Bmc Public Health
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No one has ever reported or investigated the number of people who have been admitted to hospital for a water related incident. The purpose of this paper is to examine, the hospital activity resulting from such incidents including to length of stay, gender, age and cause. ⋯ Based on these findings, for every one drowning that occurs per year there are three hospital episodes. Each of the age groups identified within the study reported an increase in hospital episodes between 2002 - 2003 and 2003 - 2004, when considering the fatality information available it would appear that although fatalities are decreasing in the similar time period, hospital episodes are increasing. For the 0-14 age group, the cause of the injury had changed over the years, moving away from bath tub and swimming pool, to watercraft incidents (V91 - 93). For the 15 - 59 age group there had been a decline in the frequency of watercraft and water transport episodes, however, an increase in diving and jumping injury and incidents. In the over 60 age group water transport episodes remained the most frequent, with swimming pool related episodes declining and other specified drowning and submersion increasing. More work needs to be undertaken in regard to who is admitted to hospital, when where, and how to fill gaps in knowledge and highlight information that is critical to prevention strategies.
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Prevalence of diabetes mellitus is increasing in developed and developing countries. Diabetes is known to strongly affect the health-related quality of life (HRQOL). HRQOL is also influenced by living conditions. We analysed the effects of having diabetes on HRQOL under the living conditions in refugee camps in the Gaza strip. ⋯ HRQOL is strongly reduced in diabetic patients living in refugee camps in the Gaza strip. Women and older patients are especially affected.
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Randomized Controlled Trial
A community programme to reduce salt intake and blood pressure in Ghana [ISRCTN88789643].
In Africa hypertension is common and stroke is increasing. Detection, treatment and control of high blood pressure (BP) is limited. BP can be lowered by reducing salt intake. In Africa salt is added to the food by the consumer, as processed food is rare. A population-wide approach with programmes based on health education and promotion is thus possible. ⋯ In West Africa the lower the salt intake, the lower the BP. It would appear that a reduction in the average salt intake in the whole community may lead to a small but significant reduction in population systolic BP.
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United Kingdom public health policy has recently re-emphasised the role of primary health care professionals in tackling increasing levels of physical inactivity within the general population. However, little is known about the impact that this has had in practice. This study explores Scottish primary care staff's knowledge, attitudes and experiences associated with advising patients about physical activity during routine consultations. ⋯ If primary health care staff are to be fully motivated and effective in encouraging and supporting the general population to become more physically active, policymakers and health professionals need to engage in efforts to: (1) improve knowledge of current physical activity recommendations and population trends amongst frontline primary care staff; and (2) consider the development of tools to support individual assessment and advice giving to suit individual circumstances. Despite the fact that this study found that system barriers to routine advising were less of a problem than other previous research has indicated, this issue still remains a challenge.
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Public funding is aimed at facilitating the initiation, completion and publication of research study protocols. However, no evaluation is made to investigate the impact of grant success on the conduct of biomedical research. It is therefore of great interest to compare the fate of funded protocols versus not funded: Are they initiated? Are they completed? Did the results confirm the hypothesis? Were they published? The objective was to investigate the fate of protocols submitted for funding, whether they were funded or not. ⋯ Some protocols submitted for funding were initiated and completed without any funding declared. To our understanding this mean that not all protocols submitted really needed funding and also that health care facilities are unaware that they implicitly financially support and pay for biomedical research.