PURPOSE This study was conducted to evaluate the effect of a one-session spouse-support enhancement childbirth education on childbirth self-efficacy and perception of childbirth experience. METHODS The design of this study was a nonequivalent control group pretest-posttest experiment. The participants in the study were 31 couples in the experimental group and 30 in the control group. The expe...

Rational application of pesticides by properly adjusting the amount of product to the actual needs and specific conditions for application is a key factor for sustainable plant protection. However, current plant protection product (PPP) labels registered for citrus in EU are usually expressed as concentration (%; rate/hl) and/or as the maximum dose of product per unit of ground surface, without...

OBJECTIVES Little is known regarding modifiable factors that may explain sociodemographic disparities in breastfeeding rates among women in the United States. Using a mediation model approach, we examined the relative contributions of breastfeeding and formula feeding psychosocial factors in explaining disparities in breastfeeding intentions. METHODS We interviewed 532 expectant first-time mo...

BACKGROUND The purpose of the current study was to examine the association between the level of exercise behavior and individual and environmental factors related to exercise behavior among female Japanese undergraduate students. METHODS The participants were 2482 female Japanese undergraduate students. Participants' level of exercise behavior was measured by the stage of change to exercise i...

The current study examines the contribution of a number of metacognitive and motivational variables in explaining specific, transfer and maintenance effects of a strategic memory training program, based on the use of mental imagery, in older adults. Participants were assessed before and after the training (immediately post-test, and at 3- and 6-month follow-up) on list recall (criterion) and wo...

BACKGROUND Chronic spontaneous urticaria (CSU) poses problems with respect to high prevalence, reduced quality of life, lack of long term efficacy, and expense of current treatments for severe intractable symptoms. There have been many reports suggesting 'stress' factors may be implicated, but there are no studies that explore the efficacy of treatments including a psychological perspective. A ...

BACKGROUND Chronic migraine is a common, highly disabling, underdiagnosed and undertreated entity of migraine. It affects 0.9%-2.2% of the general adult population. The present paper overviews the preclinical and clinical data regarding the therapeutic effect of onabotulinumtoxinA in chronic migraineurs. METHODS A literature search was conducted in the database of PubMed up to 20 May 2015 for...

Antibiotics are the medical wonder of our age, but an increasing frequency of resistance among key pathogens is rendering them less effective. If this trend continues the consequences for cancer patients, organ transplant patients, and indeed the general community could be disastrous. The problem is complex, involving abuse and overuse of antibiotics (selecting for an increasing frequency of re...

BACKGROUND We assessed the persistence of hemagglutinin inhibition (HAI) antibodies and the vaccine efficacy (VE) of trivalent inactivated influenza vaccine (IIV3) following vaccination of a cohort of pregnant South African women during a second influenza season. METHODS A cohort of women who participated in a randomized placebo-controlled trial on the safety, immunogenicity and efficacy of I...

All societies face the need to make judgments about what interventions (both public health and personal medical) to provide to their populations under reasonable resource constraints. Their decisions should be informed by good evidence and arguments from health technology assessment (HTA). But if HTA restricts itself to evaluations of safety, efficacy, and cost-effectiveness, it risks being vie...