Plos One
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Recent experimental evidence suggests that socioeconomic characteristics of neighbourhoods influence cardiovascular health, but observational studies which examine deprivation across a wide range of cardiovascular diseases (CVDs) are lacking. ⋯ Associations of small-area socioeconomic deprivation with 12 types of CVDs were heterogeneous, and in men absent for several diseases. Findings suggest that policies to reduce deprivation may impact more strongly on heart failure and peripheral arterial disease, and might be more effective in women.
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Incidence of postoperative pain has been reported to be between 47-100%. Ineffective postoperative pain management results in tangible and intangible costs. The purpose of this study was to assess the processes and outcomes of pain management in the surgical wards of Jimma University Specialized Hospital, Ethiopia. ⋯ Despite patients' paradoxical high satisfaction with pain management, the majority of patients were inadequately and inappropriately treated. Thus, further research is needed to determine how best to break down current barriers to effective pain management.
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Telomere maintenance can occur in the presence of telomerase or in its absence, termed alternative lengthening of telomeres (ALT). ALT adds telomere repeats using recombination-based processes and DNA repair proteins that function in homologous recombination. Our previous work reported that the RecQ-like BLM helicase is required for ALT and that it unwinds telomeric substrates in vitro. ⋯ While the loss of WRN significantly increases telomere sister chromatid exchanges (T-SCE) in these three ALT cell lines, loss of both BRCA1 and WRN does not significantly alter T-SCE. This work demonstrates that ALT cell lines use different telomerase-independent maintenance mechanisms that variably require the WRN helicase and that some cells can switch from one mechanism to another that permits telomere elongation in the absence of WRN. Our data suggest that BRCA1 localization may define these mechanisms.
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International migration poses important challenges to European health care systems. The development of "migrant friendly hospitals" has been identified as a priority in both Europe and Switzerland. ⋯ Our results suggest that an institution-wide information campaign may contribute to increased awareness and use of migrant friendly resources by clinical staff. Hospital commitment and financing, along with inter-departmental participation in all activities were important in creating and maintaining project visibility, and in contributing to a migrant friendly institutional culture.
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Lists of clinical codes are the foundation for research undertaken using electronic medical records (EMRs). If clinical code lists are not available, reviewers are unable to determine the validity of research, full study replication is impossible, researchers are unable to make effective comparisons between studies, and the construction of new code lists is subject to much duplication of effort. Despite this, the publication of clinical codes is rarely if ever a requirement for obtaining grants, validating protocols, or publishing research. ⋯ To help address these problems, we have built an online repository where researchers using EMRs can upload and download lists of clinical codes. The repository will enable clinical researchers to better validate EMR studies, build on previous code lists and compare disease definitions across studies. It will also assist health informaticians in replicating database studies, tracking changes in disease definitions or clinical coding practice through time and sharing clinical code information across platforms and data sources as research objects.