There are about 3753 clinical studies being (or have been) conducted in Hong Kong. The country of the clinical trial is determined by the location of where the clinical research is being studied. Most studies are often held in multiple locations & countries.
Understanding depression from a relational perspective maybe more meaningful in Chinese culture due to the different values and beliefs among Chinese comparing to those of the Western cultures. The PI and his associates developed a Cognitive Behavioural Couple Therapy model for Chinese couples with a depressed partner receiving mental health services in a community mental health centre in Hong Kong between 2018 and 2019. With consideration of the limitations in a pilot study conducted by the PI, modifications are made in the current study. This study aims to evaluate the effectiveness of a cognitive behavioural couple therapy model for Chinese couples with a depressed partner in Hong Kong. A comparison approach involving cognitive behavioural couple therapy (CBCT), emotional focused couple therapy (EFCT) and a wait-list control group on their short-term and long-term effects, as well as differential benefits will be examined. A set of questionnaires will be filled out by the 135 participants (45 in each arm) before the intervention (T0), after the intervention (T1), and 6-month after the intervention (T2). It is hypothesized that comparing to the control group, participants in CBCT and EFCT conditions will have greater improvements in outcomes at T1 and T2. There will be differential therapeutic effects of CBCT and EFCT on the various outcomes. Different mediating effects behind the changes in the outcomes in the two conditions will be examined. The study will contribute to the current literature by evaluating the effectiveness of culturally-attuned CBCT and EFCT. New insights will be added to the current therapeutic approaches for couples with a depressed partner. A sets of questionnaires will be assessed before the intervention (T0), after the intervention (T1), and 6-month after the intervention (T2). It is hypothesized that comparing to the control group, participants in CBCT and EFCT conditions will have greater improvements in outcomes at T1 and T2. Also, they may receive differential therapeutic effects of CBCT and EFCT on different outcomes. Different mediating effects behind the changes in the outcomes will be examined. The study will contribute to the current literature by evaluating the effectiveness of culturally-attuned CBCT and EFCT. Insights may be provide to the current therapeutic approach for couples with depressed partners.
This study aims to examine the effect of external, internal and no attention focus walking training during gait rehabilitation on real-time conscious motor processing (reinvestment), balance, walking ability and fear of falling by older adults at risk of falling in Hong Kong. One-hundred and eight older adults will be recruited from elderly community centers in Hong Kong. Participants will be randomly assigned into 3 groups (i.e., No Attention Focus Walking Group (NAFWG; active control group, n=36), an External Attention Focus Walking Group (EAFWG, n = 36) or an Internal Attention Focus Walking Group (IAFWG, n = 36)). Participants in different groups will have training sessions (about 45 minutes each) three times per week for 4 weeks in a group of 6 participants. A total of 12 sessions will be completed by each participant. All training sessions will be conducted by experienced registered physiotherapists in Hong Kong and a research assistant with experience in exercise training for older adults. In each training session, all groups will have warm-up (5 minutes), balance training (5 minutes), body transport training (5 minutes), body transport with hand manipulation training (5 minutes), walking training with various levels of difficulties in a 40-meter walkway with different instructions in different walking groups (20 minutes) and cool down (5 minutes). For the walking training (20 minutes), all participants will be invited to conduct walking training on a walking field with an area of 25 meter square and a total walking distance of about 40 meters for each walking trial from cone 1 to 9. Two screens that connected with a laptop computer will be positioned 1 meter beside the walking field. Both screens will be projected different digits from 0 to 9 randomly in the speed of 2 seconds per digit. Participants in the NAFWG, EAFWG, and IAFWG will receive different instructions during walking training. Each participant will complete assessment sessions (total 3 assessment sessions) before training at baseline (T0), just after completion of all training sessions (T1) and 6 months after completion of all training sessions (T2). In the baseline assessment (T0), a structural questionnaire will be used to ask for demographics, medical history, detailed history of fall incident, social history and social economic status of all participants. A battery of assessments will be conducted to assess physical and cognitive abilities of the participants in all assessment sessions (T0, T1, & T2). Walking ability will be assessed by the 10 meters comfortable and fast walking speed (Bohannon, 1997). Functional balance and gait assessment will be done by the Tinetti Balance Assessment Tool (Tinetti, 1986), the Berg Balance Scale (BBS) (Berg et al., 1989) and the Timed 'Up & Go' Tests (TU&G) (Podsiadlo & Richardson, 1991). Cognitive function will be evaluated by the Chinese version Mini-Mental State Examination (MMSE-C) (Folstein et al., 1975; Chiu et al., 1994). The Chinese version of the Fall Efficacy Scale International (FES-I (Ch)) (Kwan, Tsang, Close & Lord, 2013) will be completed to assess the fear of falling. The Chinese version Movement Specific Reinvestment Scale (MSRS-C) (Masters et al., 2005; Wong et al., 2015a; Wong et al., 2015b) will be administered to examine the conscious motor processing propensity (i.e., movement specific reinvestment). The alpha2 EEG coherence between T3 (verbal-analytical region of the brain) and the Fz (motor planning region of the brain) (i.e., T3-Fz EEG coherence) of all participants when walking at the 6-meter level-ground walkway (three walking trials) will be determined to identify the real-time conscious motor processing propensity (Zhu et al., 2011; Ellmers et al., 2016; Chu & Wong, 2019). All participants will be equipped with EEG electrodes before the start of the three walking trials. EEG activity will be received using a wireless EEG device (Brainquiry PET 4.0, Brainquiry, The Netherlands) and will be recorded using the real-time biophysical data acquisition software (BioExplorer 1.5, CyberEvolution, US). Previous research has demonstrated that alpha2 (10-12Hz) T3-Fz EEG coherence is sensitive at detecting within-subject changes in real-time conscious motor processing propensity during a postural sway task (Ellmers et al., 2016). T4-Fz EEG coherence will be utilized to identify whether the changes in the alpha2 T3-Fz EEG coherence will be due to global activation of the brain. The EEG electrodes are non-invasive and will not be used in any diagnostic purpose. All participants will be asked to record their number of falls prospectively at the time between T1 (completion of all training sessions) and T2 (6 months after completion of all training sessions) using a structural calendar. The number of falls within the 6-month follow-up period will then be collected.
Hidden drug abuse remains a significant concern for public health. An appropriate intervention is necessary to encourage hidden drug abusers to report their situations and seek professional help. This project aims to develop a community-based network to identify and refer hidden drug abusers in Hong Kong, and assess its effectiveness.
Mental health disorders are common during pregnancy and the postnatal period, and can have serious adverse effects on the well-being of woman and child. Every tenth woman has depressive symptoms and 5% suffer major depression during pregnancy. The consequences for global mental health due to the novel coronavirus disease, COVID-19, are likely to be significant and may have long-term impact on the global burden of disease. Pregnant women may be particularly vulnerable due to partial immune suppression. Besides physical vulnerability, the women could be at increased risk of mental health problems, such as anxiety, depression, and post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), due to social distancing leading to less support from the family and friends, and in some cases, partners not being allowed to be present during prenatal visits, labor and delivery. Furthermore, many pregnant women may feel insecure and worried about the effect of COVID-19 on their unborn child, if the women get infected during pregnancy. Today, young urban women are used to utilizing internet services frequently and efficiently. Therefore, providing mental health support to pregnant women via web-based support may be effective in ameliorating their anxiety/depression and reduce the risk of serious mental health disorders leading to improved maternal and perinatal outcomes.
Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID-19) emerged in December 2019, and in mere few months has resulted in a pandemic of viral pneumonia. Substantial proportion of patients with COVID-19 have biochemical evidence of myocardial injuries during the acute phase. Possible mechanisms including acute coronary events, cytokine storm, and COVID-19 related myocarditis, have been postulated for the cardiac involvement in COVID-19. It is uncertain whether COVID-19 survivors are at risk cardiac dysfunction including cardiac arrhythmia and heart failure. The prospective screening study aims to evaluate the possible latent effects from COVID-19 in COVID-19 survivors. COVID-19 survivors 4-6 weeks after hospital discharge will be recruited from the Infectious Disease clinic, Queen Mary Hospital with standard 12-lead electrocardiogram, serum troponin, NT-proBNP, and standard transthoracic echocardiogram. The outcome measures include (1) new onset cardiac arrhythmia, (2) N Terminal (NT)-proBNP elevation above the diagnostic range of heart failure, and (3) newly detected left ventricular dysfunction.
The brief intervention comprises a 4-page worksheet used in the classroom (main intervention) and subsequent weekly e-messages through WhatsApp (booster intervention). The worksheets for both groups will be printed in colour, and mainly contain pictures and simple texts. Students will be asked to provide smartphone numbers of themselves and their parents for receiving the booster interventions. After sending 4-6 e-messages in 4 weeks, students will complete a 1-month follow-up assessment.
This would be a phase II prospective single arm mono-institutional study conducted in Queen Mary Hospital (Hong Kong) assessing the efficacy and safety of bintrafusp alfa in previously treated patients with recurrent and metastatic (R/M) non-keratinizing nasopharyngeal carcinoma (NPC)
A fall is an event which results in a person coming to rest unwittingly on the floor or ground or other lower level. Those who have fall history have significantly more hospitalizations and clinical visits as well as emergency department visits than those who do not. Loss of confidence in walking, fear of falling, social isolation and depression can also occur in those patients. Fall is a predictor for decreased functional status and risk factor for the whole institution Approximately 30% to 40% of people aged 65 years and older who lived in the community fall each year. Multiple studies related to falls have shown a close relation between sex and age. As a result, Elderlies who are prone to falling consume more health care resources than non-fallers. STRATIFY proved to be more accurate and more frequently utilized. STRATIFY was originally derived in mixed acute/rehabilitation geriatric wards of UK urban teaching hospital using a 'case control' design and multi-variate regression to identify predictors of falls in hospital inpatients. This resulted in a simple five-point score (each item scoring 1 or 0), with predictive "cut-offs" as 2 or 3 used in the original validation studies which followed. STRATIFY was not designed or validated for continuous modelling of risk but for use in categorical prediction 'high' versus 'low risk'. Sensitivity and specificity were both found to be in excess of 80% in the two UK cohort of the original paper, leading to wide spread adoption of the tool in clinical practice. It is now ten years since the publication of the original STRATIFY paper and a number of prospective studies in several cohort of patients have been published. Objective and Propose 1. To assess the effectiveness of the fall preventing intervention after targeted group is screened by the tool "STRATIFY" in triage 2. To look at the discrepancy of fall perception of patient/caregiver and the assessment result using "STRATIFY". 3. To compare the fall rate after applying the screening tool "STRATIFY" and with intervention given in their AEDs. Hypothesis 1. It is hypothesized that the effectiveness score collected from patient and/or caregivers via questionnaires within data collection period shows positive result and these measures are worth to execute in A&E. 2. It is hypothesized that there may not be a big discrepancy of fall perception of caregivers with the result of assessment tool and there is a discrepancy of fall perception of fall perception of patients as they may over-estimate their ability 3. It is hypothesized that the fall rate of intervention group will be lower than that of control group. Rate of fall incident which is properly documented and reported to AIRS after using fall screening tool "STRATIFY" and intervention given will be the intervention group. Rate of fall incident of usual practice in a designated period will be the control group.
This is a validation study recruiting subjects with and without obstructive sleep apnea. All subjects will undergo a nocturnal standard polysomnography and UMindSleep assessment. Sleep parameters, such as sleep stages and apnea UMindSleep software. Correlation in each parameter between PSG and events in polysomnography (PSG) will be scored according to the AASM criteria while the sleep parameters will be automatically scored by the UMindSleep will be analyzed to determine the magnitude of agreement between UMindSleep and PSG.
This study is to detect the infertile couple (women) Anti-Mullerian Hormone (AMH) profile in major subgroups such as Poly Cystic Ovarian Syndrome (PCOS), Endometriosis, etc via age intervals and ethnic difference.