Effect of a brief cognitive training programme in patients with long-lasting back pain evaluated as unfit for surgery

The aim of the study was to evaluate the effect of cognitive intervention (information and physical exercise), on patients with long-lasting back pain referred for surgical evaluation at an orthopaedic hospital, but evaluated as unfit for surgery. One hundred and fifty-two patients were randomized to a five days intervention or control. The intervention had no significant effects on pain. At three-month follow-up, the patients in the intervention group used significantly more active strategies to cope with the back pain compared to the control group. This effect seemed to increase over time, being more pronounced at one-year follow-up evaluation.     

Are subjective health complaints a result of modern civilization?

Subjective health complaints without or with minimal somatic findings (pain, fatigue) are common and frequent reasons for encounter with the general practitioner and for long-term sickness leave and disability. The complaints are often attributed to the stressors of modern life. Is this true? We interviewed 120 Aborigine Mangyans (native population, M age = 33.5 years, 72.5% women) living under primitive conditions in the jungle of Mindoro, an island in the Philippines, and 101 persons living in a small coastal town on the same island (coastal population, M age = 33.8 years, 60.4% women). Both groups had more musculoskeletal complaints, fatigue, mood changes, and gastrointestinal complaints than a representative sample from the Norwegian population (N = 1,243). Our common subjective health complaints, therefore, are not specific for industrialized societies.     

A Typology of Work‐Family Arrangements Among Dual‐Earner Couples in Norway

A symmetrical family model of two workers or caregivers is a political goal in many western European countries. We explore how common this family type is in Norway, a country with high gender‐equality ambitions, by using a multinomial latent class model to develop a typology of dual‐earner couples with children based on the partners' allocations of paid and unpaid work. Using data on 2,617 respondents from the Norwegian Generations and Gender Survey, we estimate 4 classes, of which 2 are characterized by a fairly equal sharing between the partners and 2 have more traditional arrangements. Equal sharing is practiced by 4 out of 10 couples and is most likely when the partners are well educated and work regular hours and the father is in public‐sector employment. A traditional practice is likely when the partners have less education, the mother has health problems, the father has private‐sector employment, and the partners work irregular hours.     

A rapid,high‐throughput screening method for carriage of methicillin‐resistant Staphylococcus aureus

Rapid screening of methicillin‐resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) colonization prior to hospital admittance is important to reduce nosocomial infections and health care costs. Molecular detection of mecA and S. aureus specific target genes has become widely established for this purpose. However, there are still limitations in potential for high‐throughput screening in the methods described. We have compared the time aspects and workload of four different DNA preparation platforms, resulting in an automated and simple MRSA screening method which combines two liquid handling systems and a simple lysis buffer. We have further transferred our in‐house dual real‐time PCR to a fast‐PCR protocol, reducing the time and labour spent on these samples to a minimum.     

Men in kindergartens: work culture and gender

This article examines the impact on work culture when men work in kindergartens. In Norway, as in other countries there has been a call for more male staff in kindergartens. Increasing the amount of men may imply that institutionalized norms and practice are put under pressure. By using a case study approach, the focus is on employees’ experiences and practice in daily life in the kindergarten. Two processes, negotiation about work organization and the division of labour, illustrate the empirical part of this article. The findings indicate that female staff negotiate for standardized workdays and norms of sameness, while the males negotiate for a flexible workday and division of labour based on their interests. The difference in practice between males and females and negotiation about the division of labour contribute to constructing gendered work cultures.     

Are conventional microbiological diagnostics sufficiently expedient in the era of rapid diagnostics? Evaluation of conventional microbiological diagnostics of orthopedic implant-associated infections (OIAI)

Background and purpose — In a time when rapid diagnostics are increasingly sought, conventional procedures for detection of microbes causing orthopedic implant-associated infections (OIAI) seem extensive and time-consuming, but how extensive are they? We assessed time to (a) pathogen identification, (b) antibiotic susceptibility patterns, and (c) targeted antibiotic treatment using conventional microbiological diagnostics of OIAI in a consecutive series of patients.Patients and methods — Consecutive patients aged ≥18 years undergoing first revision surgery for acute OIAI, including prosthetic joints, fracture, and osteotomy implants, in 2017–2018 at Akershus University Hospital (Ahus), Norway were included. Information regarding microbiological diagnostics and clinical data was collected retrospectively from the hospital’s diagnostic and clinical databases.Results — 123 patients fulfilled the inclusion criteria. Median time to pathogen identification was 2.5 days and to antibiotic treatment recommendations was 3.5 days. The most common pathogens were S. aureus (52%) and S. epidermidis (15%). Cultures were inconclusive in 11% of the patients. Of the 109 patients with culture-positive results, antibiotic treatment was changed in 66 (61%) patients within a median of 4 days (0–24) after the recommendation was given.Interpretation — Conventional microbiological diagnostics of OIAI is time-consuming, taking days of culturing. Same-day diagnostics would vastly improve treatment efficacy, but is dependent on rapid implementation by clinicians of the treatment recommendations given by the microbiologist.

The majority of orthopedic procedures include the use of implants, which increase the risk of infection due to the reduced number of bacteria needed to establish an infection (Zimmerli et al. 1982). Orthopedic implant-associated infections (OIAI) are infrequent per se, with an overall surgical site infection rate following implant surgery of 3% (Skråmm et al. 2012). However, the number of patients undergoing orthopedic implant surgery is high and increasing (Norwegian National Advisory Unit on Arthroplasty and Hip Fractures 2020).A microbiological diagnosis is vital for providing the best treatment, with regards to both surgical options and providing targeted and narrow-spectrum antimicrobial therapy (Beam and Osmon 2018). Today’s conventional diagnostics include microbiological culturing of 5 biopsies from each infected patient on several different media for at least 5 days dependent on growing and dividing bacteria (Bergh et al. 2011, Osmon et al. 2013). More rapid diagnostic tools are being developed, but with varying degrees of sensitivity and specificity (Bonanzinga et al. 2017, Jun and Jianghua 2018, Aamot et al. 2019).We assessed time to (a) pathogen identification, (b) antibiotic susceptibility patterns, and (c) targeted antibiotic treatment using conventional microbiological diagnostics of OIAI in a consecutive series of patients.