A great number of questionnaires and instruments have been developed in order to measure psychological distress/mental health problems in populations. The Survey of Level of Living in 1998 conducted by Statistics Norway used both Hopkins Symptom Checklist (SCL-25) and the Short Form 36 (SF-36), including the five-item mental health index (MHI-5). Five-item and 10-item versions of the SCL-25 have also been used in Norwegian surveys. The purpose of this study was to investigate the correlation between the various instruments, and to assess and to compare psychometric characteristics. A random sample of 9735 subjects over 15 years of age drawn from the Norwegian population received a questionnaire about their health containing SCL-25 and SF-36. Response rate was 71.9%. Reliability of the SCLs and MHI-5 were assessed by Cronbach alpha. The scores from full and abbreviated instruments were compared regarding possible instrument-specific effects of gender, age and level of education. The correlations between the instruments were calculated. The capacity of the various instruments to identify cases was assessed in terms of sensitivity, specificity, predictive values, receiver operating characteristics (ROC) and area under the curve (AUC). The reliabilities were high (Cronbach alpha>0.8). All instruments showed a significant difference in the mean scores for men and women. The correlation between the various versions of SCL ranged from 0.91 to 0.97. The correlation between the MHI-5 and the SCLs ranged from -0.76 to -0.78. The prevalence rate was 11.1% for SCL-25 scores above 1.75 and 9.7% for scores below 56 in MHI-5. AUC values indicated good screening accordance between the measures (AUC>0.92). The results suggest that the shorter versions of SCL perform almost as well as the full version. The corresponding cut-off points to the conventional 1.75 for SCL-25 are 1.85 for SCL-10 and 2.0 for SCL-5. MHI-5 correlates highly with the SCL and the AUC indicate that the instruments might replace each other in population surveys, at least when considering depression. An operational advantage of the MHI-5 over the SCL instruments is that it has been widely used not only in surveys of mental health, but also in surveys of general health.

This is an update of the Norwegian Mother and Child Cohort Study (MoBa) cohort profile which was published in 2006. Pregnant women attending a routine ultrasound examination were initially invited. The first child was born in October 1999 and the last in July 2009. The participation rate was 41%. The cohort includes more than 114 000 children, 95 000 mothers and 75 000 fathers. About 1900 pairs of twins have been born. There are approximately 16 400 women who participate with more than one pregnancy. Blood samples were obtained from both parents during pregnancy and from mothers and children (umbilical cord) after birth. Samples of DNA, RNA, whole blood, plasma and urine are stored in a biobank. During pregnancy, the mother responded to three questionnaires and the father to one. After birth, questionnaires were sent out when the child was 6 months, 18 months and 3 years old. Several sub-projects have selected participants for in-depth clinical assessment and exposure measures. The purpose of this update is to explain and describe new additions to the data collection, including questionnaires at 5, 7, 8 and 13 years as well as linkages to health registries, and to point to some findings and new areas of research. Further information can be found at [www.fhi.no/moba-en]. Researchers interested in collaboration and access to the data can complete an electronic application available on the MoBa website above.

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There is a need for a short form questionnaire with known psychometric characteristics that may be used as an indicator of level of global mental distress. A weighted sum of 5 questions from the Symptom Check List (SCL) anxiety and depression subscales (SCL-25) correlates at r = 0.92 with the global SCL-25 score. The alpha reliability for the (5-item) short form questionnaire was 0.85%. Age differences seemed to be trivial, and sex differences were moderate. Descriptive statistics for short form scores in a large, representative sample are given.

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Summary Background Elevated blood pressure and glucose, serum cholesterol, and body mass index (BMI) are risk factors for cardiovascular diseases (CVDs); some of these factors also increase the risk of chronic kidney disease (CKD) and diabetes. We estimated CVD, CKD, and diabetes mortality attributable to these four cardio-metabolic risk factors for all countries and regions between 1980 and 2010. Methods We used data on risk factor exposure by country, age group, and sex from pooled analysis of population-based health surveys. Relative risks for cause-specific mortality were obtained from pooling of large prospective studies. We calculated the population attributable fractions (PAF) for each risk factor alone, and for the combination of all risk factors, accounting for multi-causality and for mediation of the effects of BMI by the other three risks. We calculated attributable deaths by multiplying the cause-specific PAFs by the number of disease-specific deaths from the Global Burden of Diseases, Injuries, and Risk Factors 2010 Study. We propagated the uncertainties of all inputs to the final estimates. Findings In 2010, high blood pressure was the leading risk factor for dying from CVDs, CKD, and diabetes in every region, causing over 40% of worldwide deaths from these diseases; high BMI and glucose were each responsible for about 15% of deaths; and cholesterol for 10%. After accounting for multi-causality, 63% (10.8 million deaths; 95% confidence interval 10.1–11.5) of deaths from these diseases were attributable to the combined effect of these four metabolic risk factors, compared with 67% (7.1 million deaths; 6.6–7.6) in 1980. The mortality burden of high BMI and glucose nearly doubled between 1980 and 2010. At the country level, age-standardised death rates attributable to these four risk factors surpassed 925 deaths per 100,000 among men in Belarus, Mongolia, and Kazakhstan, but were below 130 deaths per 100,000 for women and below 200 for men in some high-income countries like Japan, Singapore, South Korea, France, Spain, The Netherlands, Australia, and Canada. Interpretations The salient features of the cardio-metabolic epidemic at the beginning of the twenty-first century are the large role of high blood pressure and an increasing impact of obesity and diabetes. There has been a shift in the mortality burden from high-income to low- and middle-income countries.

The IES-6 appears to be a robust brief measure of posttraumatic stress reactions. It may be useful for research in epidemiological studies, and it may also have a role as a screening instrument in clinical practice.

PurposeTo give a systematic review of the development of noise-induced hearing loss (NIHL) in working life.MethodsA literature search in MEDLINE, Embase, Web of Science, Scopus, and Health and Safety Abstracts, with appropriate keywords on noise in the workplace and health, revealed 22,413 articles which were screened by six researchers. A total of 698 articles were reviewed in full text and scored with a checklist, and 187 articles were found to be relevant and of sufficient quality for further analysis.ResultsOccupational noise exposure causes between 7 and 21 % of the hearing loss among workers, lowest in the industrialized countries, where the incidence is going down, and highest in the developing countries. It is difficult to distinguish between NIHL and age-related hearing loss at an individual level. Most of the hearing loss is age related. Men lose hearing more than women do. Heredity also plays a part. Socioeconomic position, ethnicity and other factors, such as smoking, high blood pressure, diabetes, vibration and chemical substances, may also affect hearing. The use of firearms may be harmful to hearing, whereas most other sources of leisure-time noise seem to be less important. Impulse noise seems to be more deleterious to hearing than continuous noise. Occupational groups at high risk of NIHL are the military, construction workers, agriculture and others with high noise exposure.ConclusionThe prevalence of NIHL is declining in most industrialized countries, probably due to preventive measures. Hearing loss is mainly related to increasing age.Electronic supplementary materialThe online version of this article (doi:10.1007/s00420-015-1083-5) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.