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Purpose: It has been suggested that the intergenerational transmission of anxiety may be an important contributor to the high prevalence of anxiety in adolescents. The objectives of this study are to examine whether and how parental anxiety is related to adolescent's anxiety and to explore the associations of parental anxiety and parent-child communication with adolescents' anxiety across different grades. Methods: The current survey was conducted online from February 8th to February 27th, 2020.The questionnaires were distributed and retrieved through a web-based platform. A total of 6196 Chinese rural adolescents from grade seven to twelve (age ranging from 11 to 18 years old) were included. Results: In this study, parental anxiety was significantly associated with higher adolescent anxiety (β = 0.14, p < 0.001) and this association was statically strongest at grade twelve. Besides, children with problematic parent-child communication related to COVID-19 reported elevated anxiety (β = 0.05, p < 0.01). In contrast, effective parent-child communication about COVID-19 mitigated the level of anxiety transmitted from parent to child (β = -0.04, p < 0.05). Conclusions: During the COVID-19 epidemic, parents' anxiety was related to adolescents' anxiety. In addition, parent-child communication plays a moderating role in the above relationship. These findings emphasize the importance of implementing more psycho-education programs that specifically target parents' emotion regulation and effective communication abilities to ameliorate the psychopathological symptoms of parents and their children. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Parental health literacy is important to children's health and development, especially in the first 3 years. However, few studies have explored effective intervention strategies to improve parental literacy., Objective: This study aimed to determine the effects of a WeChat official account (WOA)-based intervention on parental health literacy of primary caregivers of children aged 0-3 years., Methods: This cluster randomized controlled trial enrolled 1332 caregiver-child dyads from all 13 community health centers (CHCs) in Minhang District, Shanghai, China, between April 2020 and April 2021. Participants in intervention CHCs received purposefully designed videos via a WOA, which automatically recorded the times of watching for each participant, supplemented with reading materials from other trusted web-based sources. The contents of the videos were constructed in accordance with the comprehensive parental health literacy model of WHO (World Health Organization)/Europe (WHO/Europe). Participants in control CHCs received printed materials similar to the intervention group. All the participants were followed up for 9 months. Both groups could access routine child health services as usual during follow-up. The primary outcome was parental health literacy measured by a validated instrument, the Chinese Parental Health Literacy Questionnaire (CPHLQ) of children aged 0-3 years. Secondary outcomes included parenting behaviors and children's health outcomes. We used the generalized linear mixed model (GLMM) for data analyses and performed different subgroup analyses. The β coefficient, risk ratio (RR), and their 95% CI were used to assess the intervention's effect., Results: After the 9-month intervention, 69.4% (518/746) of caregivers had watched at least 1 video. Participants in the intervention group had higher CPHLQ total scores (β=2.51, 95% CI 0.12-4.91) and higher psychological scores (β=1.63, 95% CI 0.16-3.10) than those in the control group. The intervention group also reported a higher rate of exclusive breastfeeding (EBF) at 6 months (38.9% vs 23.44%; RR 1.90, 95% CI 1.07-3.38) and a higher awareness rate of vitamin D supplementation for infants younger than 6 months (76.7% vs 70.5%; RR 1.39, 95% CI 1.06-1.82). No significant effects were detected for the physical score on the CPHLQ, breastfeeding rate, routine checkup rate, and children's health outcomes. Furthermore, despite slight subgroup differences in the intervention's effects on the total CPHLQ score and EBF rate, no interaction effect was observed between these subgroup factors and intervention factors., Conclusions: Using a WHO literacy model-based health intervention through a WOA has the potential of improving parental health literacy and EBF rates at 6 months. However, innovative strategies and evidence-based content are required to engage more participants and achieve better intervention outcomes., (© Yun Li, Qiuli Xiao, Min Chen, Chunhua Jiang, Shurong Kang, Ying Zhang, Jun Huang, Yulin Yang, Mu Li, Hong Jiang. Originally published in JMIR Public Health and Surveillance (https://publichealth.jmir.org).)

Background: Genetic studies have provided convergent results indicating that schizophrenia is a polygenic disorder with a heritability estimate of ∼60–80%. The propensity for schizophrenia is ∼10 times higher in individuals with first-degree relatives with schizophrenia when compared to the general population. Aim: To identify associations between parental characteristics and the risk of schizophrenia in a Chinese population. Methods: Participants with a diagnosis of schizophrenia were recruited along with healthy controls (HCs) matched for age and gender from Weifang, China. Logistic regression models and generalized linear models were used to explore the associations between parental characteristics with the risk and age at onset of schizophrenia. In total, 414 cases and 639 HCs were recruited for the study. Results: We observed an inverse association between levels of paternal and maternal education and risk of schizophrenia after controlling for potential confounders (Paternal: OR = 1.525, 95% CI: 1.080–2.153, p =.017; Maternal: OR = 1.984, 95% CI: 1.346-2.924, p =.001). Younger paternal and maternal childbearing age were associated with a higher risk of diagnosis of schizophrenia. We furtherly observed that individuals with earlier age at onset of schizophrenia had fewer siblings (p =.007) and had higher rates of parental marital disharmony (p =.033). Conclusion: Our results indicate that parental years of education and age of childbearing are associated with an increased risk of schizophrenia in a Chinese population. Age of onset of schizophrenia was positively associated with a greater number of siblings and negatively associated with parental marital disharmony. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Objective: The current study aims to explore the association of parents living with HIV (PLHs) and their children's self-esteem, everyday stress, and delinquent behaviors. Design: The study samples included 79 families with 79 PLHs and 79 children. Methods: Multiple regression analysis was used on baseline data collected in 2009 from a pilot study in Anhui Province, China. Results: The results indicated that children from a family with both parents infected with HIV or children from families having multiple children were more likely to report a higher level of everyday stress. Male PLHs have significant influence on their children's everyday stress compared with female PLHs. Children reporting a lower level of parental care and lower self-esteem were significantly more likely to report a higher level of delinquent behaviors. In addition, we have found a strong positive correlation between families with multiple children and their children's delinquent behaviors. Conclusions: The findings indicate that the severity of psychological and behavioral problems of children living in different HIV-affected families may be dependent not only on factors related to the children but also on factors related to their parents and families. Therefore, parental and family level factors should be considered when providing care and support to children living in HIV-affected families. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study describes the validation and interpretation of the Parents' Attributions and Perception Questionnaire (PAPQ) using confirmatory factor analysis and Rasch modelling to report both the construct validity and category structure of the scales in the questionnaire. The PAPQ was developed to reflect the proposal that parents mediate the relationship between their children's social and psychological development, and their academic achievement, within the context of Hong Kong. The questionnaire consists of four subscales that reflect different interactions between parents and their children in relation to their children's academic-related activities, including a Parental Attributions Scale, Parental Beliefs of Working Memory Scale, Parental Home and School Involvement Scale, and Parental Academic Expectations Scale. These subscales were supplemented by a fifth subscale that describes parents' socio-economic background. The PAPQ was administered to 215 parents from four schools in Hong Kong. Results showed that the four subscales of the PAPQ are valid and reliable unidimensional measures of constructs related to parental role in the academic achievement of their children, thereby enabling future research to directly test Vygotsky's hypothesis. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In a large-scale survey of 9,526 parents in China, we investigated antimicrobial drug use for common childhood infections. Of children with self-limiting conditions, formal care was sought for 69.2%; of those, 53.4% received drug prescriptions, including 11.2% from parental demands. Where drugs were taken without prescriptions, 70% were from community pharmacies.