Academic emergency medicine : official journal of the Society for Academic Emergency Medicine
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In September 2006, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention released its revised recommendations for human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) testing. Prominent among these were the recommendations that emergency departments should perform routine screening for HIV infection. ⋯ It contains the lessons that were learned when such a program was initiated at an academic emergency department. Consideration of these steps will help streamline the establishment of the program, but there should be careful consideration of the program's costs and sustainability before embarking on the process.
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In part 1 of this series, the authors describe the importance of incomplete data in clinical research, and provide a conceptual framework for handling incomplete data by describing typical mechanisms and patterns of censoring, and detailing a variety of relatively simple methods and their limitations. In part 2, the authors will explore multiple imputation (MI), a more sophisticated and valid method for handling incomplete data in clinical research. This article will provide a detailed conceptual framework for MI, comparative examples of MI versus naive methods for handling incomplete data (and how different methods may impact subsequent study results), plus a practical user's guide to implementing MI, including sample statistical software MI code and a deidentified precoded database for use with the sample code.
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Missing data are commonly encountered in clinical research. Unfortunately, they are often neglected or not properly handled during analytic procedures, and this may substantially bias the results of the study, reduce study power, and lead to invalid conclusions. ⋯ In part 1, the authors will describe relatively simple approaches to handling missing data, including complete-case analysis, available-case analysis, and several forms of single imputation, including mean imputation, regression imputation, hot and cold deck imputation, last observation carried forward, and worst case analysis. In part 2, the authors will describe in detail multiple imputation, a more sophisticated and valid method for handling missing data.
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Despite the health benefits of organized sports, high school athletes are at risk for lower extremity sports-related injuries (LESRIs). The authors documented the epidemiology of LESRIs among U.S. high school athletes. ⋯ While LESRIs occur commonly in high school athletes, team- and gender-specific patterns exist. Emergency department staff will likely encounter such injuries. To optimize prevention strategies, ongoing surveillance is needed.