Articles: prospective-studies.
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Patients' expectations are important predictors of the outcome of analgesic treatments, as demonstrated predominantly in research on placebo effects. Three commonly investigated interventions that have been found to induce expectations (verbal suggestion, conditioning, and mental imagery) entail promising, brief, and easy-to-implement adjunctive procedures for optimizing the effectiveness of analgesic treatments. However, evidence for their efficacy stems mostly from research on experimentally evoked pain in healthy samples, and these findings might not be directly transferable to clinical populations. ⋯ Overall, a medium-sized effect of the interventions on patients' pain relief was observed (Hedges g = 0.61, I = 73%), with varying effects of verbal suggestion (k = 18, g = 0.75), conditioning (always paired with verbal suggestion, k = 3, g = 0.65), and imagery (k = 6, g = 0.27). Subset analyses indicated medium to large effects on experimental and acute procedural pain and small effects on chronic pain. In conclusion, patients' pain can be relieved with expectation interventions; particularly, verbal suggestion for acute procedural pain was found to be effective.
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Meta Analysis
Alcohol consumption and risk of coronary artery disease: A dose-response meta-analysis of prospective studies.
To investigate and quantify the potential dose-response association between alcohol consumption and risk of coronary artery disease (CAD). ⋯ Alcohol consumption in moderation is associated with a reduced risk of CAD with 36 grams/d of alcohol conferring a lower risk than other levels.
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J. Thromb. Thrombolysis · Apr 2016
Review Meta Analysis Comparative StudyComparison of the Wells score with the revised Geneva score for assessing suspected pulmonary embolism: a systematic review and meta-analysis.
The Wells score and the revised Geneva score are two most commonly used clinical rules for excluding pulmonary embolism (PE). In this study, we aimed to assess the diagnostic accuracy of these two rules; we also compared the diagnostic accuracy between them. We searched PubMed and Web of science up to April 2015. ⋯ Meta-regression showed diagnostic accuracy of these two rules was not related with PE prevalence. Sensitivity analysis by only included prospective studies showed the results were robust. Our results showed the Wells score was more effective than the revised Geneva score in discriminate PE in suspected patients.
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Meta Analysis
Resting heart rate and all-cause and cardiovascular mortality in the general population: a meta-analysis.
Data on resting heart rate and risk of all-cause and cardiovascular mortality are inconsistent; the magnitude of associations between resting heart rate and risk of all-cause and cardiovascular mortality varies across studies. We performed a meta-analysis of prospective cohort studies to quantitatively evaluate the associations in the general population. ⋯ Higher resting heart rate was independently associated with increased risks of all-cause and cardiovascular mortality. This indicates that resting heart rate is a predictor of all-cause and cardiovascular mortality in the general population.