Search results for "Research Design"
showing 10 items of 487 documents
Prevalence of intimate partner violence against women in Sweden and Spain: A psychometric study of the 'Nordic paradox'.
2019
The high prevalence of intimate partner violence against women (IPVAW) in countries with high levels of gender equality has been defined as the "Nordic paradox". In this study we compared physical and sexual IPVAW prevalence data in two countries exemplifying the Nordic paradox: Sweden (N = 1483) and Spain (N = 1447). Data was drawn from the European Union Agency for Fundamental Rights Survey on violence against women. To ascertain whether differences between these two countries reflect true differences in IPVAW prevalence, and to rule out the possibility of measurement bias, we conducted a set of analyses to ensure measurement equivalence, a precondition for appropriate and valid cross-cul…
When Geometry Constrains Vision: Systematic Misperceptions within Geometrical Configurations.
2016
International audience; How accurate are we in reproducing a point within a simple shape? This is the empirical question we addressed in this work. Participants were presented with a tiny disk embedded in an empty circle (Experiment 1 and 3) or in a square (Experiment 2). Shortly afterwards the disk vanished and they had to reproduce the previously seen disk position within the empty shape by means of the mouse cursor, as accurately as possible. Several loci inside each shape were tested. We found that the space delimited by a circle and by a square is not homogeneous and the observed distortion appears to be consistent across observers and specific for the two tested shapes. However, a com…
How work and family caregiving responsibilities interplay and affect registered dietitian nutritionists and their work: A national survey.
2021
Healthcare professionals provide paid care at work and potentially have caregiving responsibilities outside of work; work responsibilities in addition to child and/or elder care is considered double- or triple-duty care. Employees may experience conflict and/or enrichment as their work and family responsibilities interface. This study’s purpose is to explore the work and family interface of Registered Dietitian Nutritionists (RDNs), determine the prevalence of work-family conflict and enrichment, and identify characteristics associated with higher work-family conflict and enrichment scores. A survey instrument assessing caregiving responsibilities and work-family conflict and enrichment was…
Transforming RNA-Seq Data to Improve the Performance of Prognostic Gene Signatures
2014
Gene expression measurements have successfully been used for building prognostic signatures, i.e for identifying a short list of important genes that can predict patient outcome. Mostly microarray measurements have been considered, and there is little advice available for building multivariable risk prediction models from RNA-Seq data. We specifically consider penalized regression techniques, such as the lasso and componentwise boosting, which can simultaneously consider all measurements and provide both, multivariable regression models for prediction and automated variable selection. However, they might be affected by the typical skewness, mean-variance-dependency or extreme values of RNA-…
Telomere length and physical performance at older ages:an individual participant meta-analysis
2013
<p>Background: Telomeres are involved in cellular ageing and shorten with increasing age. If telomere length is a valuable biomarker of ageing, then telomere shortening should be associated with worse physical performance, an ageing trait, but evidence for such an association is lacking. The purpose of this study was to examine whether change in telomere length is associated with physical performance.</p>\ud \ud <p>Methods: Using data from four UK adult cohorts (ages 53–80 years at baseline), we undertook cross-sectional and longitudinal analyses. We analysed each study separately and then used meta-analytic methods to pool the results. Physical performance was measured us…
The Norwegian Healthy Life Study: protocol for a pragmatic RCT with longitudinal follow-up on physical activity and diet for adults
2017
The Norwegian Directorate of Health recommends that Healthy Life Centres (HLCs) be established in primary health care to support behaviour change and reduce the risk of non-communicable diseases. The aim of the present study protocol is to present the rationale, design and methods of a combined pragmatic randomized controlled trial (RCT) and longitudinal cohort study of the effects of attending HLCs concerning physical activity, sedentary behaviour and diet and to explore how psychological well-being and motivational factors may mediate short— and long-term effects. The present study will combine a 6-month RCT with a longitudinal cohort study (24 months from baseline) conducted at six HLCs …
Early Life Stress and Physical and Psychosocial Functioning in Late Adulthood
2013
Background. Severe stress experienced in early life may have long-term effects on adult physiological and psychological health and well-being. We studied physical and psychosocial functioning in late adulthood in subjects separated temporarily from their parents in childhood during World War II. Methods. The 1803 participants belong to the Helsinki Birth Cohort Study, born 1934–44. Of them, 267 (14.8%) had been evacuated abroad in childhood during WWII and the remaining subjects served as controls. Physical and psychosocial functioning was assessed with the Short Form 36 scale (SF-36) between 2001 and 2004. A test for trends was based on linear regression. All analyses were adjusted for age…
Obesity indexes and total mortality among elderly subjects at high cardiovascular risk: The PREDIMED study
2014
Background: Different indexes of regional adiposity have been proposed for identifying persons at higher risk of death. Studies specifically assessing these indexes in large cohorts are scarce. It would also be interesting to know whether a dietary intervention may counterbalance the adverse effects of adiposity on mortality. Methods: We assessed the association of four different anthropometric indexes (waist-to-height ratio (WHtR), waist circumference (WC), body mass index (BMI) and height) with all-cause mortality in 7447 participants at high cardiovascular risk from the PREDIMED trial. Forty three percent of them were men (55 to 80 years) and 57% were women (60 to 80 years). All of them …
Effect of aerobic exercise and low carbohydrate diet on pre-diabetic non-alcoholic fatty liver disease in postmenopausal women and middle aged men - …
2014
Background Pre-diabetes and non-alcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD) are associated with an unhealthy lifestyle and pose extremely high costs to the healthcare system. In this study, we aim to explore whether individualized aerobic exercise (AEx) and low carbohydrate diet (LCh) intervention affect hepatic fat content (HFC) in pre-diabetes via modification of gut microbiota composition and other post-interventional effects. Methods/design A 6-month randomized intervention with 6-month follow-up is conducted from January 2013 to December 2015. The target sample size for intervention is 200 postmenopausal women and middle-aged men aged 50–65 year-old with pre-diabetes and NAFLD. The qualified…
European public perceptions of homelessness: A knowledge, attitudes and practices survey
2019
peer-reviewed Background Addressing Citizen’s perspectives on homelessness is crucial for the design of effective and durable policy responses, and available research in Europe is not yet substantive. We aim to explore citizens’ opinions about homelessness and to explain the differences in attitudes within the general population of eight European countries: France, Ireland, Italy, the Netherlands, Poland, Portugal, Spain, and Sweden. Methods A nationally representative telephone survey of European citizens was conducted in 2017. Three domains were investigated: Knowledge, Attitudes, and Practices about homelessness. Based on a multiple correspondence analysis (MCA), a generalized linear mod…