Objectives: To compare attitudes of medical and law students toward informing a cancer patient about diagnosis and prognosis and to examine whether differences are related to different convictions about benefit or harm of information. Setting and design: Anonymous questionnaires were distributed to convenience samples of students at the University of Geneva containing four vignettes describing ...

OBjective This is the first study investigating the effectiveness of FRIENDS for Life as a school-based indicated prevention program for childhood anxiety and depression as part of an existing public health school-based prevention program. MethOds The study was designed as a cluster-controlled trial, with 339 children receiving FRIENDS for Life and 157 children receiving no intervention (8-13 y...

BACKGROUND Decision aids educate patients about treatment options and outcomes. Communication aids include question lists, consultation summaries, and audio-recordings. In efficacy studies, decision aids increased patient knowledge, while communication aids increased patient question-asking and information recall. Starting in 2004, we trained successive cohorts of post-baccalaureate, pre-medica...

OBJECTIVE To compare three different methods of administering a brief screening questionnaire to elderly people: post, interview by lay interviewer, and interview by nurse. DESIGN Randomised comparison of methods within a cluster randomised trial. SETTING 106 general practices in the United Kingdom. PARTICIPANTS 32 990 people aged 75 years or over registered with participating practices. ...

BACKGROUND Key strategies advocated for lowering personal risk of sexual exposure to STD/HIV include having fewer partners and avoiding risky partners. However, few studies have systematically examined how well people can actually discern their sex partners' risk behaviours. METHODS We conducted face to face interviews with 151 heterosexual patients with gonorrhoea or chlamydial infection and...

BACKGROUND Studies on the prevalence of multimorbidity, defined as having two or more chronic conditions, have predominantly focused on the elderly. We estimated the prevalence and specific patterns of multimorbidity across different adult age groups. Furthermore, we examined the associations of multimorbidity with socio-demographic factors. METHODS Using data from the Health Quality Council ...

OBJECTIVE Patients' expectations predict important health outcomes. The goal of this study is to describe the types of expectations that hernia and gallbladder patients have for the outcomes of their surgery and to identify relationships between these expectations and both patient- and surgeon-reported variables. DESIGN Patients (N = 143) at an out-patient surgery clinic completed self-report...

OBJECTIVE To determine the clinical effectiveness of wound edge protection devices in reducing surgical site infection after abdominal surgery. DESIGN Multicentre observer blinded randomised controlled trial. PARTICIPANTS Patients undergoing laparotomy at 21 UK hospitals. INTERVENTIONS Standard care or the use of a wound edge protection device during surgery. MAIN OUTCOME MEASURES Surgi...

BACKGROUND Understanding the characteristics of communication that foster patient-centered outcomes amid serious illness are essential for the science of palliative care. However, epidemiological cohort studies that directly observe clinical conversations can be challenging to conduct in the natural setting. We describe the successful enrollment, observation and data collection methods of the o...

Introduction The concept of "direct to room" (DTR) and "immediate bedding" has been described in the literature as a mechanism to improve front-end, emergency department (ED) processing. The process allows for an expedited clinician-patient encounter. An unintended consequence of DTR was a time delay in obtaining the initial set of vital signs upon patient arrival. Methods This retrospective ...