The concept of "psychiatric first aid" or early treatment psychiatry is not new. Such services have existed, in some measure, in various medical settings: general hospitals, private psychiatric practice, and psychiatric receiving hospitals. What is relatively new, however, is the idea of developing a service program with early treatment or immediate care as its central focus; in other words, to...

Growing support for the role of the psychiatric consultation-liaison nurse in assisting general nurses in caring for patients experiencing mental health problems in the general hospital environment is evident from the relevant literature. However, there remains a paucity of research which examines the process of this nursing role or its impact on outcomes for nurses and patients. This paper see...

AIMS (1) To establish how many parents of children seen in paediatric outpatient departments use the internet to find information about their child's medical condition. (2) To ascertain what information is sought and found, and what proportion of all parents had access to the internet at home or elsewhere. METHODS Over a six week period in 2000, parents of children attending general paediatri...

a readily intelligible summary of the studies relating norepinephrine to affective states. Schmitt, who is confident of the ability of the molecular scientist to construct a new theoretical biology for the neurosciences as was done for genetics, has summarized the contribution of molecular biology to the neurosciences. The accomplishments, while noteworthy, do not yet justify his confidence. Hy...

BACKGROUND Detecting novel healthcare-associated infections (HCAI) as early as possible is an important public health priority. However, there is currently no evidence base to guide the design of efficient and reliable surveillance systems. Here we address this issue in the context of a novel pathogen spreading primarily between hospitals through the movement of patients. METHODS Using a math...

BACKGROUND In response to the rapid aging of the population in Japan, many care systems have been created in quick succession. Establishment of discharge planning departments (DPDs) in hospitals is one of them. In this study, we compared the distribution and characteristics of DPDs and the characteristics of the hospitals that have DPDs between 2001 and 2010 in Japan. METHODS We mailed a ques...

The urgent need to minimize wastage among student nurses during training is too well known and well documented to require elaboration. Approximately one student out of every three joining the training schools of general hospitals fails to complete the prescribed course. The reasons for this failure vary, but are generally vague and indefinite. One approach to the problem is to compare the chara...