AIMS To collect data on the behaviours associated with the prescription of pharmacotherapies (bupropion, acamprosate and naltrexone) for nicotine and alcohol dependence in Australian clinical practice. DESIGN Self-administered questionnaire. SETTING Australian clinical practice. PARTICIPANTS Three specialties, psychiatrists, gastroenterologists and general practitioners (GPs) were defined...

BACKGROUND Pediatric well-care visits provide a clinical opportunity to counsel new mothers about their smoking and the deleterious effects of environmental tobacco smoke (ETS) on infant health. METHODS Forty-nine Oregon pediatric offices enrolled 2,901 women who were currently smoking or had quit for pregnancy, using a brief survey at the newborn's first office visit. Randomly assigned offic...

OBJECTIVE To evaluate the effect of 2 anticipatory guidance styles (maternal focused [MOMS] and infant focused [Ounce of Prevention]) directed at mothers of infants aged newborn to 6 months on their infant feeding behaviors at 1 year compared with routine advice as outlined in Bright Futures (BF). METHODS This is a cluster randomized trial. A total of 292 mother/infant dyads were enrolled at ...

BACKGROUND Australia's Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander (Indigenous) populations have disproportionately high rates of adverse perinatal outcomes relative to other Australians. Poorer access to good quality maternal health care is a key driver of this disparity. The aim of this study was to describe patterns of delivery of maternity care and service gaps in primary care services in Austral...

AIMS The aims of this study are to describe the tobacco dependence treatment systems in five countries at different stages of development of their systems, and from different income levels and regions of the world, and to draw some lessons from their experiences that might be useful to other countries. METHODS AND DATA SOURSES: Data were drawn from an earlier survey of treatment services led by...

AIMS To compare a motivational intervention (MI) focused on increasing involvement in 12-Step groups (TSGs; e.g. Alcoholics Anonymous) versus brief advice (BA) to attend TSGs. DESIGN Patients were assigned randomly to either the MI or BA condition, and followed-up at 6 months after discharge. SETTING AND PARTICIPANTS One hundred and forty substance use disorder (SUD) patients undergoing in-...

Objective. To explore how the perceptions and experiences of working with risky drinkers change over time among primary health care staff during a systematic implementation project. Methods. Qualitative focus group interviews took place before and after the implementation of the project. Results. The staff displayed a positive change during the implementation period with regard to awareness, kn...

A QUARTER-CENTURY AGO, THE World Health Organization (WHO) launched an international effort to develop validated screening and brief intervention protocols for excessive alcohol use in primary care. Since then, an extensive body of literature has grown in support of clinicians screening patients for harmful alcohol use and offering structured advice to those identified.Yetphysicians havebeen sl...

Two mobile agents (robots), starting from different nodes of an n-node network at possibly different times, have to meet at the same node. This problem is known as rendezvous. Agents move in synchronous rounds using a deterministic algorithm. In each round, an agent decides to either remain idle or to move to one of the adjacent nodes. Each agent has a distinct integer label from the set {1, . ...