Promoting physical activity for children: an audit among Italian family pediatricians.

BACKGROUND: This survey aimed to investigate the perception of Italian Pediatricians regarding the promotion of physical activity. METHODS: From January to May 2015, a survey was conducted among family pediatricians working in Puglia, interviewed by a standardized questionnaire, that investigated demographic information, participation in sporting activity by the pediatrician, opinion on obesity and the promotion of physical activity, and attitude towards enquiring about the physical activity of patients with and without chronic diseases. RESULTS: We collected 200 questionnaires (35.7% of target population): 51.5% of enrolled pediatricians stated that they were participating in sporting activities at the time of the survey. The average opinion regarding the relevance of the obesity was 9±1.4/10 and about the promotion of physical activity 9.6±0.8. All enrolled pediatricians asked for their patients' physical activity and encouraged inactive children to begin an appropriate activity. Pediatricians who took part in sport had a high probability of encouraging physical activity, among patients affected by chronic diseases. CONCLUSIONS: Family pediatricians declared a good attitude regarding the promotion of physical activity for their patients according to national and international recommendations. The main concern emerging from our results is the risk of an "inappropriate interdiction" of physical activity in children affected by chronic diseases, in particular physicians that have never participated in a sport.

HBV seroprevalence after 25 years of universal mass vaccination and management of non-responders to the anti-Hepatitis B vaccine: An Italian study among medical students.

According to international guidelines, healthcare workers and medical students immunized against HBV are periodically tested for anti-HBs IgG. Subjects who show an anti-HBs titre <10 mUI/mL must receive additional vaccine doses to induce a measurable antibody response. This study aimed to evaluate the long-time immunogenicity of anti-hepatitis B vaccination in a sample of medical students and residents of the University of Bari who attended the Hygiene Department for biological risk assessment (April 2014-June 2017). The strategy for the management of nonresponder subjects was evaluated. A total of 3676 students and residents were invited for testing according to a standardized protocol. Anti-HBs IgG was tested for in 3140 (85.4%) subjects: 1174/3140 (37.7%) subjects were negative. 14.6% (128/808) of subjects who received the vaccine during their 12th year of life and 45.8% (1056/2305) of subjects immunized during the first year of life (P < 0.0001) were negative. 1005/1174 (85.6%) seronegative subjects received a booster dose, and 903/1005 (89.9%) were tested for anti-HBs 1 month after the booster dose: 82/903 (9.1%) subjects were still negative. Of these, 56/82 (68.3%) received 2 additional doses of vaccine and 52/56 (92.9%) were tested 1 month after the third dose: 50/52 subjects (96.2%) developed a positive titre. In conclusion, several medical students, immunized at birth or at young age against HBV, did not develop protective titres against the virus. Our management strategy (booster retest; for negative subjects, 2 doses and retest) seems consistent with the purpose of evidencing immunological memory.

Communication about vaccinations in Italian websites: a quantitative analysis.

Babies' parents and people who look for information about vaccination often visit anti-vaccine movement's websites, blogs by naturopathic physicians or natural and alternative medicine practitioners. The aim of this work is to provide a quantitative analysis on the type of information available to Italian people regarding vaccination and a quality analysis of websites retrieved through our searches. A quality score was created to evaluate the technical level of websites. A research was performed through Yahoo, Google, and MSN using the keywords "vaccine" and "vaccination," with the function "OR" in order to identify the most frequently used websites. The 2 keywords were input in Italian, and the first 15 pages retrieved by each search engine were analyzed. 149 websites were selected through this methodology. Fifty-three per cent of the websites belonged to associations, groups, or scientific companies, 32.2% (n = 48) consisted of a personal blog and 14.8% (n = 22) belonged to some of the National Health System offices. Among all analyzed websites, 15.4% (n = 23) came from anti-vaccine movement groups. 37.6% reported webmaster name, 67.8% webmaster e-mail, 28.6% indicated the date of the last update and 46.6% the author's name. The quality score for government sites was higher on average than anti-vaccine websites; although, government sites don't use Web 2.0 functions, as the forums.: National Health System institutions who have to promote vaccination cannot avoid investing in web communication because it cannot be managed by private efforts but must be the result of Public Health, private and scientific association, and social movement synergy.