ABSTRACT Abortion is legal in South Africa, but negative abortion attitudes remain common and are poorly understood. We used nationally representative South African Social Attitudes Survey data to analyze abortion attitudes in the case of fetal anomaly and in the case of poverty from 2007 to 2016 (n = 20,711; ages = 16+). We measured correlations between abortion attitudes and these important predictors: religiosity, attitudes about premarital sex, attitudes about preferential hiring and promotion of women, and attitudes toward family gender roles. Abortion acceptability for poverty increased over time (b = 0.05, p < .001), but not for fetal anomaly (b = ?0.008, p = .284). Highly religious South Africans reported lower abortion acceptability in both cases (Odds Ratio (OR)anomaly = 0.85, p = .015; ORpoverty = 0.84, p = .02). Premarital sex acceptability strongly and positively predicted abortion acceptability (ORanomaly = 2.63, p < .001; ORpoverty = 2.46, p < .001). Attitudes about preferential hiring and promotion of women were not associated with abortion attitudes, but favorable attitudes about working mothers were positively associated with abortion acceptability for fetal anomaly ((ORanomaly = 1.09, p = .01; ORpoverty = 1.02, p = .641)). Results suggest negative abortion attitudes remain common in South Africa and are closely tied to religiosity, traditional ideologies about sexuality, and gender role expectations about motherhood. 相似文献
AbstractThis study is a single-center, retrospective analysis of postmenopausal women presenting with dyspareunia and vulvar pain, aiming to evaluate relative effectiveness of vestibular CO2 laser therapy as a treatment. Three monthly sessions of laser were performed to each patient and thereafter a three-months follow-up was stablished. A total number of 72 patients undergoing vestibular laser treatment were recruited from patient files in the period between 2016 and 2018. Among these, 39 women also received a concomitant treatment with ospemifene (60?mg/day) during the study period. There was a statistically significant reduction of all the symptoms in both groups up to the three month follow-up. Regarding dryness and dyspareunia, the relief tent to be more prominent in the ospemifene?+?laser group at all follow-ups and remained statistically significant at three-month follow-up. Specifically, vestibular dryness was significantly lower in the ospemifene?+?laser group compared with the laser treatment group (?87% vs???34%, respectively), and the vestibular health score started declining faster in the ospemifene?+?laser group. Although, additional research is needed to understand the mechanism of action, our data shows that a combination regimen of laser and ospemifene may improve clinical effectiveness for long-term treatment of symptoms associated with the under-recognized genitourinary syndrome of menopause. 相似文献
ABSTRACTA monocausal bacteriological understanding of infectious disease orients tuberculosis control efforts towards antimicrobial interventions. A bias towards technological solutions can leave multistranded public health and social interventions largely neglected. In the context of globalising biomedical approaches to infectious disease control, this ethnography-inspired review article reflects upon the implementation of rapid diagnostic technology in low- and middle-income countries. Fieldwork observations in Vietnam provided a stimulus for a critical review of the global rollout of tuberculosis diagnostic technology. To address local needs in tuberculosis control, health managers in resource-poor settings are readily cooperating with international donors to deploy novel diagnostic technologies throughout national tuberculosis programme facilities. Increasing investment in new diagnostic technologies is predicated on the supposition that these interventions will ameliorate disease outcomes. However, suboptimal treatment control persists even when accurate diagnostic technologies are available, suggesting that promotion of singular technological solutions can distract from addressing systemic change, without which disease susceptibility, propagation of infection, detection gaps, diagnostic delays, and treatment shortfalls persist. 相似文献
Nursing Home Compare (NHC) ratings, created and maintained by Medicare, are used by both hospitals and consumers to aid in the skilled nursing facility (SNF) selection process. To date, no studies have linked NHC ratings to actual episode-based outcomes. The purpose of this study was to evaluate whether NHC ratings are valid predictors of 90-day complications, readmission, and bundle costs for patients discharged to an SNF after primary total joint arthroplasty (TJA).
Methods
All SNF-discharged primary TJA cases in 2017 at a multihospital academic health system were queried. Demographic, psychosocial, and clinical variables were manually extracted from the health record. Medicare NHC ratings were then collected for each SNF. For patients in the Medicare bundle, postacute and total bundle cost was extracted from claims.
Results
Four hundred eighty-eight patients were discharged to a total of 105 unique SNFs. In multivariate analysis, overall NHC rating was not predictive of 90-day readmission/major complications, >75th percentile postacute cost, or 90-day bundle cost exceeding the target price. SNF health inspection and quality measure ratings were also not predictive of 90-day readmission/major complications or bundle performance. A higher SNF staffing rating was independently associated with a decreased odds for >75th percentile 90-day postacute spend (odds ratio, 0.58; P = .01) and a 90-day bundle cost exceeding the target price (odds ratio = 0.69; P = .02) but was similarly not predictive of 90-day readmission/complications.
Conclusion
Results of our study suggest that Medicare's NHC tool is not a useful predictor of 90-day costs, complications, or readmissions for SNFs within our health system. 相似文献
Introduction: Tamoxifen dominates the anti-estrogenic therapy in the early and metastatic breast cancer setting. Tamoxifen has a complex metabolism, being mainly metabolized by CYP2D6 into its 30–100 times more potent metabolite, endoxifen. Recently, a phase I study in which endoxifen as an orally z-endoxifen hydrochloride has been successfully evaluated.
Areas covered: the principal pharmacogenetic and non-genetic differences in the pharmacology of tamoxifen and endoxifen are evaluated. To this end, references from PubMed, Embase or Web of Science, among others, were reviewed As non-genetic factors, important differences and similarities such age, or adherence to tamoxifen therapy are comprehensively illustrated. Additionally, since CYP2D6 genotypes are considered the main limitation of tamoxifen, many studies have investigated the association between the worsened clinical outcomes in patients with non-functional CYP2D6 genotypes. In this review, an overview of the research on this field is presented. Also, a summary describing the literature about individualizing tamoxifen therapy with endoxifen concentrations and its limitations is listed.
Expert opinion: z-endoxifen hydrochloride is only investigated in the metastatic setting, still more research is required before its place in therapeutics is known. Similarly, monitoring tamoxifen efficacy based on endoxifen concentrations might not be overall recommended due to the limited evidence available. 相似文献
Online physician rating websites are increasingly used by patients to evaluate their doctors. The purpose of this investigation was to evaluate factors associated with better spine surgeon ratings.
METHODS
Orthopedic spine surgeons were randomly selected from the North American Spine Society directory utilizing a random number generator. Surgeon profiles on three physician rating websites, namely, www.HealthGrades.com, www.Vitals.com, and www.RateMDs.com, were analyzed to gather qualitative and quantitative data on patients’ perceptions of the surgeons. Independent variables from the websites were analyzed in relation to overall physician or patient satisfaction rating. Comments were coded by subject into following three categories: professional competence, bedside manner, and practice characteristics.
RESULTS
A total of 250 surgeons were evaluated, and 92% (n=230) of these doctors had at least one rating among the three websites. The surgeons with a higher average rating had significantly better trust (p<.01), scheduling (p<.01), staff (p<.01), helpfulness (p<.01), and punctuality (p<.01) scores but significantly less experience (p<.05). A linear regression model for the average rating of each surgeon (R2 value=0.754) yielded only following three significant variables: trustworthiness (p<.01), experience match (p<.05), and the average number of negative comments on surgeon's professional competence (p<.05). Trustworthiness (β=0.749) was the strongest predictor variable of physician rating, followed by the number of negative professional competence comments (β=?0.132) and experience match (β=?0.112).
CONCLUSIONS
This investigation assessed spine surgeon online patient ratings and categorized factors that patients associate with quality care. Trustworthiness was the most significant predictor of positive ratings, whereas ease of scheduling, quality of staff, helpfulness, and punctuality were also associated with higher patient ratings. Understanding what patients value may help optimize care of spine surgery patients. 相似文献