OBJECTIVES Clinicians and researchers need an accurate tool assessing contraceptive knowledge in order to understand the effectiveness of teaching efforts. However, most widely used indices are outdated. The objective of this study is to create an evidence-based assessment tool and determine its validity and reliability for measuring contraceptive knowledge. STUDY DESIGN The study team develo...

BACKGROUND Australian General Practitioners (GPs) are in the forefront of primary health care and in an excellent position to communicate with their patients and educate them about Complementary Medicines (CMs) use. However previous studies have demonstrated that GPs lack the knowledge required about CMs to effectively communicate with patients about their CMs use and they perceive a need for i...

It is now fairly generally agreed that the type of treatment to be chosen for an infiltrating carcinoma of the bladder will depend at least to some e:-:tent upon the depth to which this tumor has invaded the wall of the .bladder. However, the preoperative estimate of this depth of infiltration cannot be expected to equal in precision the postoperative or postmortem findings based. , upon the st...

In the area of Computer-Supported Cooperative Work (CSCVO, a crucial issue is to devise computational Coordination Mechanisms (CMs) that provide support for cooperating actors in managing the complexity of articulating their distributed and yet interdependent activities. The concept of CM has been developed as a generalization of phenomena described in different ways in different empirical inve...

BACKGROUND The National Cardiovascular Data Registry CathPCI Registry was recently linked with longitudinal Centers for Medicare & Medicaid (CMS) claims data. The degree to which this linked cohort is representative of the overall CathPCI Registry and CMS PCI populations is unknown. METHODS AND RESULTS CathPCI Registry records were linked to CMS inpatient claims using indirect identifiers. We...

OBJECTIVE Conus medullaris syndrome (CMS) is a clinical neurologic syndrome caused by a conus medullaris lesion. CMS is a heterogeneous entity with various etiologies such as trauma or a space-occupying lesion. Multiple cases of CMS following spinal anesthesia have been reported, but CMS after radioisotope (RI) cisternography has not yet been reported. METHODS We present four patients who dev...

BACKGROUND Induced pluripotent stem cells (iPSCs) hold promise for a new era in treating heart failure. However, the functional microstructure of iPSC-derived cardiomyocytes (iPSC-CMs) and their ability to attach to the extracellular matrix of the recipient myocardium require further elucidation. Thus, we analyzed the functional microstructure and adhesion molecules of iPSC-CM. METHODS AND RE...

BACKGROUND The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) has implemented the CMS-Hierarchical Condition Category (CMS-HCC) model to risk adjust Medicare capitation payments. This study intends to assess the performance of the CMS-HCC risk adjustment method and to compare it to the Charlson and Elixhauser comorbidity measures in predicting in-hospital and six-month mortality in Medicare b...

The authors aimed to examine the prevalence of cardiometabolic syndrome (CMS) and its association with education, smoking, diet, physical activity, and social support among white, black, and Hispanic adults using data from the 2007 Pennsylvania Behavior Risk Factor Surveillance System (BRFSS) survey, the largest population-based survey in the state. The authors examined associations between CMS...