Search

Background Individuals with ID are often withheld information about the death of their loved ones as it has often been thought that they do not understand death or cannot grieve. This grief exacerbates the stress of individuals with ID as they often encounter secondary losses such as transitioning to a care facility. The aim of this study is to investigate men and women with ID understanding death concepts and to what extent . Method Adopting a stratified random sampling method, 156 Chinese people with ID were invited to join the study. One hundred and ten participants were interviewed using simple death related vignettes expanding upon and replicating a published study carried out in Ireland. The understanding of the five death concepts: causality, irreversibility, nonfunctionality, universality and inevitability was examined. The correlates of demographics, bereavement experiences and comprehension were explored. Results The majority of the participants did understand concepts such as death is irreversible and that the deceased no longer function. One third of the participants understood causality and the universality of death. One fifth understood the inevitability of death. Previous bereavement experiences were correlated with higher understanding. Communication and community skills were correlated with all concepts of death except universality. Conclusion The results indicate that individuals with ID do have a partial to full understanding of the concepts of death. The culture of Hong Kong is one that considers death to be a taboo or unlucky subject. Therefore, the results mirror the the lack of understanding of universality and inevitability concepts as it is forbidden to speak of these concepts. An open and honest environment is encouraged to educate individuals with ID about death and bereavement. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Objectives: To evaluate nucleic acid testing of urine specimens against conventional Neisseria gonorrhoeae (NG) and Chlamydia trachomatis (CT) tests in genital swab specimens in a sexually transmitted infection (STI) clinic setting. Methods: Genital swab and urine samples were collected from attendees of public STI clinics in Hong Kong from May to June 2007. Swab specimens were subjected to on-site Gram stained microscopy and inoculation onto modified Thayer-Martin medium for NG culture before laboratory processing. CT PCR on genital swabs was performed by the Roche Cobas Amplicor test. Urine samples were tested for CT and NG by the Aptima Combo 2 (AC2) assay. Results: Data from 414 patients were analysed. The sensitivity and specificity of AC2 for NG were 100% (35/35) and 98.4% (373/379), respectively, with culture of genital swab specimens as standard. On-site microscopy provided timely results for empirical antimicrobial therapy, whereas culture yielded bacterial isolates for susceptibility testing and typing studies. Regarding CT, using Amplicor on genital swab specimens as reference, the sensitivity and specificity of AC2 were 98.7% (78/79) and 97.5% (313/321), respectively. Amplicor yielded uninterpretable results in 14 specimens due to PCR inhibitors. Conclusions: The current STI clinic and laboratory practices were practical and useful for clinical management, even though favourable results were obtained with the AC2 assay, which had streamlined laboratory workflow. The use of a molecular testing strategy may be cost-effective with microscopy and culture being targetted for patient groups with the highest expected yield of positive results. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]