Social marketing benchmark criteria use in health behaviour change interventions in pacific islands populations: a systematic review

Purpose Social marketing has been widely used to effectively and voluntarily change behaviours worldwide. The social marketing benchmark criteria offer a framework to apply this approach. This paper aims to examine the extent of use and predictors of success of social marketing benchmark criteria in changing the health behaviours of Pacific Islands populations. Design/methodology/approach A systematic review of studies designed to change health behaviours among Pacific Islands populations. Studies were assessed against the social marketing benchmark criteria to determine the extent to which the reported intervention used a social marketing approach; and whether the use of the social marketing benchmark criteria led to more effective interventions. Findings In total, 22 studies were included. In total, 13 were conducted within the Pacific Islands and 9 were aimed at Pacific Islands populations living in America, New Zealand or Hawaii. The most common criteria used were behaviour change, insight and customer orientation. Theory criterion was least commonly used. There was no clear indication of which criterion or combination of criteria, resulted in more effective interventions. Research limitations/implications Further empirical evaluations of social marketing interventions within the Pacific Islands context are required to appropriately assess effective predictors of success for this population group. Studies of social marketing interventions targeting non-Pacific Islands populations in non-Pacific Island countries and territories may have limited applicability to Pacific Islanders living in Pacific Island countries and territories. Originality/value While similar studies have been conducted, this is the first study to review all behaviour change interventions by applying a social marketing lens in the Pacific Islands. While globally this may have been reviewed, the Pacific Islands has a unique context that needs to be considered, rather than assuming a one size fits all approach. This study offers a comprehensive overview of existing health behaviour change interventions in the Pacific Islands and a call to action to move social marketing forward within the Pacific Islands.

Comprehension of Ukrainian by Estonians via Russian: Structural and extra-linguistic aspects

This study explores how people use and expand their linguistic resources in the situation when they have some proficiency in L2 and try to understand L3 that is related to L2. The focus of the study is on the comprehension of Ukrainian by Estonian L1 speakers via their proficiency in Russian (L2). This situation is labeled as mediated receptive multilingualism. The aim of this research is to investigate the role of cross-linguistic similarity (objective or perceived, in the terms of Ringbom 2007) and extra-linguistic predictors of success in comprehension. In addition to measuring the success rate, we pay attention to the participant's perspective. The experiment was conducted with 30 speakers of Estonian as L1 and included a questionnaire, C-test in Russian, three Ukrainian texts with different groups of tasks, and debriefing. In this article, we focus on the task of defining Ukrainian words from the text and on debriefing interviews. The results showed that similarity, perceived or objective, is not the only decisive factor in facilitating understanding. The participants explanations confirmed our previous findings that similarity, albeit important, is only partly responsible for successful comprehension. This became clear from the debriefing interviews. In many cases, the participants' choice was affected by a range of extra-linguistic factors: general knowledge, context, exposure to various registers of Russian, M-factor, meta-linguistic awareness, and learnability. In some instances, context and general knowledge outweighed similarity. These findings show how similarity worked together with extra-linguistic factors in facilitating successful comprehension in challenging multilingual settings.

Success Formula of Mathletes

Mathematics competitions, together with the people and organizations engaged with them, form an immense and vibrant global network of today. This network has many roles. Competitions help identify students with higher abilities in Mathematics and motivate these students to develop their talents and to seek professional realization in science, thus gave positive impact on education and on educational institutions. The study aimed to find out the success formula of Grade VI mathletes in the Division of Antique, Philippines. Specifically, this sought to answer the following questions: 1. What is the profile of mathletes in terms of demographic characteristics such as sex, parents' highest educational attainment, socio-economic status and length of training in Mathematics competition. 2. What is the profile of mathletes in terms of school related factors such as length of Mathematics teacher's teaching experience, length of teacher's coaching experience, number of Mathematics trainings attended by the teacher, and type of school? 3. What is the profile of successful mathletes in terms of internal factors such as self-motivation and interest and innate mathematical ability, and external factors such as Mathematics teacher-coach's effectiveness, availability of instructional/review materials, purposive math training, parental moral support, peer support? 4. What is the performance of mathletes in Mathematics competitions? 5. Which of the demographic, internal and external ga are predictors of success in Mathematics competitions? 6. What is the success formula of successful mathletes?

Mini craniotomy for chronic subdural haematoma: surgical outcome from a single institution experience and predictors of success

Background: Chronic subdural hematoma (CSDH) is an increasingly common neurological disease in daily neurosurgical practice. Despite the wide prevalence of CSDH, there remains a lack of consensus regarding numerous aspects of its surgical management. The diagnosis and treatment are well established but there are different surgical procedures and outcome related to these procedures are not completely understood.Methods: The study conducted was conducted in department of neurosurgery at Ibrahim cardiac hospital and research institute, Dhaka, Bangladesh between January 2019 to July 2020, 105 patients were treated for chronic subdural haematoma This study evaluated the clinical features, radiological findings and surgical outcome by mini craniotomy assessed by modified Rankin scale (mRS) score and Glasgow outcome scale (GOS) score in a large series of patients treated at single institution.Results: At 6 months follow up, only one patient died (0.95%) because of co-morbidities and not directly related to the chronic subdural haematoma, 15 patients (14.3%) improved to mRS 0, 33.33% showed only mild symptoms without any significant disability-mRS 1, slight disability was observed in 28.5% patients, moderate disability was observed in 17.14% patients-mRS 3, moderately severe disability was observed in 5.7%-mRS 4.Conclusions: GOS score at 6 months follow up which shows majority of the patient improved to GOS score 4 (45.71%) and 5 (38.09%). Based on these results, among various method of surgical management, mini craniotomy provides better outcome.

Predictors of Success After Furlow Palatoplasty for Repair of Cleft Palate: Does Syndrome Matter?

Objective To determine predictors of success following Veau 1 and 2 cleft palate repair in patients with and without syndromes. Study Design Retrospective review of prospectively collected data. Setting Tertiary care children’s hospital. Methods All children <18 months of age undergoing Furlow palatoplasty for Veau 1 and 2 cleft repair between 2000 and 2014 with postoperative perceptual speech assessment (PSA). Results In total, 368 consecutive patients were identified; 95 were excluded, resulting in 273 patients. Median age at surgery was 13.0 months (interquartile range [IQR], 11-15 months) with postoperative PSA at a median of 32.3 months (IQR, 26.3-44.5 months). Fifty patients (18.3%) had syndrome diagnosis; 59 patients (21.6%) had nonsyndromic Robin sequence. Velopharyngeal insufficiency (VPI) occurred in 27 patients (10.5%); 13 underwent secondary speech surgery. Cleft-related speech errors occurred in 46 patients (17.6%). Non-cleft-related speech errors occurred in 155 patients (59.6%) and reduced intelligibility in 127 patients (47.9%). Oronasal fistula occurred in 23 patients (8.8%) and was exclusive to Veau 2 clefts. In multivariate analysis, age >13 months at palatoplasty demonstrated a 6-fold higher rate of VPI (hazard ratio [HR], 6.64; P < .01), worse speech outcomes (HR, 6.04; P < .01; HR, 1.60; P < .01; HR, 1.57; P = .02), and greater speech therapy utilization (HR, 2.18; P < .01). Conclusion VPI occurred in 10% of patients undergoing Furlow palatoplasty repair of Veau 1 or 2 clefts. Age <13 months at palatoplasty was associated with improved speech outcomes and lower VPI incidence (2.8% vs 16.2%). Syndromic diagnosis was associated with noncleft speech errors and reduced intelligibility on univariate analysis but not velopharyngeal function after palatoplasty.