Questionnaire-Based Analysis of Adverse Events and Compliance with Malaria Chemoprophylaxis in Taiwan.

Malaria was eradicated in Taiwan in 1952; however, imported malaria cases are reported every year. The subtropical climate in Taiwan permits mosquito propagation and possible outbreaks of mosquito-borne diseases. The aim of this study was to investigate travelers' compliance and side effects of malaria prophylaxis to prevent a malaria outbreak in Taiwan. In this prospective study, we enrolled travelers who visited our travel clinic before going to malarious areas. A total of 161 questionnaires were collected and analyzed. Associations between the occurrence of side effects and compliance with antimalarial drugs were analyzed. Adjusted odds ratios were calculated after adjusting for potential risk factors in multiple logistic regression analysis. Of the 161 enrolled travelers, 58 (36.0%) reported side effects. Insomnia, somnolence, irritability, nausea, and anorexia were associated with poor compliance. Mefloquine was not associated with more neuropsychological side effects than doxycycline. Multiple logistic regression analysis showed that chemoprophylaxis compliance was affected by a younger age, visiting friends and relatives, visiting the travel clinic more than 1 week before the trip, and preferring to use the same antimalarial regimen on the next trip. Our findings could provide information to travelers besides labeled side effects to improve compliance with malaria prophylaxis and consequently help to prevent malaria outbreaks in Taiwan.

Predictors of smoking cessation in Taiwan: using the theory of planned behavior.

This study aimed to explore the factors predicting the intention to quit smoking and the subsequent behavior 6 months later using the theory of planned behavior (TPB). Data were obtained from 145 smokers who attended a smoking cessation clinic in a community hospital. All participants completed a questionnaire which included demographic information, TPB-based items, perceived susceptibility and previous attempts to quit. The actual quitting behavior was obtained by follow-up phone calls 6 months later. The TPB constructs explained 34% of the variance in intention to quit smoking. By adding perceived susceptibility, the explained variance was significantly improved to 40%. The most important predictors were perceived behavior control and perceived susceptibility, followed by attitude. Subjective norm did not contribute to the prediction of intention. Attitude and perceived behavior control contributed to the prediction of actual quitting behavior, but intention, subjective norm and perceived susceptibility did not. Our findings support that the TPB is generally a useful framework to predict the intention to quit smoking in Taiwan. The inclusion of perceived susceptibility improved the prediction of intention. With regards to successfully quitting, attitude and perceived behavior control played more crucial roles than other TPB constructs. Smoking cessation promotion initiatives focusing on reinforcing cessation belief, enhancing a smoker's perception of their capability to quit smoking, and persuading smokers that they can overcome cessation barriers to cessation could make subsequent interventions more effective.

Extracting Eligibility Criteria from the Narrative Text of Scientific Research Articles.

Eligibility criteria among hundreds of National Health Insurance Research Database (NHIRD) research papers have similar constituent elements, such as demographic characteristics or diagnostic codes. The study results of the same disease could vary among different research due to the variation of the criteria statements, therefore the narrative patterns analysis tool would be helpful for summarizing the knowledge implicitly contained in the eligibility criteria. In this study, we developed a series of R-based text processing methods to extract the narrative eligibility criteria in NHIRD papers by simplifying the article titles and content paragraphs, identifying medical concepts and abbreviations, then detecting basic demographic characteristics and ICD-9-CM diagnosis codes. Although there is still room for improvement on study type identifying, the high performance in classifying the study type, detecting age restrictions and extracting ICD-9-CM codes still shows the system usefulness for the analysis of eligibility criteria.

Cloning, expression and physiological analysis of broccoli catalase gene and Chinese cabbage ascorbate peroxidase gene under heat stress.

The objectives of this work were to clone the catalase (CAT) gene from broccoli (Brassica oleracea) and the ascorbate peroxidase (APX) gene from Chinese cabbage and measure the regulation of CAT and APX gene expressions under heat-stress conditions. Different genotypes responded differently to heat stress according to their various antioxidant enzymes and physiological parameters. CAT and APX gene expression profiles were well matched with the data for CAT and APX enzyme activities in the broccoli and Chinese cabbage plants, respectively. Full-length of the CAT and APX cDNA were 1,768 and 1,070 bp, respectively. A phylogenetic analysis of CAT and APX indicated that plant CATs and APXs diverged into two major clusters.