http://hdl.handle.net/10143/24396 Search the Channel search http://hera.helsebiblioteket.no/hera/simple-search http://hdl.handle.net/10143/106815 Title: Effects of prenatal opiate exposure on brain development – a call for attention<br/><br/>Authors: Walhovd, Kristine B.; Moe, Vibeke; Slinning, Kari; Siqveland, Torill; Fjell, Anders M.; Bjørnebekk, Astrid; Smith, Lars Fri, 25 Jun 2010 09:07:15 GMT http://hdl.handle.net/10143/106779 Title: Using a structured treatment, Friends for life, in Norwegian outpatient clinics. Results from a pilot study<br/><br/>Authors: Martinsen, Kristin; Aalberg, Marianne; Gere, Martina; Neumer, Simon-Peter<br/><br/>Abstract: CBT treatment programmes for children and adolescents with anxiety disorders are promising as indicated by efficacy research. Replicating this research in ordinary clinical care is crucial in order to establish the validity of these results and disseminate empirically based treatments to practitioners. This paper presents the first experiences of using a structured programme, the Friends for Life manual, in ordinary clinical care in Norway targeting anxiety problems in children aged between 7 and 12 years. The effects of the treatment are presented as multiple single-case studies. Clinical meaningful change is considered from two perspectives; diagnostic change and changes in self-report measures. At a statistical significance level the treatment effect can be characterized as modest. Independent of the symptom reduction, the children, families and therapist are in the main satisfied with the structured approach indicating the acceptability of the programme. Thu, 26 Feb 2009 22:58:59 GMT http://hdl.handle.net/10143/93013 Title: Three-year follow-up of physical activity in Norwegian youth from two ethnic groups: associations with socio-demographic factors.<br/><br/>Authors: Sagatun, Aase; Kolle, Elin; Anderssen, Sigmund A; Thoresen, Magne; Søgaard, Anne Johanne<br/><br/>Abstract: BACKGROUND: More research on factors associated with physical activity and the decline in participation during adolescence is needed. In this paper, we investigate the levels, change, and stability of physical activity during the late teens among ethnic Norwegians and ethnic minorities, and we examine the associations between physical activity and socio-demographic factors. METHODS: The baseline (T1) of this longitudinal study included 10th graders who participated in the youth part of the Oslo Health Study, which was carried out in schools in 2000-2001. The follow-up (T2) in 2003-2004 was conducted partly at school and partly by mail. A total of 2489 (1112 boys and 1377 girls) participated both at baseline and at follow-up. Physical activity level was measured by a question on weekly hours of physical activity outside of school. Socio-demographic variables were collected by questionnaire and from data obtained from Statistics Norway. Analysis of variance was used to study the level of and changes (T1 to T2) in physical activity, and the associations between physical activity and socio-demographic factors. Stability in physical activity was defined as the percentage of students reporting the same physical activity both times. RESULTS: Boys were more active than girls at age 15 and 18 years, independent of ethnic background. Among girls, ethnic Norwegians were more active than ethnic minorities. Hours per week spent on physical activity declined in all groups during the follow-up period. Few associations were found between physical activity and socio-demographic factors in both cross-sectional and longitudinal data. Among the ethnic minority girls, 65% reported being physically active 0-2 hours per week at baseline, and 82% of these girls reported the same level at follow up. CONCLUSION: The association between physical activity and ethnicity at age 15 years remained the same during the follow-up. Few associations were found between physical activity and socio-demographic variables. A large proportion of ethnic minority girls reported a persistently low physical activity level, and this low participation rate may need special attention. Mon, 29 Oct 2007 22:58:59 GMT http://hdl.handle.net/10143/67153 Title: Autism spectrum traits in children and adolescents with obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD).<br/><br/>Authors: Ivarsson, Tord; Melin, Karin<br/><br/>Abstract: OBJECTIVE: Assess the prevalence of autistic traits (AST) in pediatric obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD) and relate them to OCD co-morbidity and compare them with published normative data. METHODS: Pediatric patients with obsessive-compulsive disorder (n=109) according to the DSM-IV were studied using parent ratings of the Autistic Symptom/Syndrome Questionnaire to assess AST symptoms as a continuous rather than categorical trait. The KSADS, a semi-structured psychiatric interview, was used for the psychiatric diagnostic evaluation. Also, the Children's Yale-Brown Obsessive-Compulsive Scale was used to assess OCD severity and other clinical features. RESULTS: AST was common among our patients. Symptom scores were highest in cases with co-morbid Autistic Spectrum Disorders, but cases with other co-morbidities as tics/Tourette and attention/behavioral disorders also scored higher. All sub-groups, including OCD without these co-morbidities scored higher than the Swedish normative group. Using ANOVA, co-morbid ASD and tics/Tourette (plus a term for gender by tic interaction indicating that girls with tics scored high, otherwise low) and pathological doubt contributed (R2=.41) to the AST-traits, while OCD severity and co-morbid anxiety- and depressive disorders did not. CONCLUSION: AST traits are prevalent in OCD and seem to be intricately associated with the co-morbidities as well as the OCD syndrome itself. The findings might have implication for our nosological understanding of OCD which currently is discussed. Tue, 29 Jul 2008 22:58:59 GMT http://hdl.handle.net/10143/67133 Title: The Obsessive-Compulsive Symptom (OCS) scale of the Child Behavior Checklist: a comparison between Swedish children with Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder from a specialized unit, regular outpatients and a school sample.<br/><br/>Authors: Ivarsson, Tord; Larsson, Bo<br/><br/>Abstract: To evaluate the discriminative power of various items as reported by parents in the OCS-scale extracted from the Child Behavior Checklist (CBCL) problem scale and to compare findings with outcomes of previous validation studies. Children referred to a specialized child psychiatric Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder (OCD) clinic (OCD group) (n=185) receiving a formal OCD diagnosis according to DSM IV criteria based on interviews with the Children's Yale-Brown Obsessive-Compulsive Scale (CY-BOCS) were compared to a sample recruited from regular child and adolescent psychiatric outpatient clinics (CPO group) (n=177). Both samples were compared to a normative school sample (SS group) and all three groups were matched for age and gender. Thirty seven CBCL items, mostly representing core internalizing symptoms and parts of the thought problem scale as well as physical and sleep problems, were first identified. Ten of these items (including all discriminative items in previous validation studies) could distinguish children with OCD from CPO patients. In a subsequent analysis, the results of a logistic regression showed that four CBCL items, "Obsessions," "Fearful and Anxious," "Compulsions," and "Worries" remained significant predictors. These four OCS items and previously used CBCL OCS-scales were further examined by means of ROC-analysis showing that the "Obsessions" and "Compulsions" CBCL items were the strongest predictors. These two CBCL items performed well as screens for OCS symptoms in children and adolescents and the addition of similar CBCL items did not further increase sensitivity or specificity. It is suggested that parental responses on these two items could preferably be used as screen for OCD in children and adolescents in regular child psychiatric clinics. Sun, 28 Sep 2008 22:58:59 GMT http://hdl.handle.net/10143/67113 Title: Categorical and dimensional aspects of co-morbidity in obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD).<br/><br/>Authors: Ivarsson, Tord; Melin, Karin; Wallin, Lena<br/><br/>Abstract: OBJECTIVE: Obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD) defined at the diagnostic level encompasses divergent symptoms and is often associated with other psychiatric problems. The present study examines OCD versus co-morbid symptom patterns in OCD in children and adolescents in order to investigate the presence of diagnostic heterogeneity. SUBJECTS AND METHODS: A total of 113 outpatients with primary OCD participated. The patients' and primary caretakers' responses on semi-structured interviews (child version of Schedule for Affective Disorders and Schizophrenia and the Children's Yale-Brown Obsessive Compulsive Scale) and parents' responses on the Child Behaviour Checklist were used in the study. Psychiatric diagnoses were related to CBCL syndrome scores and CBCL scores were compared with the Swedish normative data. RESULTS: Co-morbid diagnoses were very common and only one out of five patients had only OCD. The most common group was the neuropsychiatric disorders (47%) where tic disorders were most common (27%), especially among boys (40.8%; P = .006, Fisher's exact test). Also anxiety disorders were common (39.8%) as were affective disorders (24.8%) neither with any gender differences. Diagnoses of disruptive disorders were less common (8.8%), almost exclusively of the oppositional kind (ODD) (8.8%). From the dimensional point of view using the CBCL, patients with OCD scored higher than Swedish youngster generally do, and some gender differences were seen in that girls scored higher on anxiety and depression while both girls and boys had high scores on thought problems, attention problems and especially aggressive behaviour. Comorbidities explained from 25 to 50% scores of the CBCL sub-syndrome scales, often with both main effects and through complex patterns of interaction with gender, OCD-severity and other co-morbid problems. CONCLUSIONS: While co-morbid problems is an important facet of OCD, sub-syndromal levels of symptoms that can be assessed using a dimensional approach, is a large part of the total symptom burden in these youngsters. Our data indicate contributions of different pathways for girls and for boys for several comorbid problems together with OCD-severity. Tue, 29 Jan 2008 22:58:59 GMT http://hdl.handle.net/10143/65993 Title: Personality characteristics determine health-related quality of life as an outcome indicator of geriatric inpatient rehabilitation<br/><br/>Authors: Richter, Jörg; Schwarz, Martina; Bauer, Barbara<br/><br/>Abstract: Background. The aim of the present study was to investigate the relationships between personality and quality of life during the course of geriatric rehabilitation, against the background of Cloninger's biosocial theory of personality. Methods. All consecutive patients of a geriatric rehabilitation clinic during one year were evaluated at admission and discharge (N=687) by means of the ‘‘Vienna List’’ (a newly developed questionnaire for the assessment of quality of life in patients with severe dementia), and two variants of the Temperament and Character Inventory. Results. Self-directedness showed the most general and highest impact on quality of life and successful rehabilitation. Conclusions. It is probable in old and very old individuals who are on their highest level of maturity that the character represents the most important regulatory system in the encounter with challenges of daily life, which necessitates rehabilitation. Wed, 30 Jul 2008 22:58:59 GMT http://hdl.handle.net/10143/65236 Title: Mental health problems in children and adolescents referred to a national epilepsy center.<br/><br/>Authors: Hanssen-Bauer, Ketil; Heyerdahl, Sonja; Eriksson, Ann-Sofie<br/><br/>Abstract: This study aimed to investigate the occurrence of psychiatric morbidity in children and adolescents referred to a tertiary national epilepsy center (inpatient unit) and the extent of the unmet need for psychiatric services in this group. Participants were 74 children and adolescents aged 9-15 referred from February 2001 to October 2002 (67% response rate). The multi-informant (parent, teacher, self-report) Strengths and Difficulties Questionnaires (SDQs) were answered before or at admission. Patients with severe mental retardation or pervasive developmental disorder were excluded. We found a large proportion (77%) with a possible or probable psychiatric disorder. The parents, teachers, and adolescents themselves had higher mean SDQ scores than a British community sample on total difficulties, emotional symptoms, conduct problems, hyperactivity-inattention, peer problems, and impairment, but not self-reported conduct problems. Nearly 80% of the children who probably had a psychiatric disorder had no contact with the psychiatric service. Mon, 26 Feb 2007 22:58:59 GMT http://hdl.handle.net/10143/65235 Title: Inter-rater reliability of clinician-rated outcome measures in child and adolescent mental health services.<br/><br/>Authors: Hanssen-Bauer, Ketil; Aalen, Odd O; Ruud, Torleif; Heyerdahl, Sonja<br/><br/>Abstract: This study investigated the inter-rater reliability when 169 out of 171 clinicians working in 10 Norwegian child and adolescent mental health services rated 20 written vignettes using the following outcome measures: Health of the Nation Outcome Scales for Children and Adolescents (HoNOSCA), Children's Global Assessment Scale (CGAS) and Global Assessment of Psychosocial Disability (GAPD). Three clinicians rated both patients and vignettes. On vignettes the intraclass correlation coefficient (ICC) for the HoNOSCA total score was 0.81 (single scales 0.47-0.96), for the CGAS 0.61 and for the GAPD 0.60. The reliability was not lower on patients. The rater's profession, experience or clinic did not have effect on the scores. Mon, 29 Oct 2007 22:58:59 GMT http://hdl.handle.net/10143/65217 Title: Cross-national reliability of clinician-rated outcome measures in child and adolescent mental health services.<br/><br/>Authors: Hanssen-Bauer, Ketil; Gowers, Simon; Aalen, Odd O; Bilenberg, Niels; Brann, Peter; Garralda, Elena; Merry, Sally; Heyerdahl, Sonja<br/><br/>Abstract: Clinician-rated measures are in extensive use as routine outcome measures in child and adolescent mental health services. We investigated cross-national differences and inter-rater reliability of the Health of the Nation Outcome Scales for Children and Adolescents (HoNOSCA), the Children's Global Assessment Scale (CGAS) and the Global Assessment of Psychosocial Disability (GAPD). Thirty clinicians from 5 nations independently rated 20 written vignettes. The national groups afterwards established national consensus ratings. There were no cross-national differences in independent scores, but there were differences in national consensus scores, which were also more severe than independent scores. The ICC for the HoNOSCA total score was 0.84, for the CGAS 0.61 and for the GAPD 0.54. These measures may usefully contribute to cross-national comparison studies. Mon, 29 Oct 2007 22:58:59 GMT