Репозиторий Университета

© 2021, The Author(s). Background: The aim of this survey was to evaluate the severity of dental caries among children living in Zanskar Valley (Ladakh, India) and its association with anthropometric and background variables. Methods: This cross‐sectional survey was conducted on schoolchildren divided into four age groups (< 6, ≥ 6 < 11, ≥ 11 < 14 and > 14 years of age). A total of 1474 schoolchildren (607 males, 41.2%) were examined. Actual caries prevalence (dt/DT) and gingival bleeding were recorded by four calibrated dentists. An ad hoc questionnaire evaluated general health, eating habits, oral hygiene and the self-perception of oral conditions. Height, weight, waist circumference, heart-rate and oxygen-saturation were also collected directly by examiners. Responses to questionnaire items were treated as categorical or ordinal variables. The relationship between children’s caries data, gingival bleeding, gender, Body Mass Index (BMI) following the International Obesity Task Force, waist circumference and questionnaire items was assessed using the Kruskal–Wallis test and Pearson correlation. Conditional ordinal logistic regression was used to analyse associations among caries severity, gender, BMI, waist circumference, oxygen saturation and questionnaire items. A forward stepwise logistic regression procedure was also carried-out to estimate the ORs of gingival bleeding prevalence and the covariates derived from examination or questionnaire. Results: Caries was almost ubiquitarian with only 10.0% of caries-free children (dt/DT = 0). Caries severity, in both primary and permanent dentitions, was statistically significantly related to gender, waist circumference, BMI, oral hygiene frequency and self-reported chewing problems (p < 0.01 in both dentitions). An increasing relative risk for caries in permanent dentition compared to caries-free subjects was observed in children with a low BMI (RRR = 1.67, 95%CI = 1.54/2.83 for subjects with 1–3 caries lesions and RRR = 1.52, 95%CI = 1.36/1.74 for subjects with > 3 caries lesions); also, children with reduced waist circumference had a higher relative risk to have 1–3 caries lesions (RRR = 2.16, 95%CI = 1.84/2.53) and an even higher risk to have more than 3 caries lesions (RRR = 4.22, 95%CI = 3.33/5.34). Conclusions: A significant impact of untreated caries lesions was observed in Ladakh schoolchildren; low BMI values and reduced waist circumference showed to be the main caries risk predictors. Preventive and intervention programmes should be implemented to improve children's oral health.

© 2021, The Author(s). Background: The aim of this survey was to evaluate the severity of dental caries among children living in Zanskar Valley (Ladakh, India) and its association with anthropometric and background variables. Methods: This cross‐sectional survey was conducted on schoolchildren divided into four age groups (< 6, ≥ 6 < 11, ≥ 11 < 14 and > 14 years of age). A total of 1474 schoolchildren (607 males, 41.2%) were examined. Actual caries prevalence (dt/DT) and gingival bleeding were recorded by four calibrated dentists. An ad hoc questionnaire evaluated general health, eating habits, oral hygiene and the self-perception of oral conditions. Height, weight, waist circumference, heart-rate and oxygen-saturation were also collected directly by examiners. Responses to questionnaire items were treated as categorical or ordinal variables. The relationship between children’s caries data, gingival bleeding, gender, Body Mass Index (BMI) following the International Obesity Task Force, waist circumference and questionnaire items was assessed using the Kruskal–Wallis test and Pearson correlation. Conditional ordinal logistic regression was used to analyse associations among caries severity, gender, BMI, waist circumference, oxygen saturation and questionnaire items. A forward stepwise logistic regression procedure was also carried-out to estimate the ORs of gingival bleeding prevalence and the covariates derived from examination or questionnaire. Results: Caries was almost ubiquitarian with only 10.0% of caries-free children (dt/DT = 0). Caries severity, in both primary and permanent dentitions, was statistically significantly related to gender, waist circumference, BMI, oral hygiene frequency and self-reported chewing problems (p < 0.01 in both dentitions). An increasing relative risk for caries in permanent dentition compared to caries-free subjects was observed in children with a low BMI (RRR = 1.67, 95%CI = 1.54/2.83 for subjects with 1–3 caries lesions and RRR = 1.52, 95%CI = 1.36/1.74 for subjects with > 3 caries lesions); also, children with reduced waist circumference had a higher relative risk to have 1–3 caries lesions (RRR = 2.16, 95%CI = 1.84/2.53) and an even higher risk to have more than 3 caries lesions (RRR = 4.22, 95%CI = 3.33/5.34). Conclusions: A significant impact of untreated caries lesions was observed in Ladakh schoolchildren; low BMI values and reduced waist circumference showed to be the main caries risk predictors. Preventive and intervention programmes should be implemented to improve children's oral health.

Background: SARS-CoV-2 reached Europe in early 2020 and disrupted the private and public life of its citizens, with potential implications for substance use. The objective of this study was to describe possible changes in substance use in the first months of the SARS-CoV-2 pandemic in Europe. Methods: Data were obtained from a cross-sectional online survey of 36,538 adult substance users from 21 European countries conducted between April 24 and July 22 of 2020. Self-perceived changes in substance use were measured by asking respondents whether their use had decreased (slightly or substantially), increased (slightly or substantially), or not changed during the past month. The survey covered alcohol (frequency, quantity, and heavy episodic drinking occasions), tobacco, cannabis, and other illicit drug use. Sample weighted data were descriptively analysed and compared across substances. Results: Across all countries, use of all substances remained unchanged for around half of the respondents, while the remainder reported either a decrease or increase in their substance use. For alcohol use, overall, a larger proportion of respondents indicated a decrease than those reporting an increase. In contrast, more respondents reported increases in their tobacco and cannabis use during the previous month compared to those reporting decreased use. No distinct direction of change was reported for other substance use. Conclusions: Our findings suggest changes in use of alcohol, tobacco and cannabis during the initial months of the pandemic in several European countries. This study offers initial insights into changes in substance use. Other data sources, such as sales statistics, should be used to corroborate these preliminary findings.

Background: It remains unclear whether alcohol use disorders (AUDs) can be characterized by specific levels of average daily alcohol consumption. The aim of the current study was to model the distributions of average daily alcohol consumption among those who consume alcohol and those with alcohol dependence, the most severe AUD, using various clustering techniques. Methods: Data from Wave 1 and Wave 2 of the National Epidemiologic Survey on Alcohol and Related Conditions were used in the current analyses. Clustering algorithms were applied in order to group a set of data points that represent the average daily amount of alcohol consumed. Gaussian Mixture Models (GMMs) were then used to estimate the likelihood of a data point belonging to one of the mixture distributions. Individuals were assigned to the clusters which had the highest posterior probabilities from the GMMs, and their treatment utilization rate was examined for each of the clusters. Results: Modeling alcohol consumption via clustering techniques was feasible. The clusters identified did not point to alcohol dependence as a separate cluster characterized by a higher level of alcohol consumption. Among both females and males with alcohol dependence, daily alcohol consumption was relatively low. Conclusions: Overall, we found little evidence for clusters of people with the same drinking distribution, which could be characterized as clinically relevant for people with alcohol use disorders as currently defined.

© 2020 by the authors. Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland. Web-surveys are one of the most popular forms of primary data collection used for various researches. However, mass surveys involve some challenges. It is required to consider different platforms and browsers, as well as different data transfer rates using connections in different regions of the country. Ensuring guaranteed data delivery in these conditions should determine the right choice of technologies for implementing web-surveys. The paper describes the solution to transfer a questionnaire to the client side in the form of an archive. This technological solution ensures independence from the data transfer rate and the stability of the communication connection with significant survey filling time. The conducted survey benefited the service of education psychologists under the federal Ministry of Education. School psychologists consciously took part in the survey, realizing the importance of their opinion for organizing and improving their professional activities. The desire to answer open-ended questions in detail created a part of the answers in the dataset, where there were several sentences about different aspects of professional activity. An important challenge of the problem is the Russian language, for which there are not as many tools as for the languages more widespread in the world. The survey involved 20,443 school psychologists from all regions of the Russian Federation, both from urban and rural areas. The answers did not contain spam, runaround answers, and so on as evidenced by the average response time. For the surveys, an authoring development tool DigitalPsyTools.ru was used. Dataset: http://dx.doi.org/10.17632/m32kz6jjcx.1 Dataset License: CC-BY-4.0.

© 2018 The Author(s). Background: The approaches to the diagnosis and treatment of chronic spontaneous urticaria (CSU) differ in various parts of the world. We sought to determine the adherence to international and national urticaria guidelines as well as the motives to deviate from the guidelines among physicians worldwide. Methods: A web-based questionnaire was created and launched via e-mail by the World Allergy Organization (WAO) to representatives of all WAO Member Societies, the members of the American Academy of Allergy, Asthma & Immunology (AAAAI) and the members of the WAO Junior Members Group (JMG), regardless of the specialty, affiliation, or nationality in March 2017. Results: We received 1140 completed surveys from participating physicians from 99 countries. Virtually all participants (96%) were aware of at least one urticaria guideline and reported that they follow a guideline. However, one in five physicians who follow a guideline (22%) reported to deviate from it. Reliance on own clinical experience is the most frequent reason for deviation from guidelines or not following them (44%). Young (< 40 years) and less experienced physicians more often follow a guideline and less often deviate than older and experienced ones. Physicians who follow a urticaria guideline showed higher rates of routinely ordering a complete blood count, the erythrocyte sedimentation rate, C-reactive protein, anti-thyroid antibodies, and thyroid-stimulating hormone and of performing the autologous serum skin test as compared to those who do not. Physicians who follow a urticaria guideline showed higher rates of using second generation antihistamines as their first-line treatment of CSU (p = 0.001) and more frequently observed higher efficacy of these drugs (or had more confidence that it would work, p < 0.019) as compared to those who do not follow the guidelines. Conclusions: Physicians' characteristics (e.g. age, clinical experience, and specialty) and country specifics and regional features (e.g. availability of drugs for CSU treatment) importantly influence adherence to urticaria guidelines and CSU patient care and should be addressed in more detail in future research.

© 2018 Academic Research Publishing Group. The use of new information technologies in the educational process intensifies the need for analyzing the existing resources suitable for teaching students in conformity with professional standards. The objective of this study is to consider the significance of survey services in teaching students market research, to analyze the efficiency of survey services, to prove their positive impact on the learning process and to determine requirements for educational survey services. The materials of the study were students' reports on conducting consumer surveys using either paper or online questionnaires. The research is based on a pedagogical experiment to analyze the applicability of Internet resources in the educational process. The results of students' research were processed through the comparison of the data obtained. The authors of the article have developed the life cycle of educational survey services. Based on stages of the life cycle, the authors have determined desired functional characteristics of free survey services, which will simplify the task of selecting a suitable educational tool. It has been confirmed that the exclusive use of Internet technologies in teaching students market research cannot be sufficient, and they should be used in combination with basic approaches to a marketing theory. The conducted pedagogical experiment has proved the consistency of Internet technologies as an educational tool. The authors of the article have revealed that despite undeniable advantages of online survey services they also have significant shortcomings, which makes it impossible to completely replace classic methods of collecting market information from this moment on. The introduction of free survey services into the educational process increases teaching efficiency and develops professional competencies within the existing standards. Defining functional requirements of the above-mentioned life cycle, teachers can choose the best educational survey service taking into account the stages students will go through while using it. An extensive use of information technologies is essential to the formation of new teaching materials and the renewal of the existing ones based on the synthesis of the classical theory of marketing and innovations.

© 2011-2018 Research Institute of Mechanics of Moscow State University. All rights reserved. Aim. To carry out a comparative analysis of self-rated health, medical activity, and satisfaction with the quality of medical care in public health institutions by residents of rural settlements of the Untsukul district, Republic of Dagestan. Methods. The study was conducted by the method of questioning 2643 respondents, among them 1453 women and 1181 men. Results. According to the results of the survey, the majority of the interviewed residents of Untsukul district (68.2%) are satisfied with their health. Medical activity of the population at the time of the study was 60.6%. As to respondents who applied to the medical institutions of the Untsukul district during this period, 13.5% are not satisfied with the quality of medical care in public health institutions, 23.5% are fully satisfied, 30% are not fully satisfied. Conclusion. A social survey in the form of a questionnaire is one of the most effective methods of obtaining information about the self-rated health of the population. Timely analysis of medical activity of the population, its satisfaction with the quality of medical care will improve the efficiency of the health system.