Group PFMT under intensive supervision produced significantly better improvements in primary and secondary outcomes in the short-term compared to individual, unsupervised home application of PFMT.

Introduction Patients' sexual concerns are frequently underestimated because of health professionals' reluctance to address sexual health issues. Though it has been documented that sexual attitudes are extremely influential in everyday clinical practice, limited data exist on identifying health professionals' attitudes. Aim To explore sexual attitudes in medical students and students in allied health professions. Main Outcome Measures The Derogatis Sexual Functioning Inventory (DSFI)–Attitude Subscale was used to assess sexual attitudes. Methods The sample included 1st and 4th year college students enrolled in the following academic departments/schools of two academic institutions leading to health professions: medical school, psychology, pharmaceutical school, nursing and midwifery. Demographic data were obtained relating to sexual behaviors and information sources on sexual issues. Data were analyzed using independent samples t-test and two-way analysis of variance, as well as logistic regression and Pearson's correlation coefficient. Results A total of 714 students (81.9% females) participated in the study: 48.5% 1st year students and 51.5% seniors with a mean age of 20.17 years (SD=1.87, range 17–25). Using iterative cluster analysis on DSFI scores, participants were divided in conservative (N=167), liberal (N=224), and neutral (N=323) clusters. A significant gender difference on sexual attitudes was obtained (P <0.001) with male students being more liberal compared to females (mean=18.26 and mean=11.13, respectively). Differences were also revealed for the field but not for the year of study. Analysis also revealed that liberalism in sexual attitudes is more likely to be affected by a liberal stance toward religion (OR: 2.39), receiving information for sexual matters mainly from peers (OR: 1.86), and media influence on students' sexual life (OR: 1.68). Conclusions Gender, personal values, and experiences influence students' attitudes toward sexual issues. Since negative attitudes can impede effective sexual health consultations, it is imperative to incorporate courses on effective communication and human sexuality in the medical and allied health professions curricula that will enhance students' awareness of their own values and prejudices.

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From the beginning of the twenty-first century, many authorities and educational policies had begun to campaign their curricula towards the promotion of creativity. Researchers' interest turned to teachers' perceptions, implicit theories and beliefs about creativity-related issues which reflect and influence their behaviours and actions in classroom settings. Till today, no research recorded physical educators' (PEds) perceptions about creativity-(PAC) related issues, although many EU member states promote creativity in their primary curricula. The PAC questionnaire was developed to explore PEds' perceptions on: (a) the characteristics of creative students, (b) students' creative outcomes, (c) the nature of creativity and (d) the creativity fostering and inhibiting classroom environment. The present paper discusses the findings from the two latter aspects. Although PEds seemed to lean towards the democratic approach of creativity, many of them held contradicting views. Also, they appeared undecided, unaware and inconsistent with regard to creativity fostering classroom environment issues.

The ordinary nature of creativity and the global acceptance of its significance have made it a key characteristic of citizens in knowledge-based societies. Although research interest in recording teachers' perceptions on creativity and its promotion have been noticeably increasing, a remarkable gap has been observed in teachers' behaviors and actions to promote creativity. The purpose of this study was to delineate teaching behaviors and actions when educators try to promote students' creativity in class. The Creativity Fostering Teacher Behaviors (CFTB) checklist is based on the well-established theory of Cropley (1997), who suggested what behaviors teachers should demonstrate to foster their students' creativity. The CFTB checklist has been developed through a content validity method and has been tested for interrater reliability, which has been found to be very satisfactory. We observed 30 physical educators (PEds) twice during PE lessons in which they aimed to foster students' creative expression. PEds expressed only a minority of their creativity-fostering behaviors and actions, especially those associated with encouraging the responsibility of learning, such as the enhancement of autonomy, independence, and social integration, during learning processes. On the contrary, the enhancement of flexibility, a top indicator of creative achievements denoting a person's divergent thinking, and the positive management of failure and frus-Elisavet P.

Treatment options for female stress urinary incontinence include pelvic floor muscle training, lifestyle interventions, bladder retraining, pharmacotherapy, anti-incontinence devices and surgery. Several consensus statements recommend pelvic floor muscle training as first line treatment. The aim of this review is to analyse all the currently available data and propose a treatment algorithm for clinical practice. A literature-based critical presentation of all treatment modalities, methods of assessing efficacy and comparison between them using a patient-centered approach was made. Many of the studies are observational, non-randomized with several methodological problems that lead to confusion. Emphasis was made to high quality randomized trials. The proposed treatment algorithm established only on evidence-based data. Management strategy however, must identify patient expectations and involve them in the decision-making more than traditional measures of treatment success.

The objective of this study was to measure autoantibodies and the mean individual immune reactivity (IR) in children with asthma. The study group consisted of ten children with asthma and the control group of ten age-matched healthy subjects. In all patients IR and 24 autoantibodies (aAb) type G were measured by ELISA (Immunculus, Russia). The IR in asthmatics was 42% and was statistically significantly higher than this of control group 9% (p < 0.005). The level of aAbs (LuM, LuS, CoM and dsDNA) was also raised in the asthmatics. Anti-Adr aAbs was higher in one patient who required intense treatment for asthma with frequent use of corticosteroids. Anti-HMMP, insulin and IR aAbs were significantly lower in comparison to the control group (p < 0.05). This study confirms the high level of immunological activation in patients with asthma. The presence of autoantibodies implies that autoimmunity might have a role in the pathogenesis of asthma.

The COVID-19 pandemic has been going on for the last two years and it has affected our society and, amongst other things, has had a negative impact on blood donation, which has led to a significant reduction in blood supplies worldwide. The imposed restrictions in terms of physical presence and transportation, and the fear of the unknown, have aggravated the situation. In Greece, after the first cases of COVID-19 were reported, the blood supplies at the blood transfusion units (BTUs) were dramatically reduced. Although the blood transfusions were lessened during the COVID-19 pandemic period, the blood stocks at all the BTUs of the country were also reduced.