Category: Statistics

Pril (Makedon Akad Nauk Umet Odd Med Nauki). 2026 Mar 21;47(1):15-24. doi: 10.2478/prilozi-2026-0002. Print 2026 Mar 1.

ABSTRACT

Background: Emotional intelligence has been identified as an important psychological factor influencing how individuals manage stress and regulate emotions. However, evidence regarding its differential association with adaptive and maladaptive coping styles in adolescents and young adults remains limited. Objective: This study aimed to examine the relationships between emotional intelligence and adaptive and maladaptive coping styles in a large sample of adolescents and young adults. Methods: A cross-sectional study was conducted among 700 participants aged 15-25 years. Emotional intelligence was assessed using the Wong and Law Emotional Intelligence Scale, while coping styles were measured using a 28-item COPE inventory aggregated into adaptive and maladaptive coping dimensions. Descriptive statistics, Pearson correlation analyses, and multiple linear regression models adjusted for age, gender, and education level were performed. Results: Emotional intelligence was positively associated with both adaptive coping (r = .16, p < .001) and maladaptive coping (r = .54, p < .001). Regression analyses indicated that emotional intelligence independently predicted both coping styles; however, the effect size was substantially larger for maladaptive coping. Age, gender, and education level were not significant predictors in either model. Conclusion: Emotional intelligence is differentially associated with coping styles in adolescents and young adults, with a particularly strong relationship observed for maladaptive coping. These findings underscore the importance of emotional intelligence in coping processes and suggest that interventions targeting emotional intelligence may help reduce maladaptive coping behaviors in youth.

PMID:41863106 | DOI:10.2478/prilozi-2026-0002

Pril (Makedon Akad Nauk Umet Odd Med Nauki). 2026 Mar 21;47(1):63-74. doi: 10.2478/prilozi-2026-0006. Print 2026 Mar 1.

ABSTRACT

Aim: To clinically evaluate the efficacy of Dexamethasone depending on the method of administration in the treatment of postoperative complications following odontectomy of lower impacted third molars. Materials and Methods: At the Clinic for Oral Surgery at USKC “St. Panteleimon” in Skopje, North Macedonia, 45 patients, 20 to 40 years, indicated for odontectomy of lower impacted third molars, were included. 15 patients were treated with DXP (Dexamethasone), ampule of 4mg/1ml, applied submucosally (SM). Another 15 patients were treated with DXP administered intramuscularly (IM) into the deltoid muscle. No DXP was applied to the control group (CG). Edema was monitored by measuring three facial lines: tragus to labial commissure (Tr-Co), tragus to gnathion (Tr-Gn), and lateral eye canthus to angulus mandibulae (Cn-Am). The clinical effects in the three study groups were monitored at 24 hours (T1), 48 hours (T2), and 7 days (T3) post-op. Results: Cn-Am direction in T1, showed significantly larger edema in the CG vs the examined groups. In all time points there were no statistically significant differences between the examined groups (p>0.05). In T1 and T2, in the Tr-Co direction, the results showed the biggest reduction of the edema with a statistically significant difference (p=0.012) in IM vs SM application at T2. T3 showed least edema in the SM group. Tr-Gn direction, at T1, a significant difference in edema dimensions was found between the IM and CG (p=0.015), indicating a significantly smaller measured edema in the IM group. Identical findings were seen at T2. T3 showed better results in edema control in the SM vs. other groups. Conclusion: The intramuscular application technique of DXP was more effective than the submucosal technique across all measurement lines and time points in managing postoperative edema following surgical extraction of lower impacted third molars.

PMID:41863105 | DOI:10.2478/prilozi-2026-0006

Clin Implant Dent Relat Res. 2026 Apr;28(2):e70137. doi: 10.1111/cid.70137.

ABSTRACT

OBJECTIVES: To investigate the potential benefits of Xanthan-based chlorhexidine gel application in addition to professional mechanical plaque removal (PMPR) in the treatment of peri-implant mucositis (PM).

MATERIAL AND METHODS: Subjects diagnosed with PM were consecutively included in this randomized split-mouth study. All participants received a single session of PMPR using titanium curettes, followed by the application of an air-polishing glycine powder device. Implants allocated to the Test group were additionally treated with local delivery of Xanthan-based chlorhexidine gel. Clinical evaluation was performed at T0 (i.e., baseline), at 30 (T1), 90 (T2) and 180 days (T3) after treatment, while treatment success was evaluated at T2 and T3. Change in bleeding on probing (BoP) was considered as primary outcome measure. A logistic multivariate regression model was developed to explore the predictive role of implant and patient-level variables on primary outcome measure.

RESULTS: Fifty-nine patients (mean age: 65.4 ± 8.7 years; 54.2% male; 88.1% non-smokers) and 182 implants completed the study. At T1, only the Test group displayed a significant reduction in BoP (p < 0.001), PPD (p = 0.021) and PI (p = 0.021) compared to T0, while at T2 and T3 clinical improvements were recorded within both groups without any statistically significant difference between groups (p > 0.05). T2 Treatment success as well as the frequency distribution of complete (BoP = 0) and partial (BoP ≤ 1, ≤ 2, ≤ 3) disease resolution did not significantly differ between groups (p > 0.05). Multiple regression model revealed that smoking (p = 0.008), and implant position (i.e., premolar p = 0.009) did significantly affect the primary outcome measure.

CONCLUSION: The adjunctive use of XanCHX gel did not result in any statistically significant clinical benefit compared to PMPR alone in the treatment of PM up to 6 months, despite the reported clinical positive effects within the first month after treatment.

PMID:41863097 | DOI:10.1111/cid.70137

J Paediatr Child Health. 2026 Mar 21. doi: 10.1111/jpc.70365. Online ahead of print.

ABSTRACT

AIMS: This study describes the location, mode of death, palliative care and advance care planning (ACP) use amongst children who died at KK Women’s and Children’s Hospital (KKH), Singapore, between 2011 and 2020.

METHODS: Medical records of all children who died in the general ward, high dependency unit and paediatric intensive care unit (PICU) were reviewed. Data collected included: demographics, diagnosis, cause, location, mode of death, palliative care and ACP use. Trends were analysed using the Mann-Kendall test and compared using logistic regression. A p-value of < 0.05 was considered statistically significant.

RESULTS: Amongst 326 372 hospital admissions, 412 children (0.13%) died, of whom 270 (65.5%) had at least one complex chronic condition (CCC). Most deaths occurred in the PICU (319/412, 77.4%), and 188 children (45.6%) died following non-escalation of care. Palliative care consultations were provided in 119 cases (28.9%), and ACP was documented in 25 cases (6.1%). From 2011 to 2020, palliative care consultations increased from 20.4% to 39.3% (p = 0.06) and ACP use increased from 0% to 15.2% (p < 0.05). Over the same period, deaths after withdrawal of life-sustaining measures (WLSM) increased from 14.3% to 30.3% (p = 0.09), whilst deaths in the general ward decreased from 12.2% to 6.1% (p = 0.36).

CONCLUSIONS: Most hospitalised children died in the PICU following non-escalation of care without palliative care or ACP use. Future research is needed to identify the barriers and facilitators to their use.

PMID:41863091 | DOI:10.1111/jpc.70365

Sociol Health Illn. 2026 Mar;48(3):e70173. doi: 10.1111/1467-9566.70173.

ABSTRACT

Persistent adolescent smoking in China presents a paradox within the context of advancing nicotine control. Moving beyond social-environmental explanations, this study employs Mills’ sociological imagination to conceptualise this persistence as an agentive response to constrained realities and futures, enacted through peer-curated lay epidemiology. Its core argument is that adolescents cultivate a folk sociological imagination-a vernacular system of sense-making-to manufacture agency and reframe smoking risk. Qualitative data from 21 adolescent smokers in Shenzhen, including 208 health diaries and 17 interviews, reveal how this is achieved through three practices: the selective valorisation of healthy smoker exemplars; folk attribution of causality to external or individual factors; and prevalence-as-safety normalisation. This folk process reconfigured the public issue of smoking risk into a series of manageable private troubles, transforming statistical harm into a matter of individual circumstance. Findings highlight three gaps in current efforts: an epistemic gap in policy, which dismisses peer-validated evidence; an intervention gap in health education, which fails to engage with lay reasoning and a structural hope gap, which generates a form of cruel optimism that overlooks the need for alternative avenues for agency and belonging.

PMID:41863090 | DOI:10.1111/1467-9566.70173

Hepatol Res. 2026 Mar 21. doi: 10.1111/hepr.70152. Online ahead of print.

ABSTRACT

AIM: We aimed to determine the associations between the pretreatment Advanced Lung Cancer Inflammation Index (ALI) and survival outcomes in patients with unresectable hepatocellular carcinoma (u-HCC) who received atezolizumab plus bevacizumab (Atez/Bev).

METHODS: This retrospective study analyzed 563 patients with u-HCC who were treated with Atez/Bev (Sept 2020-Dec 2024). The ALI was calculated according to Body Mass Index × serum albumin level/neutrophil-to-lymphocyte ratio. Associations between ALI and overall survival (OS) and progression-free survival (PFS) were evaluated by Cox proportional hazards regression analysis.

RESULTS: An ALI cutoff value of 27.04, determined by receiver operating characteristic curve analysis, was used to classify patients into low- and high-ALI groups. High-ALI patients had longer median OS (26.1 vs. 13.7 months, p < 0.001) and PFS (9.3 vs. 5.2 months, p < 0.001), and a higher disease control rate (82.5% vs. 69.1%, p < 0.001) compared to low-ALI patients. Multivariate Cox regression analysis confirmed that a high ALI value was a significant prognostic marker for OS (hazard ratio [HR] 0.69, 95% confidence interval [CI] 0.54-0.88, p = 0.003) and PFS (HR: 0.75, 95% CI: 0.61-0.92, p = 0.006). Subgroup analyses showed that the trend toward improved outcomes was consistent for high ALI values in all clinically relevant subgroups.

CONCLUSIONS: A high pretreatment ALI value was associated with improved survival and disease control in u-HCC patients receiving Atez/Bev, underscoring its potential utility as a prognostic marker for clinical management and further studies.

PMID:41863089 | DOI:10.1111/hepr.70152

Br J Math Stat Psychol. 2026 Mar 20. doi: 10.1111/bmsp.70044. Online ahead of print.

ABSTRACT

Cognitive Diagnosis Models (CDMs) are widely used in latent-variable modeling for classification tasks that diagnose abilities or skills. Originally developed for dichotomous indicators, CDMs have been extended to polytomous and continuous responses, including bounded continuous variables (e.g. proportions or index scores on a 0-1 or 0-100 scale). We introduce a Bounded DINA (B-DINA) model, an extension of DINA for handling bounded continuous responses, using a Beta distribution with an appropriate mean-precision parameterization. We present a Bayesian estimation framework, define interpretable item parameters and compute posterior probabilities of membership in each latent-attribute profile. We explicitly address label-switching nonidentifiability and assess absolute model fit via posterior predictive $p$ -values (PPP). Also, we have conducted a simulation study to evaluate parameter recovery for our proposed method and its performance. Further, we illustrate the model mainly with municipal data from Southeastern Brazil, where bounded indices summarize economy, education and health. Our proposed B-DINA effectively classifies municipalities and reveals relationships between observed indicators and latent attributes. As bounded continuous variables are common across the social sciences and policy analysis, our proposed B-DINA could offer a broadly applicable classification tool in the practice.

PMID:41862425 | DOI:10.1111/bmsp.70044

Prenat Diagn. 2026 Mar 20. doi: 10.1002/pd.70129. Online ahead of print.

ABSTRACT

OBJECTIVE: Advances in prenatal genetic screening have improved the detection of fetal genetic conditions; however, disparities in utilization persist. Our objective was to determine whether implementation and timing of prenatal genetic testing, including partner testing, differs according to insurance payor status.

METHOD: We conducted a retrospective chart review of pregnant patients who initiated prenatal care and delivered at our academic center in 2024. Patients were stratified by site: a resident clinic serving publicly insured, racially diverse patients and faculty practices serving predominantly privately insured, homogenous patients. Data were extracted from the electronic medical record, and statistical comparison was performed.

RESULTS: We reviewed 201 charts (101 resident clinic, 100 faculty practice). Compared with faculty practice patients, resident clinic patients were younger and more likely to be non-White, Hispanic, or non-English speaking. Among publicly insured patients, gestational age (GA) at initial visit was later, as was GA at genetic testing collection. Preconception screening was more common among privately insured patients. Concurrent testing and completion of screening was lower in publicly insured patients, and there were longer delays to partner testing.

CONCLUSIONS: Publicly insured patients had delayed prenatal genetic testing, reduced partner testing, and lower screening completion. Strategies are needed to provide equitable access to timely prenatal genetic testing.

PMID:41862421 | DOI:10.1002/pd.70129

Urol Oncol. 2026 Mar 19:111063. doi: 10.1016/j.urolonc.2026.111063. Online ahead of print.

ABSTRACT

INTRODUCTION: To examine the association of presurgical physical activity with urinary and sexual function following radical prostatectomy for clinically localized prostate cancer.

METHODS: Participants were recruited from 2011 to 2014 at 2 US institutions and provided self-reported urinary and sexual functions using the modified Expanded Prostate Cancer Index Composite (EPIC, scale from 0 to 100) at baseline (presurgery) and 5-week, 6-month, and 12-month after surgery. Moderate-to-vigorous intensity physical activity (MVPA) was assessed using the Community Healthy Activities Model Program for Seniors and classified into 3 categories. We evaluated changes in function pre- and postsurgery by linear generalized estimating equation (GEE) models and recovery in function after surgery by logistic GEE models.

RESULTS: Among 401 eligible participants, 38.4%, 35.2% and 26.4% engaged in low, medium, and high MVPA before surgery. Urinary function did not vary by MVPA at baseline or during recovery. For sexual function, patients with high MVPA had better sexual function (p = 0.008) at baseline than those with low or medium levels of MVPA. During the recovery phase, this difference disappeared at 5-week postsurgery but returned by 6-month (p = 0.035) and persisted up to 12-month postsurgery (p = 0.004). A suggestive higher likelihood of sexual function recovery was observed by 12-month postsurgery among participants with high versus low MVPA (OR: 2.42; 95% CI: 0.96-6.08; p = 0.060).

CONCLUSION: Physically active prostate cancer patients had better sexual function before and after surgery, with a suggestive though statistically non-significant clinical recovery after surgery. These findings support the potential for exercise prehabilitation to improve side effects associated with radical prostatectomy.

PMID:41862406 | DOI:10.1016/j.urolonc.2026.111063

Dis Mon. 2026 Mar 19:102099. doi: 10.1016/j.disamonth.2026.102099. Online ahead of print.

ABSTRACT

BACKGROUND: Obesity-related heart failure with preserved ejection fraction (HFpEF) is associated with high morbidity and limited therapeutic options. Tirzepatide, a dual agonist of glucose-dependent insulinotropic polypeptide (GIP) and glucagon-like peptide-1 (GLP-1) receptors, has demonstrated reductions in cardiovascular mortality and worsening heart failure events in a recent randomized controlled trial. However, pooled evidence for tirzepatide’s cardiovascular and clinical effects in HFpEF remains limited. Moreover, head-to-head comparisons of tirzepatide with semaglutide, another incretin-mimetic therapy shown to be beneficial in HFpEF, are sparse. This meta-analysis aims to systematically analyze the efficacy and safety of tirzepatide in patients with HFpEF.

METHODS: We conducted a systematic review by searching multiple databases up to December 5, 2025 evaluating tirzepatide versus standard therapy and semaglutide for cardiovascular outcomes in patients with obesity-related HFpEF. Statistical analysis was performed using RevMan 5.4, with an inverse variance random effects model to calculate hazard ratios (HR) and odds ratios (OR). Heterogeneity was assessed using the Higgins I² test. The study protocol is registered in PROSPERO (CRD420251170117).

RESULTS: Our final analysis included five studies, including RCTs and observational studies with a total of 47,710 patients with HFpEF and BMI ≥ 30 kg/m², a mean age of 64.7 years, and follow-up ranging from 52 to 146 weeks. Tirzepatide was associated with a significant reduction in the composite outcome of cardiovascular mortality and worsening heart failure events compared with standard therapy (HR 0.50; 95% CI: 0.42-0.60; p < 0.001). A significant reduction in heart failure exacerbation events alone was also observed with tirzepatide versus standard therapy (HR 0.75; p = 0.04), whereas no significant difference was seen when compared with semaglutide (HR 0.95; p = 0.31). Heart failure hospitalization and all-cause mortality did not differ significantly between tirzepatide and either standard therapy or semaglutide. No statistically significant difference in adverse drug reactions was observed.

CONCLUSION: In this meta-analysis, tirzepatide was associated with a significant reduction in the composite outcome of cardiovascular mortality and worsening heart failure events in patients with HFpEF and obesity. When compared to semaglutide, there were no significant differences in heart failure hospitalization or all-cause mortality.

PMID:41862384 | DOI:10.1016/j.disamonth.2026.102099