BACKGROUND Patient satisfaction is an important patient outcome because it informs researchers and practitioners about patients' experience and identifies potential problems with their care. Patient satisfaction is typically studied through physician-patient interactions in primary care settings, and little is known about satisfaction with surgical consultations. METHODS Participants responde...

OBJECTIVE To identify weak links in the early chain of care for acute stroke. SETTING 9 emergency hospitals in western Sweden, each with a stroke unit, and the emergency medical services (EMS). PARTICIPANTS All patients hospitalised with a first and a final diagnosis of stroke-between 15 December 2010 and 15 April 2011. The university hospital in the city of Gothenburg was compared with 6 c...

BACKGROUND China in 2009 committed to reach universal health coverage by promoting three forms of health insurance; NCMS for the rural population, UEBMI for formally employed urban residents and URBMI for other urban residents. NCMS has expanded to near universal coverage in rural China since launching in 2003. The objective of this study aimed to assess the effect of NCMS on inpatient care uti...

OBJECTIVE To measure rates of hunger and food insecurity among young US-born Latino children with Mexican immigrant parents (Latinos) compared with a non-immigrant non-Latino population (non-Latinos) in a low-income clinic population. DESIGN, SETTING AND SUBJECTS A repeated cross-sectional survey of 4278 caregivers of children < 3 years of age in the paediatric clinic of an urban county hospi...

BACKGROUND There is a high unmet need for limiting and spacing child births during the postpartum period. Given the consequences of closely spaced births, and the benefits of longer pregnancy intervals, targeted activities are needed to reach this population of postpartum women. Our objective was to establish the determinants of contraceptive uptake among postpartum women in a county referral h...

BACKGROUND The air quality index (AQI) is widely used to characterize the quality of ambient air. Chinese cities officially report the AQI on a daily basis. To assess the possible effects of air pollution on daily outpatient visits, we examined the association between AQI and the daily outpatient count. METHODS Daily data on outpatient visits to each clinical department were collected from th...

The family health center of a family practice training program was eliminated from the county hospital budget following funding cuts, forcing the program faculty to create an independent nonprofit community clinic in which to train residents and provide care to established patients. A county audit of the new clinic after 2 years' operation showed substantial savings, particularly for administra...

The study was conducted with the purpose of determining the level and the differences of sport talents in boys and girls attending primary schools in the Split-Dalmatia County. Using the ‘’TALENT’’ expert system we established potential talent in 93 randomly selected male and female primary school pupils in 14 different sports and sport disciplines based on the level of their motor and function...

Dog bite cases among humans were investigated in light of treatment-seeking preferences of rural and urban Liberian public and were used to estimate yearly incidence of rabies-like-illnesses in the country during the post-conflict period, 2008-2012. Dog bite records were retrieved countrywide and re-validated at county hospitals. Data at the Liberian Government Hospital (LGH), Buchanan; Phebe H...

BACKGROUND Despite recent reductions in prevalence, China still faces a substantial tuberculosis (TB) burden, with future progress dependent on the ability of rural providers to appropriately detect and refer TB patients for further care. This study (a) provides a baseline assessment of the ability of rural providers to correctly manage presumptive TB cases; (b) measures the gap between provide...