Mothers' efforts to promote healthy nutrition and physical activity for their preschool children

Children's lifestyles profoundly impact their health. This action research study explores how mothers manage to provide good nutrition and physical activity opportunities for their preschool children despite the challenges of daily living. Aware of these daily challenges, mothers are the best source of information about the usefulness of different strategies in providing healthy lifestyles for their children. In so doing, they display an ecological viewpoint that recognizes health as an individual and collective responsibility.     

Communications of the European Neurological Society

Journal of Neurology -     

August Issue 2011

ENS Communications

August Issue 2011     

Communications of the European Neurological Society

Journal of Neurology -     

Communications of the European Neurological Society

ENS Communications

Communications of the European Neurological Society     

The interactive computer interview for mania

Reilly‐Harrington NA, DeBonis D, Leon AC, Sylvia L, Perlis R, Lewis D, Sachs GS. The interactive computer interview for mania.
Bipolar Disord 2010: 12: 521–527. © 2010 The Authors. Journal compilation © 2010 John Wiley & Sons A/S. Objectives: The Interactive Computer Interview for Mania (ICI‐M) is a computer‐administered interview that presents probes to assess symptom severity and utilizes a scoring algorithm to select follow‐up questions and rate subject responses in accordance with rating scale anchor points. The current study examines the acceptability, feasibility, and reliability of the ICI‐M as a potential method for evaluating the performance of human raters. Methods: Participants with a diagnosis of bipolar I or II disorder completed both a live interview of the Young Mania Rating Scale with a human rater (LR) and the ICI‐M. A panel of three expert raters reviewed each videotaped LR and assigned a consensus rating (CR). Participants completed a modified version of the Client Satisfaction Questionnaire to assess each method. Results: Intraclass correlation coefficients were 0.91 between the ICI‐M and CR and 0.97 between the LR and CR (n = 100), providing empirical support for the inter‐rater reliability of each approach. Coefficient alphas indicated comparable internal consistency reliability: ICI‐M = 0.82, LR = 0.83, and CR = 0.84. The ICI‐M was significantly more sensitive in detecting symptomatology than the LR (p < 0.001) and the CR (p < 0.001), and resulted in significantly higher ratings than CR on mood, speech, psychotic content, and disruptive‐aggressive behavior. While participants endorsed significantly higher overall satisfaction with LR, no significant differences emerged between ICI‐M and LR regarding willingness to participate again or ability to understand the questions. Conclusions: The ICI‐M is a well‐accepted and reliable method for assessing manic symptoms. The ICI‐M is a tool with adequate sensitivity to elicit symptoms and rate severity and is recommended as a tool to monitor and improve rater performance, not as a replacement of a human rater.