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To investigate the association between physical activity (PA) domains and chronic low back pain (LBP) in older adults. A cross-sectional study where sociodemographic, behavioral, and health variables; PA; and presence of chronic LBP were collected. Higher scores of PA defined the "more active" participants. Binary logistic regression was used to test the association between PA domains and chronic LBP. A total of 516 participants were included. The mean age was 71.8 (95% confidence interval, CI, [71.1, 72.5]) years, and 29%, 27%, 25%, and 31% were identified as "more active" in the household, sports, leisure-time, and total PA domains, respectively. "More active" participants in sports (odds ratio = 0.62, 95% CI [0.40, 0.97]), leisure-time (odds ratio = 0.54, 95% CI [0.35, 0.85]) and total (odds ratio = 0.60, 95% CI [0.39, 0.92]) PA domains were less likely to report chronic LBP. High levels of sports, leisure-time, and total PA were inversely associated with chronic LBP. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

For the past thirty years, Critical Discourse Studies has been consolidating as a form of linguistically-oriented, critical social research which is characterized by a deep interest in actual social issues and forms of inequality, such as racism, xenophobia, anti-Semitism and sexism, both in terms of the asymmetries between participants in discourse events and their unequal capacity to control how texts are produced, distributed and consumed. In parallel, since its coinage in Kimberlé Crenshaw's African American feminist critique of race and sex discrimination, intersectionality has been increasingly taken up on a global scale by scholars and practitioners alike, becoming a major feminist way of conceptualizing the relation between several forms of discrimination and oppression, to be analysed as simultaneous and multiplicative experiences. This Special Issue aims to enquire into the potential convergence between the critical discursive and intersectional approaches as theory, method and practice for the exploration of the crossroads of inequalities and oppression. This may contribute to the development of a critical research framework that enables the acknowledgment of the profound ways in which discursively, institutionally and/or structurally constructed sociocultural categorizations interact and produce different kinds of societal inequalities and unjust social relations. These, in turn, can be analysed in terms of the mutual and intertwined processes of resistance and transformation that arise out of them. Bringing together diverse contributions with a shared critical discursive and intersectional outlook, this Special Issue hopes to offer new theoretical and methodological insights for thinking through diversity in the light of present and future dynamics of inclusion, exclusion, and inequality. The six contributions operationalize the intersectional approach as theory, method and/or practice and incorporate it with a CDS perspective, providing a flavour of what a critical and intersectional discursive engagement with different and dynamic identity and power configurations on a global scale can achieve. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

On June 29, 2019, Carola Rackete docked the rescue ship Sea-Watch 3 on the Sicilian island of Lampedusa, in defiance of a ban imposed by Italy's Interior Minister Matteo Salvini. The migrants rescued by the Sea-Watch 3 had been blocked at sea for the previous two weeks, making it to international headlines and sparking a heated debate around sovereignty and humanitarianism in the face of the European migration crisis. On her arrival, Rackete was arrested for refusing to obey a military vessel and aiding illegal immigration. This paper investigates social media and international news discourses around the Sea-Watch 3 docking, to be regarded as a critical incident capable of catalysing attention and generating a significant media resonance. Results show how both social and traditional media contributed to the proliferation of misogynous attacks against Captain Rackete, at the intersection between right-wing populist discourses of Italian 'sovranism' and European anti-immigrationism. By triangulating the role of the media, intersectional hostility and populist ideology, this paper sheds light on how these three factors feed into each other in the discursive construction of the 'Fortress Europe' of present times. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The proliferation of gender-based violence against women in politics (WIP) is increasingly recognized as a global phenomenon of interest. In particular, the new affordances of the Web 2.0 play a crucial role in the use of language, images, and other symbols to marginalize and exclude women as political actors. This paper illustrates the visual semiotics of misogyny against WIP on social media platforms. Two multimodal strategies are inductively identified and critically explicated as examples of semiotic violence at work: 1) image manipulation and 2) false identity attribution, both characterized by the use of image-based, user-generated content to abuse WIP. Delving into an inductive conceptualization of digital visual misogyny, this paper accounts for the long-standing, sexist and objectifying attention towards women's bodies which now proliferates on the inherently visual digital media platforms. As such, it underscores the relevance of a semiotic and multimodal approach to social media data in order to critically analyze the complex, multimodal discursive events of the Web 2.0. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Our patient's case prompted a retrospective assessment of DPD-deficiency patients, with available phenotype and genotype data, to identify any discordant results. Fluoropyrimidine (FP)-derived anti-metabolite cytotoxic drugs such as intravenous 5-Fluorouracil (5-FU) and oral capecitabine are currently the mainstay, (neo)adjuvant and metastatic, treatments for several solid tumors. It is crucial to consider DPD activity in clinical practice as 3%-15% of patients are partially DPD deficiency[5] and nearly 0.5% of European patients are completely DPD deficient.[6] The most commonly used techniques to screen for DPD deficiencies[7] are targeted I DPYD i genotyping or indirect DPD phenotyping by measuring the plasma uracil (U) concentration, since endogenous DPD metabolizes U to UH SB 2 sb (dihydrouracil). Uracil concentrations (A) and UH2/U ratios (B) of 15 heterozygous DPYD*2A patients (14 retrospective patients and the present case report patient). [Extracted from the article]

This paper proposes the concept of digital mirroring to explore and contextualise post-Arab Spring digital feminism in the Levant within a critical discourse framework. Digital mirroring illustrates the way in which contemporary Arab feminist groups articulate their digital presence orienting toward the vertical dimension of their sociopolitical contexts and toward the horizontal dimension characterised by the digital practices of other feminist movements in the region. We observed this phenomenon through the analysis of a multimodal corpus of Facebook and Instagram posts published by thirty-two institutionalised and non-institutionalised feminist groups in Jordan, Lebanon, Palestine, and Syria between 2011 and 2019. The analysis of the linguistic and the visual strategies of MENA feminist groups is grounded in contemporary sociolinguistic studies on Arabic diglossia and multimodality. Findings reveal the complex interplay of digital self-representation, local resistance, and transregional networking of Levantine women. We argue that a simultaneous analysis of the vertical and the horizontal contextual dimensions of digital mirroring is necessary to comprehend social media discursive strategies and their transregional breadth as a central component of contemporary Arab feminism and emancipatory discourses at large. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper investigates digital discursive practices of hostility against women in UK politics through quantitative and qualitative analysis of a corpus of Twitter data retrieved across the 3 weeks preceding the UK General Elections in December 2019. A mixed-methods approach was designed. First, we used quantitative semantic analysis to compare the large datasets of tweets about female and male MPs, with a view to detecting possible gendered patterns. We then triangulated our quantitative findings with an in-depth critical discursive analysis of the tweets mentioning female MPs. Rather than showing gendered patterns across the board, the results from the quantitative analysis brought out large inter-individual differences. Some female MPs received comments containing more lexis related to appearance, sexual history and violence, as well as more emotional or extreme language. Critical analysis of the hostile and abusive messages targeting women reveals them to be deeply embedded in a social perception of women's political activity as breaching the rules of gender performativity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

As the population ages, the prevalence of chronic musculoskeletal conditions, such as low back pain (LBP), increases. Sarcopenia, defined an age related loss of skeletal muscle mass, is a prevalent condition in the older population contributes significantly to functional decline, disability, frailty, and falls. The coexistence of both conditions may negatively impact the functional decline of the older adults, which may require a specific therapeutic approach to deal with both conditions. However, the first step is to investigate the prevalence of probable sarcopenia among older adults with chronic LBP and whether older adults with both conditions are more clinically disabled than older adults with chronic LBP without probable sarcopenia. The aims of this study were to determine the prevalence of probable sarcopenia among older adults with chronic LBP seeking physical therapy care in a primary care setting and to investigate whether older adults with chronic LBP and probable sarcopenia present with higher pain and disability than those with chronic LBP and no probable sarcopenia. This is a cross-sectional study design. We recruited older adults (age ≥60) living in Belo Horizonte, Brazil, reporting LBP for more than 3 months, seeking physical therapy care in a basic health unit (i.e. primary care setting) from the Brazilian National Healthcare System. Data collected included age, sex, pain intensity (0-10 scale), disability (i.e., Roland Morris disability questionnaire) and probable sarcopenia (i.e. algorithm from the European Working Group on Sarcopenia in Older People – EWGSOP2). To compare pain and disability levels in older adults with chronic LBP with and without probable sarcopenia, we calculate the mean difference (MD) and its confidence interval (CI). A total of 156 participants (73%women), mean age of 69.5 ± 6.2 years, mean pain intensity of 7.1 ± 2.3 points, and mean disability of 12.7 ± 5.5 points. The prevalence of probable sarcopenia was 31.40%. Patients with chronic LBP and probable sarcopenia reported higher mean pain intensity (MD=1.63; 95%CI: 0.89, 2.37) and disability (MD=5.38; 95%CI: 3.69, 7.07) than those with no probable sarcopenia. Nearly a third of older adults with chronic LBP seeking physical therapy care were classified as having probable sarcopenia. These patients reported higher pain and disability than patients with chronic LBP with no probable sarcopenia. In clinical practice, an approach to screening cases in older adults with chronic LBP and probable sarcopenia may help to identify more severe and disabling cases of low back pain. Future studies should investigate the prognostic value of sarcopenia in older adults with LBP. It may be possible that future therapeutic approaches should be developed and tested to treat older adults with both conditions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Chronic low back pain (LBP) is a prevalent condition in older adults, being identified as a cause of disability in this population. Despite ir validity and reliability, the functional capacity tests are not often administered in patients with LBP but provide useful information related to mobility. A measurement property of the functional capacity tests that has not been investigated extensively in the LBP field is the resiveness, such as the capacity to detect changes during the intervention. To determine the responsiveness of three functional capacity tests, the Timed Up and Go test, the 4-meter Walk test, the 5 times Sit to Stand test, and to compare with the responsiveness of the Roland Morris Disability Questionnaire (RMDQ) in older adults with chronic LBP undergoing an 8-week intervention. This is a responsiveness study with measurement before and after an 8-week intervention. It was prospectively registered at the Brazilian Registry of Clinical Trials (RBR-9prhzng). Patients with nonspecific LBP (age ≥60) were recruited. The functional capacity tests and the RMDQ were administered at baseline and after 8 weeks. The intervention followed the recommendations from clinical practice guidelines for the management of nonspecific LBP: The responsiveness was determined by calculating the effect size (ES), correlation analysis, and the analysis of the Receiver Operating Characteristic (ROC) Curve to calculate the area under the curve (AUC). 118 older adults with chronic LBP were recruited. The RMDQ was the most responsiveness measure, followed by the Sit to Stand test. The ES for the RMDQ was large (ES= -0,74; 95%IC: -0,56; -0,92), whereas the 5 Times Sit to Stand test presented a small effect (EF= -0,45, 95%CI: - 0,26; -0,64). The Timed UP and Go test and the 4-meter Walk test small ESs (ES< 0,25). The 5 Times Sit to Stand test was the only one to show a fair correlation (0,25 < r <0,50) with RMDQ. The ROC analysis, only the RMDQ showed AUC values above the cut-off point of 0,70. The RMDQ was responsive to an 8-week lumbar stabilization program in older adults with chronic LBP. The 5 Times Sit to Stand test was the most responsive but presented limitations with regard to the capacity to discriminate patients who recovered from those who did not recover. A possible explanation for the lack of responsiveness foto the tests may be due to the nature of the intervention, which was not focused on increasing ability and balance, components that are necessarily assessed by functional capacity tests. Functional capacity tests are widely used to assess mobility and balance in older adults. Only the 5 Times Sit to Stand test was considered to able to detect changes in older adults who underwent an 8-week intervention program. The RMDQ was more responsive than any of the functional capacity tests. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract Background One third to two thirds of people with schizophrenia have persistent psychotic symptoms despite clozapine treatment. Under real-world circumstances, the need to provide effective therapeutic interventions to patients who do not have an optimal response to clozapine has been cited as the most common reason for simultaneously prescribing a second antipsychotic drug in combination treatment strategies. In a clinical area where the pressing need of providing therapeutic answers has progressively increased the occurrence of antipsychotic polypharmacy, despite the lack of robust evidence of its efficacy, we sought to implement a pre-planned protocol where two alternative therapeutic answers are systematically provided and evaluated within the context of a pragmatic, multicentre, independent randomised study. Methods/Design The principal clinical question to be answered by the present project is the relative efficacy and tolerability of combination treatment with clozapine plus aripiprazole compared with combination treatment with clozapine plus haloperidol in patients with an incomplete response to treatment with clozapine over an appropriate period of time. This project is a prospective, multicentre, randomized, parallel-group, superiority trial that follow patients over a period of 12 months. Withdrawal from allocated treatment within 3 months is the primary outcome. Discussion The implementation of the protocol presented here shows that it is possible to create a network of community psychiatric services that accept the idea of using their everyday clinical practice to produce randomised knowledge. The employed pragmatic attitude allowed to randomly allocate more than 100 individuals, which means that this study is the largest antipsychotic combination trial conducted so far in Western countries. We expect that the current project, by generating evidence on whether it is clinically useful to combine clozapine with aripiprazole rather than with haloperidol, provides physicians with a solid evidence base to be directly applied in the routine care of patients with schizophrenia. Trial Registration Clincaltrials.gov Identifier: NCT00395915

On the occasion of the 2017 UK election campaign, Amnesty International conducted a large-scale, sentiment-based analysis of online hate speech against women MPs on Twitter (Dhrodia 2018), identifying the "Top 5" most attacked women MPs as Diane Abbott, Joanna Cherry, Emily Thornberry, Jess Phillips and Anna Soubry. Taking Amnesty International's results as a starting point, this paper investigates online misogyny against the "Top 5" women MPs, with a specific focus on the video-sharing platform YouΤube, whose loosely censored cyberspace is known as a breeding ground for antagonism, impunity and disinhibition (Pihlaja 2014), and, therefore, merits investigation. By collecting and analysing a corpus of YouTube multimodal data we explore, critique and contextualize online misogyny as a techno-social phenomenon applying a Social Media Critical Discourse Studies (SM-CDS) approach (KhosraviNik and Esposito 2018). Mapping a vast array of discursive strategies, this study offers an in-depth analysis on how technology-facilitated gender-based violence contributes to discursively constructing the political arena as a fundamentally male-oriented space, and reinforces stereotypical and sexist representation of women in politics and beyond. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Media play a pivotal role in the unequal representation of women in politics and as a result, they represent a crucial research site when triangulating gender, politics and violence. Gender-based violence has been explored from a traditional perspective on political violence, showing how the phenomenon differentially affects men and women (see [19]) as well as from perspectives more firmly grounded in gender and politics, where it is commonly labelled "Violence Against Women In Politics" (VAWIP) ([41], [42]; [43], [44]). Like most phenomena in the realm of politics, digital forms of violence and abuse against political actors are also profoundly gendered: statistics show that they affect women in politics disproportionately in comparison to their male counterparts ([2]) and they now represent one the most prevalent forms of violence against women in politics, with 6 MPs and parliamentary staff out of 10 being targeted across Europe ([31]). Among scholars and practitioners alike, gender-based violence against political actors is increasingly recognized as a global phenomenon of interest, to be problematized and theorized vis-à-vis traditional definitions of "violence in politics" or "violence against politicians" ([44]). [Extracted from the article]

The communicative affordances of the participatory web have opened up new and multifarious channels for the proliferation of hate. In particular, women navigating the cybersphere seem to be the target of a disproportionate amount of hostility. This paper explores the contexts, approaches and conceptual synergies around research on online misogyny within the new communicative paradigm of social media communication (KhosraviNik 2017a: 582). The paper builds on the core principle that online misogyny is demonstrably and inherently a discourse; therefore, the field is envisaged at the intersection of digital media scholarship, discourse theorization and critical feminist explications. As an ever-burgeoning phenomenon, online hate has been approached from a range of disciplinary perspectives but has only been partially mapped at the interface of meaning making contents/processes and new mediation technologies. The paper aims to advance the state of the art by investigating online hate in general, and misogyny in particular, from the vantage point of Social Media Critical Discourse Studies (SM-CDS); an emerging model of theorization and operationalization of research combining tenets from Critical Discourse Studies with scholarship in digital media and technology research (KhosraviNik 2014, 2017a, 2018). Our SM-CDS approach to online misogyny demarcates itself from insinuation whereby the phenomenon is reduced to digital communicative affordances per se and argues in favor of a double critical contextualization of research findings at both digital participatory as well as social and cultural levels. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Adopting a critical, multimodal perspective based on Kress and van Leeuwen's Visual Grammar, this study analyses how, throughout her campaign for the presidency of Trinidad and Tobago in 2010, Kamla Persad-Bissessar forged a self-image of a democratic and caring leader, able to clean up the country from its corruption scandals and foster solidarity and collaboration. The analysis focuses on the official portraits from the rally collected in the booklet Kamla 2010 ? The People's Partnership: Postcards from a Journey to Victory (Drakes 2010). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Objective: Population-based data about depression treatment are largely restricted to estimates of the frequency of antidepressant (AD) use. Such frequencies are difficult to interpret in the absence of information about dosages, reasons for taking the medications, and participation in nonpharmacologic treatment. The objective of this study was to describe the pattern of treatment for major depression (MD) in Alberta.Method: Telephone survey methods were employed. Random digit dialing was used to select a sample of 3345 household residents aged 18 to 64 years in Alberta. A computer-assisted telephone interview that included the Mini Neuropsychiatric Diagnostic Interview and questions about pharmacotherapy and psychotherapy was administered. Estimates were weighted for design features and population demographics.Results: The point prevalence of MD was 4.4% (95% confidence interval [CI], 3.4% to 5.5%), and the overall prevalence of current AD use was 7.4% (95% CI, 6.2% to 8.6%). The ADs taken most commonly, serotonin-specific reuptake inhibitors, were taken at therapeutic dosages 87.4% of the time. Most (80.7%) of those taking ADs reported taking them for more than 1 year. The frequency of receiving counselling, psychotherapy, or talk therapy was 3.9% overall and 14.3% in respondents with MD. However, most of these subjects were unable to name the type of counselling they were receiving.Conclusions: When compared with previous estimates, these results suggest continued progress in the delivery of evidence-based care to the population. There is room for additional improvement, especially in the provision of nonpharmacologic treatment. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Sirtuins (SIRTs) are seven nicotinamide adenine dinucleotide (NAD+)-dependent protein deacetylases enzymes (SIRT1–7) that play an important role in maintaining cellular homeostasis. Among those, the most studied are SIRT1 and SIRT3, a nuclear SIRT and a mitochondrial SIRT, respectively, which significantly impact with an increase in mammals' lifespan by modulating metabolic cellular processes. Particularly, when activated, both SIRT1 and 3 enhance pancreatic β-cells' insulin release and reduce inflammation and oxidative stress pancreatic damage, maintaining then glucose homeostasis. Therefore, SIRT1 and 3 activators have been proposed to prevent and counteract metabolic age-related diseases, such as type 2 diabetes mellitus (T2DM). Physical activity (PA) has a well-established beneficial effect on phenotypes of aging like β-cell dysfunction and diabetes mellitus. Recent experimental and clinical evidence reports that PA increases the expression levels of both SIRT1 and 3, suggesting that PA may exert its healthy contribute even by activating SIRTs. Therefore, in the present article, we discuss the role of SIRT1, SIRT3, and PA on β-cell function and on diabetes. We also discuss the possible interaction between PA and activation of SIRTs as a possible therapeutic strategy to maintain glucose hemostasis and to prevent T2DM and its complications, especially in the elderly population. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: Objective: Community studies have failed to confirm that biochemically assessed thyroid status is significantly associated with psychopathology. However, it has been reported that self-reported thyroid disease is associated with symptoms of depression and anxiety. The objective of the current study was to determine whether self-reported thyroid disease is associated with elevated mental disorder prevalence in the general population. Method: Data from the Canadian Community Health Survey (CCHS) 1.2: Mental Health and Well-being were used. The CCHS 1.2 included the World Mental Health version of the Composite International Diagnostic Interview and collected self-report data about professionally diagnosed chronic medical conditions, including thyroid disease. Results: Twelve-month and lifetime mental disorder prevalence was higher in subjects with thyroid disease than in subjects reporting no chronic conditions. For each condition examined (major depressive disorder, bipolar disorder, panic disorder/agoraphobia and social phobia), the 12-month and lifetime prevalence in subjects with thyroid disease resembled that of an aggregate category of subjects having other chronic conditions. After adjustment for age, sex and other chronic conditions, only social phobia was found to be associated with thyroid disease. Conclusions: People with thyroid disease are not a particularly high-need group for mental disorder screening or intervention, at least not in the community population. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Aim: The objective of this study was to identify clinical and demographic factors that may be associated with benzodiazepine treatment, to describe the reported reasons for use of these medications and to appraise the pattern of use in relation to standard guidelines in a general population sample., Methods: Telephone survey methods were employed to select a sample of 3345 people between the ages of 18 and 64. A computer assisted telephone interview, including the Mini Neuropsychiatric Diagnostic Interview (MINI), was administered. Estimates were weighted for design features and population demographics., Results: The overall prevalence of benzodiazepines use was 3.3% (95% confidence interval [CI] 2.6 to 4.1%). There was a higher frequency of medication use in women than men, among respondents who were widowed, separated or divorced, and those with lower levels of education. In relation to MINI diagnosis, diagnoses of Panic Disorder and Major Depression increased the probability of taking benzodiazepines. The reported main reason for use was "Sleep disorders" (68.9%), "Anxiety" (35.8%), "Depression" (27.8%) and "Pain management" (21.2%). More than 80% of subjects were taking benzodiazepines for more than one year., Conclusions: When compared to previous estimates, the lower frequency of benzodiazepines use suggests that there has been improvement in their evidence-based use at a population level. However our results once more confirm the difficulty stopping the use of these medications once they have been started. Further randomized control studies may help clinicians in having a better practical approach to rational benzodiazepine use.

Background: One third to two thirds of people with schizophrenia have persistent psychotic symptoms despite clozapine treatment. Under real-world circumstances, the need to provide effective therapeutic interventions to patients who do not have an optimal response to clozapine has been cited as the most common reason for simultaneously prescribing a second antipsychotic drug in combination treatment strategies. In a clinical area where the pressing need of providing therapeutic answers has progressively increased the occurrence of antipsychotic polypharmacy, despite the lack of robust evidence of its efficacy, we sought to implement a pre-planned protocol where two alternative therapeutic answers are systematically provided and evaluated within the context of a pragmatic, multicentre, independent randomised study., Methods/design: The principal clinical question to be answered by the present project is the relative efficacy and tolerability of combination treatment with clozapine plus aripiprazole compared with combination treatment with clozapine plus haloperidol in patients with an incomplete response to treatment with clozapine over an appropriate period of time. This project is a prospective, multicentre, randomized, parallel-group, superiority trial that follow patients over a period of 12 months. Withdrawal from allocated treatment within 3 months is the primary outcome., Discussion: The implementation of the protocol presented here shows that it is possible to create a network of community psychiatric services that accept the idea of using their everyday clinical practice to produce randomised knowledge. The employed pragmatic attitude allowed to randomly allocate more than 100 individuals, which means that this study is the largest antipsychotic combination trial conducted so far in Western countries. We expect that the current project, by generating evidence on whether it is clinically useful to combine clozapine with aripiprazole rather than with haloperidol, provides physicians with a solid evidence base to be directly applied in the routine care of patients with schizophrenia.

Aims: The term "presenteeism" is used to describe workers who are present in the workforce, but who are not functioning at full capacity. The objective of the study was to describe the impact of mood and anxiety disorders on presenteeism in a population sample., Methods: Random digit dialing was used to select a sample of n=3345 subjects between the ages of 18 and 64. A computer assisted telephone interview that included the Mini Neuropsychiatric Diagnostic Interview (MINI), the Stanford Presenteeism Scale 6 (SPS-6) and a pharmacoepidemiology module was administered., Results: Among subjects with comorbid mood and anxiety disorders 75.0% reported interference with their work compared with only 13.3% of subjects without mood or anxiety disorders. Mood and anxiety disorders were associated with lower presenteeism ratings. Regression analysis uncovered a significant gender by anxiety disorder interaction, indicating that the effect of anxiety disorders was greater in men than women., Conclusions: This is the first study to report the impact of mental disorders on presenteeism in a general population sample. The results confirm that the problem of presenteeism is not restricted to specific occupational groups, but is instead a widespread problem in the general population.