Sexually transmitted infections (STIs) are often associated with chronic diseases and can have severe impacts on host reproductive success. For airborne or socially transmitted pathogens, patterns of contact by which the infection spreads tend to be dispersed and each contact may be of very short duration. By contrast, the transmission pathways for STIs are usually characterized by repeated con...

background hepatitis b virus (hbv) and hepatitis c virus (hcv) infections are among the most important health issues in turkey. human immunodeficiency virus (hiv) infections are less frequently observed in the country. the individuals who had blood transfusions, patients undergoing hemodialysis, and intravenous drug addicted individuals, people who had tattoos/piercings, communal living environ...

Despite growing visibility of lesbian- and gay-parent adoption, only one qualitative study has examined birth family contact among adoptive families with lesbian and gay parents (Goldberg, Kinkler, Richardson, & Downing, 2011). We studied adoptive parents' (34 lesbian, 32 gay, and 37 heterosexual; N = 103 families) perspectives of birth family contact across the first year post-placement. Using...

In 8 male rats instrumental responses reinforced by contact with an estrous female with an intact or a surgically closed vagina were investigated. Contact with the female lasted until the end of the mount bout. It was observed that neither the rewarding value of the mount bout (expressed by the duration of the response) nor its arousing properties (expressed by the rate of bar presses) depended...

PURPOSE We describe the prevalence, types, duration, frequency, and severity of intimate partner violence ("partner violence") in older women. DESIGN AND METHODS We randomly sampled a total of 370 English-speaking women (65 years of age and older) from a health care system to participate in a cross-sectional telephone interview. Using 5 questions from the Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance S...

OBJECTIVE To examine general practitioners' (GPs') attitudes towards taking a sexual history. METHODS Questions on sexual history taking were included in a random survey on the STD knowledge, attitudes, and practices of 600 GPs practising in Victoria, Australia. RESULTS Most GPs commonly asked patients about safe sex (79%), number of sex partners (63%), and injecting drug use (60%) while fe...

OBJECTIVE The purpose of this study was to examine the relationship between a history of physical and/or sexual abuse and current suicidality in college-age women. It was hypothesized that abuse history would significantly predict level of suicidality. A secondary hypothesis was that abuse status would predict attitudes about life and death. METHOD Female college students (n = 707) were scree...

PURPOSE Most studies have reported only minimal reductions in myopia progression with bifocal or progressive multifocal spectacles, although somewhat larger, although mostly still clinically insignificant, effects have been reported in children with nearpoint esophoria and/or accommodative dysfunctions. The CONTROL study was a 1-year, prospective, randomized, clinical trial of bifocal contact l...

The present study aimed to evaluate posttraumatic stress symptoms, psychological distress, and emotional and behavioral problems in former Ugandan child soldiers in comparison with civilian children living in the same conflict setting. Participants included 133 former child soldiers and 101 never-abducted children in northern Uganda, who were interviewed about exposure to traumatic war-related ...

BACKGROUND Transmission patterns of sexually-transmitted infections (STIs) could relate to the structure of the underlying sexual contact network, whose features are therefore of interest to clinicians. Conventionally, we represent sexual contacts in a population with a graph, that can reveal the existence of communities. Phylogenetic methods help infer the history of an epidemic and incidental...