These data from South Africa are consistent with prior research indicating that pathological and problem gambling are seen in a range of socio-demographic groups, and that such behaviour is associated with significant morbidity and comorbidity. More work is needed locally to inform younger gamblers, gamblers using the informal gambling sector, and unemployed gamblers of the existing telephone counselling lines.
Please help populate SUNScholar with the full text of SU research output. Also - should you need this item urgently, please send us the details and we will try to get hold of the full text as quick possible. E-mail to scholar@sun.ac.za. Thank you.
Bringing together an international team of scholars, this book charts and analyzes the ways in which comic book history and new forms of graphic narrative have been impacted by aesthetic, social, political, economic, and cultural interactions that reach across national borders in an increasingly interconnected and globalizing world. Exploring the tendencies of graphic narratives - from popular comic book serials and graphic novels to manga - to cross national and cultural boundaries, Transnational Perspectives on Graphic Narratives addresses a previously marginalized area in comics studies. Placing graphic narratives in the global flow of cultural production and reception, the book investigates controversial representations of transnational politics, examines transnational adaptations of superhero characters, and maps many of the translations and transformations that have come to shape contemporary comics culture on a global scale.
The core feature of body dysmorphic disorder (BDD) is distressing or impairing preoccupation with nonexistent or slight defects in one's physical appearance. BDD beliefs are characterized by varying degrees of insight, ranging from good (ie, recognition that one's BDD beliefs are not true) through "absent insight/delusional" beliefs (ie, complete conviction that one's BDD beliefs are true). The Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, 3rd ed., rev. (DSM-III-R) and The Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, 4th ed. (DSM-IV) classified BDD's nondelusional form in the somatoform section of the manual and its delusional form in the psychosis section, as a type of delusional disorder, somatic type (although DSM-IV allowed double-coding of delusional BDD as both a psychotic disorder and BDD). However, little or no evidence on this issue was available when these editions were published. In this article, we review the classification of BDD's delusional and nondelusional variants in earlier editions of DSM and the limitations of their approaches. We then review empirical evidence on this topic, which has become available since DSM-IV was developed. Available evidence indicates that across a range of validators, BDD's delusional and nondelusional variants have many more similarities than differences, including response to pharmacotherapy. Based on these data, we propose that BDD's delusional and nondelusional forms be classified as the same disorder and that BDD's diagnostic criteria include an insight specifier that spans a range of insight, including absent insight/delusional BDD beliefs. We hope that this recommendation will improve care for patients with this common and often-severe disorder. This increased understanding of BDD may also have implications for other disorders that have an "absent insight/delusional" form.
Read moreThe change of definitions of AMI during the last decades has had a significant impact on the number of AMI events and a moderate impact on the AMI mortality among hospitalized patients.
Read moreWe found a systematic postponement of ultrasound-based compared with menstrual-based term estimation in women with type 1 diabetes. Relying solely on routine ultrasound-based term calculation for delivery decision may imply a risk of going beyond an optimal pregnancy length.
Read moreFunctional MRI studies investigating the impact of HIV on the brain have implicated the involvement of fronto-striatal circuitry. However, to date there is no review and meta-analysis of this work. We systematically reviewed the literature and performed a meta-analysis of functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) studies in HIV-infected individuals using a well validated tool recently developed for use in fMRI, 'GingerALE'. Twenty-one studies (468 HIV+, 270 HIV- controls) were qualitatively reviewed, of which six (105 HIV+, 102 controls) utilized fMRI paradigms engaging the fronto-striatal-parietal network, making a quantitative analysis possible. Our meta-analysis revealed consistent functional differences in the left inferior frontal gyrus and caudate nucleus between infected participants and controls across these studies. This fronto-striatal dysfunction was qualitatively related to cognitive impairment, disease progression and treatment effects. Although further work needs to be done to further delineate the potentially confounding influence of substance abuse and HIV-related comorbidities, as well as HIV's effect on functional haemodynamic vascular coupling, these findings indicate that further investigation of the fronto-striatal sub-networks in HIV-infected patients is warranted.
Read morePlease help populate SUNScholar with the full text of SU research output. Also - should you need this item urgently, please send us the details and we will try to get hold of the full text as quick possible. E-mail to scholar@sun.ac.za. Thank you.
Read moreThis multi-authored collaborative textbook on psychiatry, originally created on Wikibooks, discusses a range of psychiatric disorders, including psychotic, mood and and anxiety disorders, amongst many others. It covers other aspects of psychiatric care such as diagnosis, neurobiology, psychopharmacology, treatment methods, and dealing with agitated or violent patients.
Read moreThe revision of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM) provides a useful opportunity to revisit debates about the nature of psychiatric classification. An important debate concerns the involvement of mental health consumers in revisions of the classification. One perspective argues that psychiatric classification is a scientific process undertaken by scientific experts and that including consumers in the revision process is merely pandering to political correctness. A contrasting perspective is that psychiatric classification is a process driven by a range of different values and that the involvement of patients and patient advocates would enhance this process. Here we draw on our experiences with input from the public during the deliberations of the Obsessive Compulsive-Spectrum Disorders subworkgroup of DSM-5, to help make the argument that psychiatric classification does require reasoned debate on a range of different facts and values, and that it is appropriate for scientist experts to review their nosological recommendations in the light of rigorous consideration of patient experience and feedback.
Read moreDear editors, We thank the authors of the Letter to the Editors for their thoughtful comments on our systematic review [1]. They emphasize a number of reasons why pain in people living with HIV/AIDS has clinical and health importance. We certainly agree with this view, and indeed these sorts of concerns motivated us to undertake the review. The authors refer to four papers not included in the review [2–5]. Three of these papers were identified in the initial search but were excluded as they appeared to meet one of the exclusion criteria by reporting on sub-groupings of HIV-positive patients only [2,4,5]. While this criterion was arguably overly conservative, it is notable that the prevalence rates reported in these three papers fall within the range of estimates provided by the included studies. The fourth paper was published in early 2012 [3] and was not picked up by the literature search that we ran in March 2012. This paper is a useful contribution to the literature, and again the prevalence of pain falls within the estimates made in our review. We would like to reiterate the point made by our colleagues in their letter; it is time for the research on pain in HIV/AIDS to move beyond identifying and describing the problem of pain in people living with HIV/AIDS and on to developing and testing interventions which will improve pain assessment and management. RP was supported through a National Research Foundation Thuthuka Grant (76098), a University of Cape Town Carnegie Research Development Grant and a South African Society of Physiotherapy education grant. The authors have no competing interests to declare. All authors have read and approved the final manuscript.
Read more