Effects of visual impairment on the quality of life of children aged 8 to 18 years in a tertiary referral center

Background@#Vision impairment impacts children’s physical well-being, psychological state, and productivity. The Impact of Vision Impairment for Children (IVI_C) is a vision-specific pediatric instrument designed to assess the effects of visual impairment on the quality of life (QoL) in children aged 8 to 18 years who have no additional disabilities. It measures quality of life to assess the needs of children with low vision and outcomes of interventions by deriving answers from both children and their caregivers. @*Objectives@#The primary objective of the study was to determine the effect of visual impairment on the quality of life of children aged 8 to 18 years. @*Methods@#This was an observational, analytical, cross-sectional study conducted at the Outpatient Department of the University of the Philippines-Philippine General Hospital, Sentro Oftalmologico Jose Rizal (SOJR), General and Pediatric Ophthalmology Clinics. We included children 8 to 18 years of age with best corrected visual acuity of less than or equal to 20/40 in the better-seeing eye for the visually impaired (VI) group. The control group included children aged 8 to 18 years with best corrected visual acuity of 20/20 to 20/30 in both eyes. Participants underwent a complete ophthalmologic examination, including the determination of visual acuity using the Early Treatment Diabetic Retinopathy Study( ETDRS ) chart prior to administration of the Filipino version of IVI_C questionnaire. After the ophthalmologic examination and prior to end of the medical consultation, the investigator administered the questionnaire to the children and their parents. @*Results@#A total of 133 participants were included in the study, 67 in the visually impaired group and 66 in the control group. Participants had a median age of 10 years (range, 8 to 18), and 54% were female. Overall QoL scores and sub-scores across domains were significantly lower in the visually impaired group compared to the control group. The mean total and domain IVI_C scores progressively declined with increasing severity of visual impairment. The mean (±SD) total score ranged from 56 ± 6 in the mildly impaired to 42 ± 8 in the severe bilateral impairment group. On multivariate analysis, the significant predictors of quality of life were visual impairment and age. Quality of life of children with visual impairment is lower by 33.59 points (95% CI -35.82 to -31.36) than those in the control group. The QoL score increased by 0.579 per one unit increase in age. This model explained 87.05% of the variance in the IVI_C scores (p < 0.01). @*Conclusion@#Children with visual impairment have significantly decreased IVI_C and quality of life scores, overall and across domains. Lower scores are associated with increased severity of visual impairment.

Interprofessional collaboration role of school nurse: A concept analysis

@#This concept analysis seeks to clarify the interprofessional collaboration role of school nurses and provide a definition using Rodgers' evolutionary method. A literature search was utilized to determine the interprofessional collaboration role and its notable attributes, antecedents, and consequences. Defining attributes of interprofessional collaboration include values/ethics for interprofessional practice, roles and responsibilities of a school nurse, communication, and teamwork, which explain and constitute the definition of the concept. Antecedents include care coordination, case management, case finding and collaboration with consequences of health outcomes, interdisciplinary mobilization, and school health services integration were recognized in the text as those events or aspects that occur before and after interprofessional collaboration takes place in a practical situation, respectively. Indeed, this paper adds and builds further understanding of the concept, potentially guiding a standard reference to the term, and facilitating further knowledge on how school nurses and other health care providers can effectively apply interprofessional collaboration in various settings.

Nurse residency program in the Philippines: A policy brief

@#This policy brief stems from the call to increase recruitment and hiring in the Philippine nursing service. It is important to consider the experiences of novice nurses in transitioning to the professional workforce. Bridging this gap leads to a direction of reinforcement or strengthening of competencies through a support system. Thereby, it is timely and relevant given the current situation of the nursing profession that a Nurse Residency Program (NRP) be proposed. The policy brief aims to reinforce technical knowledge and skills, enhance leadership and management skills, increase confidence in achieving the expected competencies, develop critical thinking and problem-solving skills, and deepen knowledge in health-related research among novice nurses. All these shall equip the novice nurse for a new role in a complex environment. The result of the Nurse Residency Program is the achievement of quality of care, patient safety, and better health outcomes. Novice nurses who respond to the needs of the Filipino people with confidence and competence help maintain the health and well-being of the country towards sustainable development and growth.

Translation and validation of a Filipino version of the children’s visual function questionnaire

Objective@#The objectives of this study were to translate into Filipino the Children’s Visual Function Questionnaire for children 3 years and above (CVFQ3plus), and to validate the translated CVFQ3plus to be used locally to assess the quality of life (QoL) of Filipino children aged 3 to 7 years old with visual impairment. @*Methods@#Study Design: The study was a single-center, non-randomized translation and validation study. Translation: The CVFQ3plus translation into Filipino involved translation, reconciliation, pretesting, and small group discussion, based on the KIDSCREEN Group Translation and Validation procedures. Participants and Sampling: Convenience sampling was done to select the participants of the study. Participants were included in the study if they were parents or primary caregivers of children aged 3-7 years old who were noncompliant with treatment and/or those with non-treatable visual impairment defined as mild, moderate, severe unilateral, and severe bilateral. Procedure: All patients underwent complete ophthalmologic examination, including determination of the visual acuity using either the LEA chart or HOTV chart, prior to the administration of both the Filipino and English versions of the CVFQ3plus to their parents or caregivers. Participants were also asked to do a self-rating of their English proficiency, and their preferred version of the CVFQ. Statistical Analysis: Chronbach’s Alpha with a 95% confidence interval was used to determine the validity and internal consistency of the Filipino version of the CVFQ3plus questionnaire.@*Results@#A total of 122 participants were included in the study. Chronbach’s Alpha score (α=0.86, CI=95%) for the translated Filipino version of the CVFQ3plus suggests high reliability and internal consistency, comparable to the original English version of the questionnaire.@*Conclusion@#This study was able to produce a highly reliable and internally consistent Filipino version of the CVFQ3plus.

Multidimensional analysis of Drosophila wing variation in Evolution Canyon.

Environmental stress has been suggested to be a major evolutionary force, both through inducing strong selection and because of its direct impact on developmental buffering processes that alter the evolvability of organisms. In particular, temperature has attracted much attention because of its importance as an ecological feature and the relative ease with which it can be experimentally manipulated in the lab. Evolution Canyon, Lower Nahal Oren, Israel, is a well studied natural site where ecological parameters are suspected to drive evolutionary differentiation. In this study, using Drosophila melanogaster isofemale lines derived from wild flies collected on both slopes of the canyon, we investigated the effect of developmental temperature upon the different components of phenotypic variation of a complex trait: the wing. Combining geometric and traditional morphometrics, we find only limited evidence for a differentiation among slopes. Investigating simultaneously phenotypic plasticity, genetic variation among isofemale lines, variation among individuals and fluctuating asymmetry, we could not identify a consistent effect of the stressful conditions encountered on the south facing slope. The prevailing structuring effect is that of the experimentally manipulated temperature which clearly influences wing mean size and shape. Variability, in contrast, is not consistently affected by temperature. Finally, we investigated the specific relationship between individual variation and fluctuating asymmetry. Using metric multi-dimensional scaling we show that the related patterns of wing shape variation are not identical, supporting the view that the underlying developmental processes are to a certain extent different.