应用苯巴比妥治疗农村癫痫病例的疗效评估

目的为探讨苯巴比妥在农村地区治疗惊厥性癫痫的疗效和安全性,了解长丰县近2年农村地区癫痫患者治疗管理情况。方法在长丰县农村地区,对纳入苯巴比妥组治疗管理满一年以上的477例患者,观察其疗效和安全性。结果惊厥性癫痫患者经苯巴比妥规范治疗,约75.1%的患者得到有效控制。苯巴比妥在治疗惊厥性癫痫中,其疗效与发作频率、病程长短等因素有关。结论农村地区使用苯巴比妥规范治疗惊厥性癫痫不仅经济安全、疗效确切;而且患者耐受性较好,不良反应少。     

海南农村卫生资源合理配置的思考

目的：通过对海南农村卫生需求及卫生资源利用的现状分析，结合医学发展趋势，探讨卫生资源合理配置的问题。结果：通过调查，预测全省农民患病人次数达2344．16万，主要疾病为消化道及呼吸系统。乡镇卫生院每年诊病人次不足600万，可见农村卫生资源尚未能满足农民的卫生需求，而目前农村主要卫生资源集中在卫生院，但近年来，卫生院人均工作量不论是每个职工或每个医生都呈下降倾向，病床使用率仅达19．6％，农村管区无医疗点达17．6％，广大农民患病得不到及时的诊治，更适应不了社区卫生服务的功能。建议：按卫生需求制定好区域规划；加强中心卫生院建设；调整普通卫生院功能，精简人员；加强管区医疗点的设置，提高社区卫生服务功能，把有限的卫生资源，用到最需要的地方。     

The cost-effectiveness of a child nutrition education programme in Peru

This article reports impact and cost results from a health facility-based nutrition education programme targeting children less than 2 years of age in Trujillo, Peru. Key elements of the programme included participative complementary feeding demonstrations, growth monitoring sessions and an accreditation process. Data were collected from six intervention and six control health facilities to measure utilization and costs associated with the intervention. To calculate the unit costs of services, these costs are allocated using activity-based costing. To measure the effects of the intervention, 338 children were followed through household surveys at regular intervals from birth until the age of 18 months. The intervention had a clear positive impact both on the use of nutrition-related services and on children's growth outcomes. Children in the intervention areas made 17.6 visits to health facilities in the first 18 months of life, compared with 14.1 visits for children in the control areas (P < 0.001). This pattern holds true for all socioeconomic groups. The intervention prevented 11.1 cases of stunting per 100 children. In multivariate logistic regression analysis, children in the intervention were 0.33 times as likely to be stunted as the controls (P = 0.002). The marginal cost of the intervention - including external costs, training, health education materials and extra travel and equipment - is 6.12 US dollars per child reached and 55.16 US dollars per case of stunting prevented. The estimated marginal cost of the intervention per death averted is 1952 US dollars.     

Operational and economic evaluation of an NGO-led sexually transmitted infections intervention: north-western Cambodia

OBJECTIVE: Sexually transmitted infection (STI) services were offered by the nongovernmental organization Médecins Sans Frontières-Holland in Banteay Meanchey province, Cambodia, between 1997 and 1999. These services targeted female sex workers but were available to the general population. We conducted an evaluation of the operational performance and costs of this real-life project. METHODS: Effectiveness outcomes (syndromic cure rates of STIs) were obtained by retrospectively analysing patients' records. Annual financial and economic costs were estimated from the provider's perspective. Unit costs for the cost-effectiveness analysis included the cost per visit, per partner treated, and per syndrome treated and cured. FINDINGS: Over 30 months, 11,330 patients attended the clinics; of these, 7776 (69%) were STI index patients and only 1012 (13%) were female sex workers. A total of 15 269 disease episodes and 30 488 visits were recorded. Syndromic cure rates ranged from 39% among female sex workers with genital ulcers to 74% among men with genital discharge; there were variations over time. Combined rates of syndromes classified as cured or improved were around 84-95% for all syndromes. The total economic costs of the project were US 766,046 dollars. The average cost per visit over 30 months was US 25.12 dollars and the cost per partner treated for an STI was US 50.79 dollars. The average cost per STI syndrome treated was US 48.43 dollars, of which US 4.92 dollars was for drug treatment. The costs per syndrome cured or improved ranged from US 46.95-153.00 dollars for men with genital ulcers to US 57.85-251.98 dollars for female sex workers with genital discharge. CONCLUSION: This programme was only partly successful in reaching its intended target population of sex workers and their male partners. Decreasing cure rates among sex workers led to relatively poor cost-effectiveness outcomes overall despite decreasing unit costs.     

哈尔滨市农村癫痫患者卫生经济学评价研究

目的 通过对农村癫痫患者的卫生经济学评估，确定癫痫患者管理模式的投入与产出，优化卫生资源配置，为卫生政策的制定提供理论依据。方法 将236例参与农村癫痫防治管理项目初筛，被诊断为惊厥型癫痫患者分为2组，其中项目组149例，对照组87例。项目组采用单纯苯巴比妥药物治疗，对照组为已确诊但未加入项目组治疗的患者。随访6个月，以有效率和QALYs作为效果和效用的评价指标，对癫痫患者的成本-效果和成本-效用进行卫生经济学评价。结果 项目组和对照组在治疗效果上具有统计学差异（χ2 = 20.71，P＜0.05），项目组有效治疗1例癫痫患者所花费的成本为57.82元，而对照组的成本为116.89元，为项目组的2.04倍；获得每1个分值生命质量，项目组需花费1 080.34元，而对照组则需花费1 806.09元。相对于对照组，项目组每增加1个QALY的增量成本为-10386.43元。结论 使用苯巴比妥药物治疗惊厥型癫痫患者疗效具有优势，且成本-效用优势明显，适合在农村地区广泛推广和应用。     

Addressing the unique challenges of inner-city practice: a direct observation study of inner-city, rural, and suburban family practices

Previous research on geographic variations in health care contains limited information regarding inner-city medical practice compared with suburban and rural settings. Our main objective was to compare patient characteristics and the process of providing medical care among family practices in inner-city, suburban, and rural locations. A cross-sectional multimethod study was conducted emphasizing direct observation of out patient visits by trained research nurses involving 4, 454 consecutive patients presenting for outpatient care to 138 family physicians during 2 days of observation at 84 community family practices in northeast Ohio. Time use during office visits was assessed with the Davis Observation Code; satisfaction was measured with the Medical Outcomes Study nine-item Visit Rating Scale; delivery of preventive services was as recommended by the US Preventive Services Task Force; and patient-reported domains of primary care were assessed with the Components of Primary Care Instrument. Results show that inner-city patients had more chronic medical problems, more emotional problems, more problems evaluated per visit, higher rates of health habit counseling, and longer and more frequent office visits. Rural patients were older, more likely to be established with the same physician, and had higher rates of satisfaction and patient-reported physician knowledge of the patient. Suburban patients were younger, had fewer chronic medical problems, and took fewer medications chronically. Inner-city family physicians in northeast Ohio appear to see a more challenging patient population than their rural and suburban counterparts and have more complex outpatient office visits. These findings have implications for health system organization along with the reimbursement and recruitment of physicians in medically underserved inner-city areas.     

The treatment gap and primary health care for people with epilepsy in rural Gambia

OBJECTIVE: To study primary-level management for people with epilepsy in rural Gambia by means of community surveys. METHODS: After population screening was carried out, visits were made by a physician who described the epidemiology of epilepsy and its management. Gaps between required management and applied management were investigated by conducting interviews and discussions with people with epilepsy and their communities. FINDINGS: The lifetime prevalence of epilepsy was 4.9/1000 and the continuous treatment rate was less than 10%. The choice of treatment was shaped by beliefs in an external spiritual cause of epilepsy and was commonly expected to be curative but not preventive. Treatment rarely led to the control of seizures, although when control was achieved, the level of community acceptance of people with epilepsy increased. Every person with epilepsy had sought traditional treatment. Of the 69 people with active epilepsy, 42 (61%) said they would like to receive preventive biomedical treatment if it were available in their local community. Key programme factors included the local provision of effective treatment and community information with, in parallel, clarification of the use of preventive treatment and genuine integration with current traditional sources of treatment and advice. CONCLUSION: Primary-level management of epilepsy could be integrated into a chronic disease programme covering hypertension, diabetes, asthma and mental health. Initial diagnosis and prescribing could take place away from the periphery but recurrent dispensing would be conducted locally. Probable epilepsy etiologies suggest that there is scope for primary prevention through the strengthening of maternal and child health services.     

贫困地区农村卫生室现状及服务功能调查

目的:了解贫困地区农村卫生室的现状及其服务功能,为探索、制定合适的初级卫生保健制度提供依据。方法:采用多阶段分层整群随机抽样的方法对贵州省8个乡内的111所村卫生室进行调查。结果:被调查地区平均每村有1.03所村卫生室,平均每千农业人口有乡村医生和卫生员1.04人;村卫生室基本设施的配备情况低于1998年我国平均水平;每个村卫生室年诊疗人数为1716.37人次,平均每个乡村医生年诊疗人数为1176.00人次;3岁以下儿童系统保健管理率为45.55%,7岁以下儿童系统保健管理率为35.59%;72.69%的居民选择到村卫生室就诊,"距离近"和"病情轻"是其主要原因,占59.34%。结论:应加强对乡村卫生人员的培养和培训、改善村卫生室的设备条件,促进村卫生室服务功能的最大发挥。     

Evaluating children health conditions in a small community: the study of Itapirapuã, Ribeira Valley, SP

A household survey for evaluating the mortality, morbidity, nutritional status and health services utilization of children aged under five years was carried out in a rural village in Ribeira, S?o Paulo State. Most children belonged to families of rural laborers earning less than 80 US dollars per month and living under inadequate environmental conditions. The infant mortality rate was equal to 83 per thousand and 35% of the children were affected by moderate or severe stunting, rates which are well above those for the State. The main reasons for clinic attendances and hospital admissions were acute respiratory infections and diarrhea. The median duration of breastfeeding was 14.4 months, the highest reported for Brazil. Only 40% of the mothers had received antenatal care, and 56% delivered in a hospital - of whom 35% had a caesarean section. Vaccine coverage reached 65% of children aged 12 months or more. This survey revealed an enclave of high morbidity and mortality within Brazil's richest state. It also showed that with a limited budget and within a short time it is possible to obtain valuable information for planning child survival strategies.     

甘肃省农村地区惊厥型癫痫流行病学分析

目的 通过对甘肃省农村地区惊厥型癫痫流行病学分析,了解甘肃省农村地区惊厥型癫痫患病率及诊治情况.方法 采用普查的方法,由经过培训的乡镇卫生院医生对辖区内惊厥型癫痫患者先用筛查诊断表初筛,填表后,由省级医院神经科医生对所有初筛患者进行复查.结果 甘肃省惊厥型癫痫患病率为1.59‰,男女比例为1.34∶1,患者年龄多集中在10～50岁之间,首次发病年龄高峰在2～5岁;在全部患者中,采取正规治疗者占24.24％,治疗缺口达75.76％.结论 我省农村地区惊厥型癫痫患者约有3/4以上没有得到正规治疗,治疗缺口大,提示在农村地区加强癫痫防治知识宣传教育具有重要意义.     

Financing Buprenorphine Treatment in Primary Care: A Microsimulation Model

PURPOSEWe sought to determine the financial impact to primary care practices of alternative strategies for offering buprenorphine-based treatment for opioid use disorder.METHODSWe interviewed 20 practice managers and identified 4 approaches to delivering buprenorphine-based treatment via primary care practice that differed in physician and nurse responsibilities. We used a microsimulation model to estimate how practice variations in patient type, payer, revenue, and cost across primary care practices nationwide would affect cost and revenue implications for each approach for the following types of practices: federally qualified health centers (FQHCs), non-FQHCs in urban high-poverty areas, non-FQHCs in rural high-poverty areas, and practices outside of high-poverty areas.RESULTSThe 4 approaches to buprenorphine-based treatment included physician-led visits with nurse-led logistical support; nurse-led visits with physician oversight; shared visits; and solo prescribing by physician alone. Net practice revenues would be expected to increase after introduction of any of the 4 approaches by $18,000 to $70,000 per full-time physician in the first year across practice type. Yet physician-led visits and shared medical appointments, both of which relied on nurse care managers, consistently produced the greatest net revenues ($29,000-$70,000 per physician in the first year). To ensure positive net revenues with any approach, providers would need to maintain at least 9 patients in treatment, with a no-show rate of <34%.CONCLUSIONSUsing a simulation model, we estimate that many types of primary care practices could financially sustain buprenorphine-based treatment if demand and no-show rate requirements are met, but a nurse care manager–based approach might be the most sustainable.Key words: primary care, opioid use disorder, health care financing, buprenorphine     

Rural‐Urban Differences in Health Services Utilization in the US‐Mexico Border Region

Purpose: Evaluate the association between driving distance to the US‐Mexico border and rural‐urban differences in the use of health services in Mexico by US border residents from Texas. Methods: Data for this study come from the Cross‐Border Utilization of Health Care Survey, a population‐based telephone survey conducted in the Texas border region in spring 2008. Driving distances to the border were estimated from the nearest border crossing station using Google Maps. Outcome measures included medication purchases, physician visits, dentist visits, and inpatient care in Mexico during the 12 months prior to the survey. A series of adjusted logit models were estimated after controlling for relevant confounding factors. Findings: The average driving distance to the nearest border crossing station among rural respondents was 4 times that of urban respondents (42.0 miles vs 10.3 miles [P < .001]). Rural respondents were more likely to be dissatisfied than urban respondents with the health care provided on the US side of the border, yet they were less likely to use health services in Mexico. Driving distance to the border largely explained the observed rural‐urban differences in medication purchases from Mexico. In the case of inpatient care, however, rural respondents reported a higher utilization rate than urban respondents and this rural‐urban difference became more pronounced after adjusting for the effect of driving distance to the border. Conclusions: Dissatisfaction with US health care services in rural communities in the US‐Mexico border region seems to be compounded by the lack of access to health care services in Mexico due to travel distance constraints.     

Cost-effectiveness of social marketing of insecticide-treated nets for malaria control in the United Republic of Tanzania

OBJECTIVE: To assess the costs and consequences of a social marketing approach to malaria control in children by means of insecticide-treated nets in two rural districts of the United Republic of Tanzania, compared with no net use. METHODS: Project cost data were collected prospectively from accounting records. Community effectiveness was estimated on the basis of a nested case-control study and a cross-sectional cluster sample survey. FINDINGS: The social marketing approach to the distribution of insecticide-treated nets was estimated to cost 1560 US dollars per death averted and 57 US dollars per disability-adjusted life year averted. These figures fell to 1018 US dollars and 37 US dollars, respectively, when the costs and consequences of untreated nets were taken into account. CONCLUSION: The social marketing of insecticide-treated nets is an attractive intervention for preventing childhood deaths from malaria.     

Evaluation of the factors affecting the quality of life and total costs in epilepsy patients on monotherapy with carbamazepine and valproate

OBJECTIVES: To evaluate the effect of different demographic and clinical factors on the quality of life and cost of treatment of epilepsy patients on monotherapy with carbamazepine and valproate. PATIENTS AND METHODS: A total of 146 patients (67 male, 79 female, age range 18-80 years) with focal and generalized seizures were studied for one year. The patients were allocated into two groups depending on the drug they received: group one--46 patients on carbamazepine, and group two--100 patients on valproate. Quality of life (QOL) and total costs per patient per year were calculated. QOL was assessed using a questionnaire--Quality of Life in Epilepsy Inventory (QOLIE-31). Costs included direct medical, non-medical and indirect costs related to either epilepsy or its treatment. The assessed demographic and clinical factors were: age, gender, type of seizures, number of registered adverse events (AE) per three months, interval between seizures and seizure reduction percentage. RESULTS AND CONCLUSIONS: In both groups, age, gender and type of seizures didn't cause significant differences in the formation of QOL and costs. In the carbamazepine patients costs were influenced by the incidence of AEs, the time between seizures and seizure reduction percentage. In the valproate patients costs were mainly influenced by the time period between seizures while QOL by the incidence of AEs.     

The cost-effectiveness of improving malaria home management: shopkeeper training in rural Kenya

Home management is a very common approach to the treatment of illnesses such as malaria, acute respiratory infections, tuberculosis, diarrhoea and sexually transmitted infections, frequently through over-the-counter purchase of drugs from shops. Inappropriate drugs and doses are often obtained, but interventions to improve treatment quality are rare. An educational programme for general shopkeepers and communities in Kilifi District, rural Kenya was associated with major improvements in the use of over-the-counter anti-malarial drugs for childhood fevers. The two main components were workshop training for drug retailers and community information activities, with impact maintained through on-going refresher training, monitoring and community mobilization. This paper presents the cost and cost-effectiveness of the programme in terms of additional appropriately treated cases, evaluating both its measured cost-effectiveness in the first area of implementation (early implementation phase) and the estimated cost-effectiveness of the programme recommended for district-level implementation (recommended district programme). The proportion of shop-treated childhood fevers receiving an adequate amount of a recommended antimalarial rose from 2% to 15% in the early implementation phase, at an economic cost of 4.00 US dollars per additional appropriately treated case (2000 US dollars). If the same impact were achieved through the recommended district programme, the economic cost per additional appropriately treated case would be 0.84 US dollars, varying between 0.37 US dollars and 1.36 US dollars in the sensitivity analysis. As with most educational approaches, the programme carries a relatively high initial financial cost, of 11,477 US dollars (0.02 per capita US dollars) for the development phase and 81,450 US dollars (0.17 per capita US dollars) for the set up year, which would be particularly suitable for donor funding, while the annual costs of 18,129 US dollars (0.04 per capita US dollars) thereafter could be contained within the budget of a typical District. To reach the Abuja target of 60% of those suffering from malaria in sub-Saharan Africa having access to affordable and appropriate treatment within 24 hours, improvements in community-based malaria treatment are urgently required. From these results, policymakers can estimate costs for district-scale shopkeeper training programmes, and will be able to assess their relative cost-effectiveness as comparable evaluations become available from home management interventions in the future. Extrapolation of the results using a simple decision tree model to estimate the cost per DALY averted indicates that the intervention is likely to be considered highly cost-effective in comparison with standard benchmarks for interventions in low-income countries.     

四川省癫痫防治管理及苯巴比妥治疗效果评价

目的将癫痫病患者的治疗、管理纳入四川省现有初级卫生保健网,控制癫痫病患者发病。方法由经过培训的乡镇卫生院医生对已确定或怀疑为惊厥型癫痫的患者先用筛查诊断表初筛,填表后由县级医院神经科医生对所有初筛患者进行复查,符合条件者列为入组病例,用苯巴比妥药物进行为期1年的规范化治疗、随访和管理。结果治疗的药物剂量范围在30-240mg/d之间,86.8%集中在60-150mg/d,治疗有效率达61.2%。结论在四川农村推广苯巴比妥治疗癫痫,并进行规范化防治管理是可行的。     

Costs and cost-effectiveness of different DOT strategies for the treatment of tuberculosis in Pakistan. Directly Observed Treatment

An economic study was conducted alongside a clinical trial at three sites in Pakistan to establish the costs and effectiveness of different strategies for implementing directly observed treatment (DOT) for tuberculosis. Patients were randomly allocated to one of three arms: DOTS with direct observation by health workers (at health centres or by community health workers); DOTS with direct observation by family members; and DOTS without direct observation. The clinical trial found no statistically significant difference in cure rate for the different arms. The economic study collected data on the full range of health service costs and patient costs of the different treatment arms. Data were also disaggregated by gender, rural and urban patients, by treatment site and by economic categories, to investigate the costs of the different strategies, their cost-effectiveness and the impact that they might have on patient compliance with treatment. The study found that direct observation by health centre-based health workers was the least cost-effective of the strategies tested (US dollars 310 per case cured). This is an interesting result, as this is the model recommended by the World Health Organization and International Union against Tuberculosis and Lung Disease. Attending health centres daily during the first 2 months generated high patient costs (direct and in terms of time lost), yet cure rates for this group fell below those of the non-observed group (58%, compared with 62%). One factor suggested by this study is that the high costs of attending may be deterring patients, and in particular, economically active patients who have most to lose from the time taken by direct observation. Without stronger evidence of benefits, it is hard to justify the costs to health services and patients that this type of direct observation imposes. The self-administered group came out as most cost-effective (164 dollars per case cured). The community health worker sub-group achieved the highest cure rates (67%), with a cost per case only slightly higher than the self-administered group (172 dollars per case cured). This approach should be investigated further, along with other approaches to improving patient compliance.     

Flows of financial resources for health research and development in Brazil, 2000-2002

OBJECTIVE: To map and measure the flows of financial resources for health research and development in Brazil for the years 2000-2002. METHODS: After adapting the methodology developed for the Center for Economic Policy Research, data were collected on the sources and uses of resources for health research and development. RESULTS: The annual average value of resources apportioned to health research and development was approximately 573 million US dollars. The public sector as a whole invested 417.3 million US dollars and the health department 51.1 million US dollars. Expressed in percentages, the public sector invested 4.15% of the health department's budget although the Ministry of Health assigned only 0.3% of its budget to health research in the country. The universities and the research institutes are the main users of the resources allocated to health research and development, receiving 91.6% of the total public spending, while the private sector receives a small share of around 0.69% of the total. The private sector invested 135.6 million US dollars per year, and the international organizations 20.1 million US dollars per year. CONCLUSION: Besides measuring the financial resources made available for health research and development, the results allowed the filling of gaps in national information; the identification of the flows of applied financial resources; and the testing and adaptation of the proposed methodology, generating information suitable for international comparisons.