OBJECTIVES The objective of the present study was to explore the trends in the intention to quit smoking among adults in Greece between 2006 and 2011, a period characterized by financial instability and newly endorsed tobacco control initiatives. METHODS Trend analysis of 3 representative national and cross-sectional surveys, 'Hellas Health I' (2006), "Hellas Health III" (2010) and Hellas Hea...

PURPOSE OF THE STUDY To date, no research has investigated how the organizational climate of aged care influences the self-efficacy of staff in caring for residents with dementia, or, how self-efficacy is associated with the strain experienced by staff. This study sought to investigate the extent to which the self-efficacy of aged care staff mediates the association between organizational clima...

The objective of this analysis was to examine the answering rates, internal reliability and external validity of the Family Affluence Scale (FAS) employing data from the 2002 Irish Health Behaviour in School-aged Children study HBSC; a cross-sectional survey of 8,424 Irish schoolchildren aged 10-18. Father's occupation was reported by 80.6% of the schoolchildren and 60.6% reported on mother's o...

Composite indices have been prominently used in poverty research. However, validity of these indices remains subject to debate. This paper examines the validity of a common type of composite poverty indices using data from a cross-sectional survey of 2477 households in urban and rural KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa. Multiple-group comparisons in structural equation modelling were employed for test...

BACKGROUND In low- and middle-income countries, many women continue working later into pregnancy. In our recent study on some areas in rural China, most women stopped working already during the first trimester (≤3 months) of pregnancy. In this paper we aimed to explore whether stopping work during early pregnancy has changed over an 8 year period (between 2001-03 and 2009); we also studied whet...

Using longitudinal data on the Boston Naming Test ( Kaplan, Goodglass, & Weintraub, 1983) collected over 20 years from healthy individuals aged 30 to 94, we examined change in lexical retrieval with age, gender, education, and their interactions. We compared results between random-effects longitudinal and traditional cross-sectional models. Random-effects modeling revealed significant linear an...

BACKGROUND Few studies document differences in patient satisfaction with physicians in the elderly (> or = 65 years) and compare it to non-elderly (<65 years) patients. METHODS A cross-sectional survey study on a convenience sample of 20,901 patients rated their recent visit to a physician through a web-based survey. Survey included validated questions based on aspects of physician care pract...

BACKGROUND Surgical mortality audit is an important tool for quality assurance and professional development but little is known about the impact of such activity on professional practice at the individual surgeon level. This paper reports the findings of a survey conducted with a self-selected cohort of surgeons in Queensland, Australia, on their experience of participating in the audit and its...

BACKGROUND Work ability is the ability of a worker to perform his job. The authors hypothesized that supervisor support influences the work ability of workers working in an information technology company located in Tokyo. AIMS To assess whether or not support from supervisors influences work ability. METHODS Two surveys using the Brief Job Scale Questionnaire and the Work Ability Index (WAI...

OBJECTIVES To examine the extent of variation in public health agency spending levels across communities and over time, and to identify institutional and community correlates of this variation. DATA SOURCES AND SETTING Three cross-sectional surveys of the nation's 2,900 local public health agencies conducted by the National Association of County and City Health Officials in 1993, 1997, and 20...