Effectiveness of prevention programmes on the rate of burn injuries in children
Each year globally, burns cause the deaths of around 96 000 people aged under 20 years, with children especially susceptible. This is cited by van Balen et al (2023), whose review considers the effectiveness of preventive programmes on the actual rate of burn injuries among those aged up to 19 years old.
Fourteen relevant studies were evaluated, nine of which reported a significant reduction in burn injury rate, with five showing no effect on the number of burn injuries. Those studies that focused on high-risk populations and combined active with passive preventive strategies were found to be successful. One reason that media campaigns alone are ineffective appears to be related to the size of the target group. In smaller study populations, target groups are more involved in burn prevention programmes, with interventions directly targeted at the study populations. By contrast, in larger study populations targeted by preventive strategies like media campaigns, it can be difficult for the preventive measures to reach the whole target group, thus impairing a programme's effectiveness.
Some studies identified a role for education directed towards parents. ‘This is because programmes that only taught children about burn prevention did not reduce burn incidence.’ The authors advocate further research, ‘especially in low-income countries, where the majority of burns in children occur and therefore most population level impact can be made.’
General practice trainees' understanding of post sexual assault care evaluated
It is estimated that approximately 50% of women have experienced a sexual assault (SA) in their lifetime, a probable underestimate of the true prevalence, given that many people seldom report these offences. Further a survey of UK medical schools revealed that a significant majority failed to include SA education in their undergraduate curricula.
With GPs likely to be the first point of contact with the health service for many SA victims/survivors, Kane et al (2023), in this Irish study, aimed to assess the knowledge of 75 GP trainees in relation to post-SA care before the trainees underwent a formal didactic teaching session on SA delivered by a specialist forensic examiner. A post-teaching survey was then conducted to evaluate the trainees' knowledge acquisition and retention after the teaching session.
Of 75 GP-trainees who attended the teaching session, 53 completed the pre-teaching questionnaire and 50 completed the post-teaching questionnaire. Only 13.2% (n=7) of trainees had received prior teaching in post-SA care as a medical student or as a postgraduate (28.3% n=15). After the teaching session, there was a significant improvement in trainees' comfort levels in explaining a forensic examination.
The authors express concern that in primary care GP trainees in Ireland have limited teaching exposure on post-SA care, suggesting a similar knowledge gap across the medical workforce.
A scoping review of emotion regulation and inhibition in emotional eating and binge-eating disorder
Arexis et al (2023) define emotional eating (EE) as a non-pathological eating behaviour, whereas binge-eating disorder (BED) is a pathological eating behaviour. Although different, both conditions share similarities like deficits in emotion regulation (ER) and inhibition.
In this scoping review of 32 studies, Arexis et al (2023) sought to investigate whether there was evidence of a continuum between EE and BED; determine whether deficits in ER and inhibition follow this continuum in terms of severity; clarify the ill-defined concept of overeating; question the potential role of positive emotions; and identify potential knowledge gaps.
The authors' most striking result was finding strong similarities between EE and BED, with emotional eaters and BED patients sharing the same difficulties in ER and inhibition. However, there was a lack of experimental data yielded from studies making direct comparisons between EE and BED, which did not make it possible ‘either to confirm the existence or the absence of a possible continuum between EE and BED or an increased severity in ER and inhibition deficits between EE and BED.’ The authors had therefore helped to identify a knowledge gap, and the question of the existence of a continuum between EE and BED still needs to be addressed in further research.
Disparities in mental health service utilisation by children and young people
With 50% of mental health problems established by the age of 14 years and 75% by the age of 24 years, timely access to mental health support is crucial since early intervention has been demonstrated to improve long-term outcomes.
These observations are cited by Lazzarino et al (2023) who note that in England, rising rates of mental health problems in children and young people (CYP) are well documented, with long waiting lists and rejection of referrals made to CYP's mental health services. In this cross-sectional population survey of 764 327 CYP (aged 5 to 24 years) in Northwest London, the authors aimed to identify subgroups of CYP with unexpectedly low mental health service utilisation, presumably representing unmet need, and to assess whether there is area variation in the socioeconomic gradient of mental healthcare use.
The authors' examination of electronic medical health records from the Discover Now research platform revealed that 2.1% attended a mental healthcare appointment in 2021, their outcome measure; and that lower socioeconomic status – their main exposure factor – was related to a higher occurrence of mental healthcare appointments. The report suggests that its findings address a key priority for the Northwest London Integrated Care Board and can directly inform local policies.