Faculty Bibliography

An increased risk of malignant melanoma has been observed in men with prostate cancer. To assess potential shared risk factors and confounding factors, we analysed risk of melanoma in men with prostate cancer including information on tumor characteristics and demographics including socioeconomic status. In The Prostate Cancer data Base Sweden, risk of melanoma was assessed in a cohort of men with prostate cancer and in a comparison cohort of prostate-cancer free men. Data on prostate cancer risk category, melanoma stage, basal cell carcinoma, location of residency, and socioeconomic status were obtained from nationwide registers. Melanoma was diagnosed in 830/108,145 (0.78%) men with prostate cancer and in 3,699/556,792 (0.66%) prostate cancer-free men. In multivariable Cox regression models, men with prostate cancer had a significantly increased risk of melanoma (HR 1.18, 95% CI 1.09-1.27), and so had married men, men with high education and income, and men residing in southern Sweden. The strongest associations were observed for stage 0 melanoma in men with low-risk prostate cancer (HR 1.45, 1.14-1.86), high education (HR 1.87, 1.60-2.18) and top income (HR 1.61, 1.34-1.93), respectively, whereas there was no association between these factors and late-stage melanoma. Men with prostate cancer also had an increased risk of basal cell carcinoma (HR 1.18, 1.15-1.22). In conclusion, men with low-risk prostate cancer, high education, high income and residency in southern Sweden had an increased risk of early-stage melanoma.

OBJECTIVE:Cyberharassment/cyberbullying is a global problem that has been inadequately investigated in developing countries. In this paper, we present findings on the prevalence and predictors of perpetration of cyberbullying among in-school adolescents in Oyo state, Nigeria. METHODS:A total of 653 students were selected via multi-stage sampling. Information on history of perpetrating harassment via an electronic medium in the 3-month period preceding the survey was obtained. RESULTS:Respondents' mean age was 14.2±2.2 years and 51.3% were females. All respondents had personal mobile phones and about half had Internet access. About 40% accessed the Internet every day while about 48% accessed it at least once to several times a week and <5% accessed it about once every 2 weeks. One hundred and fifty-six (23.9%) had harassed someone electronically, 260 (39.8%) had been victimized, and 137 (21.0%) were both victims and perpetrators. Common modes of harassment were via phone calls 99 (63.5%), chat rooms 70 (44.9%), and text messages 60 (38.5%). Students who had been victims of cyberbullying (OR=21.76, 95% CI=12.64-37.47) and those with daily Internet access (OR=2.32, 95% CI=1.28-4.19) had significantly higher Oods of being perpetrators. CONCLUSION/CONCLUSIONS:About a quarter of students were perpetrators of cyberbullying, and the correlates of perpetration were history of cyber victimization and daily Internet access. Intervention programs must be instituted for victims as well as frequent users of the Internet to curb the problem in the study area.

BACKGROUND: Parent feeding practices affect risk of obesity in children. Latino children are at higher risk of obesity than the general population, yet valid measure of feeding practices, one of which is the Infant Feeding Styles Questionnaire (IFSQ), have not been formally validated in Spanish. OBJECTIVE: To validate the IFSQ among Latino families, we conducted confirmatory factor analysis of pressuring, restrictive, and responsive feeding constructs from the IFSQ. DESIGN/METHODS: The IFSQ was administered at the 12-month visit in the Greenlight study, a multi-center cluster randomized trial to prevent obesity. Parents were included if they were of Latino origin (n = 303) and completed an English or Spanish language modified IFSQ (without the indulgence construct). Scores from nine sub-constructs of the IFSQ were compared between English and Spanish language versions. We tested reliability with Cronbach's alpha coefficients and performed confirmatory factor analysis to examine factor loadings and goodness of fit characteristics, modifying constructs to achieve best fit. RESULTS: Of 303 parents completing the IFSQ, 84% were born outside the US, and 74% completed the IFSQ in Spanish. Reliability coefficients ranged from 0.28 to 0.61 for the laissez-faire sub-constructs and from 0.58 to 0.83 for the pressuring, restrictive, and responsive sub-constructs. Results for all coefficients were similar between participants responding to an English and Spanish version of the IFSQ. Goodness of fit indices ranged from CFI 0.82-1 and RMSEA 0.00-0.31, and the model performed best in pressuring-soothing (CFI 1.0, RMSEA 0.00) and restrictive-amount (CFI 0.98, RMSEA 0.1) sub-constructs. CONCLUSIONS: In a sample of Latino families, pressuring, restrictive, and responsive constructs performed well. The modified IFSQ in both English and Spanish-speaking Latino families may be used to assess parenting behaviors related to early obesity risk in this at-risk population.

The phenomenon of leaving the hospital against medical advice (AMA) despite being quite common and associated with significant deleterious health outcomes remains inadequately understood and addressed. Researchers have identified certain patient characteristics as predictors of AMA discharges, but the patients' reasons for these events have not been comprehensively explored. Moreover, because the medical authority model dominates this research area, providers' experiences of AMA discharges remain unstudied. We examined the AMA discharge from a patient-centered perspective by analyzing the content of notes providers generate to record such events. We analyzed providers' notes for all inpatients with a primary HIV diagnosis (N = 33) that, in 2012, left an urban hospital AMA. Applying the Scott and Lyman accounts framework, we identified that the notes constituted records of providers' and patients' excuses and justifications for failing to meet the expectations of a provider offering patient-centered care and a compliant patient receiving care. Alongside the patients' reasons for leaving AMA, the notes also revealed the providers' reasons for honoring or discrediting the patients' accounts. The style of the accounts and the professional status of the notes' authors enabled us to contextualize the production and sharing of AMA notes in the hospital hierarchy. Conceptualizing AMA notes as dyadic accounts elicited specific factors that challenge the patient-provider relationship, and generated insights on how to strengthen it, and thus decrease the rates of AMA discharges and their associated health effects.

BACKGROUND: Most patients with multiple sclerosis without previous optic neuritis have thinner retinal layers than healthy controls. We assessed the role of peripapillary retinal nerve fibre layer (pRNFL) thickness and macular volume in eyes with no history of optic neuritis as a biomarker of disability worsening in a cohort of patients with multiple sclerosis who had at least one eye without optic neuritis available. METHODS: In this multicentre, cohort study, we collected data about patients (age >/=16 years old) with clinically isolated syndrome, relapsing-remitting multiple sclerosis, and progressive multiple sclerosis. Patients were recruited from centres in Spain, Italy, France, Germany, Czech Republic, Netherlands, Canada, and the USA, with the first cohort starting in 2008 and the latest cohort starting in 2013. We assessed disability worsening using the Expanded Disability Status Scale (EDSS). The pRNFL thickness and macular volume were assessed once at study entry (baseline) by optical coherence tomography (OCT) and was calculated as the mean value of both eyes without optic neuritis for patients without a history of optic neuritis or the value of the non-optic neuritis eye for patients with previous unilateral optic neuritis. Researchers who did the OCT at baseline were masked to EDSS results and the researchers assessing disability with EDSS were masked to OCT results. We estimated the association of pRNFL thickness or macular volume at baseline in eyes without optic neuritis with the risk of subsequent disability worsening by use of proportional hazards models that included OCT metrics and age, disease duration, disability, presence of previous unilateral optic neuritis, and use of disease-modifying therapies as covariates. FINDINGS: 879 patients with clinically isolated syndrome (n=74), relapsing-remitting multiple sclerosis (n=664), or progressive multiple sclerosis (n=141) were included in the primary analyses. Disability worsening occurred in 252 (29%) of 879 patients with multiple sclerosis after a median follow-up of 2.0 years (range 0.5-5 years). Patients with a pRNFL of less than or equal to 87 mum or less than or equal to 88 mum (measured with Spectralis or Cirrus OCT devices) had double the risk of disability worsening at any time after the first and up to the third years of follow-up (hazard ratio 2.06, 95% CI 1.36-3.11; p=0.001), and the risk was increased by nearly four times after the third and up to the fifth years of follow-up (3.81, 1.63-8.91; p=0.002). We did not identify meaningful associations for macular volume. INTERPRETATION: Our results provide evidence of the usefulness of monitoring pRNFL thickness by OCT for prediction of the risk of disability worsening with time in patients with multiple sclerosis. FUNDING: Instituto de Salud Carlos III.

Older adults with multiple conditions receive care that is often fragmented, burdensome, and of unclear benefit. An advisory group of patients, caregivers, clinicians, health system engineers, health care system leaders, payers, and others identified three modifiable contributors to this fragmented, burdensome care: decision making and care focused on diseases, not patients; inadequate delineation of roles and responsibilities and accountability among clinicians; and lack of attention to what matters to patients and caregivers (ie, their health outcome goals and care preferences). The advisory group identified patient priority-directed care as a feasible, sustainable approach to addressing these modifiable factors.