Abstracts of Articles Authored or Coauthored by Permanente Clinicians

s of Articles Authored or Coauthored by Permanente Clinicians lack of therapeutic response to medication were also associated with patients’ discontinuing therapy. CONCLUSIONS: Discrepancies exist between instructions that physicians report they communicate to patients and what patients remember being told. Explicit instructions about expected duration of therapy and discussions about medication adverse effects throughout treatment may reduce discontinuation of SSRI use. Our finding that patients with three or more follow-up visits were more likely to continue using the initially prescribed antidepressant medication suggests that frequent patient-physician contact may increase the probability that patients will continue therapy. Copyright 2002, American Medical Association From Southern California: Surgical treatment for stress urinary incontinence with urethral hypermobility: what is the best approach? Chien GW, Tawadroas M, Kaptein JS, et al. World J Urol 2002 Sep;20(4):234-9 A comparative study evaluating the results of three surgical procedures for stress urinary incontinence (SUI) with urethral hypermobility. This is a retrospective study of 189 patients, evaluating the outcomes of the percutaneous needle suspension using bone anchors (PNS), abdominal suspension (AS), and pubovaginal sling (PVS). The mean follow-up was 30.5 months. In our results, the patients were divided into three groups: PNS (49), AS (34), and PVS (106). No differences were found preoperatively. Intraoperatively, PNS had the shortest operative time and lowest estimated blood loss, and it is the only outpatient procedure. However, it had the highest complication rate. PNS had the lowest satisfactory rate (16.7%). This was followed by AS (78%), PVS with cadaveric fascia (90%), and PVS with autologous fascia (94%). In conclusion, PNS is a simple outpatient procedure, but the long-term results are disappointing. Both AS and PVS gave good results. PVS was superior to AS in shorter hospitalization, early recovery and overall patient satisfaction. Link to http://link.springer.de/ severely mentally ill individuals remain independent, and reduce the likelihood that loss of an informal caregiver would result in un-