(Press-News.org) DENVER – Trying to figure out what's going on inside the mind of an adolescent can be challenging, to say the least. A new study shows that simply asking them what they wish for could be eye-opening.
The question: "If you could have three wishes, what would they be?" is included on a questionnaire designed to be given to adolescent patients before a doctor's visit. The survey, which is part of the American Medical Association's Guidelines for Adolescent Preventive Services program, also includes questions about medical history, health, school, safety and substance use.
The authors of a study to be presented Monday, May 2, at the Pediatric Academic Societies (PAS) annual meeting in Denver analyzed the themes of responses from 110 adolescent patients ages 11-18 years to the three wishes question. They also looked at how the themes were related to respondents' age, sex, income and racial/ethnic background.
Results showed that 85 percent of adolescents had wishes for themselves, 32 percent had wishes for others, and 10 percent had a wish for both themselves and others. Boys were more likely than girls to wish for things only for themselves (73 percent vs. 46 percent), while girls were more likely than boys to wish for something for their families (26 percent vs. 9 percent).
"While most of the wishes are predictable, the occasionally poignant wish like, 'I wish my mama felt better' reminds us of the value of asking these questions," said Eliana M. Perrin, MD, MPH, FAAP, senior author of the study.
The most common themes were to be wealthy (41 percent of wishes), followed by material items, e.g., a video game system or a car (31 percent). Twenty percent of adolescents had wishes for the world (i.e., world peace), and about 17 percent had wishes for their family or school or athletic success (e.g., to be an NBA player).
Boys also wished more for success, while girls wished more for happiness.
"Despite what we thought going into the study, only about 8 percent of adolescent wishes were about personal appearance, with only 4 percent wishing to be thinner," said Dr. Perrin, associate professor of pediatrics at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and pediatrician at North Carolina Children's Hospital.
There were no differences in types of wishes by age or race/ethnicity, though teens with private insurance were more likely than those with public insurance to have wishes for the world.
"We so rarely get an insight into teenagers' wishes, and this study and the screening form in general give adolescents a voice," Dr. Perrin said. "Examining trends over time may help shape policy and education for adolescents."
"In my experience with this study, I've found that providing adolescents a chance to describe themselves and their future objectives has significant clinical value, particularly with the number of health issues they currently face," said lead author Josh P. Boyd, a medical student at American University of Antigua Medical School, St. John's, Antigua and Barbuda.
In fact, the researchers, who also include Asheley Skinner, PhD, Michael Steiner, MD, FAAP, and Tamera Coyne-Beasley, MD, MPH, plan to conduct additional studies to determine whether wishes are tied to health issues.
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To view the abstract, go to http://www.abstracts2view.com/pas/view.php?nu=PAS11L1_3939.
The Pediatric Academic Societies (PAS) are four individual pediatric organizations who co-sponsor the PAS Annual Meeting – the American Pediatric Society, the Society for Pediatric Research, the Academic Pediatric Association, and the American Academy of Pediatrics. Members of these organizations are pediatricians and other health care providers who are practicing in the research, academic and clinical arenas. The four sponsoring organizations are leaders in the advancement of pediatric research and child advocacy within pediatrics, and all share a common mission of fostering the health and well being of children worldwide. For more information, visit www.pas-meeting.org. Follow news of the PAS meeting on Twitter at http://twitter.com/PedAcadSoc.
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DENVER – Nutrition during the first days or weeks of life may have long-term consequences on health, potentially via a phenomenon known as the metabolic programming effect, according to a study to be presented Monday, May 2, at the Pediatric Academic Societies (PAS) annual meeting in Denver.
Metabolic programming is the concept that differences in nutritional experiences at critical periods early in life can program a person's metabolism and health for the future.
In this study, researchers compared growth, body composition and blood pressure in three groups of healthy, ...
Young black men who have sex with men (MSM) get infected with HIV nearly five times more often than MSM from other races, even though they don't have more unprotected sex.
The discrepancy has long mystified public health experts but a new study by investigators at Johns Hopkins and elsewhere now offers a possible explanation for it.
The study found that young black MSM -- a group that includes openly gay and bisexual men, as well as those who have sex with men but do not identify themselves as gay or bisexual -- select partners and judge these partners' HIV status in ...
Reston, VA (April 28, 2011) — The latest American College of Radiology white paper, Strategies for Radiologists in the Era of Health Care Reform and Accountable Care Organizations, published in the May issue of the Journal of the American College of Radiology, offers strategies for successful radiologist participation in accountable care organizations (ACOs). ACOs are intended to create incentives for health care providers to work together to treat an individual patient across care settings — including doctor's offices, hospitals and long-term care facilities.
There ...
CHESTNUT HILL, MA (5/2/2011) – Multitaskers who think they can successfully divide their attention between the program on their television set and the information on their computer screen proved to be driven to distraction by the two devices, according to a new study of media multitasking by Boston College researchers.
Placed in a room containing a television and a computer and given a half hour to use either device, people on average switched their eyes back and forth between TV and computer a staggering 120 times in 27.5 minutes – or nearly once every 14 seconds, Carroll ...
Reston, VA (April 28, 2011) — A summary of the National Council on Radiation Protection's (NCRPs) workshop on the appropriate use of computed tomography (CT) in emergency medicine, and a list of recommendations from participating organizations to help control the inappropriate use of CT in the emergency department, is now available via the May issue of the Journal of the American College of Radiology.
As a generalization, the benefit-risk estimates for CT scanning favor its use over most other imaging procedures and many other types of diagnostic technology. However, ...
Contact: Sherry D. Gibbs
SDGibbs@cmh.edu
816-346-1340
Children's Mercy Hospitals and Clinics
2 tests better than 1 to diagnose diabetes in overweight children
More than two-thirds of high-risk patients missed if recommended hemoglobin A1C test used alone
Kansas City, MO – May 2, 2011 – A new study found that the recommended blood test may not be enough to catch type 2 diabetes in overweight children, missing more than two-thirds of children at high-risk for the condition. Researchers from Children's Mercy Hospital and Clinics found that performing two tests – both ...
WHITEHOUSE STATION, N.J., May 2, 2011 – Merck (NYSE: MRK), known as MSD outside the United States and Canada, announced today that new Phase III data showed that patients with open-angle glaucoma or ocular hypertension, who were dosed once-daily with tafluprost, Merck's investigational, preservative-free prostaglandin analogue ophthalmic solution, experienced a reduction in intraocular pressure (IOP) comparable to patients taking twice-daily preservative-free timolol maleate, a beta-adrenergic antagonist. These findings were presented for the first time at the Association ...
Nobody likes paying taxes but the IRS will go to great lengths to ensure they get every penny owed. This includes implementing wage garnishments on taxpayers, which can be humiliating as well as stressful.
This is the situation Alonzo (San Bernardino, CA) found himself in which compelled him to contact Blue Tax for help. Since the experts at Blue Tax deal with wage garnishments regularly, they knew exactly how best to proceed with Alonzo's case.
What Blue Tax quickly discovered was that the client owed a balance of $7,000 to the IRS. A notice of levy had been sent ...
ENERCA is a European Network for Rare and Congenital Anaemias funded by the European Commission and coordinated by IDIBAPS - Hospital Clínic of Barcelona. Its main purpose is offering an improved public health service to medical practitioners and patients in every aspect of rare anaemias. Recently this year this network published in the American Journal of Hematology (AJH) a series of recommendations for disease management and prevention of complications of sickle cell disease (SCD) in children. With this of publication ENERCA is willing to give clinical guidance to professional ...
A new study of itch adds to growing evidence that the chemical signals that make us want to scratch are the same signals that make us wince in pain.
The interactions between itch and pain are only partly understood, said itch and pain researcher Diana Bautista, an assistant professor of molecular and cell biology at the University of California, Berkeley. The skin contains some nerve cells that respond only to itch and others that respond only to pain. Others, however, respond to both, and some substances cause both itching and pain.
If itch and pain are closely linked, ...
