METHODS: The study included individuals from the Northern Finland Birth Cohort 1966 (NFBC1966) who had available data for adiposity measures (body mass index and waist-to-hip ratio), alexithymia (measured by the 20-Item Toronto Alexithymia Scale: TAS-20), depressive symptoms (measured by the 13-item depression subscale of Hopkins Symptom Checklist: HSCL-13) at age of 31 years (n = 4773) and 46 years (n = 4431). Pearson's (r) correlation, and multiple linear regression were used to investigate the relationships between alexithymia, depressive symptoms, and adiposity measures. The potential mediating role of depressive symptoms was examined via Hayes' procedure (PROCESS).
RESULTS: Positive correlations were confirmed between adiposity measures (BMI and WHR) and the TAS-20 score (and its subscale), but not between obesity and HSCL-13 score. The strongest correlation was between the DIF (difficulty identifying feelings) subscale of the TAS-20 and HSCL-13 at both time points (31 y: r(3013) = 0.41, p
METHODS AND FINDINGS: This national register study focused on all Finnish residents aged 0 to 17 years from January 2017 to September 2021 (approximately 1 million a year). The outcomes were new monthly diagnoses for psychiatric or neurodevelopmental disorders in specialist services. These were analyzed by sex, age, home location, and diagnostic groups. The numbers of new diagnoses from March 2020 were compared to predictive models based on previous years. The predicted and observed levels in March to May 2020 showed no significant differences, but the overall difference was 18.5% (95% confidence interval 12.0 to 25.9) higher than predicted in June 2020 to September 2021, with 3,821 more patients diagnosed than anticipated. During this period, the largest increases were among females (33.4%, 23.4 to 45.2), adolescents (34.4%, 25.0 to 45.3), and those living in areas with the highest COVID-19 morbidity (29.9%, 21.2 to 39.8). The largest increases by diagnostic groups were found for eating disorders (27.4%, 8.0 to 55.3), depression and anxiety (21.0%, 12.1 to 51.9), and neurodevelopmental disorders (9.6%, 3.0 to 17.0), but psychotic and bipolar disorders and conduct and oppositional disorders showed no significant differences and self-harm (-28.6, -41.5 to -8.2) and substance use disorders (-15.5, -26.4 to -0.7) decreased in this period. The main limitation is that data from specialist services do not allow to draw conclusions about those not seeking help.
CONCLUSIONS: Following the first pandemic phase, new psychiatric diagnoses in children and adolescents increased by nearly a fifth in Finnish specialist services. Possible explanations to our findings include changes in help-seeking, referrals and psychiatric problems, and delayed service access.
METHODS: Dental students from 4 institutions in Malaysia and Finland completed self-administered questionnaires on the practices and perceptions of SM use. The main variables assessed were the perceptions and practices of student-patient and student-faculty communication on SM, between the two countries. Students' country, age, gender, time spent on SM and perceived importance of communicating dental related aspects over SM were analysed as potential explanatory variables. Crosstabulation was used to estimate the distributions of the response variables by the background characteristics. Multivariate analyses were performed using a dichotomous logistic regression model to investigate relevant associations between the responses and the explanatory variables independent from other factors.
RESULTS: A total of 643 students completed the survey in March-April 2021. More Malaysian students agreed with "guiding patients online is a new responsibility for dentists in the digital age" compared to Finnish students (86.4% vs. 73.4%). Similarly, significantly more Malaysian students befriended patients (14.1% vs. 1%) and invited faculty to be friends on SM (73.6% vs. 11.8%). Expectedly, clinical year students befriended patients more than pre-clinical (13.8% vs. 6.8%). Significantly more students who felt 'communication of dental related issues over SM' were likely to extend friend requests to faculty rather than accept patient friend requests.
CONCLUSIONS: Social media regulations and socio-cultural practices contribute to dental students' attitudes and behaviour when befriending patients and faculty members on social media. Future dental curriculum should incorporate guidelines for professional communication on social media based on local and cultural needs. Students' should be encouraged to interact with their patients using professional identities on social media.
METHODS: Sequence data from ST801-related outbreak isolates from Norway (n = 17), Finland (n = 11) and Northern Ireland (n = 2) were combined with invasive pneumococcal disease surveillance from the respective countries, and ST801-related genomes from an international collection (n = 41 of > 40,000), totalling 106 genomes. Raw data were mapped and recombination excluded before phylogenetic dating.
RESULTS: Outbreak isolates were relatively diverse, with up to 100 SNPs (single nucleotide polymorphisms) and a common ancestor estimated around the year 2000. However, 19 Norwegian and Finnish isolates were nearly indistinguishable (0-2 SNPs) with the common ancestor dated around 2017.
CONCLUSION: The total diversity of ST801 within the outbreaks could not be explained by recent transmission alone, suggesting that harsh environmental and associated living conditions reported in the shipyards may facilitate invasion of colonising pneumococci. However, near identical strains in the Norwegian and Finnish outbreaks does suggest that transmission between international shipyards also contributed to those outbreaks. This indicates the need for improved preventative measures in this working population including pneumococcal vaccination.
METHODS: Sera from 27 patients from Finland and 18 from the United States with latex allergy and control sera from nonsensitive individuals were studied for latex-specific IgE antibodies. Four antigen preparations were used: two extracted from gloves and one each extracted from rubber tree sap from Malaysia and India. All 45 patients had skin prick test results that were positive to latex antigens, and all sera were evaluated by enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA) with the various antigens.
RESULTS: There were considerable differences in the reactivity of patient sera with the different antigens. Only 50% of the sera from patients with latex allergy from Finland demonstrated significant levels of IgE to latex as determined by enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay. These patients showed more reactivity with rubber tree sap antigens than with glove antigens. However, 72% of the patients from the United States demonstrated antibodies to latex, and no marked differences were noted between the antigen extracts.
CONCLUSIONS: The results indicate that reagents such as rubber tree sap, which contain multiple clinically significant antigenic components, should be included in evaluation of latex allergy and that differences in patient populations may result in serologic variances.
METHODS: Microbiological samples from 71 subjects with infected root canals were aseptically collected, and cultured on Sabouraud dextrose agar, and C. albicans was identified using multiplex polymerase chain reaction, and the isolates were further subtyped using ABC genotyping system. Their relative virulence was compared using further four archival samples of endodontic origin from another geographical region, and four more salivary isolates, as controls. The virulence attributes compared were biofilm formation, and production of phospholipase and haemolysin, and the susceptibility to nystatin, amphotericin B, ketoconazole, and fluoconazole was also tested.
RESULTS: 4 out of 71 samples (5.6%) yielded Candida species. On analysis of variance among the groups, the intracanal isolates, mainly Genotype A, possessed a high degree of phospholipase and haemolysin activity (p Finland isolates were stronger biofilm formers and had superior phospholipase production capacity compared with the salivary isolates. All isolates were sensitive to the antifungal chemicals used. The salivary isolates were more sensitive to fluoconazole compared to other groups (p