[Characteristics of motor behaviour in premature infants during the first months of postnatal life. A literature review]. / Rasgos característicos del comportamiento motor del niño con prematurez durante los primeros meses de vida posnatal: una revisión de la literatura.

OBJECTIVE: To describe the characteristics of motor behaviour in premature infants during the first months of postnatal life, according to the available evidence. MATERIALS AND METHODS: A systematic literature review was carried out; this method forms part of secondary studies under investigation and describes a phenomenon in detail based on primary sources of information. RESULTS: The literature search in the databases consulted yielded 7,228 articles; of these, 15 more were identified through "snowball" search strategies. At the start of the screening process, 63 eligible records were chosen based on their title and summary, and 14 were excluded because they were duplicates. A total of 49 articles were selected for a full text revision and, of these, 37 were excluded because they did not meet all the inclusion criteria. Finally, 12 articles were selected to prepare the qualitative synthesis of the present research work. CONCLUSIONS: In comparison with neonates born at term, premature infants demonstrate a particular motor repertoire, due to the immaturity of their systems; their motor behaviour follows a line of development mainly characterised by deficits in muscle tone, postural control, muscle balance, and antigravity muscle activation.

MMPI-2 profiles of Colombian, Mexican, and Venezuelan university students.

Performance of 82 Colombian, 87 Mexican, and 96 Venezuelan university students and adult community dwellers on Spanish translations of the Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory-2 (MMPI-2) were compared. Findings suggest more comprehensive research is required on applications of the MMPI-2 in Latin America and greater consideration of the roles of culture and nationality.

Analysis of therapeutic and commonly abused drugs in serum and urine by gas-liquid chromatography using a photoionization detector.

A simple, rapid and sensitive gas chromatographic procedure using the photoionization detector (PID) was developed for the detection and quantitation of several drugs in serum and urine. In order to evaluate the performance of the PID, the results were compared with those of the flame-ionization detector (FID). The data indicate that the PID is 8-16 times more sensitive than the FID for the drugs studied in the barbiturate group. Excellent reproducibility was found for samples quantitated with the PID on a routine basis. The PID and FID produced statistically similar results on extracted serum samples. The correlation coefficient was 0.99. The PID also produced chromatograms with less background than those obtained with the FID for many extracted serum samples. The advantages of the PID for drug analysis in biological fluids include simplicity of operation, lack of solvent response, universal drug response, non-destructive character and stability.