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Children post-burn injury experience a range of psychosocial sequelae that benefit from early provision of psychosocial support. However, no systematic review exists evaluating the full range of psychological interventions.Objective: To critically evaluate psychosocial interventions for children (<18 years old) with burn injuries in improving psychosocial recovery.Study Design: All-language studies were identified from inception to March 2018 in six electronic databases and appraised according to PRISMA checklist and Cochrane Risk of Bias Tool for quality. Studies were stratified into three groups: distraction (virtual reality, child life therapy, imagery-based therapy, hypnosis), burn camps, and other (social skills, cognitive behavioral therapy, parent group counseling).Results: Out of a total of 5,456 articles identified, 297 underwent full review resulting in 27 included articles published between 1986 and 2018. Sample sizes ranged from 9 to 266, comprising child and adult participants. A range of interventions and psychosocial outcome measures were found. Several studies (n = 21) reported statistically significant improvements in outcome; the majority were distraction interventions to reduce pain and anxiety. A limited number of studies showing effect was found for cognitive behavioral therapy and parent counseling. Risk of bias was high in studies of burn camps and mixed for all other interventions.Conclusions: A range of psychosocial interventions and outcome tools exist in pediatric burns. Distraction interventions prior to and/or during dressing changes or physical therapy were shown to effectively reduce pain and anxiety for a wide range of pediatric ages. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Since 2006, banning smoking in cars with children has become a rapidly growing tobacco control policy. However, to date, there have been few studies examining support and correlates of support for car smoking bans, and none of the existing studies have been international in nature. We conducted such a study among smokers in four countries. Methods: 6716 adult current smokers from the 2007 Wave of the International Tobacco Control Four Country Survey, a nationally representative, longitudinal cohort telephone survey of smokers in the USA, Canada, UK and Australia. Controlling for demographics, heaviness of smoking, smoking health knowledge/beliefs and quit intentions, we compared support and correlates of support for banning smoking in cars with children across the four countries. Results: The majority of smokers supported banning smoking in cars with children. Support was highest in Australia (83%), followed by the UK (75%) and Canada (74%); support was lower—but still high—in the USA (60%). Support was highest among smokers who: had stronger quit intentions, were lighter smokers, had lower education, had no children in the home, believed that cigarette smoke is dangerous to non-smokers and could cause asthma in children, and were concerned about modelling smoking to children. Conclusions: These findings indicate that a majority of smokers in the four countries support banning smoking in cars with children, and lend support to banning smoking in cars with children. Additionally, they suggest that support may be increased by educating smokers about the dangers of cigarette smoke exposure. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Health organizations worldwide recommend that adults and children minimize intakes of excess energy and salty, sweet, and fatty foods (all of which are highly preferred tastes) and eat diets richer in whole grains, low- and non- fat dairy products, legumes, fish, lean meat, fruits, and vegetables (many of which taste bitter). Despite such recommendations and the well-established benefits of these foods to human health, adults are not complying, nor are their children. A primary reason for this difficulty is the remarkably potent rewarding properties of the tastes and flavors of foods high in sweetness, saltiness, and fatness. While we cannot easily change children's basic ingrained biology of liking sweets and avoiding bitterness, we can modulate their flavor preferences by providing early exposure, starting in utero, to a wide variety of flavors within healthy foods, such as fruits, vegetables, and whole grains. Because the flavors of foods mothers eat during pregnancy and lactation also flavor amniotic fluid and breast milk and become preferred by infants, pregnant and lactating women should widen their food choices to include as many flavorful and healthy foods as possible. These experiences, combined with repeated exposure to nutritious foods and flavor variety during the weaning period and beyond, should maximize the chances that children will select and enjoy a healthier diet. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article reports on the 45-month follow-up study on the first pediatric efficacy trials to Mozambican children who received the vaccine or control vaccine for malaria. It is mentioned that the vaccine lowered the parasetemia prevalence in the control group, but most importantly, there were no side effects to children on the natural acquisition of immunity to malaria. Furthermore, this research was made since malaria remains a major risk causing 1-2 million deaths annually and a great burden to children and pregnant women in tropical Africa. Lastly, though the next generations of malaria vaccines proves to reduce the disease and associated deaths, there is a need of intensified research and development on antivector methods and effective block on the transmission of the disease.

This article explores intergenerational implications, specifically the troubled transitions of the children of incarcerated fathers from adolescence to adulthood. Although crime rates have decreased annually since the early 1990s, the social exclusion of fathers through imprisonment has increased, as has the further exclusion of young adults through homelessness, health-care uninsuredness, and political nonparticipation. Our latent class analysis indicates that 15 percent of youth are socially excluded, an estimate similar to administrative estimates of severely "disconnected" youth. We combine the logic of a cumulative disadvantage theory and the status attainment paradigm with three waves of the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health (Add Health) to examine the effects of father's imprisonment on the social detainment and exclusion of children during the transition to adulthood. Problems of socialization and strain associated with the incarceration and absence of biological fathers, as well as state sanctioning of youth from these disrupted families, are important aspects of the cumulative process of disadvantage that we identify in these data; however, the interconnected roles of father's incarceration and intergenerational educational detainment are pivotal in producing exclusionary outcomes for children in emerging adulthood. Although there is much evidence that the effects we examine are generic across gender, there is also more specific evidence that the absence of biological fathers from households associated with incarceration leaves daughters at special risk of abuse and neglect by nonbiological father figures and through homelessness during the transition to adulthood. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

John Wall's review argues correctly that the academy pays too much attention to the needs and desires of adults, often at the expense of the welfare of children; he is also right to point out that evangelical Protestant efforts to focus on the family are overly therapeutic and privatistic. But his ethical agenda for fatherhood is neither the most sociologically wise nor the most theologically sound path to the renewal of Christian fatherhood. Specifically, Wall is insufficiently attentive to the enduring challenge that the "male problematic" poses to the integration of fathers into families. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This essay argues for a new religious ethical approach to fatherhood centered on children and their expanding capabilities for participation in society. Under the notion of "childism"--in analogy to feminism, womanism, humanism, and the like--it takes the perspective of the experiences and concerns of childhood as such. In contrast with a soft patriarchal argument for fatherhood that dominates much religious discourse today, it argues for a larger and more hopeful vision of fatherhood as directed toward the human social good. This requires, methodologically, a richer hermeneutical circle between religion and the social sciences. Substantively, it calls for Christian and other religious ethicists to re-imagine fatherhood as an integrated public-private responsibility that aims to cultivate children's fully human social creativity as images of their Creator. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study is a preliminary examination of life satisfaction among 103 children in one residential treatment care (RTC) setting in Israel. Life satisfaction was examined using the Multidimensional Students Life Satisfaction Scale (MSLSS). Gender differences in life satisfaction and correlations with background and in-care variables were examined. The study revealed that girls were more satisfied with RTC-specific domains than boys and that the residential child-care worker-child relationship plays a major role in the child's life satisfaction. Findings provided some support for the utility of the MSLSS to describe RTC children and youth's life satisfaction across a number of important life domains. Ongoing administration of such scales has the potential to monitor RTC children's life satisfaction and its correlates throughout their stay in care. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Objective Assessed the convergent and discriminant validity of a water load symptom provocation test (WL-SPT) in creating visceral sensations similar to the naturally occurring sensations experienced by children with functional abdominal pain. Methods Participants were pediatric patients with functional abdominal pain (N = 110) and healthy school children (N = 120) between the ages of 8 and 16 years. Pain patients completed questionnaires describing gastrointestinal (GI) and nongastrointestinal (non-GI) symptoms associated with their typical abdominal pain episodes. Weeks later, the WL-SPT was administered to pain patients and well children. Before and immediately following the WL-SPT, children rated their symptoms. Results The WL-SPT produced (a) significant increases in children's GI symptoms that were reliably predicted by the children's naturally occurring GI symptoms, and (b) significantly greater increases in GI symptoms in pain patients than in well children. Conclusions The WL-SPT produces clinically relevant symptoms for laboratory studies of children with functional abdominal pain. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]