Sex knowledge and attitudes of moderately retarded males.

In semistructured interview sessions, 18 moderately retarded men undergoing deinstitutional training, were questioned to determine their understanding of pictures of homosexual embrace, masturbation, dating, marriage, intercourse, pregnancy, childbirth, drunkenness, and their knowledge of anatomical terminology. The frequencies of various response categories revealed a range of comprehension, the lowest answering only 10 percent correctly, the median consisting of 28 percent correct, and only 1 subject correctly answering as many as one-half of the items. Correct conceptual responses significantly correlated with WAIS Full Scale and Verbal IQs and were also significantly related to the Adaptive Behavior Scale domains of Language, Socialization, and Responsibility. Serious errors of fact and conceptual confusion, though most prevalent in responses by the low comprehenders, were found in at least some responses by all of the men.     

Quality Measurement in Wonderland: The Curious Case of a Dialysis Readmissions Measure

The standardized readmission ratio is a new quality measure for dialysis facilities that will affect public reporting and payment beginning in 2017. Like all quality measures affecting public reporting and payment, the standardized readmission ratio was vetted by a process that included a technical expert panel convened by the US Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, and, then, the National Quality Forum. Unlike previous measures, standardized readmission ratio followed a tortuous path that exposed problems in the development and endorsement process. Although it is acknowledged that processes in the dialysis facility can be improved to decrease readmissions, multiple objections to the implementation of the standardized readmission ratio measure existed. This review discusses the standardized readmission ratio measure and issues related to quality metric development that are important for the nephrology community to consider.     

Social context of drinking and alcohol problems among college students

OBJECTIVE: To examine how social contexts of drinking are related to alcohol use disorders, other alcohol-related problems, and depression among college students. METHODS: Logistic regression models controlling for drinking frequency measured the association between social context and problems, among 728 current drinkers. RESULTS: Drinking for social facilitation was associated with drinking and driving and housing violations. Drinking in the context of motor vehicles was associated with alcohol abuse/ dependence. Drinking in a context of emotional pain was associated with clinical depression. CONCLUSIONS: Alcohol-free programming that fulfills needs for conviviality and addresses early signs of depression might reduce alcohol problems among college students.     

Distance traveled to outpatient drug treatment and client retention

This study examined the association between approximate distance traveled to treatment, and treatment completion and length of stay, for 1,735 clients attending outpatient treatment in an urban area. Clients who traveled less than 1 mile were 50% more likely to complete treatment than clients who traveled more than 1 mile, after holding constant demographic variables and type of drug problem. Similarly, clients who traveled more than 4 miles were significantly more likely to have a shorter length of stay than clients who traveled less than 1 mile. These findings have important implications for the geographic placement of new treatment facilities, as well as the provision of transportation services to maximize treatment retention.     

Long-term effect of stenting after an endoscopic modified Lothrop procedure

BACKGROUND: The aim of this study was to study the effect of stenting with a silastic sheet on the long-term patency of the common frontal ostium after an endoscopic modified Lothrop procedure (EMLP). METHODS: A retrospective analysis was performed of prospectively collected data at an academic tertiary referral center, where 72 patients underwent an EMLP between 1996 and 2003. Patency of the common frontal ostium was studied as an ordinal variable with three classes (patent, stenotic, and closed). RESULTS: A common ostium was endoscopically visualized in 94% of the patients (61.1% patent and 33.3% stenotic). Symptoms improved in 75% of the patients. A significant positive correlation was found between ostium patency and symptom improvement. Twenty-five patients were stented postoperatively. There was no statistical difference between the stented and the nonstented groups with regards to ostium patency and symptoms improvement. CONCLUSION: Short-term stenting does not appear to reduce the rate of postoperative stenosis of the common frontal ostium after an EMLP.