Athanasios Sachlas

• PhD in Statistics
• Professor (Assistant) at University of Thessaly

Objective: Child maltreatment is a serious public health issue with unquestionable short- and long-term consequences. The midwives' role in the prevention, identification, and reporting of child abuse and neglect (CAN) is crucial for children's well-being. The Child Abuse Report Intention Scale (CARIS) questionnaire was designed to measure factors...

Monitoring the number of defects in constant‐size units is a well‐defined problem in the industrial domain and usually, the control chart is used for monitoring the total number of defects in a product or a sample of products. The c ‐chart tracks the total number of defects in each case by assuming that the underlying number of defects (single or s...

In 2020, the whole planet was plagued by the extremely deadly COVID-19 pandemic. More than 83 million people had been infected with COVID-19 while more than 1.9 million people around the planet had died from this virus in the first year of the pandemic. From the first moment, the medical community started working to deal with this pandemic. For thi...

Background: Chronic media with effusion (COME) and recurrent acute otitis media (RAOM) are closely related clinical entities that affect childhood. The aims of the study were to investigate the microbiological profile of otitis-prone children in the post-PCV7 era and, to examine the biofilm-forming ability in association with clinical history and o...

A challenge, in the era of economic crisis and uncertainty, is to provide health care services in an efficient and effective manner. The protection of public health, the provision of quality healthcare services to patients, the location of health centers, the geographical distribution of patients, and the provision of specialist services are some o...

Aim The aim of this study was to investigate the relationship between nutritional habits, lifestyle, anxiety, and coping strategies. Background Anxiety is an underestimated and often undiagnosed subclinical disorder that burdens the general public of modern societies and increases illness suscentibility. Methods The study group consisted of 693 i...

Background: Apoptosis antigen 1/FAS receptor (APO1/Fas) signaling in endothelial cells plays a significant role in angiogenesis while increased mean platelet volume (MPV) is an important marker for platelet activation. We investigated the possible correlation between APO1/Fas and both metabolic parameters and platelet activity (indicated by the MP...

Scan statistics appeared in the statistics literature about half a century ago, and since then many papers suggesting either extensions and modifications or applications into various research fields have been published. Scan statistics are mainly used to detect clusters of events in time or space. In the last two decades several researchers have pr...

Control charts, the most popular tool of statistical process control, appeared in the literature to ensure that an industrial process is operating only with natural variability, i.e., under statistical control. In the last decades, control charts have been also widely used to assess the quality of non-industrial processes, such as medicine and publ...

Purpose: To estimate the roles of triglyceride/high-density lipoprotein cholesterol (TG/HDL) ratio and uric acid in predisposition for metabolic syndrome (MetS) and its components in healthy children. Methods: Anthropometric and biochemical analyses were performed on 110 children, aged 5 to 12 years, from the Greek county of Laconia. The childre...

Nowadays the use of the multivariate statistical process control (MSPC) toolbox is efficiently generalized beyond assuring product quality through the monitoring of industrial processes in order to be used in many other non industrial fields (e.g., public health, environmental, financial monitoring, etc.). Data produced by non industrial processes...

Adverse events in Phase II comparative clinical trials have received limited attention in the literature. Bersimis et al. (Stat Med 34:197–214, 2014) in proposed a class of comparative sequential designs with bivariate endpoints, where as a special case, the termination of the clinical trial due to the occurrence of a severe adverse event is treate...

Background: Phototherapy is one of the main treatments for mycosis fungoides (MF). In this study, we analyzed the efficacy and safety of phototherapy as a first line treatment in patients with early stage disease. Methods: We analyzed treatment outcomes in a group of 227 early stage patients. The chi-squared test, the parametric t-test and ANOVA...

Purpose: To investigate the effect of lifestyle habits in childhood Metabolic Syndrome (MTS). Design and methods: Descriptive correlation study with 480 participants (5-12 years old) using a specially designed questionnaire was conducted. Anthropometric and biochemical analyses were performed. Results: Fifteen percent of children exhibited pre...

OBJECTIVE Construction and validation of an instrument for assessing the social attitudes and the level of awareness of citizens towards people experiencing homelessness. METHOD The instrument, the Citizens’ Awareness on Homelessness Scale, was constructed in the form of a self-completed questionnaire consisting of 30 items scored on a five point L...

In this paper, we introduce a methodology for efficiently monitoring a health process that classify the intervention outcome, in two dependent characteristics, as “absolutely successful”, “with minor but acceptable complications” and “unsuccessful due to severe complications”. The monitoring procedure is based on appropriate 2-dimensional scan rule...

Health and health service monitoring is among the most promising research area today and the world work towards efficient and cost effective health care. This paper deals with monitoring health service performance using more than one performance outcome variable (multi-attribute processes), which is common in most health services. Although monitori...

The aim of the study was to investigate the relationship between optimism, general health perception, nutritional habits and lifestyle. A quantitative study was conducted on 500 Greek adults. A standardized questionnaire was used which consisted of the General Health Self-Assessment Questionnaire (GHSAQ), the Life Orientation Test-Revised (GrLOT-R)...

Assessing the agreement between two or more raters is an important topic in medical practice. Existing techniques, which deal with categorical data, are based on contingency tables. This is often an obstacle in practice as we have to wait for a long time to collect the appropriate sample size of subjects to construct the contingency table. In this...

OBJECTIVES To investigate the motivating factors for participation of nurses in continuing nursing education (CNE) and their perceptions about the necessity for programs in CNE. METHOD The Participation Reasons Scale (PRS) was completed by 475 nurses working in three hospitals in Athens and the Peloponnese region and the socio-demographic data of p...

Geriatric depression is more common in nursing homes and social support is a mechanism that mitigates the stressors of life factors and simultaneously promotes wellness and health. The purpose of the study was to assess the levels of depression and social support among elderly in nursing homes. During the period February 2016–March 2016 170 elderly...

An important factor which influences the quality of life of patients with arthritis is the fatigue they experience. The purpose of this study was to assess the relationship between fatigue and quality of life among patients with osteoarthritis and rheumatoid arthritis. Between January 2015 and March 2015, 179 patients with osteoarthritis and rheuma...

Background: Anxiety combined with nervousness and apprehension consist a focal response to different life conditions. Lifestyle habits, anxiety and biochemical markers are in a constant interaction. Aim: To investigate the prevalence of anxiety in healthy adults and its possible association with biochemical factors-lipid profile, liver markers,...

Discriminating integral membrane proteins from water-soluble ones, has been over the past decades an important goal for computational molecular biology. A major drawback of methods appeared in the literature, is that most of the authors tried to solve the problem using machine learning techniques. Specifically, most of the proposed methods require...

OBJECTIVE To investigate, through attachment theory, the role of close interpersonal relationships in infertility-related stress and the quality of life (QoL) in infertile women. METHOD The sample consisted of 82 infertile women who were undergoing in vitro fertilization in the assisted reproduction unit of a private maternity hospital in Athens. T...

Introduction: The nursing profession is characterized as one of the most stressful professions. A significant number of international surveys prove that nurses experience anxiety that often is accompanied by intense symptoms that negatively affect their work performance and their psychological mood. Aim: To evaluate the ways of coping in stress...

The aim of this study was to investigate patients’ perceptions and preferences of their participation in nursing care during hospitalisation in Greece. The sample consisted of medical and surgical patients (n = 300). A questionnaire was developed to measure patients’ perception of participation, including an open question and the control preference...

Background: During the last decades an increased interest has taken place intensively with regards to theassessment of patients’ satisfaction and their beliefs regarding provided nursing care. In the context of thepresent study, empirical data are presented in a sample of patients with end - stage renal disease undergoinghaemodialysis in order to a...

OBJECTIVE Evaluation of the reliability and validity of the Greek version of “Τhe Fatigue Assessment Scale”. METHOD The sample consisted of Greek patients with chronic diseases who were hospitalized in a public hospital in Athens, selected by the method of random sampling. The patients were given “The Fatigue Assessment Scale”, translated into Gree...

Background: Fatigue is a common symptom referred by many patients undergoing hemodialysis. Fatigue is associated with poor health-related quality of life (HRQoL) and is an important predictor for survival of hemodialysis patients. Aim: To assess the levels of fatigue and demographic factors affecting it among patients with End Stage Renal Disease u...

ABSTRACT: The aim of the study was to develop and standardize a new questionnaire to examine the relationship between optimism, dietary habits, lifestyle and general health selfassessment. A pilot study was conducted in a sample of 114 individuals of general population in Sparti/Greece. The questionnaire combines a general health self-assessment qu...

An important dimension that influences the quality of life of hemodialysis patients is the pain they experience. Quality of life and self-efficacy in pain can play an important role in chronic kidney disease and treatment outcomes. The purpose of the study was to examine self-efficacy in pain and quality of life among patients with end stage renal...

An important dimension that influences the quality of life of hemodialysis patients is the pain they experience. Quality of life and selfefficacy in pain can play an important role in chronic kidney disease and treatment outcomes. The purpose of the study was to examine self-efficacy in pain and quality of life among patients with end stage renal d...

The aim of phase II clinical trials is to determine whether an experimental treatment is sufficiently promising and safe to justify further testing. The need for reduced sample size arises naturally in phase II clinical trials owing to both technical and ethical reasons, motivating a significant part of research in the field during recent years, wh...

Healthcare professionals have to deal with multiple roles. They are often considered as role models, regarding health, while they are expected to excel in such behaviors. The purpose of this qualitative and quantitative, cross-sectional study is to identify which factors affect the participants’ lifestyle, how they characterize health-care professi...

Introduction: In recent years the interest of the scientific community to investigate the management of pain in patients with Chronic Kidney Disease (CKD) undergoing hemodialysis, is particularly strong. Purpose: The purpose of this study was to test the psychometric properties of the Greek version of the questionnaire Pain Self - Efficacy Question...

Introduction Although smoking cessation is strongly indicated by international guidelines as an effective therapeutic tool for patients with COPD and Asthma, a large proportion of them do not quit smoking and they are regarded as a "difficult" target group. Aim To study the effectiveness of an intensive smoking cessation program in smokers with CO...

Background Childhood and adolescent psoriasis is not an uncommon disease, but epidemiological information from a large series of studies is still lacking.Objective Our purpose was to present the demographics, clinical features, and outcome of psoriasis appearing in Greek patients from infants up to adolescents.Methods We conducted a retrospective a...

The aim was to investigate nursing staff's perceptions related to patient participation and the parameters affecting it during nursing care. A cross-sectional study with both a quantitative and qualitative orientation was conducted. The sample consisted of all nursing staff working in medical and surgical wards in three Greek hospitals. A questionn...

To describe patient participation in decision making during nursing care from patients' and nursing staff' perspectives. The sample consisted of medical and surgical patients (n = 300) and the nursing staff (n = 118) working in the respective wards in three general hospitals. A questionnaire was used for the study; data were collected from April 20...

The best policy for an insurance company is that which lasts for a long period of time and is less uncertain with reference to its claims. In information theory, entropy is a measure of the uncertainty associated with a random variable. It is a descriptive quantity as it belongs to the class of measures of variability, such as the variance and the...

Introduction: In recent years there has been a rapid increase in the population with chronic kidney disease (CKD). According to the World Health Organization, the number of people requiring dialysis increases by 7% annually. Aim: To develop and examine the psychometric properties of a new questionnaire for measuring the satisfaction of patients wit...

In Greece, every year, about 35.000 people admitted to hospitals due to traumatic brain injuries and about 1.600 of them dies. The main cause is traffic accidents. They can cause death to young people, especially 19 to 25 years. The aim of this study was to investigate the occurrence and distribution of traumatic brain injuries in the Emergency Dep...

Introduction: The aim of this study was to look into the occurrence and distribution of Cranium-cerebral traumas among the pediatric population in the Prefecture of Laconia during the years 2005-2010, with the aim of seeking causes or risk factors, the record of the typed of treatment (diagnosis, therapy, outcome) and the correlation with demograph...

Purpose of this study is to explore those factors which affect the health of students in postadolescent age, focusing on smoking and alcohol use, especially in regard to ways of predicting adoption of this behavior and its frequency to detect future users of tobacco and alcohol use but also high-risk groups, i.e. those people who are led to abuses....

Background: Patient's right to information has been formally acknowledged and legally secured. Patient information is a complex process in which all the members of the therapeutic team are engaged. Aim: The aim of the present study was to search the information given by nursing staff and to investigate the factors that affect the process of informa...

Purpose of this study is to explore those factors which affect the health of students in postadolescent age, focusing on smoking and alcohol use, especially in regard to ways of predicting adoption of this behavior and its frequency to detect future users of tobacco and alcohol use but also high-risk groups, i.e. those people who are led to abuses....

Background: Cranium-cerebral traumas in today’s era are a serious public health problem with bothsocial and economic dimensions. They are characterized as an ‘epidemic’, due to the increase in car accidents and they particularly affect the productive population.The objective of this study was to investigate the occurrence and allocation of Cranium-...

In mathematics and statistics there exist many divergences. One of them, which has a special appeal since it originates from Shannon's entropy (a well known index of diversity) and its concavity property, is Jensen's difference as it was called by Burbea and Rao [9]. Continuing our research on the properties and the use of divergence and informatio...

In this chapter, motivated by the seminal paper of Brockett, “Information theoretic approach to actuarial science: A unification and extension of relevant theory and applications,”Transactions of the Society of Actuaries, Vol. 43, 73–135 (1991), we review minimization of the Kullback – Leibler divergence D KL (u,v) between observed (raw) death prob...

In general, divergences and measures of information are defined for probability vectors. However, in some cases, divergences are ‘informally’ used to measure the discrepancy between vectors, which are not necessarily probability vectors. In this paper we examine whether divergences with nonprobability vectors in their arguments share the properties...

Nowadays one of the most rapidly developing areas of process control is Multivariate Statistical Process Control (MSPC). MSPC refers to process monitoring problems in which several related variables are of interest. The most widely used tool of MSPC is control charting, which may be used efciently in order to monitor and control processes in a mult...

One of the most important tasks in actuarial science is to describe the actual but unknown mortality pattern of a population. In order to achieve this, the actuary calculates from raw data the crude mortality rates, which usually form an irregular series. Because of this, it is common to revise the initial estimates with the aim of producing smooth...

One of the most important tasks in actuarial science is to describe the actual but unknown mortality pattern of a population. In order to achieve this, the actuary calcu- lates from raw data the crude mortality rates, which usually form an irregular series. Because of this, it is common to revise the initial estimates with the aim of producing smoo...