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Background/aim Engagement in desired occupations can promote health and wellbeing in older adults. Assessments of engagement often measure frequency, amount or importance of specific activities. This study aimed to develop a scale to measure older adults' evaluation of the extent to which their everyday activities are contributing to their health and wellness. Methods Eighteen items, each scored with a seven-point rating scale, were initially developed by content experts, covering perceptions of how daily activities contribute to physical and mental health, as well as satisfaction and activity participation in the last six months. Rasch analysis methods were used to refine the scale using the pencil and paper responses of 460 community-living older adults. Results Initial Rasch analysis indicated three unlabelled rating scale categories were seldom used, reducing measurement precision. Five items were conceptually different by misfit statistics and principal component analysis. Subsequently, those items were removed and the number of rating scale steps reduced to 4. The remaining 13-item, 4-step scale, termed the Activity Significance Personal Evaluation ( ASPEn), formed a unidimensional hierarchy with good fit statistics and targeting. Person separation reliability (2.7) and internal consistency (.91) indicated the tool is appropriate for individual person measurement. Relative validity indicated equivalence between Rasch measures and total raw scores. Conclusions ASPEn is a brief, easily administered assessment of older adults' perception of the contribution of everyday activities to personal health and wellness. ASPEn may facilitate occupational therapy practice by enabling clinicians to assess change in meaning of an older adult's activity over time. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Objectives. To determine the impact of Positive Prevention PLUS, a school-based adolescent pregnancy prevention program on delaying sexual intercourse, birth control use, and pregnancy. Methods. I randomly assigned a diverse sample of ninth grade students in 21 suburban public high schools in California into treatment (n = 2483) and control (n = 1784) groups that participated in a clustered randomized controlled trial. Between October 2013 and May 2014, participants completed baseline and 6-month follow-up surveys regarding sexual behavior and pregnancy. Participants in the treatment group were offered Positive Prevention PLUS, an 11-lesson adolescent pregnancy prevention program. Results. The program had statistically significant impacts on delaying sexual intercourse and increasing the use of birth control. However, I detected no program effect on pregnancy rates at 6-month follow-up. Conclusions. The Positive Prevention PLUS program demonstrated positive impacts on adolescent sexual behavior. This suggests that programs that focus on having students practice risk reduction skills may delay sexual activity and increase birth control use. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Aims To examine the safety and effectiveness of buprenorphine + naloxone sublingual tablets (BUP, as Suboxone®) provided after administration of extended-release injectable naltrexone (XR-NTX, as Vivitrol®) to reduce cocaine use in participants who met DSM-IV criteria for cocaine dependence and past or current opioid dependence or abuse. Methods This multi-centered, double-blind, placebo-controlled study, conducted under the auspices of the National Drug Abuse Treatment Clinical Trials Network, randomly assigned 302 participants at sites in California, Oregon, Washington, Colorado, Texas, Georgia, Ohio, New York and Washington DC, USA to one of three conditions provided with XR-NTX: 4 mg/day BUP (BUP4, n = 100), 16 mg/day BUP (BUP16, n = 100, or no buprenorphine (placebo; PLB, n = 102). Participants received pharmacotherapy for 8 weeks, with three clinic visits per week. Cognitive behavioral therapy was provided weekly. Follow-up assessments occurred at 1 and 3 months post-intervention. The planned primary outcome was urine drug screen (UDS)-corrected, self-reported cocaine use during the last 4 weeks of treatment. Planned secondary analyses assessed cocaine use by UDS, medication adherence, retention and adverse events. Results No group differences were found between groups for the primary outcome (BUP4 versus PLB, P = 0.262; BUP16 versus PLB, P = 0.185). Longitudinal analysis of UDS data during the evaluation period using generalized linear mixed equations found a statistically significant difference between BUP16 and PLB [ P = 0.022, odds ratio (OR) = 1.71] but not for BUP4 ( P = 0.105, OR = 1.05). No secondary outcome differences across groups were found for adherence, retention or adverse events. Conclusions Buprenorphine + naloxone, used in combination with naltrexone, may be associated with reductions in cocaine use among people who meet DSM-IV criteria for cocaine dependence and past or current opioid dependence or abuse. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]