Background: The seacoasts of the Japanese Arc are fringed by many gravel beaches owing to active tectonic uplift and intense denudation caused by heavy rainfall. These gravel beaches are inhabited by gobies of the genus Luciogobius that burrow into the gravel sediment and live interstitially. Although their habitat and morphology (e. g., reduced fins, elongated, scale-less body, and highly segmented vertebral column) are highly unusual among fishes, little is known on how their morphological evolution has facilitated the colonization of interstitial habitats and promoted extensive diversification. We conducted thorough sampling of Luciogobius and related species throughout Japan, and performed molecular phylogenetic analysis to explore the patterns of morphological evolution associated with gravel beach colonization.
Purpose-To assess the health-related quality of life (HRQOL) of parents of children with intermittent exotropia using the newly developed condition-specific Parent Intermittent Exotropia Questionnaire (Parent IXTQ) and the generic PedsQL Family Impact Module (PedsQL FIM) and to compare the performance of both instruments.Methods-One parent was recruited for each of 59 children with intermittent exotropia (age range, 3 to 16; median, 7 years) and for each of 29 visually normal children (age range, 5 to 13; median, 8 years). The parent completed the Parent IXTQ and the PedsQL FIM. For each questionnaire, we compared median HRQOL scores between the intermittent exotropia group and visually normal group. We also calculated normal thresholds, which were defined as the 5th percentile score in the cohort of parents of visually normal children. The proportion of subnormal scores between questionnaires in parents of children with intermittent exotropia was compared.Results-The Parent IXTQ score was worse in the intermittent exotropia group than in the visually normal group (70.6 vs 94.1, p < 0.0001), whereas the PedsQL FIM scores were similar (97.9 vs 95.8, p = 0.8). More parents scored below normal using the Parent IXTQ than using the PedsQL FIM (31% vs 12%; p = 0.008, McNemar's test).
Conclusions-TheParent IXTQ detects subnormal HRQOL in parents of children with intermittent exotropia more often than the PedsQL FIM. It is possible that parental worry may influence management decisions in children with intermittent exotropia and therefore parental HRQOL is worthy of further study.
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