Ask Me! self-reported features of adolescents experiencing neglect or emotional maltreatment: a rapid systematic review.

BACKGROUND: Neglect is often overlooked in adolescence, due in part to assumptions about autonomy and misinterpretation of behaviors being part of normal adolescent development. Emotional maltreatment (abuse or neglect) has a damaging effect throughout the lifespan, but is rarely recognized amongst adolescents. Our review aims to identify features that adolescents experiencing neglect and/ or emotional maltreatment report. METHOD: A rapid review methodology searched 8 databases (1990-2014), supplemented by hand searching journals, and references, identifying 2,568 abstracts. Two independent reviews were undertaken of 279 articles, by trained reviewers, using standardised critical appraisal. Eligible studies: primary studies of children aged 13-17 years, with substantiated neglect and/ or emotional maltreatment, containing self-reported features. RESULTS: 19 publications from 13 studies were included, demonstrating associations between both neglect and emotional maltreatment with internalising features (9 studies) including depression, post traumatic symptomatology and anxiety; emotional maltreatment was associated with suicidal ideation, while neglect was not (1 study); neglect was associated with alcohol related problems (3 studies), substance misuse (2 studies), delinquency for boys (1 study), teenage pregnancy (1 study), and general victimization for girls (1 study), while emotionally maltreated girls reported more externalising symptoms (1 study). Dating violence victimization was associated with neglect and emotional maltreatment (2 studies), while emotional abuse of boys, but not neglect, was associated with dating violence perpetration (1 study), and neither neglect nor emotional maltreatment had an association with low self-esteem (2 studies). Neither neglect nor emotional maltreatment had an effect on school performance (1 study), but neglected boys showed greater school engagement than neglected girls (1 study). CONCLUSIONS: If asked, neglected or emotionally maltreated adolescents describe significant difficulties with their mental health, social relationships, and alcohol or substance misuse. Practitioners working with youths who exhibit these features should recognize the detrimental impact of maltreatment at this developmental stage, and identify whether maltreatment is a contributory factor that should be addressed.

A systematic review of the emotional, behavioural and cognitive features exhibited by school-aged children experiencing neglect or emotional abuse.

BACKGROUND: Interventions to minimize the long-term consequences of neglect or emotional abuse rely on prompt identification of these children. This systematic review of world literature (1947-2012) identifies features that children aged 5-14 years experiencing neglect or emotional abuse, as opposed to physical or sexual abuse, may exhibit. METHODS: Searching 18 databases, utilizing over 100 keywords, supplemented by hand searching, 13,210 articles were identified and 111 underwent full critical appraisal by two independent trained reviewers. RESULTS: The 30 included studies highlighted behavioural features (15 studies), externalizing features being the most prominent (8/9 studies) and internalizing features noted in 4/6 studies. Four studies identified attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) associated features: impulsivity, inattention or hyperactivity. Child difficulties in initiating or developing friendships were noted in seven studies. Of 13 studies addressing emotional well-being, three highlighted low self-esteem, with a perception of external control (1), or depression (6) including suicidality (1). A negative internal working model of the mother increased the likelihood of depression (1). In assessing cognition or academic performance, lower general intelligence (3/4) and reduced literacy and numeracy (2) were reported, but no observable effect on memory (3). CONCLUSIONS: School-aged children presenting with poor academic performance, ADHD symptomatology or abnormal behaviours warrant assessment of neglect or emotional abuse as a potential underlying cause.

Socio-demographic variations in perspectives on cardiovascular disease and associated risk factors.

Coronary heart disease (CHD) rates in Ireland are very high but little is known about attitudes to the disease. Qualitative attitudinal data were collected in focus group settings from 74 individuals across socio-demographic categories in order to assess knowledge of and attitudes to CHD and associated risk factors. Focus group questions were derived from group deconstruction of constructs from the Health Belief Model, Theory of Planned Behaviour, Protection Motivation Theory and Social Learning Theory. Participants were drawn from the personnel lists of local government and a health authority hospital. Eight types of groups were constructed according to the various permutations of the three variables: age, gender and occupational group. Analyses revealed good knowledge levels about risk factors among participants. However, participants exhibited mixed loci of control and low motivation to change behaviours. Men generally were less motivated to change than women; older men thought it too late and younger ones too soon. Though white and blue collar groups' views were similar, the discussion in white collar groups was more varied. Participants were sceptical about apparently contradictory medical advice which undermined motivation to change. The data complement earlier work and suggest preventative initiatives should be more focused.

The com locus controls genetic transformation in Streptococcus pneumoniae.

Genetic exchange by natural transformation in Streptococcus pneumoniae occurs in a cell-density dependent process and is initiated by a small extracellular signalling molecule, the competence-stimulating peptide (CSP). comC, the gene for this peptide, has previously been identified and encodes a 44 amino acid pre-peptide that is apparently processed to an active molecule that consists of the C-terminal 17 amino acids. We have sequenced the region adjacent to comC and shown that it is the first gene of an operon, com, consisting of two downstream elements, comD and comE, which encode members of the two-component family of sensor regulators. Null mutants with defects in either comC or comD were transformation deficient and failed to respond to exogenous CSP. A comC mutant did not exhibit any detectable CSP activity, while a comD mutant that contained an intact comC produced minimal CSP activity. In mixed-culture experiments consisting of isogenic pairs of pneumococci (Csp+ and Csp-), we showed that induction of competence by quorum sensing was independent of CSP. Northern analysis showed that com was transcribed as a single polycistronic message, while analysis of strains with transcriptional fusions showed that com was constitutively expressed under conditions that both promoted or repressed the development of competence. Finally, we showed genetically and biochemically a CSP-dependent transcription of rec, a competence-induced locus, and that ComD and ComE are required for this CSP-dependent expression.

Peptide permeases from Streptococcus pneumoniae affect adherence to eucaryotic cells.

To gain access to tissues within the human host, Streptococcus pneumoniae initially colonizes the nasopharynx and then interacts with glycoconjugates on the surfaces of target cells at various sites of infection. Although pneumococcal adhesins are currently unknown, exported proteins on the bacterial surface are potential candidates. To identify bacterial elements involved in this process, mutants of S. pneumoniae with defects in exported proteins were screened for the inability to adhere to cells representative of three in vivo niches: (i) agglutination of bovine erythrocytes, which reflects adherence to cells which reside in the nasopharynx; (ii) human type II pneumocytes (lung cells [LC]), representing the alveolar site of infection; and (iii) human vascular endothelial cells (EC), representing the endovascular site. The capacity of the mutants to adhere during the course of pneumococcal disease was also assessed by using cytokine-activated LC and EC. All of the 30 mutants analyzed produced hemagglutination values comparable with those of the parent strain. Four independent mutants demonstrated a greater than 50% decrease in adherence to both LC and EC. Sequence analysis of the altered alleles from these strains showed that mutations had occurred in two previously identified loci, plpA and ami, which belong to the family of genes encoding protein-dependent peptide permeases. Mutations in the ami locus resulted in an inability to recognize the GalNAc beta 1-4Gal glycoconjugate receptor present on resting LC and EC, whereas mutations in plpA resulted in a failure to recognize a GalNAc beta 1-3Gal glycoconjugate receptor also present on resting cells. Mutations in neither allele affected recognition of GlcNAc receptors present on cytokine-activated LC and EC. These results suggest that peptide permeases modulate pneumococcal adherence to epithelial and endothelial cells either by acting directly as adhesins or by modulating the expression of adhesins on the pneumococcal surface during the initial stages of colonization of the lung or the vascular endothelium.

The rec locus, a competence-induced operon in Streptococcus pneumoniae.

To study competence and the process of transformation (TFN) in pneumococci, we developed a method for isolating TFN- mutants using insertional inactivation coupled with fusions to the gene for alkaline phosphatase (phoA). One TFN- mutant transformed 2 log units less efficiently than the parent strain. Reconstitution of the mutated region revealed a locus, rec, that contains two polycistronic genes, exp10 and the previously identified recA (B. Martin, J. M. Ruellan, J. F. Angulo, R. Devoret, and J. P. Claverys, Nucleic Acids Res. 20:6412, 1992). Exp10 is likely to be a membrane-associated protein, as it has a prokaryotic signal sequence and an Exp10-PhoA fusion localized with cell membranes. On the basis of sequence similarity, pneumococcal RecA is a member of bacterial RecA proteins responsible for homologous recombination of DNA. DNA-RNA hybridization analysis showed that this locus is transcribed as a polycistronic message, with increased transcription occurring during competence. With an Exp10-PhoA chimera used as a reporter, there was a 10-fold increase in the expression of the rec locus during competence while there was only minimal expression under growth conditions that repressed competence. The TFN- mutant containing the exp10-phoA fusion produced activator, a small extracellular polypeptide that induces competence, and the expression of rec was induced in response to activator. Therefore, the rec locus is directly required for genetic transformation and is regulated by the cell signaling mechanism that induces competence.

Peptide permeases modulate transformation in Streptococcus pneumoniae.

To identify elements participating in the process of transformation, a bank of genetically altered mutants of Streptococcus pneumoniae with defects in exported proteins was assessed for a decrease in transformation efficiency. One mutant consistently transformed 10-fold less than the parent strain. Sequence analysis and reconstitution of the altered locus revealed a gene, plpA (permease-like protein), which encodes a putative substrate-binding protein belonging to the family of bacterial permeases responsible for peptide transport. The derived amino acid sequence for this gene was 80% similar to AmiA, a peptide-binding protein homologue from pneumococcus, and 50% similar over 230 amino acids to Spo0KA which is a regulatory element in the process of transformation and sporulation in Bacillus subtilis. PlpA fusions to alkaline phosphatase (PhoA) were shown to be membrane associated and labelled with [3H]-palmitic acid, which probably serves as a membrane anchor. Experiments designed to define the roles of the plpA and ami determinants in the process of transformation showed that: (i) mutants with defects in plpA were > 90% transformation deficient while ami mutants exhibited up to a fourfold increase in transformation efficiency; (ii) compared to the parental strain, the onset of competence in an ami mutant occurred earlier in logarithmic growth, whereas the onset was delayed in a plpA mutant; and (iii) the plpA mutation decreases the expression of a competence-regulated locus. Since the permease mutants would fail to bind specific ligands, it seems likely that the substrate-permease interaction modulates the process of transformation.