Understanding the pubertal, psychosocial, and cognitive developmental trajectories of stunted and non-stunted adolescents: protocol of a multi-site Indonesian cohort study.

Background: The prevalence of stunting among Indonesian children aged 5-12 years decreased from 30.7% in 2013 to 23.6% in 2018 but has remained among the highest rates worldwide. Furthermore, Indonesian children were shorter than the standard reported by the World Health Organization and experienced obesity. The Indonesian government has created many programs to reduce stunting in children under the age of 5 years. An early preventive strategy is necessary because stunting can manifest within the initial 1,000 days of life, including during pregnancy. Therefore, a newer perspective, such as that achieved by addressing stunting in adolescents, has been deemed useful, given that adolescents are in their pubertal stage and are undergoing lifestyle changes. This cohort study was designed to measure these factors comprehensively in stunted and non-stunted children as they pass through adolescence. Methods: For the prospective cohort, 560 individuals will be recruited from DKI Jakarta, DI Yogyakarta, and East Java. The participants will be categorized into stunted and non-stunted groups, then undergo annual examinations in which key objectives, such as weight, height, and body mass index ,will be assessed for the growth profile; waist circumference, middle-upper arm circumference, hand-grip strength, body fat percentage, and food intake will be evaluated in a nutritional assessment; psychosocial and mental issues will be evaluated according to behavioral problems, symptoms of depression, quality of life, sleep patterns, anxiety disorders, and parenting style through the use of specific questionnaires; and pubertal stage will be assessed using a self-report questionnaire. Some cross-sectional data, such as cognitive performance, hair zinc levels, vitamin D levels, bone mineral density, and bone age, will also be included. All the outcomes will be analyzed in accordance with the variable types. Discussion: This study provides a thorough dataset of Indonesian adolescents encompassing several elements, such as growth, nutrition, psychosocial wellbeing, mental health, and pubertal development, for both stunted and non-stunted individuals. The data acquired from this study can be used to formulate policies to prevent stunting through targeted interventions for adolescents. Finally, a better understanding of adolescent health could lead to improved strategies to decrease the number of stunted individuals in the next Indonesian generation.

Language disorder as a marker for schizophrenia.

A language disorder is a significant symptom of schizophrenia. A psychiatrist can find this disorder when interviews with a patient. Screening and diagnosis in patients with schizophrenia alone rely heavily on interviews conducted on patients and any instructions captured from patients both verbally and nonverbally. A psychiatrist can also analyze the language aspects in schizophrenia from a language level perspective ranging from phonetic to pragmatic. This analysis paves the way for the process of interference detection since the prodromal phase. Language disorder in schizophrenia is often associated with impaired thinking processes. However, with the development of science and technology today, there is an objective and quantitative method of computational analysis of language through the Natural Language Processing process with a semantic space model that allows a psychiatrist to learn aspects of the human language process, especially in semantic and pragmatic aspects. The review provides a groundbreaking proposal for biomarkers for schizophrenia that have not been available so far through the assessment of language disorders in patients with schizophrenia. Objective and accurate detection of language disorders in schizophrenia can be a modality for psychiatrists to screen, make diagnoses, determine prognosis, evaluate therapies, and monitor recurrence using existing technology media.

Effect of parental skills-based psychoeducation intervention on parental stress index and severity of children with autism spectrum disorders: A pilot study.

OBJECTIVE: Analyzing the effect of psychoeducation on parental stress index and the severity of children with autism spectrum disorders. METHODS: Participants in the study consisted of autism spectrum disorder children and their parents who were divided into 2 groups (treatment = 15 and control group = 20). Participants were given psychoeducation as many as 6 sessions for 14 weeks (7 weeks for each group). Participants were measured for the value of the childhood autism rating scale (CARS) and autism parenting stress index (APSI) pre-post psychoeducation. RESULTS: There were significant differences in the treatment group in terms of total CARS values (40.73 ± 7.17 vs -7.67 ± 4.91; p < 0.001), communications (5.60 ± 1.45 vs -4.73 ± 1.49; p = 0.001), social interactions (10.20 ± 2.18 vs 8.93 ± 2.66; p = 0.011), and psychomotor (18.33 ± 3.96 vs 14.27 ± 3.90; p < 0.001) before and after psychoeducation, whereas there were no significant differences in the control group (p > 0.05). In the treatment group, there were significant differences in total APSI values (17.33 ± 9.99 vs 12.20 ± 4.02; p = 0.001), social difficulties (8.73 ± 4.60 vs 6.00 ± 4.02; p = 0.002), and physical (4.13 ± 3.54 vs 2.27 ± 2.99; p = 0.013) before and after psychoeducation, while there were no significant differences in behavior (p = 0.443). There were no significant differences in the control group (p > 0.05). There was a significant influence between psychoeducation on parental stress index (p = 0.003) and the severity of children with autism spectrum disorders (p < 0.001). CONCLUSION: There is a decrease in parental stress index and severity of children with autism spectrum disorders after parental psychoeducation intervention.