Participation and quality of life among youth with spinal cord injury.

AIM: Examine relationships between participation and quality of life (QOL) among youth with spinal cord injury (SCI). METHOD: Youth ages 6-18 years with SCI completed the Children's Assessment of Participation and Enjoyment, which measures participation frequency (diversity/intensity) and context (with whom/where), and the Pediatric Quality of Life Inventory, which measures emotional, social, school, and overall psychosocial QOL. Analyses were conducted separately for children (ages 6-12) and adolescents (ages 13-18) and included correlations and multiple regression. RESULTS: 340 youth participated; the participants were 56% male with an average age of 13.33 years (SD=3.75), 66% had paraplegia, and their average injury duration was 5.13 years (SD=4.31). Among children, participating further from home was related to increased social, school, and overall QOL. Among adolescents, participating with a more diverse group was related to greater emotional QOL. In general, participation context was more closely related to QOL, but among physical (for all youth) and social (for children) activities, frequency of participation was related to QOL. INTERPRETATION: Relationships between participation and QOL differ with child age. Among children, encouraging participation out of the home may be most beneficial to QOL. Among adolescents, fostering participation with a more varied group may be most beneficial to QOL.

Health-related quality of life after pediatric spinal cord injury.

OBJECTIVE: To describe health-related quality of life (HRQOL) among youth with spinal cord injury (SCI), examine agreement between child and caregiver report HRQOL, investigate relationships between HRQOL and demographic, injury and psychological variables. METHODS: Caregivers and youth with SCI completed a pediatric HRQOL measure and mental health measures; injury information was gathered from medical records. RESULTS: One hundred and ninety-seven youth with SCI and their caregivers participated. HRQOL was associated with current age, age at injury, level of injury and child and caregiver anxiety/depression. Child mental health significantly predicted child-report HRQOL (p < .001, f(2)=1.07), whereas child (p < .001, f(2) = 0.098) and caregiver (p < .001, f(2) = 0.277) mental health both significantly predicted caregiver-report HRQOL. Agreement between child-report and caregiver-report was moderate at best, with youth rating their HRQOL as better than their caregivers. CONCLUSION: Mental health of youth and caregivers is critical to HRQOL in pediatric SCI. Interventions to optimize psychological adjustment should be provided to both caregivers and youth.

Society for women in academic psychiatry: a peer mentoring approach.

OBJECTIVE: Despite an increasing presence of women in medicine, the percentage of women in academic psychiatry remains low. At the University of California, Davis, women represent two-thirds of psychiatry residents; however, the percentage of female faculty is one-third. This article presents a novel approach to the academic gender gap problem. METHOD: The Society for Women in Academic Psychiatry (S.W.A.P.) is a peer mentoring group founded by junior women faculty. RESULTS: S.W.A.P. results to date include educational products, departmental demographic changes, and climate improvement. CONCLUSIONS: Although results are encouraging, more effort is needed to achieve a true culture change.

Saturday-morning television: do sponsors promote high-risk behavior for burn injury?

Television has become an important tool for learning and socialization in children. Although television violence has been associated with adverse effects, data on depiction of fire and burn injury are lacking. We sought to determine whether Saturday-morning television programming, viewed primarily by children, depicts fire and burn injury as safe or without consequence, thus potentially increasing the incidence of burn injury in children. This was a prospective observational study. Saturday-morning children's television programs were videotaped from 7 AM to 11 AM for eight different television networks during a 6-month period. Tapes were scored for scenes depicting fire or smoke by independent observers. Recorded items included show category, scene type, gender target, context of fire, and outcome after exposure to flame. Fire events were documented during programs and their associated commercials. A total of 108 hours of children's programs, 16 hours per network, were recorded. Scenes depicting fire or smoke were identified 1960 times, with 39% of events occurring during the program itself and 61% in commercials. Fire was depicted as either safe or without consequence in 64% of incidents. Action adventure stories accounted for 56% of flame depictions. Overall, one incident involving flame and fire was portrayed for each 3 minutes of television programming. Saturday-morning television programming frequently depicts fire as safe, empowering, or exciting. The incidence of flame use in programming varies between stations but is most prevalent in action/adventure stories. Television commercials, although brief, provide the majority of the misinformation regarding fire. Medical professional societies should alert the public to this potential hazard and recommend responsible portrayal of fire in children's television programming.