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Long Covid is the continuation or development of symptoms related to a SARSCoV2 infection. Those with Long Covid may face epistemic injustice, where they are unjustifiably viewed as unreliable evaluators of their own illness experiences. Media articles both reflect and influence perception and subsequently how people regard children and young people (CYP) with Long Covid, and may contribute to epistemic injustice. We aimed to explore how the UK media characterises Long Covid in CYP through examining three key actor groups: parents, healthcare professionals, and CYP with Long Covid, through the lens of epistemic injustice. A systematic search strategy resulted in the inclusion of 103 UK media articles. We used an adapted corpus-assisted Critical Discourse Analysis in tandem with thematic analysis. Specifically, we utilised search terms to locate concordances of key actor groups. In the corpus, parents highlighted minimisation of Long Covid, barriers to care, and experiences of personal attacks. Mothers were presented as also having Long Covid. Fathers were unmentioned. Healthcare professionals emphasised the rarity of Long Covid in CYP, avoided pathologising Long Covid, and overemphasised psychological components. CYP were rarely consulted in media articles but were presented as formerly very able. Manifestations of Long Covid in CYP were validated or invalidated in relation to adults. Media characterisations contributed to epistemic injustice. The disempowering portrayal of parents promotes stigma and barriers to care. Healthcare professionals' narratives often contributed to negative healthcare experiences and enacted testimonial injustice, where CYP and parents' credibility was diminished due to unfair identity prejudice, in their invalidation of Long Covid. Media characterisations reveal and maintain a lack of societal framework for understanding Long Covid in CYP. The findings of this study illustrate the discursive practices employed by journalists that contribute to experiences of epistemic injustice. Based on our findings, we propose recommendations for journalists., Competing Interests: The authors have read the journal’s policy and have the following competing interests: Sammie Mcfarland is the founder and CEO of Long Covid Kids. Nisreen A. Alwan is a Long Covid Kids Charity Champion, a scientific advisor to the Long Covid Support Charity, and has contributed in an advisory capacity to WHO and the EU Commission’s Expert Panel on effective ways of investing in health meetings in relation to post-COVID-19 condition. Nisreen A. Alwan is also co-investigator on the NIHR-funded STIMULATE ICP study. Sara Mckelvie is funded by NIHR Clinical Lectureship CL-2021-26-001. This does not alter our adherence to PLOS ONE policies on sharing data and materials., (Copyright: © 2024 Connor et al. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.)

Background and Objective: Pharmacokinetic or pharmacokinetic-pharmacodynamic models have been instrumental in facilitating the clinical use of propofol in target-controlled infusion systems in anaesthetic practice. There has been debate over which model should be recommended for practice. The covariates model is an updated pharmacokinetic model for propofol. The aim of this study was to prospectively validate this model in an adult population., Methods: Twenty-nine patients were included, with a range of ages to assess model performance in younger and older individuals. Subjects received propofol through a target-controlled infusion device programmed with the covariates model. Subjects were randomised to one of two increasing/decreasing regimes of propofol plasma target concentrations between 2 and 5 μg.mL -1 . After the start of the infusion, arterial and venous blood samples were drawn at pre-specified timepoints between 1.5 and 20 min and between 1.5 and 45 min, respectively. Predictive performance was assessed using established methodology., Results: The model achieved a bias of 9 (- 45 to 82) and precision of 24 (9-82) for arterial samples and bias of - 8 (- 64 to 70) and precision of 23 (9-70) for venous samples. Predicted concentrations tended to be higher than the measured concentrations in female individuals but lower in male individuals. There was no clear systematic difference in the bias between younger and older patients., Conclusions: The covariates propofol pharmacokinetic model achieved an acceptable level of predictive performance, as assessed by both arterial and venous sampling, for use in target-controlled infusion in clinical practice., Clinical Trial Registration: NCT01492712 (15 December, 2011)., (© 2022. The Author(s).)

Violence perpetrated by an intimate partner (IPV) is an important human rights and public health problem worldwide and when experienced during pregnancy is of special concern due to the harmful impact on maternal and child health. Women living in Vanuatu, and especially Sanma Province, experience high rates of IPV, however little is known about their experiences of violence when pregnant. The aim was to describe the prevalence, patterns and determinants of IPV among women who are pregnant in Sanma Province, Vanuatu. A cross-sectional survey was used. All healthy adult women attending Northern Provincial Hospital antenatal clinic from late May to late July 2019 were eligible and invited to participate. Psychological, physical and sexual IPV and controlling behaviours were assessed with a modified version of the World Health Organization Violence Against Women Instrument administered as an individual interview. Descriptive statistics were used to analyse prevalence and patterns of IPV and logistic regression models to identify determinants. Of 214 women who expressed interest in participating, 192 women contributed data. Overall 64.2% of women had experienced any IPV during their lifetime and 42.2% had experienced IPV during their current pregnancy. Experience of co-occurrence of violence types was common, and it was more common for IPV to continue than to cease during pregnancy. Factors which increased likelihood of experiencing IPV included being employed, occupying a lower socioeconomic position, having a partner who was unemployed or used alcohol or illicit substances at least once a week. IPV, in all its forms, is a common problem faced by women who are pregnant and living in Vanuatu.