BackgroundThere is growing evidence suggesting that prolonged sitting has negative effects on people’s weight, chronic diseases and mortality. Interventions to reduce sedentary time can be an effective strategy to increase daily energy expenditure. The purpose of this study is to evaluate the effectiveness of a six-month primary care intervention to reduce daily of sitting time in overweight and mild obese sedentary patients.Method/DesignThe study is a randomized controlled trial (RCT). Professionals from thirteen primary health care centers (PHC) will randomly invite to participate mild obese or overweight patients of both gender, aged between 25 and 65 years old, who spend 6 hours at least daily sitting. A total of 232 subjects will be randomly allocated to an intervention (IG) and control group (CG) (116 individuals each group). In addition, 50 subjects with fibromyalgia will be included.Primary outcome is: (1) sitting time using the activPAL device and the Marshall questionnaire. The following parameters will be also assessed: (2) sitting time in work place (Occupational Sitting and Physical Activity Questionnaire), (3) health-related quality of life (EQ-5D), (4) evolution of stage of change (Prochaska and DiClemente's Stages of Change Model), (5) physical inactivity (catalan version of Brief Physical Activity Assessment Tool), (6) number of steps walked (pedometer and activPAL), (7) control based on analysis (triglycerides, total cholesterol, HDL, LDL, glycemia and, glycated haemoglobin in diabetic patients) and (8) blood pressure and anthropometric variables. All parameters will be assessed pre and post intervention and there will be a follow up three, six and twelve months after the intervention. A descriptive analysis of all variables and a multivariate analysis to assess differences among groups will be undertaken. Multivariate analysis will be carried out to assess time changes of dependent variables. All the analysis will be done under the intention to treat principle.DiscussionIf the SEDESTACTIV intervention shows its effectiveness in reducing sitting time, health professionals would have a low-cost intervention tool for sedentary overweight and obese patients management.Trial registrationA service of the U.S. National Institutes of Health. Developed by the National Library of Medicine. ClinicalTrials.gov NCT01729936

Information such as the prevalence and frequency of criminal behaviour is difficult to estimate using standard survey techniques because of the tendency of respondents to withhold or misrepresent information. Social desirability bias is a significant threat to the validity of self-reported data, especially when supplied by persons such as sexual offenders or those convicted of theft or substance abuse. The randomized response approach is an alternative to the standard interview method and offers great potential for researchers in the field of criminal justice. By means of a survey of 792 prison inmates, incorporating both indirect and direct response techniques, we investigate if the prison population also has problems recognizing their participation in criminal acts such as theft, illicit drug use, violence against property, reckless driving and arson. Our research findings suggest that self-reported criminal behaviour among a prison population is affected by social desirability bias and that the behaviour considered is significantly associated with the severity of obsessive-compulsive symptoms. The results also demonstrate the inadequacy of traditional, yet widely used, direct questioning methods, and the great potential for indirect questioning techniques to advance policy formation and evaluation in the field of criminal behaviour.

Seasonal patterns of cardiovascular (CV) mortality have been reported in many regions of the world, but mostly in temperate zones. These cycles and seasonal patterns of mortality have been identified by looking at mortality rate series over extended periods of time and by filtering its stochastic components. The reasons for these variations have been attributed to multiple causes. Empirical observations by health care worker have suggested that in Panama there are seasonal changes of CV disease mortality but this phenomenon had not been studied. The speculation is that this may be related to variation in the incidence of respiratory diseases, weather changes or to population activity patterns associated with holidays. Our hypothesis for this study is that in Panama mortality related to CV disease has a seasonal pattern. We compiled from the National Registry of Mortality all deaths that occurred in the country from cardiovascular diseases (n=36,145) and diabetes (n=7,076) for the years 2001–2009. A monthly time series of mortality was calculated and its components were decomposed utilizing moving averages. Elements, like cycle, seasonal occurrence and stochastic components, were separated. We also developed a seasonal index of mortality for these diseases. For the same years, we performed a similar analysis for all deaths attributed to cancer and external causes. Analysis of these mortality series revealed seasonal cycles for total cardiovascular mortality and diabetes mortality. Death from cancer and external causes also showed seasonal cycles. CV mortality and diabetes mortality peaked at the beginning of the third trimester of the year and were lowest during the first trimester. For the month of July, the CV mortality seasonal index showed a score of 108, and an average number of CV deaths of 364. The lowest seasonal index score for CV mortality was 87 in February, with an average number of CV deaths of 296. The cycles observed for cancer and deaths from external causes did not match the cycles observed for CV diseases and diabetes. We conclude that there is a seasonal pattern of CV mortality in Panama. The drivers of these cyclical changes of CV mortality have not yet been identified, but we are evaluating the relationship of acute respiratory illnesses, population activity patterns and weather changes to these seasonal mortality variations.

The work productivity loss due to health problem estimated based on WPAI-GH was significantly higher in twenties than in forties (50% and 20%, respectively) (p=0.001). The result of a multivariate generalized-linear model after a model selection showed that the work productivity loss was significantly higher in females, twenties, and participants with a depressive tendency factor, extroversion, neuroticism, or openness personality, or high work load in November 2017. Conclusions: Youngest workers showed highest mental stress and largest productivity loss in the busiest season. The youngest generation who holds generally greater potential in the company is considered most exhausted in our study, which indicates a major issue for the working environment of Japanese companies.