Little is known about the disease burden of influenza in middle-income tropical countries like Thailand. The recent outbreak of avian influenza (H5N1) and studies on influenza from neighboring countries highlight the need for data on incidence, access to care, and health care cost. In May/ June 2003, we conducted a province-wide household survey using two-stage cluster sampling to determine the...

Nonpsychiatric hospitalized patients are frequently exposed to psychiatric disorders, such as anxiety and depression, which significantly infuence the patient's subsequent admission days and the rate of recovery. The aim of this study was to evaluate the prevalence of anxiety and depression among hospitalised patients in Mashhad hospitals and to compare the level of anxiety in patients admitted...

In this study, we explored stigma by association, family burden, and their impact on the family members of people with mental illness. We also studied the ways in which family members coped with these phenomena. We conducted semistructured interviews with 23 immediate family members of people with mental illness. Participants reported various experiences of stigma by association and family burd...

In an era of economic recession and budget cutbacks,Americans may be curious to know how the government is distributing their taxes for medical research, relative to their health needs. Previous reports recommended that the National Institutes of Health (NIH) allocate funding proportional to the burden-of-illness from diseases and conditions. But the most recent publicly available data on burde...

BACKGROUND Laboratory testing results are often used to monitor influenza illness in populations, but results may not be representative of illness burden and distribution, especially in populations that are geographically, socioeconomically, and racially/ethnically diverse. OBJECTIVES Descriptive epidemiology and chi-square analyses using demographic, geographic, and medical condition prevale...

BACKGROUND This study investigated the household economic burden of eating disorders and cost-related non-adherence to treatment in Australia. METHODS Multi-centre prospective observational study using a structured questionnaire. Ninety participants were recruited from two clinic settings in New South Wales, Australia and from the community using social media. The primary outcome measures wer...

OBJECTIVE To investigate women's perceptions of the overall burden of illness among a sample of women in southern India. METHODS A community-based sample of 421 young married women in a subdistrict about 70 kilometres from Bangalore, Karnataka State, India, were interviewed monthly for one year. At each visit, information on the symptoms of all forms of illness they had experienced was elicit...

BACKGROUND A central aim of Universal Health Coverage (UHC) is protection for all against the cost of illness. In a low income country like Bangladesh the cost burden of health care in tertiary facilities is likely to be significant for most citizens. This cost of an episode of illness is a relatively unexplored policy issue in Bangladesh. The objective of this study was to estimate an outpatie...

The AIDS epidemic has created an unprecedented number of orphans. While largely absorbed by extended family, this additional responsibility can weigh heavily on their caregivers. The concept of caregiver burden captures multiple dimensions of well-being (e.g., physical, social and psychological). Measuring the extent and determinants of caregiving burden can inform the design of programmes to e...