INTRODUCTION................................................................... 97 A BRIEF HISTORY .............. .................................................... 98 ETIOLOGY: EVIDENCE FOR THE GROUP A STREPTOCOCCAL ETIOLOGY OF RHEUMATIC FEVER ................................. ................................. 98 Immunological Evidence............................................................

BACKGROUND Healthcare accreditation is considered to be an essential quality improvement tool. However, its effectiveness has been critiqued. METHODS Twenty-four interviews were conducted with clinicians (five), nurses (six), managers (eight), and basic/translational researchers (five) from eight European cancer centres on changes observed from participating in a European cancer accreditation...

BACKGROUND Type 2 diabetes and its management affect the patient and the close family potentially causing either psychological distress or increased sense of responsibility and collaboration in these families. Interactions between patient and family play an important role in maintaining lifestyle changes and diabetes self-management. The purpose of this integrative review was to summarise and a...

Introduction: Breast cancer could adversely affect the self-esteem of women, family performance, sexual role, and quality of life. Sources of support are considered as one of the most effective coping strategies against problems and consequences of breast cancer. The current study aimed at evaluating different supportive sources and their impact on coping behavior of patients with breast cancer...

Learning Communities is one approach in individuals to improve their skills and knowledge. Web based learning communities provide additional capabilities such as global distribution of participants and asynchronous participation. The learning process in such communities is flexible and distributed, but still uni-directional: knowledge, advices and support is transferred from professors to stude...