Scot Med J
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Clinical Trial Controlled Clinical Trial
Setting up a pain management programme. The Ayrshire experience.
A controlled trial of an outpatient cognitive behavioural pain management programme for sufferers of non-cancer chronic pain is described. A multidisciplinary team set up a programme of ten half day sessions for groups of ten to fourteen patients aiming to improve activity levels and control over pain; to reduce maladaptive pain behaviours and drug intake; to mitigate negative mood; to modify unhelpful beliefs and to maintain treatment gains by operant and cognitive methods. ⋯ Fifty-eight patients entered the study group and 39 patients completed the programme and initial follow up with further attrition in long term follow up. There were no changes in the waiting list control group of twelve subjects but the study group made significant short and long term improvements in pain severity, activity levels, mood, coping and experienced fewer catastrophizing thoughts.
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Comparative Study
Disparities in the geographical distribution of authorship between invited and peer reviewed papers.
Fifty issues of the British Medical Journal (BMJ), The Lancet, The British Journal of Psychiatry and Psychological Medicine were scrutinized. Papers were designated as invited or peer reviewed and the geographical location of the first author was recorded. For UK-based authors, the latitude and longitude of the host institution was noted and was allocated to one of the UK regions. ⋯ For individual Journals, the Lancet and the British Journal of Psychiatry showed fewer regional disparities in authorship than the BMJ and Psychological Medicine. These disparities may lead to nationalism and parochiality in the content of invited papers. Journal editors may wish to review selection practices for authorship of invited papers.