scholarly journals A description of drug use among adolescents in Slovakia in different age and gender groups

2020 ◽  
Vol 10 ◽  
pp. 344-357
Author(s):  
Marta Vavrová ◽  
Zuzana Rojková

The paper describes the drug-using behaviour among young people (12-19 y.) within two age groups in Slovakia. The study aims to describe the prevalence of two different forms of drug-use (experimentation and use within the last 30 days) of legal and illegal substances: alcohol, nicotine (cigarettes), marijuana, and other illegal drugs. A descriptive analysis was applied to two age and gender groups. The research sample was made up of 2489 pupils in primary and secondary schools (various types) from different regions within Slovakia. One set was made up of 39.1% (N = 974) boys and 61.3% (N = 1515) girls aged 12-19 years which was divided into two age groups: group “14” (14 to 15 years, N = 923) and group “16” (16 and older, N = 1566). The SAHA method was used for data collection (Social and Health Assessment, Weissberg et al., 1991; a Slovak version by Rojková, 2017). Gender differences were tested statistically, and some differences were identified. The results are discussed in the context of European and national surveys that are available and a decrease in experimentation with marijuana and smoking was found.  

Author(s):  
Handan Soysal ◽  
Niyazi Acer ◽  
Meltem Özdemir ◽  
Önder Eraslan

Abstract Objective The aim of this study is to measure the average corpus callosum (CC) volume of healthy Turkish humans and to analyze the effects of gender and age on volumes, including the genu, truncus, and splenium parts of the CC. Patients and Methods Magnetic resonance imaging brain scans were obtained from 301 healthy male and female subjects, aged 11 to 84 years. The median age was 42 years (min–max: 11–82) in females and 49 years (min–max: 12–84) in males. Corpus callosum and its parts were calculated by using MRICloud. CC volumes of each subject were compared with those of the age and gender groups. Results All volumes of the CC were significantly higher in males than females. All left volumes except BCC were significantly higher than the right volumes in both males and females. The oldest two age groups (50–69 and 70–84 years) were found to have higher bilateral CC volumes, and bilateral BCC volumes were also higher than in the other two age groups (11–29 and 30–49 years). Conclusion The results suggest that compared with females/males, females have a faster decline in the volume of all volumes of the CC. We think that quantitative structural magnetic resonance data of the brain is vital in understanding human brain function and development.


Author(s):  
N. Kimberly Bohannon ◽  
Stephen L. Young

The present study examined the effect of warning labels in alcohol advertising on the perception of risk for alcohol consumption. Under incidental conditions, subjects from two age groups, young (M = 13.6 years) and older (M = 23.3 years), examined a collection of magazine ads. Three of the ads in the booklet were for alcoholic beverages and these were either accompanied by a warning or the warning was absent. When present, the warnings were manipulated by the orthogonal combination of text voice (2nd vs. 3rd person) and pictorial (presence vs. absence) in a between-subjects design. A fifth condition served as the no-warning control. After examining the magazine ads, subjects answered a questionnaire which assessed several dimensions related to the ads: number and type of ads, attractiveness of the ads, and number and type of warnings in the ads. Examination of the questions dealing with the risk of alcohol consumption indicated that adolescents rated their own risk lower than the risk to adolescents in general, but that this bias in risk ratings was not evident when warnings were present. There were also several other age and gender effects. While no individual warning manipulation was found to be consistently superior to another, the results suggest that warnings can be effective in producing proper estimations of risk in different age populations.


2018 ◽  
Vol 3 (86) ◽  
Author(s):  
Lina Kreivėnaitė

Research background and hypothesis. Physical fitness problems in biathlon are quite extensively discussed, but biathlon shooting in Lithuania is not analyzed enough. The special literature lacks information about the shooting parameters that leaders demonstrate in the world biathlon championships. Moreover, shooting parameters in different age and gender groups have not been analyzed enough. The hypothesis that shooting parameters in adult, youth and junior age group biathletes would differ was tested. Research aim. The aim of our study was to analyze shooting parameters of biathletes in various age groups in 2011–2012 world championships and reveal fundamental differences in the aspects of age and gender. Research methods. Research participants were youths (age: 17–18 years), juniors (age: 19–20 years) and adults (age: 21–41 years), male and female biathletes. The number of subjects was 2175. Descriptive statistical methods were used for data analysis.Research results. Data analysis revealed the main differences in shooting parameters between adult, junior and youth groups, male and female biathletes. Also, comparison of shooting parameters between biathletes in various age groups and leaders in the same group was carried out. Discussion and conclusions. Our research revealed that the highest shooting accuracy was observed in adult male and female biathlete groups (p < 0.025). The shooting accuracy of junior and youth female biathletes was higher than that in the junior and youth male groups (p < 0.05). The longest average shooting time was in youth group (p < 0.001). The shooting time of biathletes in adult group was the shortest. We found that male biathletes in various age groups performed shots in less time compared to female biathletes (p < 0.05). Research results revealed that shooting parameters among leaders statistically significantly differed comparing them with the average shooting parameters in the group (p < 0.05).Keywords: biathlon, shooting accuracy, shooting time.


2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Xinhua Yu ◽  
Jiasong Duan ◽  
Yu Jiang ◽  
Hongmei Zhang

AbstractObjectivesElderly people had suffered disproportional burden of COVID-19. We hypothesized that males and females in different age groups might have different epidemic trajectories.MethodsUsing publicly available data from South Korea, daily new COVID-19 cases were fitted with generalized additive models, assuming Poisson and negative binomial distributions. Epidemic dynamics by age and gender groups were explored with interactions between smoothed time terms and age and gender.ResultsA negative binomial distribution fitted the daily case counts best. Interaction between the dynamic patterns of daily new cases and age groups was statistically significant (p<0.001), but not with gender group. People aged 20-39 years led the epidemic processes in the society with two peaks: one major peak around March 1 and a smaller peak around April 7, 2020. The epidemic process among people aged 60 or above was trailing behind that of younger people with smaller magnitude. After March 15, there was a consistent decline of daily new cases among elderly people, despite large fluctuations of case counts among young adults.ConclusionsAlthough young people drove the COVID-19 epidemic in the whole society with multiple rebounds, elderly people could still be protected from virus infection after the peak of epidemic.


Author(s):  
Ieva Kalere ◽  
Ieva Strēle ◽  
Mārtiņš Miglinieks ◽  
Ilze Repša ◽  
Santa Pildava ◽  
...  

Abstract The most common autoimmune disorders with clinically opposite manifestations are hypothyroidism in Hashimoto’s thyroiditis and hyperthyroidism in Graves’ disease. The healthcare burden of thyroid disease is substantial, resulting in substantial health care costs. The aim of the present analysis is to assess the use of thyroid medications in Latvia from 2011 to 2014 by age and gender. Our study used reimbursed medication prescriptions data, collected by the National Health Service of Latvia. The main indicator was the number of prevalent users of thyroid medications each year from 2011 to 2014, stratified by age and gender. From 2011 to 2014, the number of thyroxine users per 100 000 revealed a statistically significant increase in all age and gender groups, except in 0- to 9-year-old girls. The number of Thiamazole users among men increased in the age group from 40 to 89 years and in women age groups above 49 years. Increasing sales of both thyroid hormones and antithyroid medications are also observed in Estonia and Lithuania, indicating that growing thyroid morbidity is an issue in the whole region. The substantial increase in number of patients highlights the necessity for national guidelines on the use of thyroid function tests and standards of medical care.


2021 ◽  
Vol 12 ◽  
Author(s):  
Hans Torvild Kittilsen ◽  
Sannija Goleva-Fjellet ◽  
Baard Ingegerdsson Freberg ◽  
Iver Nicolaisen ◽  
Eva Maria Støa ◽  
...  

PurposeThe present study aimed to investigate the potential impact of age, gender, baseline strength, and selected candidate polymorphisms on maximal strength training (MST) adaptations.MethodsA total of 49 subjects (22 men and 27 women) aged 20–76 years, divided into five age groups, completed an 8 weeks MST intervention. Each MST session consisted of 4 sets with 4 repetitions at ∼85–90% of one-repetition maximum (1RM) intensity in leg-press, three times per week. 1RM was tested pre and post the intervention and blood samples were drawn to genotype candidate polymorphisms ACE I/D (rs1799752), ACTN3 R577X (rs1815739), and PPARGC1A Gly482Ser (rs8192678).ResultsAll age groups increased leg-press 1RM (p &lt; 0.01), with a mean improvement of 24.2 ± 14.0%. There were no differences in improvements between the five age groups or between male and female participants, and there were no non-responders. Baseline strength status did not correlate with 1RM improvements. PPARGC1A rs8192678 T allele carriers had a 15% higher age- and gender corrected baseline 1RM than the CC genotype (p &lt; 0.05). C allele carriers improved 1RM (%) by 34.2% more than homozygotes for the T allele (p &lt; 0.05).ConclusionTo the best of our knowledge, this is the first study to report improvement in leg-press maximal strength regardless of gender, baseline strength status in all age groups. The present study is also first to demonstrate an association between the PPARGC1A rs8192678 and maximal strength and its trainability in a moderately trained cohort. MST may be beneficial for good health and performance of all healthy individuals.


2021 ◽  
Vol 7 (2) ◽  
Author(s):  
Veronika Makarova

Abstract This paper focuses on the Iranian taaroff politeness system. We report a quantitative analysis of the attitudes to taaroff held by 60 Iranians (30 women and 30 men) of two age groups (20–29 and 40–59 years old) and their use of formulaic taaroff expressions in conversations. The data come from dialogues elicited from the participants in Iran via short scripted scenarios and from their answers to a questionnaire survey about their attitudes to taaroff. Taaroff expressions were manually extracted from the dialogue transcripts and their overall use as well as frequencies of each expression were compared across the gender and age groups with the help of t-tests. The participants’ answers to the survey questions were compared across the groups with Kruskal-Wallis H tests. The results show statistically significant differences in the participants’ attitudes to taaroff and in its use in dialogues by gender and age group.


Psihologija ◽  
2016 ◽  
Vol 49 (3) ◽  
pp. 245-262 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sonja Cotar-Konrad

The present paper focuses on age and gender differences in parent - adolescent conflict styles (compromise and aggressive) and conflict outcomes (frustration, escalation and intimacy). Data were gathered by the Slovenian version of the ?When we disagree? scale, which was completed by 514 adolescents (54% female; 14 - 19 years old, split into two age groups). Results revealed significant differences between the adolescents? perceptions of their own conflict style, and their mother/father conflict styles. Mothers were more often perceived to have either more aggressive or more compromising conflict styles in comparison to adolescents? own stiles or fathers? styles. Analyzing adolescents? age differences, middle aged adolescents reported higher level of mother?s aggressiveness, higher levels of frustration and escalation in conflicts with mothers, as well as higher frustration in conflicts with fathers in comparison to their younger peers. Gender differences in style and outcome of conflicts revealed a more complex pattern: girls exhibited more compromising conflict style with mother and more aggressive conflict style with fathers than boys; there were no gender differences in parent - adolescent conflict outcomes. The established differences could inform policies, and help tailoring conflict resolution programs for this specific age group.


2019 ◽  
Vol 64 (2) ◽  
pp. 64-82
Author(s):  
Beata Jackowska ◽  
Ewa Wycinka

The paper deals with the widespread perception, popular since 2017, that millennials are the worst drivers. In motor insurance, it is commonly known that age and gender are significant determinants of accidents’ risk. Nowadays, millennials are the youngest drivers. Thus, the question arises whether, apart from the age, generation isa risk factor. The aim of this paper is to verify whether generation influences the level of the road accidents rate in Poland besides age and gender of drivers. Due to the downward trend of this rate, the relative risk of road accidents was analysed among licensed drivers in Poland in the years 2006—2017. For the analysis data of the Polish National Police, Polish Road Safety Observatory, Statistics Poland, Social Diagnosis as well as Public Opinion Research Centre were used. The percentage of licensed drivers was estimated for age and gender groups as well as the percentage of millennials in these groups, according to the generation theory. The results of the empirical study for age groups of both perpetrators of the accidents and drivers involved in accidents do not confirm the hypothesis about the impact of the generation on the risk of a road accident.


2008 ◽  
Vol 27 (5) ◽  
pp. 373-379 ◽  
Author(s):  
H-L Lee ◽  
H-J Lin ◽  
ST-Y Yeh ◽  
C-H Chi ◽  
H-R Guo

Poisoning is one of the most common reasons for visiting the emergency department in many countries, and the pattern varies from countries to countries and time to time. To compare the etiology and outcome of poisoning patients in different gender and age groups, we conducted a prospective study at the emergency departments of two medical centers in southern Taiwan between January 2001 and December 2002. All cases of poisoning, excluding patients diagnosed as cases of alcohol or food poisoning, were included, and relevant information was collected. There were 1512 cases of poisoning observed with a male to female ratio of 1:1.2 (684/828). Overall, drugs (49.9%) were the main agents involved, and a suicidal attempt (66.1%) was the predominant etiology. A total of 63 fatalities (4.2%) were observed and pesticides, especially paraquat, resulted in most fatalities. Patients aged 19–30 years constituted the most cases, and significant differences in exposure agents, causes, and fatality rates were found among different age and gender groups. The results are compatible with the trend reported by other Asian countries. This study also shows important differences existing in poisoning patients of different age and gender groups. Therefore, different poisoning-prevention strategies should be applied to different groups.


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