The aim of this paper is to examine aggressive behaviors among Romanian high school students between 15 and 16 years old, to compare data in two national representative samples and to identify factors associated with physical fighting. This study investigates the association of selected factors (social, school performance and substance use) with physical fighting. A total of 2289 Romanian students were included in the 2007 database and 2770 in the 2011 database. This study revealed that 35.87% of the teenagers have taken part in a physical fight during the previous 12 months, as compared with the European average of 31.5%. Romania has the highest prevalence of violent behavior by participating in a group bruising of an individual in both surveys, 2007 and 2011. A logistic regression analysis performed for the 2011 study revealed the following factors associated with physical fighting: binge drinking during the previous 30 days, male gender, serious problems with friends, parent(s) who do not know where and with whom the adolescents spend their evenings, poor parental caring, low school grades, and high truancy. A decrease in almost all aggressive behaviors was noticed in 2011, compared to 2007. These findings may be useful to support and guide policy makers regarding improvement and implementation of strategies to further prevent aggressive behaviors in teenagers.
Background and Objectives: Responding to the need for additional biomarkers for the diagnosis of prostate cancer (PCa), mounting studies show that microRNAs (miRNAs/miRs) possess great potential as future promising diagnostic tools. However, the usefulness of these miRNAs is still highly debated, as the degree of inconsistency between study designs and results is still elevated. Herein, we present a meta-analysis evaluating the diagnostic value and accuracy of circulating miR-375, as it is one of the most studied types of miRs in PCa. Materials and Methods: The diagnostic accuracy of miR-375 was evaluated using the QUADAS-2 tool, analyzing different statistical parameters. The seven studies (from six articles) that matched our selection included 422 PCa patients and 212 controls (70 healthy volunteers + 142 with benign prostate diseases). Results and Conclusion: We obtained a p-value of 0.76 for sensitivity, 0.83 for specificity, 16 for DOR, 4.6 for LR+, 0.29 for LR−, and 0.87 for AUC (95% CI 0.83–0.89). Our results confirm that miRNA-375 has high diagnostic potential for PCa, suggesting its usefulness as a powerful biomarker. More comprehensive studies are warranted to better assess its true value as a diagnostic biomarker for this urologic disease.
Medical professionals require adequate abilities to identify others’ emotions and express personal emotions. We aimed to determine the validity and reliability of an empathy measuring tool in medical students for this study. We employed Spreng’s Toronto Empathy Questionnaire (TEQ) as a starting point for this validation. The process was performed in several steps, including an English-Romanian-English translation and a focus group meeting to establish each question’s degree of understandability and usability, with minor improvements of wording in each step. We checked internal and external consistency in a pilot group (n = 67). For construct and convergent validity, we used a sample of 649 students. The overall internal and external reliability performed well, with Cronbach’s alpha = 0.727 and respective ICC = 0.776. The principal component analysis resulted in 3 components: prosocial helping behavior, inappropriate sensitivity, dismissive attitude. Component 1 includes positively worded questions, and components 2 and 3 include negatively worded questions. Women had significantly higher scores than men in convergent validity, but we did not highlight any differences for other demographic factors. The Romanian version of the TEQ is a reliable and valid tool to measure empathy among undergraduate medical students that may be further used in subsequent research.
Background: Coronary heart disease is a public health problem, and the leading cause of premature death in Europe and worldwide. There is epidemiological evidence that the control of cardiovascular risk factors following myocardial revascularization remains suboptimal.
Background and aims: C-reactive protein (CRP) is an inflammatory biomarker that may be associated with diabetic retinopathy (DR). The body mass index (BMI) is
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