Using Online Respondent Driven Sampling for Vietnamese Youths' Alcohol Use and Associated Risk Factors / 대한의료정보학회지

OBJECTIVES: The average alcohol consumption per capita among Vietnamese adults has consistently increased. Although alcohol-related disorders have been extensively studied, there is a paucity of research shedding light on this issue among Internet users. The study aimed to examine the severity of alcohol-related disorders and other associated factors that might predispose individuals towards alcohol usage in a sample of youths recruited online. METHODS: An online cross-sectional study was conducted with 1,080 Vietnamese youths. A standardized questionnaire was used. Respondent-driven sampling was applied to recruit participants. Multivariate logistic and Tobit regressions were utilized to identify the associated factors. RESULTS: About 59.5% of the males and 12.7% of the total youths declared that they were actively using alcohol. From the total sample, a cumulative total of 32.3% of the participants were drinking alcohol, with 21.8% and 25.0% of the participants being classified as drinking hazardously and binge drinkers, respectively. The majority of the participants (60.7%) were in the pre-contemplative stage. CONCLUSIONS: A high prevalence of hazardous drinking was recognized among online Vietnamese youths. In addition, we found relationships between alcohol use disorder and other addictive disorders, such as tobacco smoking and water-pipe usage. Our results highlighted that the majority of the individuals are not receptive to the idea of changing their alcohol habits, and this would imply that there ought to be more government effort towards the implementation of effective alcohol control policies.

Research on the effects of supplemental treatment for hemorrhage syndrome by \u201cDuong quy bo huyet thang\u201d herbal remedy on aplastic anemic patients

Background: In many studies on aplastic anemic patients, hemorrhage syndrome is expressed in mainly subcutaneous hemorrhage, gum hemorrhage and menorrhagia in women. In traditional medicine, there are many remedies to treat the hemorrhage syndrome in aplastic anemic patients, such as \u201cBao nguyen thang\u201d, \u201cNhi tien thang\u201d, \u201cNhi chi hoan\u201d, \u201cO ke bach Phuong hoan\u201d, \u201cQuy ty thang\u201d herbal remedies\u2026 Objectives: To research the effects of supplemental treatment for hemorrhage syndrome by \u201cDuong quy bo huyet thang\u201d herbal remedy on aplastic anemic patients. Subjects and method: A study was carried out on 60 aplastic anemic patients at Bach Mai Hospital from October 2006 to October 2007. The subjects were divided into two groups: group I was treated with blood transfusion, corticoid and supplemental treatment by \u201cDuong quy bo huyet thang\u201d remedy; group II was only treated with blood transfusion and corticoid. This was a controlled, randomized clinical trial. Results: The average age of the patients was 40.57 +/- 16.77 years in group I and 41.73 +/- 17.14 years in group II (p>0.05). The male-female ratio was 1.07. The number of patients with hemorrhage syndrome decreased from 66.7% to 36.7% after 60 days of treatment. The platelet counts increased from 20.85 +/- 13.57 g/l to 28.94 +/- 16.92 g/l (p<0.05). Conclusions: The \u201cDuong quy bo huyet thang\u201d herbal remedy decreased hemorrhage syndrome in aplastic anemic patients.

Hematological alterations in 10 aplastic anemia patients splenectomized at NIHBT in 1996-1997

During two years we carried out the technique of splenectomy for 10 patients with idiopathic aplastic anemia AA. All patients were refractory after 3 courses of immunosuppressive drugs and androgen. Investigation on clinical aspects and hematological parameters after splenectomy, we found that all blood cells counts tend to be increased forward recovery. We are now continuing to further evaluation on hematopoiesis and lymphocytic subsets distribution, in order to select patients group, suitable to this technique.