Quality of parent-child relationship and adolescent HIV risk behaviour in St. Maarten.

The highest incidence rates of HIV/AIDS in the Caribbean are recorded in heterosexual and youth populations. With sparse prevention and intervention programmes in place, there is a pressing need to address the HIV/AIDS risk of youth. The objective of this analysis was to describe the extent of youth risk behaviour in St. Maarten and explore the relationship between quality of parental-child relationship and adolescent HIV risk behaviours. The sample consisted of 1,078 students (age range 14-18, mean 15.6 (s.d. 1.7). The data were collected by self-report survey in the Spring of 2001 in the classrooms of all seven secondary schools in St. Maarten. The survey instrument included demographic information, and used questions derived from the Center for Disease Control's (CDC) Youth Risk Behavior Survey (YRBS) to assess health risk behaviour prevalence, including tobacco, alcohol, and drug use, and sexual activity. The survey also asked youth to rate their relationship with their parents. Analysis showed a relatively high rate of risk behaviour in this school population. Multi-variate analysis showed that a 'great' relationship with both parents, as perceived by the student, was significantly associated with lower rates of tobacco and alcohol use as well as lower rates of sexual activity.

AIDS risk among students attending Seventh-day Adventist school, in North America.

In 1995, a survey was conducted among students attending 69 Seventh-day Adventist (SDA) high schools within the United States and Canada. The survey assessed the extent that these students practiced sexual and drug-use behaviors which place them at risk for contracting or transmitting the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV). A total of 1,748 respondents enrolled in grades 9 through 12 completed questionnaires similar to the instrument used in the 1993 Youth Risk Behavior Survey (YRBS). Data were collected and compared to results from the 1993 YRBS. Students who attended SDA parochial schools reported lower rates of sexual intercourse compared to YRBS school counterparts (16.3% vs. 53.1%) and lower rates of all substances measured. Furthermore, respondents were more likely to engage in substance use and sexual intercourse if they had at least one parent who used tobacco, alcohol, or marijuana, as reported by the students.

Assessment of the beta-adrenergic receptor pathway in the intact failing human heart: progressive receptor down-regulation and subsensitivity to agonist response.

We developed methods for identifying beta-adrenergic receptors in human right ventricular endomyocardial biopsy tissue with the radioligand (-)[125I]iodocyanopindolol (ICYP). Specific ICYP binding in a crude, high-yield membrane preparation derived from endomyocardial biopsy tissue was high (specificity greater than 90%), of high affinity (KD around 20 pM), saturable and stereospecific for the (-) vs the (+) isomer of isoproterenol. Subjects with mild-moderate and severe biventricular dysfunction had respective decreases in beta-adrenergic receptor density of 38.2% and 57.7% when normalization methods were averaged, with no significant differences in ICYP dissociation constant. A subgroup of subjects was subdivided by left ventricular ejection fraction (LVEF) into those with mild cardiac dysfunction (LVEF less than 0.50 greater than 0.40) and severe heart failure (LVEF less than 0.20) and given graded sequential infusions of dobutamine and calcium gluconate. Those with severe cardiac dysfunction had marked impairment of the dobutamine dP/dt and stroke work index response, whereas these responses to calcium did not differ in the two groups. These data indicate that in the intact human heart endomyocardial biopsy may be used for direct analysis of beta-adrenergic receptors, heart failure-associated myocardial beta-adrenergic down-regulation begins with mild-moderate ventricular dysfunction, reduction in myocardial beta-receptor density is related to degree of heart failure, and beta-receptor down-regulation is associated with pharmacologically specific impairment of the beta-agonist-mediated contractile response.