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This article provides a brief history of the Commission on Rehabilitation Counselor Certification and presents recent changes and strategic goals for moving forward. Challenges and opportunities for the profession in relation to certification are also discussed. (Contains 3 tables.)

Objective: Safety behaviors have been found to undermine successful exposure in the treatment of anxiety disorders for both adults and children. Although reliable measures of safety behaviors have been developed for use with adults, no such measure has been developed specifically for pediatric populations. In light of this limitation, the current study aimed to develop and validate a measure of the use of safety behaviors suitable for children: The Subtle Avoidance Measure for Youth (SAMY). Methods: Clinical (n = 174) and community (n = 138) young people, aged 7–13 years, provided data. Results: Both exploratory and confirmatory factor analyses supported a three-factor solution of the SAMY, which reflected checking behaviors, behaviors related to image management, and behaviors related to physical protection. The SAMY and its subscales demonstrated strong internal consistency, test-retest reliability, construct validity, and the ability to discriminate between clinical and community participants. Conclusions: Given its solid psychometric properties, the SAMY will prove useful for both research and clinical work with anxious young people. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Objectives: This study was designed to investigate whether an individual and parental history of functional pain syndromes (FPS) is found more often in adolescents suffering from chronic pain than in their pain-free peers. Methods: Our case-control study involved 101 adolescents aged 10-18 years. Cases were 45 patients of the Chronic Pain Clinic at Sydney Children's Hospital with diverse chronic pain disorders. Controls consisted of 56 adolescent volunteers who did not have chronic pain. Adolescents and their parents filled out questionnaires assessing demographic data as well as known and potential risk factors for chronic pain. A history of FPS was assessed by questionnaire, including restless legs syndrome (RLS). Chi-squared tests and t-tests were used to investigate univariate associations between chronic pain in adolescents and lifetime prevalence of FPS. Logistic regression was used to test multivariate associations, while controlling for possible confounders. Results: Migraine, non-migraine headaches, recurrent abdominal pain (RAP), and RLS were reported significantly more frequently in cases than controls (P-values of 0.01, ,0.001, 0.01, and 0.03, respectively). Parental migraine, RAP, and RLS were also significantly associated with adolescent chronic pain in the multivariate analyses. Individual history of migraine, non-migraine headaches, and RAP, along with parental history of RAP and depression significantly accounted for 36%-49% of variance in chronic pain. Other associations with chronic pain were generally in accordance with previous reports. Discussion: It may be helpful when assessing a child who has chronic pain or is at risk of chronic pain, to enquire about these associations. Based on the current findings, an individual history of migraine, non-migraine headaches, and RAP, as well as parental migraine, RAP, and RLS are symptoms that are of particular relevance to assess. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article provides a brief history of the Commission on Rehabilitation Counselor Certification and presents recent changes and strategic goals for moving forward. Challenges and opportunities for the profession in relation to certification are also discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Intravenous acyclovir had a significant effect on the resolution of the skin rash in patients with acute zoster, but the 5-day course of therapy was not, in itself, sufficient to treat coexisting ocular involvement. In an open study, topical acyclovir was found to control herpes zoster kerato-uveitis, without recurrences and in a shorter time than if steroids alone were used. The use of steroids in combination with acyclovir led to prolonged treatment and high recurrence rates. A comparative trial of topical acyclovir versus steroids in the treatment of acute herpes zoster kerato-uveitis showed significant differences in favour of acyclovir in terms of the time to resolution of corneal epithelial disease, total treatment duration and the numbers of patients having a recurrence of infection. The reductions in treatment duration and recurrence rate would be expected to result in a reduced incidence of ocular damage and visual loss in acyclovir treated patients. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

HLA, antigen frequencies were determined in patients who had suffered adverse reactions to the β-adrenergic blocking agent, practolol. No statistically significant differences were observed between these patients and control groups. The latter were selected to include two separate groups, normal random healthy population controls, and controls who had taken practolol with no apparent adverse effects. Patients suffering from the very severe form of reaction, sclerosing peritonitis, were analysed separately from those with other lesions e.g. ocular symptoms, but did not show any significant differences. Altered HLA antigen frequencies were observed for those control patients whose primary diagnosis was hypertension but this was considered to be due to selection bias. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]