Health technology assessment : HTA
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Health Technol Assess · Aug 2009
Randomized Controlled TrialRehabilitation of older patients: day hospital compared with rehabilitation at home. A randomised controlled trial.
To test the hypotheses that older people and their informal carers are not disadvantaged by home-based rehabilitation (HBR) relative to day hospital rehabilitation (DHR) and that HBR is less costly. ⋯ Compared with DHR, providing rehabilitation in patients' own homes confers no particular disadvantage for patients and carers. The cost of providing HBR does not appear to be significantly different from that of providing DHR. Rehabilitation providers and purchasers need to consider the place of care in the light of local needs, to provide the benefits of both kinds of services. Caution is required when interpreting the results of the RCT because a large proportion of potentially eligible subjects were not recruited to the trial, the required sample size was not achieved and there was a relatively large loss to follow-up.
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Health Technol Assess · Aug 2009
Randomized Controlled TrialA double-blind randomised placebo-controlled trial of topical intranasal corticosteroids in 4- to 11-year-old children with persistent bilateral otitis media with effusion in primary care.
To determine the clinical effectiveness and cost-effectiveness of topical mometasone in children with bilateral otitis media with effusion (OME). ⋯ Use of topical intranasal corticosteroids is very unlikely to be a clinically effective treatment for OME (glue ear) in the primary care setting.