Search

Research

Understanding hospital service use among children with a diagnosis of craniosynostosis is important to improve services and outcomes. This study aimed to describe population-level trends, patterns, and factors influencing hospitalizations for craniosynostosis in Western Australia.

Research

Parents must rapidly adapt goals from various aspects of their lives to accommodate the demands of the early stages of parenthood. According to the self-concordance model, having autonomous goal motives (based on enjoyment or personal goal value) should foster effective self-regulation (e.g., coping strategies), better goal management, and increase the likelihood of goal attainment, compared to controlled motives (goals driven by demands/pressures).

Research

Recent studies have reported that strengths-based programs, leveraging autistic adolescents' abilities and interests, could improve their skills and facilitate social engagement. However, little is known about the long-term impact of strengths-based approaches. This study aimed to explore the long-term outcomes of community strengths-based programs designed to support autistic adolescents in developing interests and skills in Science, Technology, Engineering, Arts, and Mathematics (STEAM) and the factors influencing their participation in these programs.

Research

The COVID-19 pandemic has highlighted personal protective equipment (PPE) supply, distribution, and disposal issues worldwide. Calls to conserve PPE stocks and increase supply resulted in the rapid development of potential disinfection methods, with the possibility of improvements in medical waste reduction. However, how receptive health-care workers are to PPE reuse remains unknown. We aimed to examine the views of health-care workers who used PPE during the first COVID-19 wave in Aotearoa New Zealand, in relation to acceptability of PPE disinfection and reuse.

Research

Patients with comorbid asthma-obesity experience greater disease severity and are less responsive to therapy. We have previously reported adipose tissue within the airway wall that positively correlated with body mass index. Accumulation of biologically active adipose tissue may result in the local release of adipokines and disrupt large and small airway function depending on its anatomical distribution. This study therefore characterized airway-associated adipose tissue distribution, lipid composition, and adipokine activity in a porcine model.

Research

Although average contraceptive use has increased globally in recent decades, an estimated 222 million (26%) of women of child-bearing age worldwide face an unmet need for family planning-defined as a discrepancy between fertility preferences and contraception practice, or failing to translate desires to avoid pregnancy into preventative behaviours and practices.

Research

In high-transmission areas, school-aged children have higher malaria prevalence and contribute significantly to the transmission reservoir. Malaria infections can be asymptomatic or present with symptoms which may contribute to anaemia, severe illness and fatal malaria. This analysis provides trends of malaria prevalence and associated risk factors among school-aged children in mainland Tanzania. 

Research

Respiratory oscillometry (or the forced oscillation technique) is a highly practical lung function test that can be applied in a wide range of clinical scenarios in children and adults, including the clinic, intensive care unit, patient home monitoring and emergency departments. Oscillometry measurements complement spirometry in detecting abnormal lung function, measuring effects of treatment such as inhaled corticosteroids or bronchodilators, and changes due to disease activity.

Research

Adolescents are the future leaders of our world. Ensuring their health and wellbeing—now and in the future—is one of the strongest mechanisms available to safeguard the collective future of humanity and to secure a more just society and a healthier and more productive planet. 

Research

Culturally safe healthcare approaches are important to improve outcomes of Indigenous people. Non-Indigenous clinicians are often ill-prepared to provide such healthcare. The NHMRC Centre for Research Excellence (CRE) especially for First Nations Children has been studying for several years how to improve clinical care for Indigenous children with respiratory disease in hospital, clinic, urban, rural and remote settings.