years after a primary survey

Purpose: To assess the practices in pterygium removal as a follow-up study to a similar project 10 years ago, in order to compare the current trends with those noted a decade ago. Methods: A survey was sent to all practising ophthalmologists in Queensland (100). Results: Eighty-seven of the 100 ophthalmologists undertook pterygium surgery with no change in indications for removal, grading or anaesthesia compared to 10 years ago. Nearly half of the ophthalmologists varied their surgical technique from eight commonly used methods according to the individual patient. More than half the respondents used a swinging conjunctival flap and 29% used simple excision leaving the area bare for primary pterygia, although nearly one-quarter of the ophthalmologists added adjunctive therapies such as beta irradiation or mitomycin. For recurrent pterygia, one-third of ophthalmologists preferred adjunctive therapies, and 57% used an autoconjunctival transplant. Conclusion: There has been no consistent trend in surgical removal of pterygia with a significant number of primary pterygia still removed using bare scleral closure.

Denitrification, leaching and immobilisation of N-15-labelled nitrate in winter under windrowed harvesting residues in hoop pine plantations of 1-3 years old in subtropical Australia

A field study was carried out to investigate the impacts of windrowed harvesting residues on denitrification, immobilisation and leaching of N-15-labelled nitrate applied at 20 kg N ha(-1) to microplots in second-rotation hoop pine (Araucaria cunninghamii) plantations of 1-3 years old in southeast Queensland, Australia. The PVC microplots were 235 mm in diameter and 150 mm. long, and driven into the 100 mm soil. There were three replications of such microplots for each of the six treatments which were areas just under and between 1-, 2- and 3-year-old windrows of harvesting residues. Based on gaseous N losses estimated by the difference between the recoveries of bromide (Br) applied at 100 kg Br ha(-1) and N-15-labelled nitrate, denitrification was highest (23% based on N-15 loss) in the areas just under the 1-year-old windrows 25 days after a simulated 75 mm rainfall and following several natural rainfall events. There was no significant difference in N-15 losses (14-17%) among the other treatments. The N-15 immobilisation rate was highest for microplots in the areas between the 1-year-old windrows and generally higher for microplots in the areas just under the windrows (30-39%) than that (26-30%) between the windrows. Direct measurement of N-15 gas emissions (N-15(2) + (N2O)-N-15) confirmed that the highest denitrification rate occurred in the microplots under the 1-year-old windrows although the gaseous N-15 loss calculated by gas emission was only about one-quarter that estimated by the N-15 mass balance method. A significant, positive linear relationship (P < 0.05) existed between the gaseous N-15 losses measured by the two methods used. The research indicates that considerable mineral N could be lost via denitrification during the critical inter-rotation period and early phase of the second rotation. However, the impacts of windrowed harvesting residues on N losses via denitrification might only last for a period of about 2 years. Published by Elsevier Science B.V.

The BRCA2 372 HH genotype is associated with risk of breast cancer in Australian women under age 60 years

The BRCA2 N372H nonconservative amino acid substitution polymorphism appears to affect fetal survival in a sex-dependent manner, and the HH genotype was found to be associated with a 1.3-fold risk of breast cancer from pooling five case-control studies of Northern European women. We investigated whether the BR 2 N372H polymorphism was associated with breast cancer in Australian women using a population-based case-control design. The BRCA2 372 genotype was determined in 1397 cases under the age of 60 years at diagnosis of a first primary breast cancer and in 775 population-sampled controls frequency matched for age. Case-control analyses and comparisons of genotype distributions were conducted using logistic regression. All of the statistical tests were two-tailed. The HH genotype was independent of age and family history of breast cancer within cases and controls, and was more common in cases (9.2% versus 6.5%). It was associated with an increased risk of breast cancer, 1.47-fold unadjusted (95% confidence interval, 1.05-2.07; P = 0.02), and 1.42-fold (95% confidence interval, 1.00-2.02; P = 0.05) after adjusting for measured risk factors. This effect was still evident after excluding women with any non-Caucasian ancestry or the 33 cases known to have inherited a mutation in BRCA1 or BRCA2, and would explain similar to3% of breast cancer. The BRCA2 N372H polymorphism appears to be associated with a modest recessively inherited risk of breast cancer in Australian women. This result is consistent with the findings for Northern European women.

Myelin proteolipid protein - the first 50 years

Myelin proteolipid protein (PLP), the most abundant protein of central nervous system (CNS) myelin, is a hydrophobic integral membrane protein. Because of its physical properties, which make it difficult to work with, progress towards determining the exact function(s) and disease associations of myelin PLP has been slow. However, recent molecular biology advances have given new life to investigations of PLP, and suggest that it has multiple functions within myelin and is of importance in several neurological disorders. (C) 2002 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved.