A follow-up study of the association between mobile phone use and symptoms of ill health

Objectives: The duration and frequency of mobile phone calls, and their relationship with various health effects, have been investigated in our previous cross-sectional study. This 2-year period follow-up study aimed to assess the changes in these variables of same subjects.Methods: The study population comprised 532 non-patient adult subjects sampled from the Korean Genome Epidemiology Study. The subjects underwent a medical examination at a hospital in 2012/2013 and revisited the same hospital in 2014/2015 to have the same examination for the characteristics of mobile phone use performed. In addition, to evaluate the effects on health, the Headache Impact Test-6 (HIT-6), Psychosocial Well-being Index-Short Form, Beck Depression Inventory, Korean-Instrumental Activities of Daily Living, Perceived Stress Scale, Pittsburgh Sleep Quality Index, and 12-item Short Form Health Survey were analyzed. For all these tests, the higher the score, the greater the effect on health. Variances between scores in all the indices in the baseline and follow-up surveys were calculated, and correlations of each index were analyzed.Results: The average duration per call and HIT-6 score of the subjects decreased significantly compared with those recorded two years ago. The results showed a slight but significant correlation between call duration changes and HIT-6 score changes for female subjects, but not for males. HIT-6 scores in the follow-up survey significantly decreased compared to those in the baseline survey, but long-time call users (subjects whose call duration was ≥5 minutes in both the baseline and follow-up surveys) had no statistically significant reduction in HIT-6 scores.Conclusions: This study suggests that increased call duration is a greater risk factor for increases in headache than any other type of adverse health effect, and that this effect can be chronic.

A follow-up study of the association between mobile phone use and symptoms of ill health

Objectives: The duration and frequency of mobile phone calls, and their relationship with various health effects, have been investigated in our previous cross-sectional study. This 2-year period follow-up study aimed to assess the changes in these variables of same subjects. Methods: The study population comprised 532 non-patient adult subjects sampled from the Korean Genome Epidemiology Study. The subjects underwent a medical examination at a hospital in 2012/2013 and revisited the same hospital in 2014/2015 to have the same examination for the characteristics of mobile phone use performed. In addition, to evaluate the effects on health, the Headache Impact Test-6 (HIT-6), Psychosocial Well-being Index-Short Form, Beck Depression Inventory, Korean-Instrumental Activities of Daily Living, Perceived Stress Scale, Pittsburgh Sleep Quality Index, and 12-item Short Form Health Survey were analyzed. For all these tests, the higher the score, the greater the effect on health. Variances between scores in all the indices in the baseline and follow-up surveys were calculated, and correlations of each index were analyzed. Results: The average duration per call and HIT-6 score of the subjects decreased significantly compared with those recorded two years ago. The results showed a slight but significant correlation between call duration changes and HIT-6 score changes for female subjects, but not for males. HIT-6 scores in the follow-up survey significantly decreased compared to those in the baseline survey, but long-time call users (subjects whose call duration was ≥5 minutes in both the baseline and follow-up surveys) had no statistically significant reduction in HIT-6 scores. Conclusions: This study suggests that increased call duration is a greater risk factor for increases in headache than any other type of adverse health effect, and that this effect can be chronic.

The Symptom Frequency Characteristics of the Hamilton Depression Rating Scale and Possible Symptom Clusters of Depressive Disorders in Korea: The CRESCEND Study

OBJECTIVE: This study analyzed the symptom frequencies of 17-item Hamilton Depression Rating Scale (HDRS-17) to understand the characteristics of each item and to propose the possible symptoms clusters. METHODS: From psychiatric clinics of 18 Hospitals in Korea, 1,183 patients, diagnosed with major depressive disorder (psychotic or non-psychotic), dysthymia or depressive disorder not otherwise specified. according to DSM-IV criteria, participated in this study from January 2006 to August 2008. The frequencies of each item of HDRS-17 were analyzed according to sex and severity. In addition, we compared this study with a previous study performed in England by Hamilton and with two studies performed in Korea by Kim et al. RESULTS: The frequencies of HDRS-17 items varied widely in this study, ranging from 95.8% in work and activities to 37.4% in loss of weight. But, depressed mood, psychic anxiety and work and activities items exhibited constant and higher frequency or rank regardless of study, the severity of depression or sex. Insomnia early, somatic gastrointestinal, genital symptoms and insight showed relatively constant but lower frequency or rank in disregard of studies or the clinical variables. Other symptoms had variable frequencies or ranks according to the variable clinical situations (culture, time, sex, severity of depression). CONCLUSION: We propose three clusters of symptoms in depressive disorders: core symptoms cluster, an associated symptoms, and a situation-specific symptoms. We can use these possible symptom clusters of depression in simplifying diagnosis of depression, increasing diagnostic specificity in special situation and indexing disease severity.

Selection of Specific Symptoms of TCM syndromes of Chronic Fatigue with the Random Forest Method / 中医杂志

Objective To extract the specific symptoms of TCM syndromes of chronic fatigue (CF). Methods Epidemiological cluster sampling method was used in this trial. Totally 782 cases of CF patients were selected from universities,secondary schools,primary schools and hospitals of southern Fujian province. The subjects filled in "Scale of Clinical Symptoms of Chronic Fatigue" to record the clinical data of symptoms,tongue,and pulse for the diagnosis of specific TCM symptoms. The random forest (RF) method was adopted to encode the 95 symptoms extracted from the above-mentioned scale to select the main symptoms of common syndromes of CF and to measure the contribution of symptoms to the syndromes. Results Symptom groups of 4 syndromes of CF were achieved. Spleen deficiency syndrome:abdominal distention after eating or in afternoon,loss of appetite,sallow completion,loose stools,and emaciation; Heart deficiency syndrome:palpitation,chest fullness,thready pulse,insomnia or dream-disturbed sleep,and forgetfulness; Liver stagnation syndrome:hot temper or depression,sighing,bitter taste,dry throat,and string-taut pulse; Qi deficiency syndrome:swollen tongue with toothprints,shortness of breath,abrupt breathing,inactive talking,and spontaneous sweating. When the symptoms were inputted to the models,the model prediction accuracy was 96.13%,94.75%,95.89%,and 94.26% respectively. Conclusion The RF method has a good classification function on the syndromes of CF. Spleen deficiency syndrome,heart deficiency syndrome,liver stagnation syndrome,and qi deficiency syndrome are commonly appeared syndromes,each of them is provided with its own specific symptoms.