BACKGROUND Drowning is the third leading cause of death for children aged 0-4 years in many Asian countries, and is a serious but neglected health problem in low and middle-income countries like Bangladesh. The aim of the study is to outline the study protocol of a trial to test the efficacy of a mobile coach based intervention for the prevention of childhood drowning. METHOD/DESIGN A two-arm...

PURPOSE Systemic family interventions have shown to be effective in adolescents with substance use disorder and delinquent behavior. The interventions target interactions between the adolescent and involved systems (i.e. youth, family, peers, neighbors, school, work, and society). Next to effectiveness considerations, economic aspects have gained attention. However, conventional generic quality...

OBJECTIVES To identify evidence evaluating the effectiveness of physiotherapy in adolescents (>16 years of age) and adults with cerebral palsy. DATA SOURCES Systematic literature search from the earliest available time until March 2009. Additional studies were identified through reference and citation tracking. REVIEW METHODS Two reviewers independently agreed on eligibility, methodological...

INTRODUCTION Immature animals exposed to anesthesia display apoptotic neurodegeneration and neurobehavioral deficits. The safety of anesthetic agents in children has been evaluated using a variety of neurodevelopmental outcome measures with varied results. METHODS The authors used data from the Western Australian Pregnancy Cohort (Raine) Study to examine the association between exposure to an...

BACKGROUND AND PURPOSE The modified Rankin Scale (mRS) is the most prevalent outcome measure in stroke trials. Use of the mRS may be hampered by variability in grading. Previous estimates of the properties of the mRS have used diverse methodologies and may not apply to contemporary trial populations. We used a mock clinical trial design to explore inter- and intraobserver variability of the mRS...

BACKGROUND Alcohol-related violence in and in the vicinity of licensed premises continues to place a considerable burden on the United Kingdom's (UK) health services. Robust interventions targeted at licensed premises are therefore required to reduce the costs of alcohol-related harm. Previous evaluations of interventions in licensed premises have a number of methodological limitations and none...

The idea that outcomes associated with the provision of health care are important is not new. In the 1960s Avedis Donabedian (1) presented health outcomes as changes in health status that were attributable to antecedent health care. For many years, however, evaluations of health care focused on the structure or process of care. As health care moves into the new millennium, financing of health c...

OBJECTIVE To review the published literature on the effectiveness of interventions to promote physical activity in children and adolescents. DESIGN Systematic review. DATA SOURCES Literature search using PubMed, SCOPUS, Psychlit, Ovid Medline, Sportdiscus, and Embase up to December 2006. REVIEW METHODS Two independent reviewers assessed studies against the following inclusion criteria: co...

BACKGROUND AND PURPOSE Stroke is emerging as a major public health problem for women, as it is for men. Controversy persists regarding gender differences in stroke incidence, severity, and poststroke disability. METHODS Participants in the Framingham Original (n=5119; 2829 women) and Offspring (n=4957, 2565 women) cohorts who were 45 years and stroke-free were followed to first incident strok...