Cindy Lo Kuen Lam

Cost effectiveness of mammography screening for Chinese women

Although the cost effectiveness of screening mammography in most western developed populations has been accepted, it may not apply to Chinese women, who have a much lower breast cancer incidence. The authors estimated the cost effectiveness of biennial mammography in Hong Kong Chinese women to inform evidence‐based screening policies.

The Short Form-12 Health Survey was a valid instrument in Chinese adolescents

OBJECTIVE To evaluate the construct validity of the standard Chinese Short Form (SF)-12v2 in adolescents. STUDY DESIGN AND SETTING Data collected from the Hong Kong Student Obesity Surveillance project conducted in 2006-2007 were used. The standard Chinese SF-12v2 was first evaluated against clinical criteria previously used for the evaluation of SF-12 or SF-36. The data were then randomly split into training and validation halves for exploratory and confirmatory factor analyses, respectively. RESULTS A total of 31,357 adolescents with mean age of 14.8 years (standard deviation=1.9; range=11.0-18.9) were included. The standard Chinese SF-12v2 effectively distinguished groups differing in doctor-diagnosed health problems, self-reported illnesses in the past 30 days, gender, perceived health in the past 3 months, and health compared with that 12 months back. The mental health scale had low internal consistency (Cronbachs alpha=0.34). The exploratory factor analysis was influenced by method effects, but confirmatory factor analysis confirmed the hypothesized latent structure and the one-factor structure of the SF-12v2, providing fit indices within acceptable limits. CONCLUSION The two components and a single general health component of the standard Chinese SF-12v2 are appropriate health indicators for Chinese adolescents.

Key factors associated with oral health-related quality of life (OHRQOL) in Hong Kong Chinese adults with orofacial pain

OBJECTIVES To investigate key factors associated with oral health-related quality of life (OHRQOL) of Hong Kong Chinese adults with orofacial pain (OFP) symptoms. METHODS A cross-sectional study was conducted amongst a random sample of registered patients at a primary medical care teaching clinic in Hong Kong. Patients who were aged 35-70 years and had experienced OFP symptoms in the past 1 month were included. The OHRQOL was assessed by the Chinese version of the Oral Health Impact Profile (OHIP-14). A structured questionnaire on OFP symptoms and characteristics in the past 1 month, the depression and non-specific physical symptoms (NPS) scale in the research diagnostic criteria for temporomandibular disorders (RDC/TMD) questionnaire, and questions about professional treatment and dental attendance were administered before a standard clinical assessment. Negative binomial regression with forward stepwise selection was used to investigate key factors associated with the OHIP-14 additive score. RESULTS The mean OHIP-14 additive score of the 200 participants was 10.1 (SD 9.4). Regression analysis revealed that five independent factors were significantly associated with higher OHIP-14 additive scores (indicating a poorer OHRQOL): a higher pain scale rating in the past 1 month (p=0.001), OFP clinical classification as musculoligamentous/soft tissue (MST) or dentoalveolar (DA) instead of neurological/vascular (NV) (p<0.001), more frequent dental attendance (p=0.008), moderate/severe RDC/TMD depression (p=0.005) and moderate/severe RDC/TMD NPS with pain (p=0.003). CONCLUSION Various factors were associated with OHRQOL and could have implications for the improvement of OHRQOL in people in the community who have OFP symptoms.

Help-seeking intentions and subsequent 12-month mental health service use in Chinese primary care patients with depressive symptoms

Objective To identify the factors associated with 12-month mental health service use in primary care patients with depressive symptoms. Design Cross-sectional followed by 12-month cohort study. Setting and participants 10 179 adult patients were recruited from the waiting rooms of 59 primary care clinics across Hong Kong to complete a questionnaire which screened for depression. 518 screened-positive participants formed the cohort and were telephoned at 3, 6 and 12 months to monitor mental health service use. Primary and secondary outcomes ▸ Help-seeking preferences; ▸ Intention to seek help from a healthcare professional; ▸ 12-month mental health service use. Results At baseline, when asked who they would seek help from if they thought they were depressed, respondents preferred using friends and family (46.5%) over a psychiatrist (24.9%), psychologist (22.8%) or general practitioner (GP; 19.9%). The presence of depressive symptoms was associated with a lower intention to seek help from family and friends but had no effect on intention to seek help from a healthcare professional. Over 12 months, 24.3% of the screened-positive cohort reported receiving services from a mental health professional. Factors associated with service use included identification of depression by the GP at baseline, having a past history of depression or other mental illness, and being a public sector patient. Having a positive intention to seek professional help or more severe depressive symptoms at baseline was not associated with a greater likelihood of receiving treatment. Conclusions Mental health service use appears to be very low in this setting with only one in four primary care patients with depressive symptoms receiving treatment from a psychiatrist, GP or psychologist over a year. To help reduce the burden of illness, better detection of depressive disorders is needed especially for patients who may be undertreated such as those with no prior diagnosis of depression and those with more severe symptoms.

Comparison of four cardiovascular risk prediction functions among Chinese patients with diabetes mellitus in the primary care setting.

To assess the feasibility, convergent validity and sensitivity of four cardiovascular risk prediction functions in Chinese diabetic patients in the primary care setting.

Additional file 1: of Psychometric validation of the EuroQoL 5-Dimension 5-Level (EQ-5D-5L) in Chinese patients with adolescent idiopathic scoliosis

Hong Kong (Traditional Chinese) ÂS 2012 EuroQol Group EQ-5Dâ ˘ is a trade mark of the EuroQol Group. (DOC 82 kb)

Pilot test of SF-6D valuation survey on Chinese adults in Hong Kong

Background and purposes: The World Health Organization Quality of Life questionnaire (WHOQOL) is widely used to assess quality of life in the world. Although the WHOQOLTaiwan version has also been developed well in Taiwan, the QOL of some people cannot be assessed using the WHOQOL-Taiwan version, because about 70% of the residents of Taiwan use the local dialect, Taiwanese Southern Min, as their everyday language. In particular, more than half of the elderly cannot read or understand Chinese characters. Therefore, developing a WHOQOL for Minnanspeaking people living in Taiwan (WHOQOL-MV) is warranted.This journal issue entitled: Abstracts of the 11th Annual Conference of the International Society for Quality of Life Research ... 2004