BACKGROUND: The objective of this study was to evaluate the diagnostic efficiency of the Comprehensive Attention Test (CAT) by comparing the results of the continuous performance test (CPT) and the CAT in children and adolescents with attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD). METHOD: A total of 110 children and adolescents with ADHD (mean age : 11.2+/-2.9 years, 76 boys) and 36 children and adolescents without ADHD (mean age : 12.0+/-2.7 years, 25 boys) completed the CAT. We compared the specificity and sensitivity of the CPT and CAT at two different cut-off points via the McNemar test. The areas under the receiver operating characteristic curves (AUC) between the two groups were compared using Medcalc software. RESULTS: The sensitivity and specificity of the CPT were .419 and .806, respectively. The sensitivity of the CAT was .827, which was significantly higher than that of the CPT (p<.001), and the specificity of CAT is .444, which was significantly lower than that of CPT (p<.001). The AUC of the CPT and CAT was .664 and .692, respectively, and there were no significant difference between the two groups on the paired comparison (p=.513). CONCLUSIONS: The results of this study suggest that the CAT has moderate specificity and high sensitivity. The CAT can be used as a useful tool to evaluate the neuropsychological function of children and adolescents with ADHD.
Adolescent ; Animals ; Area Under Curve ; Cats ; Child ; Humans ; Matched-Pair Analysis ; ROC Curve ; Sensitivity and Specificity

BACKGROUND: The objective of this study was to evaluate the diagnostic efficiency of the Comprehensive Attention Test (CAT) by comparing the results of the continuous performance test (CPT) and the CAT in children and adolescents with attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD). METHOD: A total of 110 children and adolescents with ADHD (mean age : 11.2+/-2.9 years, 76 boys) and 36 children and adolescents without ADHD (mean age : 12.0+/-2.7 years, 25 boys) completed the CAT. We compared the specificity and sensitivity of the CPT and CAT at two different cut-off points via the McNemar test. The areas under the receiver operating characteristic curves (AUC) between the two groups were compared using Medcalc software. RESULTS: The sensitivity and specificity of the CPT were .419 and .806, respectively. The sensitivity of the CAT was .827, which was significantly higher than that of the CPT (p<.001), and the specificity of CAT is .444, which was significantly lower than that of CPT (p<.001). The AUC of the CPT and CAT was .664 and .692, respectively, and there were no significant difference between the two groups on the paired comparison (p=.513). CONCLUSIONS: The results of this study suggest that the CAT has moderate specificity and high sensitivity. The CAT can be used as a useful tool to evaluate the neuropsychological function of children and adolescents with ADHD.
Adolescent ; Animals ; Area Under Curve ; Cats ; Child ; Humans ; Matched-Pair Analysis ; ROC Curve ; Sensitivity and Specificity

Confounding affects the causal relation among the population. Depending on whether the confounders are known, measurable or measured, they can be divided into four categories. Based on Directed Acyclic Graphs, the strategies for confounding control can be classified as (1) the broken-confounding-path method, which can be further divided into single and dual broken paths, corresponding to exposure complete intervention, restriction and stratification, (2) and the reserved-confounding-path method, which can be further divided into incomplete exposure intervention (in instrumental variable design and non-perfect random control test), mediator method and matching method. Among them, random control test, instrumental variable design or Mendelian randomized design, mediator method can meet the requirements for controlling all four types of confounders, while the restriction, stratification and matching methods are only applicable to known, measurable and measured confounders. Identifying the mechanisms of confounding control is a prerequisite for obtaining correct causal effect estimates, which will be helpful in research design.
Causality ; Confounding Factors, Epidemiologic ; Humans ; Models, Statistical ; Random Allocation ; Randomized Controlled Trials as Topic ; Research Design

Morbidity and mortality from acute encephalitis in Vietnam have remained very high, especially in the Northern region. Except for Japanese Encephalitis (JE), the acute viral encephalitis (VE) was not studied as needed. Study was conducted in 374 hospitalized patients aged under 15 with diagnosis of VE in 2003-2004. The results showed that the male to female ratio was 2.3:1. The morbidity and mortality in all ages were not different, but the mortality rate was higher in group of under 10. More than 75% of morbidity occured from April to July.
Encephalitis ; Epidemiology ; Epidemiologic Research Design

Epidemiologic Research Design ; Sociology, Medical

OBJECTIVES: Various cytokines induced by inhalation of coal dust may mediate inflammation and lead to tissue damage or fibrosis, such as coal workers' pneumoconiosis (CWP). METHODS: To investigate the relevance of serum cytokines in CWP, the levels of serum interleukin-8 (IL-8) and tumor necrosis factor-alpha (TNF-alpha) as CWP biomarkers in 110 retired coal miners (22 controls and 88 CWP subjects) were related to cross sectional findings and 1-year progressive changes of the pneumoconiosis. Progressive changes of CWP were evaluated by paired comparison of chest radiographs. Analysis by a receiver operating characteristic curve assessed the biomarker potential of each cytokine. RESULTS: The mean serum IL-8 level was significantly higher in CWP compared to controls and IL-8 levels correlated with the degree of CWP. The median serum TNF-alpha level was significantly higher in subjects with progressive CWP compared to subjects without CWP progression. The area under the ROC curve for IL-8 (0.70) and TNF-alpha (0.72) for CWP identification and progression, respectively, indicated the biomarker potential of the two cytokines. Serum cutoff values of IL-8 and TNF-alpha were 11.63 pg/mL (sensitivity, 69%; specificity, 64%) and 4.52 pg/mL (sensitivity, 67%; specificity, 79%), respectively. CONCLUSION: The results suggest that high levels of serum IL-8 are associated with the presence of CWP and those of serum TNF-alpha are associated with the progression of CWP.
Anthracosis ; Biomarkers ; Coal ; Cytokines ; Dust ; Fibrosis ; Follow-Up Studies ; Inflammation ; Inhalation ; Interleukin-8 ; Matched-Pair Analysis ; Pneumoconiosis ; ROC Curve ; Sensitivity and Specificity ; Thorax ; Tumor Necrosis Factor-alpha

We aimed to develop the Korean version of Short Blessed test (SBT-K) by analyzing its reliability and validity, showing its usefulness as a dementia screening instrument. The translation, including back translation procedure, was carried out, keeping the basic structure of SBT. SBT-K. The Korean Version of Blessed Dementia Scale-Activity of Daily Living (BDS-ADL-K) and Clinical Dementia Rating Scale (CDR) were administered to 224 dementia patients and 191 control subjects, and The Korean Version of Consortium to Establish a Registry of Alzheimer's Disease-Mini-Mental State Examination (CERAD-MMSE-K) was to 157 patients and 167 controls. The correlation of SBT-K scores between two raters, correlation between the test and retest after one month, and its internal consistency were analyzed. To verify the concurrent validity of SBT-K, its correlation with each test: CERAD-MMSE-K, BDS-ADL-K, and CDR was analyzed. The sensitivity and specificity for each cut-off point of SBT-K were calculated and the Receiver Operator Characteristic (ROC) curve analysis was done to get its optimal cut-off point. SBT-K was found to have significantly high internal consistency, inter-rater reliability, and test-retest reliability. The significant correlation of SBT-K with each test described above was also shown. Its optimal cut-off point was estimated as 10/11, and the sensitivity and specificity were 0.85 and 0.90, respectively. The ROC curve analysis indicated that the diagnostic efficiency of SBT-K was comparable with CERAD-MMSE-K. We conclude that SBT-K has not only high reliability and validity, but also usefulness as a screening instrument for dementia.
Dementia* ; Humans ; Mass Screening* ; Reproducibility of Results* ; ROC Curve ; Sensitivity and Specificity

OBJECTIVES: This study aims to predict the risk of deep caries exposure in radiographic images based on the convolutional neural network model, compare the prediction results of the network model with those of senior dentists, evaluate the performance of the model for teaching and training stomatological students and young dentists, and assist dentists to clarify treatment plans and conduct good doctor-patient communication before surgery. METHODS: A total of 206 cases of pulpitis caused by deep caries were selected from the Department of Stomatological Hospital of Tianjin Medical University from 2019 to 2022. According to the inclusion and exclusion criteria, 104 cases of pulpitis were exposed during the decaying preparation period and 102 cases of pulpitis were not exposed. The 206 radiographic images collected were randomly divided into three groups according to the proportion: 126 radiographic images in the training set, 40 radiographic images in the validation set, and 40 radiographic images in the test set. Three convolutional neural networks, visual geometry group network (VGG), residual network (ResNet), and dense convolutional network (DenseNet) were selected to analyze the rules of the radiographic images in the training set. The radiographic images of the validation set were used to adjust the super parameters of the network. Finally, 40 radiographic images of the test set were used to evaluate the performance of the three network models. A senior dentist specializing in dental pulp was selected to predict whether the deep caries of 40 radiographic images in the test set were exposed. The gold standard is whether the pulp is exposed after decaying the prepared hole during the clinical operation. The prediction effect of the three network models (VGG, ResNet, and DenseNet) and the senior dentist on the pulp exposure of 40 radiographic images in the test set were compared using receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curve, area under the ROC curve (AUC), accuracy, sensitivity, specificity, positive predictive value, negative predictive value, and F1 score to select the best network model. RESULTS: The best network model was DenseNet model, with AUC of 0.97. The AUC values of the ResNet model, VGG model, and the senior dentist were 0.89, 0.78, and 0.87, respectively. Accuracy was not statistically different between the senior dentist (0.850) and the DenseNet model (0.850)(P>0.05). Kappa consistency test showed moderate reliability (Kappa=0.6>0.4, P<0.05). CONCLUSIONS Among the three convolutional neural network models, the DenseNet model has the best predictive effect on whether deep caries are exposed in imaging. The predictive effect of this model is equivalent to the level of senior dentists specializing in dental pulp.
Humans ; Deep Learning ; Neural Networks, Computer ; Pulpitis/diagnostic imaging* ; Reproducibility of Results ; ROC Curve ; Random Allocation

PURPOSE: This study examined the validity and reliability to develop a lifestyle evaluation tool for metabolic syndrome patients. METHODS: A methodological research design was used. The construct factors and preliminary items were identified by reviewing previous researches and tools related to lifestyle and reviewed by ten experts. It was tested with 195 patients with metabolic syndrome in a university hospital. The data were analyzed with SPSS/WIN 14.0. RESULTS: To test the validity, principal component analyses were used and resulted in the extraction of six components. The convergent validity resulted r=.72 (p<.001) with Health Promotion Lifestyle Profile. The discriminant validity with Center for Epidemiologic Studies Depression Scale resulted r=-.15 (p=.004). The Internal consistency of the tool had an Cronbach's alpha of .92. The self-report format Lifestyle Evaluation Tool for the patients with metabolic syndrome was developed with 36 items and four-rating scales: 'physical activity and weight control' eight items, 'dietary habits' sixteen items, 'drinking and smoking' three items, 'sleep and rest' two items, 'stress' three items, 'drug and health management' four items. CONCLUSION: This Tool will evaluate health behaviors in patients with metabolic syndrome. Also, it will contribute to the development of nursing intervention to improve the metabolic syndrome patients' lifestyle.
Depression ; Epidemiologic Studies ; Health Behavior ; Health Promotion ; Humans ; Life Style ; Principal Component Analysis ; Reproducibility of Results ; Research Design

Air Pollution ; prevention & control ; Epidemiologic Research Design