School refusal and anxiety among children and adolescents: A systematic scoping review.

School refusal and anxiety are considerable problems among children and adolescents. While numerous studies were published, no review on the issue has been conducted to holistically reveal the current research results. This study uses a systematic scoping review design and aims to synthesize the results of the current studies on seeking an answer to the relationship between school refusal and anxiety to make recommendations for teachers, school counselors and administrators, and educational researchers for further research. Included studies were designed as qualitative, experimental, correlational, descriptive, or mixed-method, while studies designed as a thematic review, systematic review, and meta-analysis were excluded. The study identified 30 research articles that met the inclusion criteria within this scope. Results showed that anxiety is a prevalent factor associated with school refusal, whereas school refusal is directly and closely related to state and trait anxiety, social anxiety, school anxiety, and separation anxiety. Another finding was that school punishment, bad family functioning, parental depression, and parental anxiety are strong predictors of school refusal.

The Relationship between First Trimester 25-Hydroxyvitamin D3 Levels and Second Trimester Femur Length and Their Effects on Birth Weight and Length at Birth: A Preliminary Study.

OBJECTIVE: The main goal of our study was to assess relationships between first trimester 25-hydroxyvitamin D3 levels and infant birthweight and length at birth. MATERIALS AND METHODS: We conducted a study over our medical records of 154 live-term births at Acibadem Atakent Hospital, Istanbul, Turkey. Subjects were classified into five independent groups. RESULTS: We retrospectively reviewed a total of 154 live birth records. They took vitamin D3 supplement 1000 U/day. We classified the serum vitamin D levels into 5 groups by concentration. Group 1 comprised serum vitamin D levels <10 ng/ml (n = 41); group 2 comprised serum Vitamin D levels between >10-16 ng/ml (n = 33); group 3 comprised serum vitamin D levels >16-20 ng/ml (n = 26); group 4 vitamin D level between >20-30 ng/ml (n = 33) and group 5 comprised vitamin D levels >30 ng/ml. The femurs of infants were found to be longer between the groups, although the differences were not significant (p=0.054). There was also a statistically significant difference in the neonatal birth weight (p=0.048). CONCLUSION: We observed associations between low and high maternal 25-hydroxyvitamin D3 levels and fetal growth at birth weight but no difference in birth length. We conclude that we always need to conduct further research to be able to predict the effects of vitamin D deficiency.