BACKGROUND It is well documented that individuals with Alcohol Use Disorder (AUD) respond well during evidence-based psychological treatment, but also that a large proportion relapses when discharged from treatment and confronted with alcohol in real life. Cue Exposure Treatment (CET) focuses on exposing individuals to alcohol cues in order to reduce cravings as well as the likelihood of relaps...

Lighthouse Youth Services in Cincinnati, Ohio, began placing foster youth, ages sixteen to eighteen, in individual apartments and other living arrangements in 1981 as a way of preparing them for life after foster care. The program has assisted over thirteen hundred youth and their children using scattered-site apartments, shared homes, roommate situations, host homes, and subsidized housing. Th...

BACKGROUND Survivors of bacterial meningitis and septicaemia can experience a range of after-effects. There is little published research on the needs and provision of aftercare for children surviving bacterial meningitis and septicaemia. METHODS Mixed methods study employing a survey and follow-up interviews with a sample of survey participants recruited from Meningitis Research Foundation's ...

BACKGROUND Depressive and anxiety disorders are highly prevalent, but only a small percentage (approximately 50%) of patients receive appropriate treatment. Relevant barriers include communication and coordination gaps between different providers that result from the lack of integration between different care-giving systems. Aftercare following inpatient treatment represents one of these gaps b...

This article reports findings from a study that investigated treatment outcomes among crack/cocaine users over a 18-month period. From a cohort of 229 subjects, three groups emerged: (1) those who had reported ongoing, stable abstinence from crack/cocaine; (2) those who had consistently used during the period; and (3) those who reported cycling between abstinence and use during the follow-up pe...

BACKGROUND In Japan, all citizens are covered by the national insurance system in which universal free access to healthcare services is promised to everybody. There are no general physicians or gatekeepers in the Japanese healthcare system. METHODS We studied the pattern of referral of inpatients from secondary care hospitals to a tertiary care university hospital and the reverse referral und...

The contract project was a European Commission project whose aim was to develop frameworks, components and tools to model, build, verify and monitor distributed electronic business systems based on electronic contracts. In this context, an electronic contract provides a specification of the expected behaviours of individual services, with the assumption that these services are often enacted by ...

BACKGROUND Few controlled studies have specifically investigated aspects of mental health care in relation to suicide risk among recently discharged psychiatric patients. We aimed to identify risk factors, including variation in healthcare received, for suicide within 3 months of discharge. METHOD We conducted a national population-based case-control study of 238 psychiatric patients dying by...

BACKGROUND The medical tourism market is a rapidly growing sector fueled by increasing health care costs, longer domestic waiting times, economic recession, and cheaper air travel. OBJECTIVES The authors investigate public opinion on undergoing cosmetic surgery abroad and then explore the information patients are likely to encounter on the Internet when searching for such services. METHODS ...