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When youth are involved in their communities, they typically do so through institutional structures. We construe youth service as a type of long-term, intensive volunteerism or civic service, which takes a range of institutional forms including service-learning, national service, and international service. We define these forms as having common operational features, and summarize what is known about them and their effects on youth and the individuals and communities with whom the youth are engaged. We identify directions for future research, including issues of server inclusion and impacts on the served. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Objectives: This study describes the development and feasibility of Integrative Nutritional Counseling (INC), a Chinese medicine (CM)+biomedicine-based nutrition curriculum for Chinese Americans with type 2 diabetes. Although Chinese Americans often incorporate CM principles into their diet, scant research has explored how to integrate CM with biomedical nutrition standards in a culturally appropriate manner or if such a program could improve diabetes self-management. Design: This is a 1-month pre-post study design including three points of contact: baseline, in-person class, and 1-month follow-up. Subjects: Participants ( n  = 15) were Cantonese-speaking/reading Chinese Americans diagnosed with type 2 diabetes who had used some form of CM/medicinal foods in the last 12 months. Interventions and Outcome Measures: The INC program included baseline surveys and a CM intake interview conducted by a licensed acupuncturist. The acupuncturist generated a CM diagnosis, which was shared with the participant, and used this diagnosis to tailor brief nutrition education. To bolster this brief education, a bilingual registered dietitian provided a 2-h group education class in Cantonese to all participants, during which time participants also received a Chinese/English INC booklet. Participants completed surveys immediately after the class and at 1-month follow-up, with qualitative exit interviews. Results: Participants reported improved attitudes and dietary habits aligning directly with INC, and improvement in biomedically valued measures of type 2 diabetes, such as weight loss, and CM-valued measures of digestion/elimination and hot/cold feeling. Satisfaction with INC was high, but challenges included confusion with some INC information, structural barriers, and comorbidities. Conclusions: Chinese Americans with type 2 diabetes and interventionists found integrative nutrition approaches acceptable and feasible. Future research should examine INC with a larger population and explore optimal delivery of INC given reported challenges.

In the National Association of Social Workers' Code of Ethics, social workers are called on to promote meaningful involvement in decision making among vulnerable populations. The ethical imperatives and social justice implications associated with unequal participation suggest that the field of social work is uniquely situated to lead research and practice in the area of youth civic engagement. This article examines the current state of the social work literature regarding how young people participate civically. Authors identified 113 articles on this topic published over the past decade in journals with a large presence in social work or by social work authors. They present the findings of their exploratory research, with a focus on describing where this research is being published, the range of research foci, and the terms used to describe this work. Increased attention to promoting youth civic engagement is needed in the profession's core journals. Based on the analysis of this literature, they recommend moving toward a cohesive body of social work scholarship that includes increased collaboration among scholars, more unified terms and language, increased range of research foci and methodologies, and more rigorous and comparative testing of strategies by which youths participate civically.

Increasing numbers of cancer survivors are living longer than 5 years from their diagnosis date. This has resulted in a growing population of cancer survivors, expected to reach 19 million by 2024. Survivors frequently experience late effects caused by cancer and its treatment, reducing survivors' quality of life in multiple domains. Survivorship care-plans may aid the many physical, psychosocial, and financial needs that emerge posttreatment. However, the lack of reimbursement mechanisms, the limited amount of effectiveness research, and minimal guidelines for content and delivery are barriers to the widespread provision of survivorship care-plans. Challenges and opportunities for social work practice, research, and policy are identified and discussed.

Objective: To report cases involving the placement of the wrong intraocular lens (IOL) at the time of cataract surgery where human error occurred., Design: Retrospective small case series, convenience sample., Participants: Seven surgical cases., Methods: Institutional review of errors committed and subsequent improvements to clinical protocols., Main Outcome Measures: Lessons learned and changes in procedures adapted., Results: The pathways to a wrong IOL are many but largely reflect some combination of poor surgical team communication, transcription error, lack of preoperative clarity in surgical planning or failure to match the patient, and IOL calculation sheet with 2 unique identifiers., Conclusions: Safety in surgery involving IOLs is enhanced both by strict procedures, such as an IOL-specific "time-out," and the fostering of a surgical team culture in which all members are encouraged to voice questions and concerns., (Copyright © 2012 American Academy of Ophthalmology. Published by Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.)

There are many challenges to developing an evidence base for Traditional Chinese Medicine and Integrative East-West Medicine. This article offers a review of these challenges alongside an introduction and review of several innovations in healthcare research that have successfully been applied to the study of Traditional Chinese Medicine and Integrative Medicine. Such innovations include developments in Whole Systems Research, Comparative Effectiveness Research, Health Services Research, and qualitative Social Sciences Research. Each of these approaches expands upon conventional approaches to clinical research and can also be combined with clinical trial data to yield a mixed-methods approach. We conclude with a commentary on the necessity for such mixed methods studies in the continued establishment of an evidence base for TCM and IM.

Background: The potential insensitivity to depression of translated diagnostic instruments makes it difficult to assess the relationship of depressive symptoms to suicide in non-Western cultures., Methods: Addition of culturally sensitive probes and other modifications were made to the depression section of the Chinese version of the SCID; the standard SCID probes and the expanded-probes are separately used to assess each symptom of depression, the resultant diagnoses and the overall severity of depression. This modified SCID was included in the psychological autopsy interviews with family members and, separately, close associates of 887 suicides and 721 non-suicidal decedents from 23 regions of mainland China., Results: Compared to the standard interview, the expanded-probe method increased reported prevalence of major depressive episode among suicide decedents from 26.4% (234/887) to 40.2% (357/887) and for other deaths from 1.0% (7/721) to 2.1% (15/701). The additional 131 cases identified using the expanded-probe method had substantial social impairment and a greatly elevated risk of suicide compared to those with no depressive symptoms (OR=37.0, 95% CI=17.6-77.6). Inter-observer reliability for major depressive episode between the two independent interviews was greater for the expanded probe method (ICC=0.77 vs. 0.67, P<0.001). For both interview methods there was a strong dose-response relationship between suicide risk and the number and severity of depressive symptoms., Limitations: This study uses proxy informants to obtain information about the psychological status of deceased subjects; the value of this expanded-probe method for the diagnosis of depression in non-Western cultures needs to be confirmed with living subjects., Conclusions: Adding culture-appropriate probes about depressive symptoms to standardized diagnostic instruments identifies many Chinese subjects with unrecognized depression. Dimensional measures of depressive symptoms are more powerful predictors of suicide risk than categorical diagnoses.

Overseas doctors hold that depression has the symptom of "inappropriate guilt" and TCM has no discussions and treatment on it. This article discusses the origin and development, etiology and pathogenesis, therapeutic principles, prescription of Bei Die, revealing that TCM has had quite comprehensive record on the symptoms and treatment of "inappropriate guilt."