Perinatal depression is an increasingly common comorbidity of pregnancy and is associated with adverse birth outcomes. Newer classes of antidepressants have been developed with a variety of mechanisms and improved side effect profiles. There is increasing use of these medications in reproductive-aged women. Medical providers have to balance the need ...

Using contemporary literary sources, we explore the powerful ideological framework that normalises prescription dependency as part of everyday life, focusing upon the treatment of mood disorders. Through a literary critical methodology, we read novels by American hyperrealists such as Bret Easton Ellis, David Foster Wallace and Rick Moody as symptomatic ...

BACKGROUND: Medical and psychosocial factors are related to 1-year outcomes in the Waiting for a New Heart Study. With increased use of mechanical circulatory support devices (MCSD) over the course of the study, we can now evaluate these variables as predictors of MCSD in an extended follow-up. METHODS: Analyses focused ...

BackgroundBecause opioids can suppress respiratory 2 drive, the principle of double effect (PDE) has been used to justify their use for terminally ill patients. Recent studies, however, suggest that the risk of respiratory depression in typical end-of-life (EOL) situations may be overstated and that heightened concern for this rare occurrence ...

BACKGROUND: Obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD) is associated with impairments in multiple neuropsychological domains but the findings are rather inconsistent across studies. One potential reason for poor replication is the confounding influence of medications. There is limited research on neuropsychological performance in medication-naïve, never treated OCD patients. METHODS: In this study, we ...

The extant literature on the treatment of pediatric obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD) indicates that partial response to serotonin reuptake inhibitors (SRIs) is the norm and that augmentation with short-term OCD-specific cognitive behavior therapy (CBT) may provide additional benefit. To examine the effects of augmenting SRIs with CBT or a brief form ...

BACKGROUND: Many patients seeking bariatric surgery have a history of mood disorders and are actively prescribed antidepressants. While extensive documentation exists on the impact of weight loss surgery on reductions in cardiac, diabetic, and hypertensive medications, little is known about the impact of bariatric surgery on the use of antidepressant ...

: Many drugs used in the pediatric intensive care unit are administered "off label," i.e., they have been neither thoroughly tested for efficacy and safety nor approved for use in children. The U.S. Congress has enacted legislation to promote standards and requirements for Food and Drug Administration labeling for drugs ...

A Caucasian female octogenarian with multiple medical problems was admitted to the inpatient geriatric psychiatry unit with intermittent altered mental status and decline in memory. She had been hospitalized four times in the previous three months. She was admitted on more than 10 medications and received more than 20 different ...

Osteoporosis frequently coexists with other chronic diseases and syndromes of aging, and therefore multimorbidity interactions can potentially complicate its evaluation and treatment. This article reviews osteoporosis comorbidity interactions with select common diseases of aging including cardiovascular, neurologic, and geriatric syndromes, and select commonly used medications by older adults. Using depression ...

Moderator-based treatment algorithms for depression are available to assist clinicians by providing a highly structured approach for the monitoring and assessment of medication efficacy and risks. Algorithm-based treatment strategies provide consistent care and improve outcomes, and patients treated with measurement-based care experience greater reduction of symptoms, faster remission rates, and ...

Abstract Bipolar disorder (BP) in youth is an impairing psychiatric disorder associated with high rates of relapse and recurrence. High rates of psychiatric and medical co-morbidities account for additional illness burden in pediatric BP. The elevated risk of overweight and obesity in this population is of particular concern. One of ...

Medication errors involving oral opioids have led to serious adverse events, including failure to control pain, over-sedation, respiratory depression, seizures, and death. This article will highlight medication errors that may arise during the use of opioid oral solutions, particularly concentrated formulations, and provide risk-reduction recommendations to address the potential for ...

There are several well-developed rapid microbiological methods now becoming available that may have useful applications in pharmaceutical and medical devices. They are ATP bioluminescence, fluorescent labeling, electrical resistance, and nucleic acid probes. In choosing to employ rapid methods, the microbiologist should examine their prospective performances against the specific requirements for ...

Fracture liaison specialist nurses at our institute, perceived deficiency in the level of prescription of osteoporosis secondary prevention medication on discharge of fractured neck of femur (NOF) patients. This aspect of management was therefore audited over two cycles with the aim of evaluating and improving current practice. A prospectively maintained ...

The present study compared preexisting groups of medicated and non-medicated children aged 8-13 years, with a primary diagnosis of an anxiety disorder, participating in a 12-session, manualized cognitive-behavior therapy group (GCBT). Of the 42 children, 13 (31%) were concurrently treated with Selective Serotonin Reuptake Inhibitors (SSRIs) for anxiety while they ...

The safety of ADHD medications is not fully known. Concerns have arisen about both a lack of contemporary-standard information about medications first licensed several decades ago, and signals of possible harm arising from more recently developed medications. These relate to both relatively minor adverse effects and extremely serious issues such ...

There remains an ongoing need to reduce tobacco use in the U.S. Physician organizations, such as medical groups, can support healthcare providers to be more effective in their delivery of tobacco cessation by adopting practices recommended in the Public Health Service Clinical Practice Guideline for Treating Tobacco Use and Dependence ...

Medical costs of obesity in the United States exceed $147 billion annually with medication costs making a sizable contribution. We examined medication costs associated with substantial weight losses in an intensive behavioral weight loss program. Inclusion criteria were medication use for obesity co-morbidities: hypertension, diabetes, dyslipidemia, degenerative joint disease, or ...

To determine whether there are differences in the medical and dietary recommendations given to stone formers between urologists that subspecialize in endourology and general urologists. A 10 question on-line survey was sent via e-mail to members of the North Central Section (NCS) of the American Urological Association and the Endourological ...

The objective of this study was to evaluate the quality of medication information available in medical charts before and after the implementation of a medication reconciliation form. This study is a retrospective chart review of patients under 18 years who were taking two medications or more at home and were ...

To determine the quality and completeness of the list of home medications documented by nurses using a codified process, authors conducted a comparative study of home medications using a non-codified and codified process for documentation of required data fields including drug, dose, route of administration, frequency, and schedule. Each documented ...

Adverse drug reactions are recognized as a significant public health issue. Pharmacogenetics (PGx) provides a potential means of preventing some adverse drug reactions by predicting the optimal medication dose for an individual; however, PGx is rarely used in clinical practice. Thus far, there have been few studies investigating consumers' perceptions ...

To evaluate the impact of value-based benefit design (VBBD) on adherence to diabetes medications. Health Alliance Medical Plans piloted VBBD for diabetes medications for a subgroup of 5400 enrollees in January 2007 while keeping drug benefits unchanged for the remaining plan enrollees. A difference in difference method (DID) was used ...

In healthcare settings, indicators are useful tools to assess the structure, process and outcomes of care. Moreover, when used to report to the public, indicators ensure greater transparency for our healthcare system. The purpose of this study was to identify in acute care settings three medication safety indicators that are ...

This article aims at building clinical data groups for Electronic Medical Records (EMR) in China. These data groups can be reused as basic information units in building the medical sheets of Electronic Medical Record Systems (EMRS) and serve as part of its implementation guideline. The results were based on medical ...

Firefox is a Web browser created by the Mozilla project, an open-source software group. Features of the browser include automated updates, advanced security and standards compliance, and the ability to add functionality through add-ons and extensions. First introduced in 2004, Firefox now accounts for roughly 30% of the browser market. ...

To examine the effects of adding close concurrent and retrospective physician oversight, consistent with National Association of EMS Physicians (NAEMSP) recommendations, to an existing regional prehospital rapid-sequence intubation (RSI) program. This study involved a retrospective cohort of patients receiving RSI between January 1, 2004, and July 31, 2008. On January ...

Offering financial incentives to achieve medication adherence in patients with severe mental illness is controversial. To explore the views of different stakeholders on the ethical acceptability of the practice. Focus group study consisting of 25 groups with different stakeholders. Eleven themes dominated the discussions and fell into four categories: (1) ...

This study explored Kenyan patients' perspectives on the role of ethnicity in the doctor-patient relationship. 221 participants completed questionnaires on ethnicity in doctor-patient relationships; eight focus groups were held with low- and middle-income urban and rural women. About half of participants expressed no preference for doctor ethnicity. Participants rated demographic ...

BACKGROUND: This study aims to evaluate sevoflurane and anaesthetic gas consumption using uncuffed vs. cuffed endotracheal tubes (ETT) in paediatric surgical patients. METHODS: Uncuffed or cuffed ETT were used in paediatric patients (newborn to 5 years) undergoing elective surgery in a randomized order. Duration of assessment, lowest possible fresh gas ...

This study examined whether the number of psychotropic medications an individual is taking across classes influences side effects among adults with Intellectual Disability (ID). Participants were 80 adults diagnosed with ID. Dependent variables were the composite score and domain scores of the Matson Evaluation of Drug Side-effects (MEDS), which is ...

The purpose of this study is to discover valuable medical facts by utilizing the Taiwan National Health Insurance (NHI) database, which contains 32,200 records of TKA surgeries. Three main objectives of this paper include the following: (a) building learning curves of TKA from the target database; (b) characterizing how the ...

OBJECTIVES: To evaluate the efficacy of adding Coblation-assisted inferior turbinoplasty to a medical treatment regimen for symptoms associated with hypertrophic inferior turbinates. STUDY DESIGN/SETTING: Prospective, open-label, non-randomized trial with outpatient treatment. Patients were assigned to treatment groups in order of enrolment into the study. SUBJECTS AND METHODS: From June 2007 ...

Background The aim of this study was to determine whether medical students working with the same attending on multiple shifts as opposed to a variety of attendings leads to the performance of more procedures during their emergency medicine (EM) elective. Methods This was a retrospective observational study conducted in an ...

High drug consumption among the elderly and inappropriate prescribing practices increase the risk of adverse drug effects in this population. This risk may be decreased by conducting, for example, a medication review alone or as part of a comprehensive geriatric assessment (CGA); however, little is known about the fate of ...

Objective: To investigate the extent to which children with ADHD in various medication statuses (i.e., medication naïve, pure stimulant, stimulant plus another medication, nonstimulants) varied on cognitive or academic, behavioral, and social functioning during a psychoeducational assessment battery. Method: Participants for this study consisted of 66 children (20 girls) with ...

During a 15-month period, there were seven suicides among patients who were in active treatment or who had been seen recently by providers in the Department of Psychiatry of Tripler Army Medical Center, Honolulu, Hawaii. As a result, a Suicide Prevention Advisory Group (SPAG) was formed to identify possible causes ...

BACKGROUND: The American Heart Association's (AHA's) Advanced Cardiac Life Support guidelines act as the national standards for termination of resuscitation (TOR) in cases of refractory out-of-hospital cardiac arrest. However, local emergency medical services (EMS) implementation of these guidelines has been nonuniform. OBJECTIVE: To identify the operational issues within local EMS ...

OBJECTIVE: To assess knowledge and perceptions of plagiarism in medical students and faculty of private and public medical colleges in Karachi. METHODS: A questionnaire based study was conducted on groups of 4th year medical students and medical faculty members. Group A consisted of medical students while group B comprised faculty ...

The aim of this study was to examine rates of psychotropic medication use over time among a national probability sample of youths involved with child welfare/child protective services (CW/CPS) in the National Survey of Child and Adolescent Well-Being (NSCAW). Growth mixture modeling was used to classify 2,521 youths into groups ...

The number of adult congenital heart disease (ACHD) patients will be larger in the medium to long term than that of children and adolescents with congenital heart disease. The present structures for the medical care of ACHD patients are not sufficient and need to be improved. Therefore the task force's ...

BACKGROUND: A decline of medical students' interest in a general surgery career is occurring in the Western medical world. We sought data on the mentality of Greek students toward specialty selection, and we determined whether trends indicated a decline in interest for general surgery in Greece. METHODS: A structured questionnaire ...

OBJECTIVE: To compare the safety and efficacy of earlier vs later treatment in preventing primary open-angle glaucoma (POAG) in individuals with ocular hypertension. METHODS: One thousand six hundred thirty-six individuals with intraocular pressure (IOP) from 24 to 32 mm Hg in 1 eye and 21 to 32 mm Hg in ...

OBJECTIVE: To determine if simulated, age-related changes in color vision can adversely affect one's ability to properly take medication as simulated by bead selection. DESIGN: Randomized controlled study. SETTING: University site. PARTICIPANTS: University students 18 to 26 years of age without eye disorders that would affect color vision. INTERVENTIONS: Yellow-lens ...

To evaluate the positive predictive value (PPV) of 3 case definitions of rheumatoid arthritis (RA) based on self-reported data on RA diagnosis and use of arthritis medications, and to determine whether a validated screening survey would increase the PPVs in the 3 groups. Medical records and physician checklists were reviewed ...

To determine the incidence of retinal vein occlusion (RVO) in the Ocular Hypertension Treatment Study (OHTS). Retrospective analysis of data from a randomized clinical trial. We included 1636 ocular hypertensive participants with a mean follow-up of 9.1 years. Participants in the medication and observation groups were managed according to their ...

CodeSlinger is a desktop application that was developed to aid medical professionals in the intertranslation, exploration, and use of biomedical coding schemes. The application was designed to provide a highly intuitive, easy-to-use interface that simplifies a complex business problem: a set of time-consuming, laborious tasks that were regularly performed by ...

AIM: Denture stomatitis is a common and recurring problem of denture wearers. Ketoconazole tablet is one of the antimycotic drugs that often has been used to treat this condition, but systemic use of this drug has some adverse effects that frequently lead to unfavorable compliance and treatment failure. This study ...

This experimental study examined whether the use of clinical simulation in nursing education could help reduce medication errors. Fifty-four student volunteers were randomly assigned to an experimental (treatment) group (24 students) or a clinical control group (30 students). The treatment replaced some early-term clinical placement hours with a simulated clinical ...