The term ‘Hypertension’ is very familiar to us and is one of the undeniable public health concerns in Bangladesh. Research indicates that higher the blood pressure, the higher the risk of getting ischemic heart disease, stroke, heart failure and kidney diseases.

It is obvious that today’s health crisis in industrialized nations has shifted from communicable infectious issues to non-communicable diseases, especially ones of lifestyle (e.g., diabetes, coronary artery disease, substance abuse).

Editorial:

Breaking bad news gives us the same touch of fear, anxiety, and sadness that we experience as a child, when an epic hero collapses. Despite several approaches identified by clinical and psychological research to make this task less painful, a physician seldom feels totally prepared and the way to break bad news never gets easier. Having these conversations is inevitable in certain specialties like emergency medicine, surgery and oncology.

Introduction: The number of people with disabilities in Brazil and worldwide has grown considerably in recent decades. However, prejudice and stigma faced by this population have not decreased yet. Negative attitudes towards people with disabilities can impose barriers to functionality and quality of life. Cross-cultural measures of attitudes towards disability can help identify these barriers and contribute to the development of intervention strategies. Objectives: To provide evidence of validity of the Brazilian Portuguese version of a World Health Organization cross-cultural instrument designed to assess attitudes towards disability (Attitudes to Disability Scale, ADS) from the perspective of people with physical disabilities (ADS-D) and Intellectual Disabilities (ADS-ID).

Methods: A total of 162 people with physical disabilities and 156 with intellectual disabilities participated in the study. Classical psychometrics was used to analyze the two samples independently. Evidence of criterion validity (concurrent type) was obtained by Mann-Whitney test for non-normal distributions. Evidence of reliability was calculated with Cronbach alpha for the instrument scales and subscales. Test-retest reliability was assessed for people with intellectual disabilities through intraclass correlation coefficient and Wilcoxon test.

Results: ADS-D showed better levels of internal consistency than ADS-ID. Evidence of discriminant validity was verified. Evidence of test-retest reliability was not conclusive. Conclusion: Results suggest the maintenance of the factor structure revealed in the cross-cultural study to assess the attitudes towards disabilities in the Brazilian population. Studies with larger samples are needed for the investigation of additional evidence of validity and reliability.

Introduction: Our study uses data on smoking by mother before pregnancy, during pregnancy and their current smoking to examine the risk of tobacco smoking and early initiation of smoking by their adolescent children in a middle-income country

Methods: The present analysis is based on data from the Ukrainian component of the European Longitudinal Study of Pregnancy and Childhood (ELSPAC). Main exposure was smoking by mother. Smoking status of the adolescent and age of smoking initiation, reported at the 16-years-old follow-up, were outcome measures. Data were analyzed using multivariate binary logistic regression model separately for boys and girls.

Results: Of 2148 women who agreed to participate, 1020 were available for complete follow-up until their study children were 16-years-old. The odds of current smoking among girls whose mothers smoked during pregnancy was higher (OR = 2.48, CI = 1.09-5.64) compared to girls with non-smoking mothers. Boys whose mothers currently smoked, but didn’t smoke during pregnancy, had twice higher odds (OR=2.08, CI = 1.16-3.74) to be smokers, compared to boys with mothers who never smoked. After control for confounders, the risk of early initiation of smoking by adolescent girls was still higher (OR= 2.05, CI=0.94-4.48) among girls whose mothers smoked during pregnancy

Conclusions: Prenatal tobacco exposure was associated with increased risk of early initiation of cigarette smoking and current smoking by adolescent girls, but not by boys. The possible explanation is that biological influences are more important for girls, but boys are more susceptible to social influences.