Barriers and facilitators to social prescribing in child and youth mental health: perspectives from the frontline.

There is growing interest in the role of Social Prescribing (SP) to help promote mental well-being and support individuals with mental health difficulties. Yet, implementation of SP to children and young people (CYP) has proved slow and underdeveloped compared with adult populations. Understanding the barriers and facilitators will help key stakeholders to better embed SP for CYP into practice. Using the Theoretical Domains Framework (TDF), a comprehensive, theoretical-led framework, underpinned by 33 behaviour change theories and 128 constructs, perceived barriers and facilitators to SP were investigated. The sample comprised of 11 Link Workers and 9 individuals involved in facilitating SP with CYP, who took part in semi-structured interviews. Transcripts were analysed using a deductive thematic analysis, and themes were coded under each theoretical domain. Overall, 33 barriers and facilitators for SP were identified across 12 domains of the TDF. Under capability, barriers and facilitators were found for knowledge, skills, memory/attention/decision making processes, and behavioural regulation. For opportunity, barriers and facilitators were found for social/professional influences, as well as environmental context and resources. Finally, for motivation, domains covered included: beliefs about consequences, beliefs about capabilities, optimism, motivations/goals, reinforcement, and emotions. Findings suggest that a wide range of barriers and facilitators affect the implementation of CYP SP to improve mental health and well-being. Interventions which target different domains related to capability, opportunity and motivation should be developed to better facilitate CYP SP.

Do people perceive benefits in the use of social prescribing to address loneliness and/or social isolation? A qualitative meta-synthesis of the literature.

Social prescribing is a means by which clinical services can link individuals who have psychological, social and/or practical needs with non-clinical services within their local community. There is a lack of empirical evidence investigating whether social prescribing helps such individuals and which interventions are the most effective and accepted by them to address their loneliness. This meta-synthesis aimed to synthesise findings from qualitative studies exploring experiences of people (of any age) who participated in any social prescribing intervention aimed at loneliness and/or social isolation to ascertain whether they felt it helped address loneliness/isolation and the potential mechanisms by which this might occur. We conducted a systematic search of 5 electronic databases and 4 other databases that would yield grey literature in April 2021 to identify qualitative articles on this topic written in English or French. We assessed the quality of the included studies using recognised tools, and synthesised findings using the approach of thematic analysis. We identified 19 records analysed (e.g. journal articles) from 18 studies meeting inclusion criteria. Our analysis identified three themes: (1) increased sense of wellbeing (with six subthemes), (2) factors that engendered an ongoing desire to connect with others, and (3) perceived drawbacks of social prescribing. These themes illustrate the benefits and difficulties people perceive in social prescribing programmes addressing loneliness and social isolation, with an overall balance of more benefits than drawbacks in social prescribing participation. However, given the unhelpful aspects of social prescribing identified by some participants, greater thought should be given to potential harms. Moreover, further qualitative and quantitative research is needed to better understand mechanisms and effectiveness, and how different components of social prescribing might be best matched to individual participants.

Comparison of the effects of barbiturate, benzodiazepine and ketamine on visual evoked potentials in rabbits.

The aim of this study was to compare the effects of barbiturate, benzodiazepine and ketamine on flash-evoked potentials (F-VEP) in adult rabbits. A total of 36 animals were studied, 16 after pentobarbital endovenous (EV) infusion, 10 after midazolam EV administration, and 10 after ketamine EV infusion. Pentobarbital induced triphasic F-VEP, first negative (N1), second positive (P1), third negative (N2) waves, all with large amplitudes and P1 with well-defined morphology. Mean P1 latency was 33ms. Midazolam induced similar but less defined triphasic waves, with mean latency of 27ms. Ketamine induced poliphasic and poorly defined F-VEP, with mean first positive (P1) latency of 27ms. Statistical analysis showed more elongated latency for the pentobarbital group than the midazolam and ketamine groups. The results of this study suggest that the pharmacological effects of pentobarbital and midazolam on GABA neurotransmission in rabbit visual cortex may be different; another neurotransmission system, possibly cholinergic, may be involved. The ketamine effect seen in rabbit visual cortex seems to be different from pentobarbital and midazolam.

Mononeuropathy of the suprascapular nerve: study of 3 South American cases.

In this work 3 new cases of suprascapular nerve mononeuropathy are described. ENMG diagnosis criteria were: a) normal sensory conduction studies of the ipsolateral ulnar, median and radial nerves; b) bilateral suprascapular nerve latencies with bilateral compound muscle action potential, obtained from the infraspinatus muscle with symmetrical techniques; and c) abnormal neurogenic infraspinatus muscle electromyographic findings, coexisting with normal electromyographical data of the ipsolateral deltoideus and supraspinatus muscles. These 3 cases of suprascapular mononeurpathy were found in 6,080 ENMG exams from our University Hospital. For us this mononeuropathy is rare with a 0.05% occurrence.

Determination of sulphite in wine by coulometric titration.

A method for the determination of both free and bound S(IV) in white wine samples by coulometric titration with electrogenerated iodine is described, the S(IV) speciation being performed by extracting SO2 from samples acidified wiith hydrochloric acid. Titrations of samples treated with NaOH led to the total S(IV) concentration, the results being in agreement with the ones obtained by the distillation procedure as well as by using the classical Monier-Williams method. An average recovery of 97% was obtained for samples spiked with S(IV) in the range 0.4-1.2 mM, which demonstrated the validity of the proposed procedure. The repeatability was 1.3% and the limit of detection was estimated as 0.01 mM. Results from direct titrations of wine added to the electrochemical cell are reported, which give indications of the stability of adducts towards the reaction with iodine.

Determination of the solubility product of Ba(IO(3))(2) by flow injection with amperometric detection.

The solubility of Ba(IO(3))(2) has been determined in solutions containing a supporting electrolyte (KCl) to maintain the ionic strength in the 0-0.5 M range. The approach envisaged was based in the amperometric determination of iodine (or triiodide) generated in the reaction involving iodate in equilibrium in the saturated solutions and iodide contained in the solution carrier using a flow injection procedure, the electrode potential being maintained at +0.2 V in a wall-jet cell. The effect of the supporting electrolyte on the solubility of barium iodate was demonstrated and a good approximation of the value for the thermodynamic solubility constant of the precipitate was found by an appropriate correction of the solubility data using mean activity coefficients of barium iodate. The mean activity coefficients were estimated at each ionic strength by using the Debye-Hückel equation and the corrected solubility constant determined at 27 degrees C was found to be 2.7x10(-9) mol(3) l(-3).

Amperometric detection with microelectrodes in flow injection analysis: theoretical aspects and application in the determination of nitrite in saliva.

The construction of a wall-jet cell with amperometric detection using a set of disc electrodes whose radii ranged from 5 to 750 mum has been proposed. The influence of some experimental parameters like flow rate and electrode radius on hydrodynamic voltammograms recorded for a 0.5 mmol dm(-3) potassium ferrocyanide solution also containing 0.1 mol dm(-3) KCl has been discussed. Some considerations regarding the current signals obtained from flow injection experiments using both a 5- and a 750-mum radius platinum electrode were carried out in order to achieve the lowest limit of detection, a value of 0.03 mumol dm(-3) ferrocyanide being calculated by using the 5-mum radius microelectrode as amperometric detector. The wall-jet cell has been used in the determination of nitrite in saliva by quantifying the triiodide formed in the reaction of the analyte with excess iodide in acidic medium. A 12.5-mum platinum disc microelectrode maintained at +0.2 V vs. Ag/AgCl was used as amperometric detector. Peaks obtained in fiagrams after injection of diluted saliva to the carrier stream containing 0.1 mol dm(-3) sulphuric acid and 20 mmol dm(-3) potassium iodide were compared to an analytical curve obtained in the same conditions (r(2)=0.997) for a nitrite concentration in the range 1-10 mumol dm(-3). The concentration of nitrite in the saliva sample after the appropriate correction for dilution was found to be 2.3 ppm (0.05 mmol dm(-3)), in a good agreement with results obtained by using a standard spectrophotometric procedure (2.5 ppm). The limit of detection of the method was calculated as 0.2 mumol dm(-3), and the reproducibility was checked by measuring the peak current for 19 injections of 10 muM nitrite, the standard deviation being 3.7%.

Potentiometric studies of indium(III) azide complexes in aqueous medium.

The stability constants of indium-azide complexes were determined by the potentiometric method (glass electrode). The effect monitored was the change in pH of a solution of azide and hydrazoic acid (N(-)(3)/HN(3)) when indium(III) cations were added. The azide concentration was varied from close to zero to 90mM, the ionic strength being kept at 2.000 M with sodium perchlorate and the temperature at 25.0 degrees . Evaluation of experimental data showed only mononuclear species, and the global constants found were beta(1) = (2.0 +/- 0.1) x 10(3), beta(2) = (7 +/- 2) x 10(5), beta(3) = (5 +/- 1) x 10(7) and beta(4) = (7 +/- 3) x 10(8).