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Introduction: Students who are enrolled in professional education programs such as occupational therapy may have inherent attitudes towards the future clients they work with. These attitudes may be influenced by the level of their professional education as well as cultural values of their country of origin. Purpose: The purpose of the study was to examine occupational therapy students' attitudes towards individuals with disabilities from an international, cross-cultural perspective and to investigate the possible impact of professional education on students' attitudes. Method: 485 occupational therapy students from 11 university programs (3 from Australia, 3 from the United Kingdom, 3 from the United States, and 2 from Taiwan) completed the "Interactions with Disabled Person's" (IDP) scale. Results: Significant differences were found between occupational therapy students from Australia, Taiwan, the United States, and the United Kingdom on the following IDP variables: overall attitude towards individuals with disabilities, "discomfort", "sympathy", "uncertainty", "coping", "fear", and "vulnerability". Significant differences between first year students as a total group and final year students as a total group were found on their overall attitudes towards individuals with disabilities, "discomfort", and "uncertainty". Conclusion/implications: The attitudes towards individuals with disabilities among first year and final year occupational therapy students varies between countries and the students' year level also impacts on their attitudes towards individuals with a disability. (Contains 3 tables.)

Background: The management of various central nervous system (CNS) disorders has been challenging, due to highly compact blood-brain barrier (BBB) impedes the access of most pharmacological agents to the brain. Among multiple strategies proposed to circumvent this challenge, intranasal delivery route has sparked great interest for brain targeting in the past decades. The aim of this study was to apply scientometric method to estimate the current status and future trends of the field from a holistic perspective. Methods: All relevant publications during 1998–2020 were retrieved from the Web of Science Core Collection (SCIE, 1998-present). Two different scientometric software including VOS viewer and CiteSpace, and one online platform were used to conduct co-authorship, co-citation, and co-occurrence analysis of journals, countries, institutes, authors, references and keywords. Results: A total of 2,928 documents, including 2,456 original articles and 472 reviews, were retrieved. Our analysis revealed a significant increasing trend in the total number of scientific publications over the past 2 decades (R 2 = 0.98). The United States dominated the field, reflecting in the largest amount of publications (971), the highest H-index (99), and extensive international collaboration. Jamia Hamdard contributed to most publications. Frey WH and Illum L were key researchers with the highest number of publications and citations, respectively. The International Journal of Pharmaceutics was the most influential academic journal, and Pharmacology/Pharmacy and Neurosciences/Neurology were the hottest research categories in this field. Based on keywords occurrence analysis, four main topics were identified, and the current research focus of this field has shifted from cluster 4 (pathways and mechanisms of intranasal delivery) to cluster 2 (the study of nasal drug delivery systems), especially the nanostructured and nano-sized carrier systems. Keywords burst detection revealed that the research focus on oxidative stress, drug delivery, neuroinflammation, nanostructured lipid carrier, and formulation deserves our continued attention. Conclusion: To the authors' knowledge, this is the first scientometric analysis regarding intranasal delivery research. This study has demonstrated a comprehensive knowledge map, development landscape and future directions of intranasal delivery research, which provides a practical and valuable reference for scholars and policymakers in this field. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This international, cross-cultural study investigated the attitudes of occupational therapy students from Australia, United Kingdom, United States and Taiwan towards inclusive education for students with disabilities. The possible impact of professional education on students' attitudes was also explored. A total of 485 students from 11 entry-level occupational therapy education programmes from Australia, the United Kingdom, the United Sates and Taiwan participated in the study. Among them, 264 were freshmen (first-year students) and 221 were seniors (final-year students). Data collected from a custom-designed questionnaire were analysed both quantitatively and qualitatively. In general, the occupational therapy students reported having positive attitudes towards inclusion. Considerable differences, however, existed among the student groups from the four countries. Professional education appeared to have a significant impact on students' attitudes towards inclusion from first year to senior year. Although students were in favour of inclusion, they also cautioned that their support for inclusive practices depended on various factors such as adequate preparation, support and assistance to students with disabilities. Limitations of the study included the small, convenience sample and different degree structures of the participating programmes. Future research studies need to compare occupational therapy students' attitudes with students from other health care professions. A longitudinal study on the impact of the professional education programme on students' attitudes towards inclusive education is warranted. Copyright © 2009 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Introduction: Background: myopia is associated with sight-threatening potential complications, and it becoming increasingly common globally. However, the association between serum 25-hydroxyvitamin D [25(OH)D] concentrations and myopia remains unclear and the evidence is controversial. Thus, this study aimed to investigate the association between serum 25(OH)D concentrations and myopia in the U.S. population. Subject and methods: this study used the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (NHANES) 2001-2008 data. The logistic regression was applied to explore the association between serum 25(OH)D concentrations and myopia. Results: among the 14,051 participants, the prevalence of myopia was 33.2 % (4,668/14,051). In the multivariate regression models, serum 25(OH)D concentrations as continuous variable were non-significantly associated with the prevalence of myopia (adjusted OR, 0.98 [95 % CI, 0.97-1.00]) after adjusting all covariates. As a categorical variable, serum 25(OH)D compared with the lowest tertile, the adjusted ORs with increasing tertiles were 0.96 (95 % CI: 0.89,1.05) and 0.95 (95 % CI: 0.86, 1.06). In myopia participants, serum 25(OH)D concentrations were also non-significantly associated with the progress of myopia. In stratified analyses, the results remain stable with different ages, sex, and education parameters. Conclusions: serum 25(OH)D concentrations were non-significantly associated with myopia in the U.S. population. We need more prospective studies to provide evidence.