Marina Aguiar Pires Guimarães

How Can We Make Our Assessment of Motor AbilityRelevant Cross-Culturally?

The assessment of motor abilities is important to identify atypical development, to measure progress obtained with intervention, and for research. Motor assessment usually is based on the use of standardized tests, on which children are expected to perform specific tasks that are deemed common. As the majority of the motor development tests were created by researchers from European and North American countries, concepts from these cultures are embedded in the tasks, materials, and format of the instruments. This raises the question as to whether these instruments can be used internationally, with the perhaps misguided assumption that motor skill development is the same across different countries. Is it necessary to adapt standardized motor ability tests for cross-cultural use? This paper discusses the relationship between culture and motor development and points out some aspects that should be considered to make our assessment of motor ability more relevant cross-culturally.

NOTIFICAÇÃO COMPULSÓRIA DE VIOLÊNCIA SEXUAL CONTRA CRIANÇAS E ADOLESCENTES

Introduction: Sexual violence against children and adolescents is a major challenge to public health. It triggers physical, psychological, emotional, and social impacts giving rise to permanent squeals in the victims. Objective: Identify the frequency of sexual violence cases against children reported at a Reference specialized center of Social Assistance in a medium-sized municipality in the Northeastern region of Brazil from 2005 to 2011. Material and Methods: This is a cross-sectional epidemiologic study using secondary data from sexual violence case records concerning children and adolescents, as well as their perpetrators. To gather data, we used a data sheet generated by Microsoft Excel and all statistical analyses were performed using the software SPSS. Descriptive Statistics were expressed as absolute and relative frequencies. Results: Between the time frame studied, 2005 (29%) had the highest frequency of case records. Females had a higher number of victims (83.9%), and the episodes were mainly in the age group ranging from 11 to 15 years (52.5%). The main perpetrators were male (91.8%) and people close to the family (59.2%). Most cases of violence happened at home (52.5%), and 76.5% of complaints were made by family members. Conclusion: This study pointed out the need for a continued and effective action from the protection agencies to children and adolescents’ rights to prevent sexual violence and other types of violence and abuse, seeking to avoid trauma and other damage to physical and mental health of these individuals.

OBSERVAÇÃO DO COMPORTAMENTO NEONATAL: ADAPTAÇÃO TRANSCULTURAL DO NEWBORN BEHAVIORAL OBSERVATIONS

ABSTRACT Objective: To conduct the cross-cultural adaptation for Brazilian Portuguese of the Newborn Behavioral Observations (NBO), a new resource for observing neonatal behavior and sharing information with parents. Methods: Methodological study of translation and cultural adaptation of the NBO system, which includes the Recording Form, with 18 items, the Recording Guidelines, with instructions to score each item, the Summary Form, to record suggestions based on the observation, and the Parent Questionnaire, to record the parents’ experiences. The adaptation process followed international recommendations for cross-cultural adaptation of health care protocols, which included requesting permission from the authors, translation, back translation and pre-test, followed by external evaluators who scored the quality of the adaptation, which was analyzed quantitatively. The quality of the adaptation of the instruments’ items was evaluated by the index of agreement between evaluators for conceptual and cultural equivalence. Results: Expert panel evaluation showed that the cross-cultural adaptation of the NBO protocols was both well understood conceptually and culturally appropriate, with 140 (77.8%) items presenting concordance index higher than 90% for conceptual and cultural equivalence. Items that did not reach adequate level of agreement were revised according to experts’ suggestions. Conclusions: The Brazilian version of the NBO system can be safely used, since the methodology was rigorous enough to ensure equivalence between the original and translated versions. The NBO should be tried in clinical practice, as it can contribute to improve the quality of maternal and child care.

Prevalência e fatores associados às anomalias congênitas em recém-nascidos

Objective: To describe the prevalence and analyze the associated factors of congenital abnormalities in newborns (NBs). Methods: Cross-sectional study based on 33,141 Live Birth Certificates (LBCs) of babies whose mothers were living in Salvador, Bahia, in 2014. A descriptive analysis was initially performed, followed by bivariate analysis of the association between congenital abnormalities and maternal, pregnancy, and newborns characteristics, with estimation of prevalence ratio (PR) and 95% confidence intervals (95% CI). After the bivariate analysis, the multivariate logistic regression was performed. Results: The prevalence of congenital abnormalities was 1.0%, and the leading causes were conditions related to the musculoskeletal system (52.1%). The multivariate analysis evidenced higher prevalence of abnormalities in male newborns (PR=1.40; 95%CI: 1.12-1.74), with low birth weight (PR=2.34; 95% CI: 1.77-3.08) and unsatisfactory five-minute Apgar score (PR=3.34; 95%CI: 2.30-4.82), whose mothers were under 18 or over 35 years of age (PR=1.69; 95%CI: 1.17-2.43) and underwent cesarean delivery (PR=1.46; 95%CI: 1.17-1.83). Conclusion: A low prevalence of congenital abnormalities was found, and this outcome was associated with mothers at an extreme age and adverse clinical condition at birth, such as low weight and unsatisfactory Apgar score.