Can paediatric medical students devise a satisfactory standard of examination for their colleagues?
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OBJECTIVES: To determine what standard paediatric medical students would set for examining their peers and how that would compare with the university standard. DESIGN: Single blinded computer marked examination with questionnaire. SETTING: University medical school. SUBJECTS: Medical students during their final paediatric attachment. INTERVENTIONS: Medical students asked to derive 10, five branch negatively marked multiple choice questions (MCQs) to a standard that would fail those without sufficient knowledge. Each 10 were then assessed by another student as to the degree of difficulty and the relevance to paediatrics. One year later student peers sat a mock MCQ examination derived from a random 40 questions (unaware that the mock MCQs had been derived by peers). MAIN OUTCOME MEASURES: Comparison of marks obtained in mock and final MCQ examinations; student perception of the standard in the two examinations assessed by questionnaire. RESULTS: 44 students derived 439 questions, of which 83% were considered an appropriate standard by a classmate. One year later 62 students sat the mock examination. Distribution of marks was better in the mock MCQ examination than the final MCQ examination. Students considered the mock questions to be a more appropriate standard (72% v 31%) and the topics more relevant (88% v 64%) to paediatric medical students. Questions were of a similar clarity in both examinations (73% v 78%). CONCLUSIONS: Students in this study were able to derive an examination of a satisfactory standard for their peers. Involvement of students in deriving examination standards may give them a better appreciation of how standards should be set and maintained. (+info)
Geographical and socioeconomic variation in the prevalence of asthma symptoms in English and Scottish children.
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BACKGROUND: There has been controversy over the relation between poverty and asthma in the community. The aim of this analysis was to disentangle geographical and socioeconomic variation in asthma symptoms. METHODS: The analysis is based on parental reports of symptoms from data collected in 1990 and 1991. Children aged 5-11 years from three populations (English representative sample, Scottish representative sample, and an English inner city sample) were included. Of 17 677 eligible children, between 14 490 (82.0%) and 15 562 (88.0%) children were available for analysis according to symptom group. RESULTS: Wheezy symptoms were less prevalent in the Scottish sample than in the English samples and asthma attacks were most prevalent in the English representative sample. Asthma attacks were less prevalent in inner city areas than in the English representative sample (OR 0.79, 95% CI 0.66 to 0.95), but persistent wheeze and other respiratory symptoms were more prevalent (OR 1.95, 95% CI 1.65 to 2.32 and OR 1.67, 95% CI 1.52 to 1.84, respectively). The prevalence of persistent wheeze was higher in children whose father's social class was low and in those living in areas with a high Townsend score (an index of poverty) than in other children (p<0.001). Of the 14 areas with the highest Townsend score, 13 had an OR above 1 and six had an OR significantly higher than the reference area. CONCLUSIONS: Persistent wheeze is more prevalent in poor areas than in less deprived areas. This may indicate that poverty is associated with severe asthma or that a high percentage of persistent asthma symptoms in inner city areas are unrecognised and untreated. (+info)
Use of bar code readers and programmable keypads to improve the speed and accuracy of manual data entry in the clinical microbiology laboratory: experience of two laboratories.
(43/3242)
AIM: To assess the effect of the use of bar code readers and programmable keypads for entry of specimen details and results in two microbiology laboratories. METHODS: The solutions selected in each laboratory are described. The benefits resulting from the implementation were measured in two ways. The speed of data entry and error reduction were measured by observation. A questionnaire was completed by users of bar codes. RESULTS: There were savings in time and in reduced data entry errors. Average time to enter a report by keyboard was 21.1 s v 14.1 s for bar coded results entry. There were no observed errors with the bar code readers but 55 errors with keystroke entries. The laboratory staff of all grades found the system fast, easy to use, and less stressful than conventional keyboard entry. CONCLUSIONS: Indirect time savings should accrue from the observed reduction in incorrectly entered data. Any microbiology laboratory seeking to improve the accuracy and efficiency of data entry into their laboratory information systems should consider the adoption of this technology which can be readily interfaced to existing terminals. (+info)
Advising parents of asthmatic children on passive smoking: randomised controlled trial.
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OBJECTIVE: To investigate whether parents of asthmatic children would stop smoking or alter their smoking habits to protect their children from environmental tobacco smoke. DESIGN: Randomised controlled trial. SETTING: Tayside and Fife, Scotland. PARTICIPANTS: 501 families with an asthmatic child aged 2-12 years living with a parent who smoked. INTERVENTION: Parents were told about the impact of passive smoking on asthma and were advised to stop smoking or change their smoking habits to protect their child's health. MAIN OUTCOME MEASURES: Salivary cotinine concentrations in children, and changes in reported smoking habits of the parents 1 year after the intervention. RESULTS: At the second visit, about 1 year after the baseline visit, a small decrease in salivary cotinine concentrations was found in both groups of children: the mean decrease in the intervention group (0.70 ng/ml) was slightly smaller than that of the control group (0.88 ng/ml), but the net difference of 0.19 ng/ml had a wide 95% confidence interval (-0.86 to 0.48). Overall, 98% of parents in both groups still smoked at follow up. However, there was a non-significant tendency for parents in the intervention group to report smoking more at follow up and to having a reduced desire to stop smoking. CONCLUSIONS: A brief intervention to advise parents of asthmatic children about the risks from passive smoking was ineffective in reducing their children's exposure to environmental tobacco smoke. The intervention may have made some parents less inclined to stop smoking. If a clinician believes that a child's health is being affected by parental smoking, the parent's smoking needs to be addressed as a separate issue from the child's health. (+info)
Costing for long-term care: the development of Scottish health service resource utilization groups as a casemix instrument.
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OBJECTIVE: to create a casemix measure with a limited number of categories which discriminate in terms of resource use and will assist in the development of a currency for contracting for the provision of health care. DESIGN: nursing staff completed a questionnaire providing clinical data and also gave estimates of relative patient resource use; ward-based costs were collected from appropriate unit managers. SETTING: National Health Service continuing-care wards in 50 Scottish hospitals. SUBJECTS: 2783 long-stay patients aged 65 years and over. RESULTS: inter-rater reliability was assessed using 1402 patients; percentage agreement between raters for individual variables varied from 68% for feeding to 97% for clinically complex treatments. Nursing costs gave 62% agreement given categories of high, medium and low. The Scottish health service resource utilization groups (SHRUG) measure was developed using 606 cases, and 67% consistency was achieved for the five categories. The relative weights for the SHRUG categories ranged from 0.56 to 1.41. The five categories explain 35% of variance in costs. CONCLUSIONS: the five SHRUG casemix categories show good discrimination in terms of costs. The SHRUG measure compares favourably with diagnosis-related groups in the acute sector and with other casemix instruments for long-term care previously piloted in the UK. SHRUG is a useful measurement instrument in assessing the resource needs of elderly people in long-term care. (+info)
Injury surveillance in a children's hospital--overcoming obstacles to data collection.
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OBJECTIVE: To understand the problems involved in collection of injury surveillance (Glasgow Children Hospital Injury Reporting and Prevention Programme, CHIRPP) forms. METHODS: Glasgow CHIRPP forms were issued by the clerical staff to all eligible child carers for details of the injury or ingestions by the child, and the retrieval rate of forms was monitored. Reasons for the poor collection of forms were identified and rectified. RESULTS: The collection rate of Glasgow CHIRPP forms was poor when the system was introduced in 1993. It improved when the forms were issued by nursing staff, and considerable improvement was noted when the triage nurse was made responsible. CONCLUSIONS: When a named individual was made responsible there was an improvement in the retrieval of Glasgow CHIRPP forms. A few other simpler problems relating to the retrieval of forms were identified and rectified. (+info)
Estimating the prevalence of multiple sclerosis in the United Kingdom by using capture-recapture methodology.
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The geographic distribution of multiple sclerosis is nonrandom, as the disease is more prevalent in temperate than in tropical regions. Surveys conducted between 1970 and 1996 suggest that multiple sclerosis is more prevalent in the northern part of the United Kingdom than in the southern part. This north-south gradient ("the latitudinal gradient") might be a methodological artifact, because high prevalence figures from serial surveys of the northern part of the United Kingdom might have been the result of better ascertainment. By using capture-recapture methods, the authors found that case ascertainment was similar in the northern and southern parts of the United Kingdom. When prevalence figures for multiple sclerosis in the southern United Kingdom were increased to account for the number of unobserved cases, the difference persisted: The prevalence of multiple sclerosis in the northern part of the United Kingdom appeared to be at least 180 cases per 100,000 persons, whereas the maximum prevalence in the southern part of the United Kingdom was less than 160 cases per 100,000 persons. The distribution of multiple sclerosis in the United Kingdom is not uniform and is consistent with the hypothesis that populations with a high prevalence of multiple sclerosis may be genetically predisposed to the disease. (+info)
Epidemiology of Streptococcus pneumoniae infections at the Edinburgh City Hospital: 1980-95.
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We present data on pneumococcal isolates collected from deep and superficial sites over a 16-year period at the Edinburgh City Hospital. The 10 most frequent serotypes overall were 6, 19, 11, 9, 3, 14, 1, 15 and 18 in children and 19, 23, 6, 6, 9, 11 3, 15, 14, 22 and 4 in adults. Over 88% (2588/2932, 88.3%) of these pneumococci were of serotypes represented in the 23-valent polysaccharide pneumococcal vaccine. Within the 20-45 years age group, 228/434 (52.5%) of specimens were from HIV-infected individuals. The isolations showed a seasonal distribution with peaks in February and troughs in September. The annual numbers of blood culture isolates showed an upward trend. Recurrent isolations were more frequent in HIV-infected individuals (49/132, 37%) than in non-HIV-infected individuals (218/2421, 9.9%) (relative risk = 5.05, 95% confidence interval, 3.46-7.03). The prevalence of resistance to penicillin and erythromycin was lower than that reported in other parts of the UK. (+info)