Search

Obesity in childhood is increasing and becoming a major public health problem in the last years in Turkey.The aim of the study was to find out the prevalance of childhood overweight and obesity among Turkish second grade of schoolchildren. The data was collected from 53 cities in 12 NUTS Area in May-June 2013. This study is a cross-sectional study, overweight and obesity prevalance were calculated by using WHO criteria. The numbers of the children in the sample were 5600. Out of 216 schools, 43 were from rural settlements and 163 from urban settlements. The target age group of the study was 7-8 years age children at second grade of the schools. Out of all children at the schools, 88.8% of the children had parent consent for antropometric measurements. The antropometric measurements were conducted by by trained health staff using standardized equipment. Out of all the children in the sample, 88.5% of them was analyzed. Out of the children, 49.9% were girls and 52.7% were seven years old. According to WHO Criteria, the prevalance of overweight were 14.5% (95% CI 13.1-15.9) and the prevalance of obesity was 8.6% (95% CI 7.52-9.67) among 7 years age children. These figures were respectively 13.9% (95% CI 12.5-15.3) and 8.0% (95 % CI 6.90-9.09) among 8 years age children. Prevalance for overweight and obesity were different by gender and residence. Boys and children living in urban settlements were more frequently overweight and obese. Overweight and obesity prevalance showed differences by NUTS Regions. Istanbul and East Blacksea NUTS Regions had the highest figures among all regions (15.9% CI 13.4-18.4; 18.3% CI 11.5-25.1, respectively). These findings shows that there is an urgent need to develop obesity prevention program for children in the country. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Diabetes care at school has recently appeared on the agenda of international diabetes organizations, the basic principles of which have been newly determined. The aim of this review was to summarize the activities and output of the Diabetes at School Program - a program that has been delivered in Turkey for the last 10 years - and to focus on different aspects of Diabetes Care at School through a national model. Recently, a detailed set of national regulations, including the basic principles proposed by the International Society for Pediatric and Adolescent Diabetes and the experience in Turkey, was prepared and has come into force. The future agenda includes giving priority to socio-economically disadvantaged regions, provision of an Individual Treatment Plan at School for each child with diabetes and ensuring that each school has an action plan for the care of children with diabetes. We believe that if all countries have programs and structured national regulations similar to the Diabetes at School Program, this will enable significant progress in the level of care delivered to children with diabetes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The aim of this study was to measure the knowledge and attitudes of school staff regarding care in school for children with type 1 diabetes and to evaluate the contribution of the "Diabetes Program at School"(DPS). The data were collected through an online survey consisting of 55 questions, which included 39 knowledge and 16 attitude questions. The survey was delivered to the participating school staff via a link. A total of 55,677 people who completed 100% of the survey were included. Of the participants, 76% were teachers, 23% were school administrators and 0.1% were school nurses. 73% (40732) of the participants stated that they had heard about the "DPS". Of the participants who were aware of the DPS 75%, 50%, and 41% stated an increase in their knowledge level, self‐confidence, and awareness respectively. Both scores were positively associated with being female and school nurse, having students with diabetes in the school, having been trained in childhood diabetes, being familiar with the program and being from the Western region of Turkey. The DPS is well known among school staff including teachers, school administrators, and school nurses. However, there are clear regional differences in the knowledge and attitude of school staff regarding diabetes care at school. Therefore, regional differences should be taken into account when planning the necessary interventions to prevent any further increase in the current inequalities. In addition, increasing the number of school nurses, together with strengthening the knowledge and attitude of school staff, can improve the level of diabetes care at school. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose: This study was conducted to assess the health-related quality of life (HRQOL) and perceived health status of the Turkish population.Methods: The data came from a nationwide survey, which was conducted by Ministry of Health on prevalence and risk factors for chronic diseases in Turkey, with a representative random sample of 18,477 people aged ≥ 15 years from Turkey. Each family physician invited two individuals selected from their registered population to the Family Health Center, conducted the survey by face to face interviews using an electronic form. HRQOL was determined using EQ-5D-3L scale.Results: In Turkish population, each four women out of 10, two men out of 10 have problems in pain/discomfort and anxiety/depression dimensions of the scale; three women out of 10, one man out of 10 have some or severe problems in mobility. Proportion of people without health problems (health state 11,111) were 64,1% in men, 40,7% in women. The mean VAS score for males was 71.5 ± 0.2 (95% CI 70.9-72.1), 66.4 ± 0.2 (95% CI 65.8-66.9) for females (p < 0.05).The most important determinants of having a problem in any of the five dimensions are age, gender, education, diabetes mellitus, coronary heart disease, stroke, alzheimer, cancer, renal failure. The OR of having some or severe problems in any dimensions was 4.6 (95% CI 38-5.4) for over 65-74 and 7.5 (95% CI 5.8-9.6) for over 75 compared to 15-24 age group.Conclusions: The perceived health level and HRQOL is worse in women, in older age groups, in people from lower socioeconomical status. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Objective: High blood cholesterol is one of the main modifiable risk factors for cardiovascular diseases (CVDs). The aim of the study is to determine the factors associated with the prevalence, awareness, treatment, and control of high "low-density lipoprotein-cholesterol" (LDL-C) among adults aged ≥20 years in Turkey. Methods: We used data from Chronic Diseases and Risk Factors Survey conducted in 2011-2012. The presence of high LDL-C, lipid-lowering treatment eligibility, and achievement of target LDL-C were defined according to the third Adult Treatment Panel guidelines on treatment of high cholesterol. Multivariate logistic regression analyses were performed to determine the associations between participant characteristics and high LDL-C prevalence, awareness, treatment, and control. Results: Framingham risk score categorization was performed for 13121 individuals aged ≥20 years. Approximately, 28% of the participants presented with high LDL-C. Among those with high LDL-C, 55.8% were aware of their situation; among those aware of high LDL-C, 46.9% were receiving lipidlowering medication, and 50.6% of individuals who were receiving treatment achieved target LDL-C levels on the basis of their coronary heart disease (CHD) risk. Control of high LDL-C was negatively associated with the presence of diabetes mellitus (odds ratio: 0.36, 95% CI: 0.27-0.49, p<0.001). Conclusion: Despite the high awareness rates, there was a high proportion of adults who did not receive treatment or achieve recommended levels of LDL-C during treatment. The low treatment and control levels among individuals based on their CHD risk levels call for a better application of recommendations regarding personal preventive measures and treatments in Turkey. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Objective: The aim of this study is to compare the predictive power of anthropometric indices for risk of developing Coronary Heart Disease (CHD) or CHD death. Methods: We used cross-sectional data from nationally representative Chronic Diseases and Risk Factors Survey conducted by the Ministry of Health in 2011. Body mass index (BMI), waist circumference (WC), waist-to-hip ratio (WHR), waist to height ratio (WHtR), body adiposity index (BAI) and A Body Shape Index (ABSI) formed the anthropometric measures. For each participant risk of developing CHD or dying from CVDs were calculated based on Framingham and SCORE risk equations. Predictive ability of anthropometric measurements was assessed by receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curves. Results: Anthropometric measurements of central obesity recorded higher area under the ROC curve (AUC) values than BMI in both men and women. While ABSI had the highest AUC values for Framingham 10-year predicted risk (FRS) for CHD death (AUC = 0.613), SCORE 10-year risk for CVD death (AUC = 0.633), in women AUC for ABSI was the highest for only SCORE risk threshold (AUC = 0.705). Among women, WHtR was found to be the best indicator for estimating CHD incidence (AUC = 0.706) and death from CVD (AUC = 0.696). Conclusion: Compared to traditional anthropometric measurements such as BMI, ABSI was a better indicator for given thresholds for estimating the risk of developing CHD and CVD death in men. Among women WHtR made better predictions for FRS thresholds, however, ABSI was better for predicting 10-year risk of CVD death calculated by SCORE risk equation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]