Validation of search filters for identifying pediatric studies in PubMed.

PubMed

Leclercq, Edith; Leeflang, Mariska M G; van Dalen, Elvira C; Kremer, Leontien C M

2013-03-01

To identify and validate PubMed search filters for retrieving studies including children and to develop a new pediatric search filter for PubMed. We developed 2 different datasets of studies to evaluate the performance of the identified pediatric search filters, expressed in terms of sensitivity, precision, specificity, accuracy, and number needed to read (NNR). An optimal search filter will have a high sensitivity and high precision with a low NNR. In addition to the PubMed Limits: All Child: 0-18 years filter (in May 2012 renamed to PubMed Filter Child: 0-18 years), 6 search filters for identifying studies including children were identified: 3 developed by Kastner et al, 1 developed by BestBets, one by the Child Health Field, and 1 by the Cochrane Childhood Cancer Group. Three search filters (Cochrane Childhood Cancer Group, Child Health Field, and BestBets) had the highest sensitivity (99.3%, 99.5%, and 99.3%, respectively) but a lower precision (64.5%, 68.4%, and 66.6% respectively) compared with the other search filters. Two Kastner search filters had a high precision (93.0% and 93.7%, respectively) but a low sensitivity (58.5% and 44.8%, respectively). They failed to identify many pediatric studies in our datasets. The search terms responsible for false-positive results in the reference dataset were determined. With these data, we developed a new search filter for identifying studies with children in PubMed with an optimal sensitivity (99.5%) and precision (69.0%). Search filters to identify studies including children either have a low sensitivity or a low precision with a high NNR. A new pediatric search filter with a high sensitivity and a low NNR has been developed. Copyright © 2013 Mosby, Inc. All rights reserved.

OvidSP Medline-to-PubMed search filter translation: a methodology for extending search filter range to include PubMed's unique content.

PubMed

Damarell, Raechel A; Tieman, Jennifer J; Sladek, Ruth M

2013-07-02

PubMed translations of OvidSP Medline search filters offer searchers improved ease of access. They may also facilitate access to PubMed's unique content, including citations for the most recently published biomedical evidence. Retrieving this content requires a search strategy comprising natural language terms ('textwords'), rather than Medical Subject Headings (MeSH). We describe a reproducible methodology that uses a validated PubMed search filter translation to create a textword-only strategy to extend retrieval to PubMed's unique heart failure literature. We translated an OvidSP Medline heart failure search filter for PubMed and established version equivalence in terms of indexed literature retrieval. The PubMed version was then run within PubMed to identify citations retrieved by the filter's MeSH terms (Heart failure, Left ventricular dysfunction, and Cardiomyopathy). It was then rerun with the same MeSH terms restricted to searching on title and abstract fields (i.e. as 'textwords'). Citations retrieved by the MeSH search but not the textword search were isolated. Frequency analysis of their titles/abstracts identified natural language alternatives for those MeSH terms that performed less effectively as textwords. These terms were tested in combination to determine the best performing search string for reclaiming this 'lost set'. This string, restricted to searching on PubMed's unique content, was then combined with the validated PubMed translation to extend the filter's performance in this database. The PubMed heart failure filter retrieved 6829 citations. Of these, 834 (12%) failed to be retrieved when MeSH terms were converted to textwords. Frequency analysis of the 834 citations identified five high frequency natural language alternatives that could improve retrieval of this set (cardiac failure, cardiac resynchronization, left ventricular systolic dysfunction, left ventricular diastolic dysfunction, and LV dysfunction). Together these terms reclaimed 157/834 (18.8%) of lost citations. MeSH terms facilitate precise searching in PubMed's indexed subset. They may, however, work less effectively as search terms prior to subject indexing. A validated PubMed search filter can be used to develop a supplementary textword-only search strategy to extend retrieval to PubMed's unique content. A PubMed heart failure search filter is available on the CareSearch website (http://www.caresearch.com.au) providing access to both indexed and non-indexed heart failure evidence.

Sensitivity and predictive value of 15 PubMed search strategies to answer clinical questions rated against full systematic reviews.

PubMed

Agoritsas, Thomas; Merglen, Arnaud; Courvoisier, Delphine S; Combescure, Christophe; Garin, Nicolas; Perrier, Arnaud; Perneger, Thomas V

2012-06-12

Clinicians perform searches in PubMed daily, but retrieving relevant studies is challenging due to the rapid expansion of medical knowledge. Little is known about the performance of search strategies when they are applied to answer specific clinical questions. To compare the performance of 15 PubMed search strategies in retrieving relevant clinical trials on therapeutic interventions. We used Cochrane systematic reviews to identify relevant trials for 30 clinical questions. Search terms were extracted from the abstract using a predefined procedure based on the population, interventions, comparison, outcomes (PICO) framework and combined into queries. We tested 15 search strategies that varied in their query (PIC or PICO), use of PubMed's Clinical Queries therapeutic filters (broad or narrow), search limits, and PubMed links to related articles. We assessed sensitivity (recall) and positive predictive value (precision) of each strategy on the first 2 PubMed pages (40 articles) and on the complete search output. The performance of the search strategies varied widely according to the clinical question. Unfiltered searches and those using the broad filter of Clinical Queries produced large outputs and retrieved few relevant articles within the first 2 pages, resulting in a median sensitivity of only 10%-25%. In contrast, all searches using the narrow filter performed significantly better, with a median sensitivity of about 50% (all P < .001 compared with unfiltered queries) and positive predictive values of 20%-30% (P < .001 compared with unfiltered queries). This benefit was consistent for most clinical questions. Searches based on related articles retrieved about a third of the relevant studies. The Clinical Queries narrow filter, along with well-formulated queries based on the PICO framework, provided the greatest aid in retrieving relevant clinical trials within the 2 first PubMed pages. These results can help clinicians apply effective strategies to answer their questions at the point of care.

Literature searches on Ayurveda: An update

PubMed Central

Aggithaya, Madhur G.; Narahari, Saravu R.

2015-01-01

Introduction: The journals that publish on Ayurveda are increasingly indexed by popular medical databases in recent years. However, many Eastern journals are not indexed biomedical journal databases such as PubMed. Literature searches for Ayurveda continue to be challenging due to the nonavailability of active, unbiased dedicated databases for Ayurvedic literature. In 2010, authors identified 46 databases that can be used for systematic search of Ayurvedic papers and theses. This update reviewed our previous recommendation and identified current and relevant databases. Aims: To update on Ayurveda literature search and strategy to retrieve maximum publications. Methods: Author used psoriasis as an example to search previously listed databases and identify new. The population, intervention, control, and outcome table included keywords related to psoriasis and Ayurvedic terminologies for skin diseases. Current citation update status, search results, and search options of previous databases were assessed. Eight search strategies were developed. Hundred and five journals, both biomedical and Ayurveda, which publish on Ayurveda, were identified. Variability in databases was explored to identify bias in journal citation. Results: Five among 46 databases are now relevant – AYUSH research portal, Annotated Bibliography of Indian Medicine, Digital Helpline for Ayurveda Research Articles (DHARA), PubMed, and Directory of Open Access Journals. Search options in these databases are not uniform, and only PubMed allows complex search strategy. “The Researches in Ayurveda” and “Ayurvedic Research Database” (ARD) are important grey resources for hand searching. About 44/105 (41.5%) journals publishing Ayurvedic studies are not indexed in any database. Only 11/105 (10.4%) exclusive Ayurveda journals are indexed in PubMed. Conclusion: AYUSH research portal and DHARA are two major portals after 2010. It is mandatory to search PubMed and four other databases because all five carry citations from different groups of journals. The hand searching is important to identify Ayurveda publications that are not indexed elsewhere. Availability information of citations in Ayurveda libraries from National Union Catalogue of Scientific Serials in India if regularly updated will improve the efficacy of hand searching. A grey database (ARD) contains unpublished PG/Ph.D. theses. The AYUSH portal, DHARA (funded by Ministry of AYUSH), and ARD should be merged to form single larger database to limit Ayurveda literature searches. PMID:27313409

Ontology-based Brucella vaccine literature indexing and systematic analysis of gene-vaccine association network.

PubMed

Hur, Junguk; Xiang, Zuoshuang; Feldman, Eva L; He, Yongqun

2011-08-26

Vaccine literature indexing is poorly performed in PubMed due to limited hierarchy of Medical Subject Headings (MeSH) annotation in the vaccine field. Vaccine Ontology (VO) is a community-based biomedical ontology that represents various vaccines and their relations. SciMiner is an in-house literature mining system that supports literature indexing and gene name tagging. We hypothesize that application of VO in SciMiner will aid vaccine literature indexing and mining of vaccine-gene interaction networks. As a test case, we have examined vaccines for Brucella, the causative agent of brucellosis in humans and animals. The VO-based SciMiner (VO-SciMiner) was developed to incorporate a total of 67 Brucella vaccine terms. A set of rules for term expansion of VO terms were learned from training data, consisting of 90 biomedical articles related to Brucella vaccine terms. VO-SciMiner demonstrated high recall (91%) and precision (99%) from testing a separate set of 100 manually selected biomedical articles. VO-SciMiner indexing exhibited superior performance in retrieving Brucella vaccine-related papers over that obtained with MeSH-based PubMed literature search. For example, a VO-SciMiner search of "live attenuated Brucella vaccine" returned 922 hits as of April 20, 2011, while a PubMed search of the same query resulted in only 74 hits. Using the abstracts of 14,947 Brucella-related papers, VO-SciMiner identified 140 Brucella genes associated with Brucella vaccines. These genes included known protective antigens, virulence factors, and genes closely related to Brucella vaccines. These VO-interacting Brucella genes were significantly over-represented in biological functional categories, including metabolite transport and metabolism, replication and repair, cell wall biogenesis, intracellular trafficking and secretion, posttranslational modification, and chaperones. Furthermore, a comprehensive interaction network of Brucella vaccines and genes were identified. The asserted and inferred VO hierarchies provide semantic support for inferring novel knowledge of association of vaccines and genes from the retrieved data. New hypotheses were generated based on this analysis approach. VO-SciMiner can be used to improve the efficiency for PubMed searching in the vaccine domain.

Ontology-based Brucella vaccine literature indexing and systematic analysis of gene-vaccine association network

PubMed Central

2011-01-01

Background Vaccine literature indexing is poorly performed in PubMed due to limited hierarchy of Medical Subject Headings (MeSH) annotation in the vaccine field. Vaccine Ontology (VO) is a community-based biomedical ontology that represents various vaccines and their relations. SciMiner is an in-house literature mining system that supports literature indexing and gene name tagging. We hypothesize that application of VO in SciMiner will aid vaccine literature indexing and mining of vaccine-gene interaction networks. As a test case, we have examined vaccines for Brucella, the causative agent of brucellosis in humans and animals. Results The VO-based SciMiner (VO-SciMiner) was developed to incorporate a total of 67 Brucella vaccine terms. A set of rules for term expansion of VO terms were learned from training data, consisting of 90 biomedical articles related to Brucella vaccine terms. VO-SciMiner demonstrated high recall (91%) and precision (99%) from testing a separate set of 100 manually selected biomedical articles. VO-SciMiner indexing exhibited superior performance in retrieving Brucella vaccine-related papers over that obtained with MeSH-based PubMed literature search. For example, a VO-SciMiner search of "live attenuated Brucella vaccine" returned 922 hits as of April 20, 2011, while a PubMed search of the same query resulted in only 74 hits. Using the abstracts of 14,947 Brucella-related papers, VO-SciMiner identified 140 Brucella genes associated with Brucella vaccines. These genes included known protective antigens, virulence factors, and genes closely related to Brucella vaccines. These VO-interacting Brucella genes were significantly over-represented in biological functional categories, including metabolite transport and metabolism, replication and repair, cell wall biogenesis, intracellular trafficking and secretion, posttranslational modification, and chaperones. Furthermore, a comprehensive interaction network of Brucella vaccines and genes were identified. The asserted and inferred VO hierarchies provide semantic support for inferring novel knowledge of association of vaccines and genes from the retrieved data. New hypotheses were generated based on this analysis approach. Conclusion VO-SciMiner can be used to improve the efficiency for PubMed searching in the vaccine domain. PMID:21871085

[Use of multiple regression models in observational studies (1970-2013) and requirements of the STROBE guidelines in Spanish scientific journals].

PubMed

Real, J; Cleries, R; Forné, C; Roso-Llorach, A; Martínez-Sánchez, J M

In medicine and biomedical research, statistical techniques like logistic, linear, Cox and Poisson regression are widely known. The main objective is to describe the evolution of multivariate techniques used in observational studies indexed in PubMed (1970-2013), and to check the requirements of the STROBE guidelines in the author guidelines in Spanish journals indexed in PubMed. A targeted PubMed search was performed to identify papers that used logistic linear Cox and Poisson models. Furthermore, a review was also made of the author guidelines of journals published in Spain and indexed in PubMed and Web of Science. Only 6.1% of the indexed manuscripts included a term related to multivariate analysis, increasing from 0.14% in 1980 to 12.3% in 2013. In 2013, 6.7, 2.5, 3.5, and 0.31% of the manuscripts contained terms related to logistic, linear, Cox and Poisson regression, respectively. On the other hand, 12.8% of journals author guidelines explicitly recommend to follow the STROBE guidelines, and 35.9% recommend the CONSORT guideline. A low percentage of Spanish scientific journals indexed in PubMed include the STROBE statement requirement in the author guidelines. Multivariate regression models in published observational studies such as logistic regression, linear, Cox and Poisson are increasingly used both at international level, as well as in journals published in Spanish. Copyright © 2015 Sociedad Española de Médicos de Atención Primaria (SEMERGEN). Publicado por Elsevier España, S.L.U. All rights reserved.

Sports medicine clinical trial research publications in academic medical journals between 1996 and 2005: an audit of the PubMed MEDLINE database.

PubMed

Nichols, A W

2008-11-01

To identify sports medicine-related clinical trial research articles in the PubMed MEDLINE database published between 1996 and 2005 and conduct a review and analysis of topics of research, experimental designs, journals of publication and the internationality of authorships. Sports medicine research is international in scope with improving study methodology and an evolution of topics. Structured review of articles identified in a search of a large electronic medical database. PubMed MEDLINE database. Sports medicine-related clinical research trials published between 1996 and 2005. Review and analysis of articles that meet inclusion criteria. Articles were examined for study topics, research methods, experimental subject characteristics, journal of publication, lead authors and journal countries of origin and language of publication. The search retrieved 414 articles, of which 379 (345 English language and 34 non-English language) met the inclusion criteria. The number of publications increased steadily during the study period. Randomised clinical trials were the most common study type and the "diagnosis, management and treatment of sports-related injuries and conditions" was the most popular study topic. The knee, ankle/foot and shoulder were the most frequent anatomical sites of study. Soccer players and runners were the favourite study subjects. The American Journal of Sports Medicine had the highest number of publications and shared the greatest international diversity of authorships with the British Journal of Sports Medicine. The USA, Australia, Germany and the UK produced a good number of the lead authorships. In all, 91% of articles and 88% of journals were published in English. Sports medicine-related research is internationally diverse, clinical trial publications are increasing and the sophistication of research design may be improving.

Relative Citation Ratio of Top Twenty Macedonian Biomedical Scientists in PubMed: A New Metric that Uses Citation Rates to Measure Influence at the Article Level.

PubMed

Spiroski, Mirko

2016-06-15

The aim of this study was to analyze relative citation ratio (RCR) of top twenty Macedonian biomedical scientists with a new metric that uses citation rates to measure influence at the article level. Top twenty Macedonian biomedical scientists were identified by GoPubMed on the base of the number of deposited abstracts in PubMed, corrected with the data from previously published paper, and completed with the Macedonian biomedical scientists working in countries outside the Republic of Macedonia, but born or previously worked in the country. iCite was used as a tool to access a dashboard of bibliometrics for papers associated with a portfolio. The biggest number of top twenty Macedonian biomedical scientists has RCR lower than one. Only four Macedonian biomedical scientists have bigger RCR in comparison with those in PubMed. The most prominent RCR of 2.29 has Rosoklija G. RCR of the most influenced individual papers deposited in PubMed has shown the biggest value for the paper of Efremov D (35.19). This paper has the biggest number of authors (860). It is necessary to accept top twenty Macedonian biomedical scientists as an example of new metric that uses citation rates to measure influence at the article level, rather than qualification of the best Macedonian biomedical scientists.

A Review of Human Papillomavirus (HPV) Infection and HPV Vaccine-Related Attitudes and Sexual Behaviors among College-Aged Women in the United States

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Ratanasiripong, Nop T.

2012-01-01

Objective: To identify human papillomavirus (HPV) infection and HPV vaccine-related attitudes among college-aged women and the relationship between HPV vaccine uptake and subsequent sexual behaviors. Methods: PubMed, MEDLINE, CINAHL, and Google Scholar searches were performed from 2006, the date after the first HPV vaccine became available, to…

Understanding PubMed user search behavior through log analysis.

PubMed

Islamaj Dogan, Rezarta; Murray, G Craig; Névéol, Aurélie; Lu, Zhiyong

2009-01-01

This article reports on a detailed investigation of PubMed users' needs and behavior as a step toward improving biomedical information retrieval. PubMed is providing free service to researchers with access to more than 19 million citations for biomedical articles from MEDLINE and life science journals. It is accessed by millions of users each day. Efficient search tools are crucial for biomedical researchers to keep abreast of the biomedical literature relating to their own research. This study provides insight into PubMed users' needs and their behavior. This investigation was conducted through the analysis of one month of log data, consisting of more than 23 million user sessions and more than 58 million user queries. Multiple aspects of users' interactions with PubMed are characterized in detail with evidence from these logs. Despite having many features in common with general Web searches, biomedical information searches have unique characteristics that are made evident in this study. PubMed users are more persistent in seeking information and they reformulate queries often. The three most frequent types of search are search by author name, search by gene/protein, and search by disease. Use of abbreviation in queries is very frequent. Factors such as result set size influence users' decisions. Analysis of characteristics such as these plays a critical role in identifying users' information needs and their search habits. In turn, such an analysis also provides useful insight for improving biomedical information retrieval.Database URL:http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/PubMed.

Sensitivity and Predictive Value of 15 PubMed Search Strategies to Answer Clinical Questions Rated Against Full Systematic Reviews

PubMed Central

Merglen, Arnaud; Courvoisier, Delphine S; Combescure, Christophe; Garin, Nicolas; Perrier, Arnaud; Perneger, Thomas V

2012-01-01

Background Clinicians perform searches in PubMed daily, but retrieving relevant studies is challenging due to the rapid expansion of medical knowledge. Little is known about the performance of search strategies when they are applied to answer specific clinical questions. Objective To compare the performance of 15 PubMed search strategies in retrieving relevant clinical trials on therapeutic interventions. Methods We used Cochrane systematic reviews to identify relevant trials for 30 clinical questions. Search terms were extracted from the abstract using a predefined procedure based on the population, interventions, comparison, outcomes (PICO) framework and combined into queries. We tested 15 search strategies that varied in their query (PIC or PICO), use of PubMed’s Clinical Queries therapeutic filters (broad or narrow), search limits, and PubMed links to related articles. We assessed sensitivity (recall) and positive predictive value (precision) of each strategy on the first 2 PubMed pages (40 articles) and on the complete search output. Results The performance of the search strategies varied widely according to the clinical question. Unfiltered searches and those using the broad filter of Clinical Queries produced large outputs and retrieved few relevant articles within the first 2 pages, resulting in a median sensitivity of only 10%–25%. In contrast, all searches using the narrow filter performed significantly better, with a median sensitivity of about 50% (all P < .001 compared with unfiltered queries) and positive predictive values of 20%–30% (P < .001 compared with unfiltered queries). This benefit was consistent for most clinical questions. Searches based on related articles retrieved about a third of the relevant studies. Conclusions The Clinical Queries narrow filter, along with well-formulated queries based on the PICO framework, provided the greatest aid in retrieving relevant clinical trials within the 2 first PubMed pages. These results can help clinicians apply effective strategies to answer their questions at the point of care. PMID:22693047

PubMed had a higher sensitivity than Ovid-MEDLINE in the search for systematic reviews.

PubMed

Katchamart, Wanruchada; Faulkner, Amy; Feldman, Brian; Tomlinson, George; Bombardier, Claire

2011-07-01

To compare the performance of Ovid-MEDLINE vs. PubMed for identifying randomized controlled trials of methotrexate (MTX) in patients with rheumatoid arthritis (RA). We created search strategies for Ovid-MEDLINE and PubMed for a systematic review of MTX in RA. Their performance was evaluated using sensitivity, precision, and number needed to read (NNR). Comparing searches in Ovid-MEDLINE vs. PubMed, PubMed retrieved more citations overall than Ovid-MEDLINE; however, of the 20 citations that met eligibility criteria for the review, Ovid-MEDLINE retrieved 17 and PubMed 18. The sensitivity was 85% for Ovid-MEDLINE vs. 90% for PubMed, whereas the precision and NNR were comparable (precision: 0.881% for Ovid-MEDLINE vs. 0.884% for PubMed and NNR: 114 for Ovid-MEDLINE vs. 113 for PubMed). In systematic reviews of RA, PubMed has higher sensitivity than Ovid-MEDLINE with comparable precision and NNR. This study highlights the importance of well-designed database-specific search strategies. Copyright © 2010 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

PubMed search filters for the study of putative outdoor air pollution determinants of disease

PubMed Central

Curti, Stefania; Gori, Davide; Di Gregori, Valentina; Farioli, Andrea; Baldasseroni, Alberto; Fantini, Maria Pia; Christiani, David C; Violante, Francesco S; Mattioli, Stefano

2016-01-01

Objectives Several PubMed search filters have been developed in contexts other than environmental. We aimed at identifying efficient PubMed search filters for the study of environmental determinants of diseases related to outdoor air pollution. Methods We compiled a list of Medical Subject Headings (MeSH) and non-MeSH terms seeming pertinent to outdoor air pollutants exposure as determinants of diseases in the general population. We estimated proportions of potentially pertinent articles to formulate two filters (one ‘more specific’, one ‘more sensitive’). Their overall performance was evaluated as compared with our gold standard derived from systematic reviews on diseases potentially related to outdoor air pollution. We tested these filters in the study of three diseases potentially associated with outdoor air pollution and calculated the number of needed to read (NNR) abstracts to identify one potentially pertinent article in the context of these diseases. Last searches were run in January 2016. Results The ‘more specific’ filter was based on the combination of terms that yielded a threshold of potentially pertinent articles ≥40%. The ‘more sensitive’ filter was based on the combination of all search terms under study. When compared with the gold standard, the ‘more specific’ filter reported the highest specificity (67.4%; with a sensitivity of 82.5%), while the ‘more sensitive’ one reported the highest sensitivity (98.5%; with a specificity of 47.9%). The NNR to find one potentially pertinent article was 1.9 for the ‘more specific’ filter and 3.3 for the ‘more sensitive’ one. Conclusions The proposed search filters could help healthcare professionals investigate environmental determinants of medical conditions that could be potentially related to outdoor air pollution. PMID:28003291

How to improve your PubMed/MEDLINE searches: 2. display settings, complex search queries and topic searching.

PubMed

Fatehi, Farhad; Gray, Leonard C; Wootton, Richard

2014-01-01

The way that PubMed results are displayed can be changed using the Display Settings drop-down menu in the result screen. There are three groups of options: Format, Items per page and Sort by, which allow a good deal of control. The results from several searches can be temporarily stored on the Clipboard. Records of interest can be selected on the results page using check boxes and can then be combined, for example to form a reference list. The Related Citations is a valuable feature of PubMed that can provide a set of similar articles when you have identified a record of interest among the results. You can easily search for RCTs or reviews using the appropriate filters or field tags. If you are interested in clinical articles, rather than basic science or health service research, then the Clinical Queries tool on the PubMed home page can be used to retrieve them.

Relative Citation Ratio of Top Twenty Macedonian Biomedical Scientists in PubMed: A New Metric that Uses Citation Rates to Measure Influence at the Article Level

PubMed Central

Spiroski, Mirko

2016-01-01

AIM: The aim of this study was to analyze relative citation ratio (RCR) of top twenty Macedonian biomedical scientists with a new metric that uses citation rates to measure influence at the article level. MATERIAL AND METHODS: Top twenty Macedonian biomedical scientists were identified by GoPubMed on the base of the number of deposited abstracts in PubMed, corrected with the data from previously published paper, and completed with the Macedonian biomedical scientists working in countries outside the Republic of Macedonia, but born or previously worked in the country. iCite was used as a tool to access a dashboard of bibliometrics for papers associated with a portfolio. RESULTS: The biggest number of top twenty Macedonian biomedical scientists has RCR lower than one. Only four Macedonian biomedical scientists have bigger RCR in comparison with those in PubMed. The most prominent RCR of 2.29 has Rosoklija G. RCR of the most influenced individual papers deposited in PubMed has shown the biggest value for the paper of Efremov D (35.19). This paper has the biggest number of authors (860). CONCLUSION: It is necessary to accept top twenty Macedonian biomedical scientists as an example of new metric that uses citation rates to measure influence at the article level, rather than qualification of the best Macedonian biomedical scientists. PMID:27335586

An automatic method to generate domain-specific investigator networks using PubMed abstracts.

PubMed

Yu, Wei; Yesupriya, Ajay; Wulf, Anja; Qu, Junfeng; Gwinn, Marta; Khoury, Muin J

2007-06-20

Collaboration among investigators has become critical to scientific research. This includes ad hoc collaboration established through personal contacts as well as formal consortia established by funding agencies. Continued growth in online resources for scientific research and communication has promoted the development of highly networked research communities. Extending these networks globally requires identifying additional investigators in a given domain, profiling their research interests, and collecting current contact information. We present a novel strategy for building investigator networks dynamically and producing detailed investigator profiles using data available in PubMed abstracts. We developed a novel strategy to obtain detailed investigator information by automatically parsing the affiliation string in PubMed records. We illustrated the results by using a published literature database in human genome epidemiology (HuGE Pub Lit) as a test case. Our parsing strategy extracted country information from 92.1% of the affiliation strings in a random sample of PubMed records and in 97.0% of HuGE records, with accuracies of 94.0% and 91.0%, respectively. Institution information was parsed from 91.3% of the general PubMed records (accuracy 86.8%) and from 94.2% of HuGE PubMed records (accuracy 87.0). We demonstrated the application of our approach to dynamic creation of investigator networks by creating a prototype information system containing a large database of PubMed abstracts relevant to human genome epidemiology (HuGE Pub Lit), indexed using PubMed medical subject headings converted to Unified Medical Language System concepts. Our method was able to identify 70-90% of the investigators/collaborators in three different human genetics fields; it also successfully identified 9 of 10 genetics investigators within the PREBIC network, an existing preterm birth research network. We successfully created a web-based prototype capable of creating domain-specific investigator networks based on an application that accurately generates detailed investigator profiles from PubMed abstracts combined with robust standard vocabularies. This approach could be used for other biomedical fields to efficiently establish domain-specific investigator networks.

An automatic method to generate domain-specific investigator networks using PubMed abstracts

PubMed Central

Yu, Wei; Yesupriya, Ajay; Wulf, Anja; Qu, Junfeng; Gwinn, Marta; Khoury, Muin J

2007-01-01

Background Collaboration among investigators has become critical to scientific research. This includes ad hoc collaboration established through personal contacts as well as formal consortia established by funding agencies. Continued growth in online resources for scientific research and communication has promoted the development of highly networked research communities. Extending these networks globally requires identifying additional investigators in a given domain, profiling their research interests, and collecting current contact information. We present a novel strategy for building investigator networks dynamically and producing detailed investigator profiles using data available in PubMed abstracts. Results We developed a novel strategy to obtain detailed investigator information by automatically parsing the affiliation string in PubMed records. We illustrated the results by using a published literature database in human genome epidemiology (HuGE Pub Lit) as a test case. Our parsing strategy extracted country information from 92.1% of the affiliation strings in a random sample of PubMed records and in 97.0% of HuGE records, with accuracies of 94.0% and 91.0%, respectively. Institution information was parsed from 91.3% of the general PubMed records (accuracy 86.8%) and from 94.2% of HuGE PubMed records (accuracy 87.0). We demonstrated the application of our approach to dynamic creation of investigator networks by creating a prototype information system containing a large database of PubMed abstracts relevant to human genome epidemiology (HuGE Pub Lit), indexed using PubMed medical subject headings converted to Unified Medical Language System concepts. Our method was able to identify 70–90% of the investigators/collaborators in three different human genetics fields; it also successfully identified 9 of 10 genetics investigators within the PREBIC network, an existing preterm birth research network. Conclusion We successfully created a web-based prototype capable of creating domain-specific investigator networks based on an application that accurately generates detailed investigator profiles from PubMed abstracts combined with robust standard vocabularies. This approach could be used for other biomedical fields to efficiently establish domain-specific investigator networks. PMID:17584920

Review of common conditions associated with periodontal ligament widening

PubMed Central

Mortazavi, Hamed

2016-01-01

Purpose The aim of this article is to review a group of lesions associated with periodontal ligament (PDL) widening. Materials and Methods An electronic search was performed using specialized databases such as Google Scholar, PubMed, PubMed Central, Science Direct, and Scopus to find relevant studies by using keywords such as “periodontium”, “periodontal ligament”, “periodontal ligament space”, “widened periodontal ligament”, and “periodontal ligament widening”. Results Out of nearly 200 articles, about 60 were broadly relevant to the topic. Ultimately, 47 articles closely related to the topic of interest were reviewed. When the relevant data were compiled, the following 10 entities were identified: occlusal/orthodontic trauma, periodontal disease/periodontitis, pulpo-periapical lesions, osteosarcoma, chondrosarcoma, non-Hodgkin lymphoma, progressive systemic sclerosis, radiation-induced bone defect, bisphosphonate-related osteonecrosis, and osteomyelitis. Conclusion Although PDL widening may be encountered by many dentists during their routine daily procedures, the clinician should consider some serious related conditions as well. PMID:28035300

Characterization of the mechanism of drug-drug interactions from PubMed using MeSH terms.

PubMed

Lu, Yin; Figler, Bryan; Huang, Hong; Tu, Yi-Cheng; Wang, Ju; Cheng, Feng

2017-01-01

Identifying drug-drug interaction (DDI) is an important topic for the development of safe pharmaceutical drugs and for the optimization of multidrug regimens for complex diseases such as cancer and HIV. There have been about 150,000 publications on DDIs in PubMed, which is a great resource for DDI studies. In this paper, we introduced an automatic computational method for the systematic analysis of the mechanism of DDIs using MeSH (Medical Subject Headings) terms from PubMed literature. MeSH term is a controlled vocabulary thesaurus developed by the National Library of Medicine for indexing and annotating articles. Our method can effectively identify DDI-relevant MeSH terms such as drugs, proteins and phenomena with high accuracy. The connections among these MeSH terms were investigated by using co-occurrence heatmaps and social network analysis. Our approach can be used to visualize relationships of DDI terms, which has the potential to help users better understand DDIs. As the volume of PubMed records increases, our method for automatic analysis of DDIs from the PubMed database will become more accurate.

PubMedPortable: A Framework for Supporting the Development of Text Mining Applications.

PubMed

Döring, Kersten; Grüning, Björn A; Telukunta, Kiran K; Thomas, Philippe; Günther, Stefan

2016-01-01

Information extraction from biomedical literature is continuously growing in scope and importance. Many tools exist that perform named entity recognition, e.g. of proteins, chemical compounds, and diseases. Furthermore, several approaches deal with the extraction of relations between identified entities. The BioCreative community supports these developments with yearly open challenges, which led to a standardised XML text annotation format called BioC. PubMed provides access to the largest open biomedical literature repository, but there is no unified way of connecting its data to natural language processing tools. Therefore, an appropriate data environment is needed as a basis to combine different software solutions and to develop customised text mining applications. PubMedPortable builds a relational database and a full text index on PubMed citations. It can be applied either to the complete PubMed data set or an arbitrary subset of downloaded PubMed XML files. The software provides the infrastructure to combine stand-alone applications by exporting different data formats, e.g. BioC. The presented workflows show how to use PubMedPortable to retrieve, store, and analyse a disease-specific data set. The provided use cases are well documented in the PubMedPortable wiki. The open-source software library is small, easy to use, and scalable to the user's system requirements. It is freely available for Linux on the web at https://github.com/KerstenDoering/PubMedPortable and for other operating systems as a virtual container. The approach was tested extensively and applied successfully in several projects.

PubMedPortable: A Framework for Supporting the Development of Text Mining Applications

PubMed Central

Döring, Kersten; Grüning, Björn A.; Telukunta, Kiran K.; Thomas, Philippe; Günther, Stefan

2016-01-01

Information extraction from biomedical literature is continuously growing in scope and importance. Many tools exist that perform named entity recognition, e.g. of proteins, chemical compounds, and diseases. Furthermore, several approaches deal with the extraction of relations between identified entities. The BioCreative community supports these developments with yearly open challenges, which led to a standardised XML text annotation format called BioC. PubMed provides access to the largest open biomedical literature repository, but there is no unified way of connecting its data to natural language processing tools. Therefore, an appropriate data environment is needed as a basis to combine different software solutions and to develop customised text mining applications. PubMedPortable builds a relational database and a full text index on PubMed citations. It can be applied either to the complete PubMed data set or an arbitrary subset of downloaded PubMed XML files. The software provides the infrastructure to combine stand-alone applications by exporting different data formats, e.g. BioC. The presented workflows show how to use PubMedPortable to retrieve, store, and analyse a disease-specific data set. The provided use cases are well documented in the PubMedPortable wiki. The open-source software library is small, easy to use, and scalable to the user’s system requirements. It is freely available for Linux on the web at https://github.com/KerstenDoering/PubMedPortable and for other operating systems as a virtual container. The approach was tested extensively and applied successfully in several projects. PMID:27706202

MET network in PubMed: a text-mined network visualization and curation system.

PubMed

Dai, Hong-Jie; Su, Chu-Hsien; Lai, Po-Ting; Huang, Ming-Siang; Jonnagaddala, Jitendra; Rose Jue, Toni; Rao, Shruti; Chou, Hui-Jou; Milacic, Marija; Singh, Onkar; Syed-Abdul, Shabbir; Hsu, Wen-Lian

2016-01-01

Metastasis is the dissemination of a cancer/tumor from one organ to another, and it is the most dangerous stage during cancer progression, causing more than 90% of cancer deaths. Improving the understanding of the complicated cellular mechanisms underlying metastasis requires investigations of the signaling pathways. To this end, we developed a METastasis (MET) network visualization and curation tool to assist metastasis researchers retrieve network information of interest while browsing through the large volume of studies in PubMed. MET can recognize relations among genes, cancers, tissues and organs of metastasis mentioned in the literature through text-mining techniques, and then produce a visualization of all mined relations in a metastasis network. To facilitate the curation process, MET is developed as a browser extension that allows curators to review and edit concepts and relations related to metastasis directly in PubMed. PubMed users can also view the metastatic networks integrated from the large collection of research papers directly through MET. For the BioCreative 2015 interactive track (IAT), a curation task was proposed to curate metastatic networks among PubMed abstracts. Six curators participated in the proposed task and a post-IAT task, curating 963 unique metastatic relations from 174 PubMed abstracts using MET.Database URL: http://btm.tmu.edu.tw/metastasisway. © The Author(s) 2016. Published by Oxford University Press.

Retracted Publications Within Radiology Journals.

PubMed

Rosenkrantz, Andrew B

2016-02-01

The purpose of this study was to characterize trends related to retracted publications within radiology journals. PubMed was queried to identify all articles with the publication type "retracted publication" or "notification of retraction." Articles published within radiology journals were identified using Journal Citation Reports' journal categories. Available versions of original articles and publication notices were accessed from journal websites. Citations to retracted publications were identified using Web of Science. Overall trends were assessed. Forty-eight retracted original research articles were identified within radiology journals since 1983, which included 1.1% of all PubMed "retracted publication" entries. Distinct PubMed entries were available for the retracted publication and retraction notification in 39 of 48 articles. The original PDF was available for 37 articles, although the articles were not watermarked as retracted in 23 cases. In six cases with a watermarked PDF, further searches identified nonwatermarked versions. Original HTML versions were available for 13 articles but 11 were not watermarked. The mean (± SD) delay between publication and retraction was 2.7 ± 2.8 years (range, 0-16 years). The mean number of citations to retracted articles was 10.9 ± 17.1 (range, 0-94 citations). Reasons for retraction included problematic or incorrect methods or results (although it typically was unclear whether these represented honest errors or misconduct) in 33.3% of cases, complete or partial duplicate publication in 33.3% of cases, plagiarism in 14.6% of cases, a permission issue in 8.3% of cases, the publisher's error in 6.3% of cases, and no identified reason in 6.3% of cases. One or no retractions occurred annually from 1986 to 2001, although two or more retractions occurred annually in nine of the 12 years from 2002 through 2013. Retraction represents an uncommon, yet potentially increasing, issue within radiology journals that publishers have inconsistently and insufficiently addressed. Greater awareness and training in proper biomedical research conduct, as well as establishment and enforcement of standardized publishers' policies, are warranted.

OvidSP Medline-to-PubMed search filter translation: a methodology for extending search filter range to include PubMed's unique content

PubMed Central

2013-01-01

Background PubMed translations of OvidSP Medline search filters offer searchers improved ease of access. They may also facilitate access to PubMed’s unique content, including citations for the most recently published biomedical evidence. Retrieving this content requires a search strategy comprising natural language terms (‘textwords’), rather than Medical Subject Headings (MeSH). We describe a reproducible methodology that uses a validated PubMed search filter translation to create a textword-only strategy to extend retrieval to PubMed’s unique heart failure literature. Methods We translated an OvidSP Medline heart failure search filter for PubMed and established version equivalence in terms of indexed literature retrieval. The PubMed version was then run within PubMed to identify citations retrieved by the filter’s MeSH terms (Heart failure, Left ventricular dysfunction, and Cardiomyopathy). It was then rerun with the same MeSH terms restricted to searching on title and abstract fields (i.e. as ‘textwords’). Citations retrieved by the MeSH search but not the textword search were isolated. Frequency analysis of their titles/abstracts identified natural language alternatives for those MeSH terms that performed less effectively as textwords. These terms were tested in combination to determine the best performing search string for reclaiming this ‘lost set’. This string, restricted to searching on PubMed’s unique content, was then combined with the validated PubMed translation to extend the filter’s performance in this database. Results The PubMed heart failure filter retrieved 6829 citations. Of these, 834 (12%) failed to be retrieved when MeSH terms were converted to textwords. Frequency analysis of the 834 citations identified five high frequency natural language alternatives that could improve retrieval of this set (cardiac failure, cardiac resynchronization, left ventricular systolic dysfunction, left ventricular diastolic dysfunction, and LV dysfunction). Together these terms reclaimed 157/834 (18.8%) of lost citations. Conclusions MeSH terms facilitate precise searching in PubMed’s indexed subset. They may, however, work less effectively as search terms prior to subject indexing. A validated PubMed search filter can be used to develop a supplementary textword-only search strategy to extend retrieval to PubMed’s unique content. A PubMed heart failure search filter is available on the CareSearch website (http://www.caresearch.com.au) providing access to both indexed and non-indexed heart failure evidence. PMID:23819658

Gaps within the Biomedical Literature: Initial Characterization and Assessment of Strategies for Discovery

PubMed Central

Peng, Yufang; Bonifield, Gary; Smalheiser, Neil R.

2017-01-01

Within well-established fields of biomedical science, we identify “gaps”, topical areas of investigation that might be expected to occur but are missing. We define a field by carrying out a topical PubMed query, and analyze Medical Subject Headings by which the set of retrieved articles are indexed. Medical Subject headings (MeSH terms) which occur in >1% of the articles are examined pairwise to see how often they are predicted to co-occur within individual articles (assuming that they are independent of each other). A pair of MeSH terms that are predicted to co-occur in at least 10 articles, yet are not observed to co-occur in any article, are “gaps” and were studied further in a corpus of 10 disease-related article sets and 10 related to biological processes. Overall, articles that filled gaps were cited more heavily than non-gap-filling articles and were 61% more likely to be published in multidisciplinary high-impact journals. Nine different features of these “gaps” were characterized and tested to learn which, if any, correlate with the appearance of one or more articles containing both MeSH terms within the next five years. Several different types of gaps were identified, each having distinct combinations of predictive features: a) those arising as a byproduct of MeSH indexing rules; b) those having little biological meaning; c) those representing “low hanging fruit” for immediate exploitation; and d) those representing gaps across disciplines or sub-disciplines that do not talk to each other or work together. We have built a free, open tool called “Mine the Gap!” that identifies and characterizes the “gaps” for any PubMed query, which can be accessed via the Anne O’Tate value-added PubMed search interface (http://arrowsmith.psych.uic.edu/cgi-bin/arrowsmith_uic/AnneOTate.cgi). PMID:29271976

Author Disambiguation in PubMed: Evidence on the Precision and Recall of Author-ity among NIH-Funded Scientists.

PubMed

Lerchenmueller, Marc J; Sorenson, Olav

2016-01-01

We examined the usefulness (precision) and completeness (recall) of the Author-ity author disambiguation for PubMed articles by associating articles with scientists funded by the National Institutes of Health (NIH). In doing so, we exploited established unique identifiers-Principal Investigator (PI) IDs-that the NIH assigns to funded scientists. Analyzing a set of 36,987 NIH scientists who received their first R01 grant between 1985 and 2009, we identified 355,921 articles appearing in PubMed that would allow us to evaluate the precision and recall of the Author-ity disambiguation. We found that Author-ity identified the NIH scientists with 99.51% precision across the articles. It had a corresponding recall of 99.64%. Precision and recall, moreover, appeared stable across common and uncommon last names, across ethnic backgrounds, and across levels of scientist productivity.

Google Scholar versus PubMed in locating primary literature to answer drug-related questions.

PubMed

Freeman, Maisha Kelly; Lauderdale, Stacy A; Kendrach, Michael G; Woolley, Thomas W

2009-03-01

Google Scholar linked more visitors to biomedical journal Web sites than did PubMed after the database's initial release; however, its usefulness in locating primary literature articles is unknown. To assess in both databases the availability of primary literature target articles; total number of citations; availability of free, full-text journal articles; and number of primary literature target articles retrieved by year within the first 100 citations of the search results. Drug information question reviews published in The Annals of Pharmacotherapy Drug Information Rounds column served as targets to determine the retrieval ability of Google Scholar and PubMed searches. Reviews printed in this column from January 2006 to June 2007 were eligible for study inclusion. Articles were chosen if at least 2 key words of the printed article were included in the PubMed Medical Subject Heading (MeSH) database, and these terms were searched in both databases. Twenty-two of 33 (67%) eligible Drug Information Rounds articles met the inclusion criteria. The median number of primary literature articles used in each of these articles was 6.5 (IQR 4.8, 8.3; mean +/- SD 8 +/- 5.4). No significant differences were found for the mean number of target primary literature articles located within the first 100 citations in Google Scholar and PubMed searches (5.1 +/- 3.9 vs 5.3 +/- 3.3; p = 0.868). Google Scholar searches located more total results than PubMed (2211.6 +/- 3999.5 vs 44.2 +/- 47.4; p = 0.019). The availability of free, full-text journal articles per Drug Information Rounds article was similar between the databases (1.8 +/- 1.7 vs 2.3 +/- 1.7; p = 0.325). More primary literature articles published prior to 2000 were located with Google Scholar searches compared with PubMed (62.8% vs 34.9%; p = 0.017); however, no statistically significant differences between the databases were observed for articles published after 2000 (66.4 vs 77.1; p = 0.074). No significant differences were identified in the number of target primary literature articles located between databases. PubMed searches yielded fewer total citations than Google Scholar results; however, PubMed appears to be more specific than Google Scholar for locating relevant primary literature articles.

Supplementary searches of PubMed to improve currency of MEDLINE and MEDLINE In-Process searches via Ovid.

PubMed

Duffy, Steven; de Kock, Shelley; Misso, Kate; Noake, Caro; Ross, Janine; Stirk, Lisa

2016-10-01

The research investigated whether conducting a supplementary search of PubMed in addition to the main MEDLINE (Ovid) search for a systematic review is worthwhile and to ascertain whether this PubMed search can be conducted quickly and if it retrieves unique, recently published, and ahead-of-print studies that are subsequently considered for inclusion in the final systematic review. Searches of PubMed were conducted after MEDLINE (Ovid) and MEDLINE In-Process (Ovid) searches had been completed for seven recent reviews. The searches were limited to records not in MEDLINE or MEDLINE In-Process (Ovid). Additional unique records were identified for all of the investigated reviews. Search strategies were adapted quickly to run in PubMed, and reviewer screening of the results was not time consuming. For each of the investigated reviews, studies were ordered for full screening; in six cases, studies retrieved from the supplementary PubMed searches were included in the final systematic review. Supplementary searching of PubMed for studies unavailable elsewhere is worthwhile and improves the currency of the systematic reviews.

Supplementary searches of PubMed to improve currency of MEDLINE and MEDLINE In-Process searches via Ovid

PubMed Central

Duffy, Steven; de Kock, Shelley; Misso, Kate; Noake, Caro; Ross, Janine; Stirk, Lisa

2016-01-01

Objective The research investigated whether conducting a supplementary search of PubMed in addition to the main MEDLINE (Ovid) search for a systematic review is worthwhile and to ascertain whether this PubMed search can be conducted quickly and if it retrieves unique, recently published, and ahead-of-print studies that are subsequently considered for inclusion in the final systematic review. Methods Searches of PubMed were conducted after MEDLINE (Ovid) and MEDLINE In-Process (Ovid) searches had been completed for seven recent reviews. The searches were limited to records not in MEDLINE or MEDLINE In-Process (Ovid). Results Additional unique records were identified for all of the investigated reviews. Search strategies were adapted quickly to run in PubMed, and reviewer screening of the results was not time consuming. For each of the investigated reviews, studies were ordered for full screening; in six cases, studies retrieved from the supplementary PubMed searches were included in the final systematic review. Conclusion Supplementary searching of PubMed for studies unavailable elsewhere is worthwhile and improves the currency of the systematic reviews. PMID:27822154

PubMed search filters for the study of putative outdoor air pollution determinants of disease.

PubMed

Curti, Stefania; Gori, Davide; Di Gregori, Valentina; Farioli, Andrea; Baldasseroni, Alberto; Fantini, Maria Pia; Christiani, David C; Violante, Francesco S; Mattioli, Stefano

2016-12-21

Several PubMed search filters have been developed in contexts other than environmental. We aimed at identifying efficient PubMed search filters for the study of environmental determinants of diseases related to outdoor air pollution. We compiled a list of Medical Subject Headings (MeSH) and non-MeSH terms seeming pertinent to outdoor air pollutants exposure as determinants of diseases in the general population. We estimated proportions of potentially pertinent articles to formulate two filters (one 'more specific', one 'more sensitive'). Their overall performance was evaluated as compared with our gold standard derived from systematic reviews on diseases potentially related to outdoor air pollution. We tested these filters in the study of three diseases potentially associated with outdoor air pollution and calculated the number of needed to read (NNR) abstracts to identify one potentially pertinent article in the context of these diseases. Last searches were run in January 2016. The 'more specific' filter was based on the combination of terms that yielded a threshold of potentially pertinent articles ≥40%. The 'more sensitive' filter was based on the combination of all search terms under study. When compared with the gold standard, the 'more specific' filter reported the highest specificity (67.4%; with a sensitivity of 82.5%), while the 'more sensitive' one reported the highest sensitivity (98.5%; with a specificity of 47.9%). The NNR to find one potentially pertinent article was 1.9 for the 'more specific' filter and 3.3 for the 'more sensitive' one. The proposed search filters could help healthcare professionals investigate environmental determinants of medical conditions that could be potentially related to outdoor air pollution. Published by the BMJ Publishing Group Limited. For permission to use (where not already granted under a licence) please go to http://www.bmj.com/company/products-services/rights-and-licensing/.

Discrepancies among Scopus, Web of Science, and PubMed coverage of funding information in medical journal articles.

PubMed

Kokol, Peter; Vošner, Helena Blažun

2018-01-01

The overall aim of the present study was to compare the coverage of existing research funding information for articles indexed in Scopus, Web of Science, and PubMed databases. The numbers of articles with funding information published in 2015 were identified in the three selected databases and compared using bibliometric analysis of a sample of twenty-eight prestigious medical journals. Frequency analysis of the number of articles with funding information showed statistically significant differences between Scopus, Web of Science, and PubMed databases. The largest proportion of articles with funding information was found in Web of Science (29.0%), followed by PubMed (14.6%) and Scopus (7.7%). The results show that coverage of funding information differs significantly among Scopus, Web of Science, and PubMed databases in a sample of the same medical journals. Moreover, we found that, currently, funding data in PubMed is more difficult to obtain and analyze compared with that in the other two databases.

TwiMed: Twitter and PubMed Comparable Corpus of Drugs, Diseases, Symptoms, and Their Relations

PubMed Central

Miyao, Yusuke; Collier, Nigel

2017-01-01

Background Work on pharmacovigilance systems using texts from PubMed and Twitter typically target at different elements and use different annotation guidelines resulting in a scenario where there is no comparable set of documents from both Twitter and PubMed annotated in the same manner. Objective This study aimed to provide a comparable corpus of texts from PubMed and Twitter that can be used to study drug reports from these two sources of information, allowing researchers in the area of pharmacovigilance using natural language processing (NLP) to perform experiments to better understand the similarities and differences between drug reports in Twitter and PubMed. Methods We produced a corpus comprising 1000 tweets and 1000 PubMed sentences selected using the same strategy and annotated at entity level by the same experts (pharmacists) using the same set of guidelines. Results The resulting corpus, annotated by two pharmacists, comprises semantically correct annotations for a set of drugs, diseases, and symptoms. This corpus contains the annotations for 3144 entities, 2749 relations, and 5003 attributes. Conclusions We present a corpus that is unique in its characteristics as this is the first corpus for pharmacovigilance curated from Twitter messages and PubMed sentences using the same data selection and annotation strategies. We believe this corpus will be of particular interest for researchers willing to compare results from pharmacovigilance systems (eg, classifiers and named entity recognition systems) when using data from Twitter and from PubMed. We hope that given the comprehensive set of drug names and the annotated entities and relations, this corpus becomes a standard resource to compare results from different pharmacovigilance studies in the area of NLP. PMID:28468748

TwiMed: Twitter and PubMed Comparable Corpus of Drugs, Diseases, Symptoms, and Their Relations.

PubMed

Alvaro, Nestor; Miyao, Yusuke; Collier, Nigel

2017-05-03

Work on pharmacovigilance systems using texts from PubMed and Twitter typically target at different elements and use different annotation guidelines resulting in a scenario where there is no comparable set of documents from both Twitter and PubMed annotated in the same manner. This study aimed to provide a comparable corpus of texts from PubMed and Twitter that can be used to study drug reports from these two sources of information, allowing researchers in the area of pharmacovigilance using natural language processing (NLP) to perform experiments to better understand the similarities and differences between drug reports in Twitter and PubMed. We produced a corpus comprising 1000 tweets and 1000 PubMed sentences selected using the same strategy and annotated at entity level by the same experts (pharmacists) using the same set of guidelines. The resulting corpus, annotated by two pharmacists, comprises semantically correct annotations for a set of drugs, diseases, and symptoms. This corpus contains the annotations for 3144 entities, 2749 relations, and 5003 attributes. We present a corpus that is unique in its characteristics as this is the first corpus for pharmacovigilance curated from Twitter messages and PubMed sentences using the same data selection and annotation strategies. We believe this corpus will be of particular interest for researchers willing to compare results from pharmacovigilance systems (eg, classifiers and named entity recognition systems) when using data from Twitter and from PubMed. We hope that given the comprehensive set of drug names and the annotated entities and relations, this corpus becomes a standard resource to compare results from different pharmacovigilance studies in the area of NLP. ©Nestor Alvaro, Yusuke Miyao, Nigel Collier. Originally published in JMIR Public Health and Surveillance (http://publichealth.jmir.org), 03.05.2017.

[Systematic literature search in PubMed : A short introduction].

PubMed

Blümle, A; Lagrèze, W A; Motschall, E

2018-03-01

In order to identify current (and relevant) evidence for a specific clinical question within the unmanageable amount of information available, solid skills in performing a systematic literature search are essential. An efficient approach is to search a biomedical database containing relevant literature citations of study reports. The best known database is MEDLINE, which is searchable for free via the PubMed interface. In this article, we explain step by step how to perform a systematic literature search via PubMed by means of an example research question in the field of ophthalmology. First, we demonstrate how to translate the clinical problem into a well-framed and searchable research question, how to identify relevant search terms and how to conduct a text word search and a search with keywords in medical subject headings (MeSH) terms. We then show how to limit the number of search results if the search yields too many irrelevant hits and how to increase the number in the case of too few citations. Finally, we summarize all essential principles that guide a literature search via PubMed.

RESPIRATORY INFECTIONS RESEARCH IN AFGHANISTAN: BIBLIOMETRIC ANALYSIS WITH THE DATABASE PUBMED.

PubMed

Pilsczek, Florian H

2015-01-01

Infectious diseases research in a low-income country like Afghanistan is important. In this study an internet-based database Pubmed was used for bibliometric analysis of infectious diseases research activity. Research publications entries in PubMed were analysed according to number of publications, topic, publication type, and country of investigators. Between 2002-2011, 226 (77.7%) publications with the following research topics were identified: respiratory infections 3 (1.3%); parasites 8 (3.5%); diarrhoea 10 (4.4%); tuberculosis 10 (4.4%); human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) 11 (4.9%); multi-drug resistant bacteria (MDR) 18 (8.0%); polio 31 (13.7%); leishmania 31 (13.7%); malaria 46 (20.4%). From 2002-2011, 11 (4.9%) publications were basic science laboratory-based research studies. Between 2002-2011, 8 (3.5%) publications from Afghan institutions were identified. In conclusion, the internet-based database Pubmed can be consulted to collect data for guidance of infectious diseases research activity of low-income countries. The presented data suggest that infectious diseases research in Afghanistan is limited for respiratory infections research, has few studies conducted by Afghan institutions, and limited laboratory-based research contributions.

History and Trends of "Personal Health Record" Research in PubMed

PubMed Central

Kim, Jeongeun; Bates, David W.

2011-01-01

Objectives The purpose of this study was to review history and trends of personal health record research in PubMed and to provide accurate understanding and categorical analysis of expert opinions. Methods For the search strategy, PubMed was queried for 'personal health record, personal record, and PHR' in the title and abstract fields. Those containing different definitions of the word were removed by one-by-one analysis from the results, 695 articles. In the end, total of 229 articles were analyzed in this research. Results The results show that the changes in terms over the years and the shift to patient centeredness and mixed usage. And we identified history and trend of PHR research in some category that the number of publications by year, topic, methodologies and target diseases. Also from analysis of MeSH terms, we can show the focal interest in regards the PHR boundaries and related subjects. Conclusions For PHRs to be efficiently used by general public, initial understanding of the history and trends of PHR research may be helpful. Simultaneously, accurate understanding and categorical analysis of expert opinions that can lead to the development and growth of PHRs will be valuable to their adoption and expansion. PMID:21818452

The Case for Lung Cancer Screening: What Nurses Need to Know.

PubMed

Sorrie, Kerrin; Cates, Lisa; Hill, Alethea

2016-06-01

Lung cancer screening with low-dose helical computed tomography (LDCT) can improve high-risk individuals' chances of being diagnosed at an earlier stage and increase survival. The aims of this article are to present the risk factors associated with the development of lung cancer, identify patients at high risk for lung cancer qualifying for LDCT screening, and understand the importance of early lung cancer detection through the use of LDCT screening. PubMed and CINAHL® databases were searched with key words lung cancer screening to identify full-text academic articles from 2004-2014. This resulted in 529 articles from PubMed and 195 from CINAHL. PubMed offered suggestions for additional relevant journal articles. The National Comprehensive Cancer Network guidelines also provided substantial evidence-based information. Nurses need to provide support, education, and resources for patients undergoing lung cancer screening.

Semi-Supervised Learning to Identify UMLS Semantic Relations.

PubMed

Luo, Yuan; Uzuner, Ozlem

2014-01-01

The UMLS Semantic Network is constructed by experts and requires periodic expert review to update. We propose and implement a semi-supervised approach for automatically identifying UMLS semantic relations from narrative text in PubMed. Our method analyzes biomedical narrative text to collect semantic entity pairs, and extracts multiple semantic, syntactic and orthographic features for the collected pairs. We experiment with seeded k-means clustering with various distance metrics. We create and annotate a ground truth corpus according to the top two levels of the UMLS semantic relation hierarchy. We evaluate our system on this corpus and characterize the learning curves of different clustering configuration. Using KL divergence consistently performs the best on the held-out test data. With full seeding, we obtain macro-averaged F-measures above 70% for clustering the top level UMLS relations (2-way), and above 50% for clustering the second level relations (7-way).

[Bibliometrics and visualization analysis of land use regression models in ambient air pollution research].

PubMed

Zhang, Y J; Zhou, D H; Bai, Z P; Xue, F X

2018-02-10

Objective: To quantitatively analyze the current status and development trends regarding the land use regression (LUR) models on ambient air pollution studies. Methods: Relevant literature from the PubMed database before June 30, 2017 was analyzed, using the Bibliographic Items Co-occurrence Matrix Builder (BICOMB 2.0). Keywords co-occurrence networks, cluster mapping and timeline mapping were generated, using the CiteSpace 5.1.R5 software. Relevant literature identified in three Chinese databases was also reviewed. Results: Four hundred sixty four relevant papers were retrieved from the PubMed database. The number of papers published showed an annual increase, in line with the growing trend of the index. Most papers were published in the journal of Environmental Health Perspectives . Results from the Co-word cluster analysis identified five clusters: cluster#0 consisted of birth cohort studies related to the health effects of prenatal exposure to air pollution; cluster#1 referred to land use regression modeling and exposure assessment; cluster#2 was related to the epidemiology on traffic exposure; cluster#3 dealt with the exposure to ultrafine particles and related health effects; cluster#4 described the exposure to black carbon and related health effects. Data from Timeline mapping indicated that cluster#0 and#1 were the main research areas while cluster#3 and#4 were the up-coming hot areas of research. Ninety four relevant papers were retrieved from the Chinese databases with most of them related to studies on modeling. Conclusion: In order to better assess the health-related risks of ambient air pollution, and to best inform preventative public health intervention policies, application of LUR models to environmental epidemiology studies in China should be encouraged.

Demystifying the Search Button

PubMed Central

McKeever, Liam; Nguyen, Van; Peterson, Sarah J.; Gomez-Perez, Sandra

2015-01-01

A thorough review of the literature is the basis of all research and evidence-based practice. A gold-standard efficient and exhaustive search strategy is needed to ensure all relevant citations have been captured and that the search performed is reproducible. The PubMed database comprises both the MEDLINE and non-MEDLINE databases. MEDLINE-based search strategies are robust but capture only 89% of the total available citations in PubMed. The remaining 11% include the most recent and possibly relevant citations but are only searchable through less efficient techniques. An effective search strategy must employ both the MEDLINE and the non-MEDLINE portion of PubMed to ensure all studies have been identified. The robust MEDLINE search strategies are used for the MEDLINE portion of the search. Usage of the less robust strategies is then efficiently confined to search only the remaining 11% of PubMed citations that have not been indexed for MEDLINE. The current article offers step-by-step instructions for building such a search exploring methods for the discovery of medical subject heading (MeSH) terms to search MEDLINE, text-based methods for exploring the non-MEDLINE database, information on the limitations of convenience algorithms such as the “related citations feature,” the strengths and pitfalls associated with commonly used filters, the proper usage of Boolean operators to organize a master search strategy, and instructions for automating that search through “MyNCBI” to receive search query updates by email as new citations become available. PMID:26129895

Acute diagnostic biomarkers for spinal cord injury: review of the literature and preliminary research report.

PubMed

Yokobori, Shoji; Zhang, Zhiqun; Moghieb, Ahmed; Mondello, Stefania; Gajavelli, Shyam; Dietrich, W Dalton; Bramlett, Helen; Hayes, Ronald L; Wang, Michael; Wang, Kevin K W; Bullock, M Ross

2015-05-01

Many efforts have been made to create new diagnostic technologies for use in the diagnosis of central nervous system injury. However, there is still no consensus for the use of biomarkers in clinical acute spinal cord injury (SCI). The aims of this review are (1) to evaluate the current status of neurochemical biomarkers and (2) to discuss their potential acute diagnostic role in SCI by reviewing the literature. PubMed (http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed) was searched up to 2012 to identify publications concerning diagnostic biomarkers in SCI. To support more knowledge, we also checked secondary references in the primarily retrieved literature. Neurofilaments, cleaved-Tau, microtubule-associated protein 2, myelin basic protein, neuron-specific enolase, S100β, and glial fibrillary acidic protein were identified as structural protein biomarkers in SCI by this review process. We could not find reports relating ubiquitin C-terminal hydrolase-L1 and α-II spectrin breakdown products, which are widely researched in other central nervous system injuries. Therefore, we present our preliminary data relating to these two biomarkers. Some of biomarkers showed promising results for SCI diagnosis and outcome prediction; however, there were unresolved issues relating to accuracy and their accessibility. Currently, there still are not many reports focused on diagnostic biomarkers in SCI. This fact warranted the need for greater efforts to innovate sensitive and reliable biomarkers for SCI. Copyright © 2015 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Glycemic targets and medication limitations for type 2 diabetes mellitus in the older adult.

PubMed

Thompson, Angela M; Linnebur, Sunny A; Vande Griend, Joseph P; Saseen, Joseph J

2014-02-01

To review the optimal management of type 2 diabetes mellitus (T2DM) in the older adult. A PubMed search was completed to identify publications in the English language from 1947 to 2013 using combinations of the search terms: geriatrics, aged, diabetes mellitus, and type 2 diabetes mellitus. References of articles were also reviewed for inclusion if not identified in the PubMed search. Original studies, clinical reviews, and guidelines were identified and evaluated for clinical relevance. Although the number of older adults with T2DM is growing, evidence for the treatment of T2DM in this population is lacking. Barriers such as polypharmacy, comorbid conditions, economic limitations, cognitive impairment, and increased risk of hypoglycemia may limit optimal glycemic control in older adults. Several organizations provide recommendations for glycemic targets and recommend using standard glycemic goals in most healthy older adults. However, less stringent goals are necessary in certain older populations such as those patients with limited life expectancy and severe hypoglycemia. In general, glycemic goals should be individualized in older patients. Age-related pharmacokinetic and pharmacodynamic changes, comorbid conditions, adverse drug reactions, ease of medication administration, and cost of medications necessitate the need to individualize pharmacologic therapy. Glycemic targets and medication use for T2DM should be individualized in older adults.

Trends and topics in eye disease research in PubMed from 2010 to 2014.

PubMed

Boudry, Christophe; Denion, Eric; Mortemousque, Bruno; Mouriaux, Fréderic

2016-01-01

The purpose of this study is to provide a report on scientific production during the period 2010-2014 in order to identify the major topics as well as the predominant actors (journals, countries, continents) involved in the field of eye disease. A PubMed search was carried out to extract articles related to eye diseases during the period 2010-2014. Data were downloaded and processed through developed PHP scripts for further analysis. A total of 62,123 articles were retrieved. A total of 3,368 different journals were found, and 19 journals were identified as "core journals" according to Braford's law. English was by far the predominant language. A total of 853,182 MeSH terms were found, representing an average of 13.73 (SD = 4.98) MeSH terms per article. Among these 853,182 MeSH terms, 14,689 different MeSH terms were identified. Vision Disorders, Glaucoma, Diabetic Retinopathy, Macular Degeneration, and Cataract were the most frequent five MeSH terms related to eye diseases. The analysis of the total number of publications showed that Europe and Asia were the most productive continents, and the USA and China the most productive countries. Interestingly, using the mean Five-Year Impact Factor, the two most productive continents were North America and Oceania. After adjustment for population, the overall ranking positions changed in favor of smaller countries (i.e. Iceland, Switzerland, Denmark, and New Zealand), while after adjustment for Gross Domestic Product (GDP), the overall ranking positions changed in favor of some developing countries (Malawi, Guatemala, Singapore). Due to the large number of articles included and the numerous parameters analyzed, this study provides a wide view of scientific productivity related to eye diseases during the period 2010-2014 and allows us to better understand this field.

Relational Care for Perinatal Substance Use: A Systematic Review.

PubMed

Kramlich, Debra; Kronk, Rebecca

2015-01-01

The purpose of this systematic review of the literature is to highlight published studies of perinatal substance use disorder that address relational aspects of various care delivery models to identify opportunities for future studies in this area. Quantitative, qualitative, and mixed-methods studies that included relational variables, such as healthcare provider engagement with pregnant women and facilitation of maternal-infant bonding, were identified using PubMed, Scopus, and EBSCO databases. Key words included neonatal abstinence syndrome, drug, opioid, substance, dependence, and pregnancy. Six studies included in this review identified statistically and/or clinically significant positive maternal and neonatal outcomes thought to be linked to engagement in antenatal care and development of caring relationships with healthcare providers. Comprehensive, integrated multidisciplinary services for pregnant women with substance use disorder aimed at harm reduction are showing positive results. Evidence exists that pregnant women's engagement with comprehensive services facilitated by caring relationships with healthcare providers may improve perinatal outcomes. Gaps in the literature remain; studies have yet to identify the relative contribution of multiple risk factors to adverse outcomes as well as program components most likely to improve outcomes.

Author Disambiguation in PubMed: Evidence on the Precision and Recall of Author-ity among NIH-Funded Scientists

PubMed Central

Lerchenmueller, Marc J.; Sorenson, Olav

2016-01-01

We examined the usefulness (precision) and completeness (recall) of the Author-ity author disambiguation for PubMed articles by associating articles with scientists funded by the National Institutes of Health (NIH). In doing so, we exploited established unique identifiers—Principal Investigator (PI) IDs—that the NIH assigns to funded scientists. Analyzing a set of 36,987 NIH scientists who received their first R01 grant between 1985 and 2009, we identified 355,921 articles appearing in PubMed that would allow us to evaluate the precision and recall of the Author-ity disambiguation. We found that Author-ity identified the NIH scientists with 99.51% precision across the articles. It had a corresponding recall of 99.64%. Precision and recall, moreover, appeared stable across common and uncommon last names, across ethnic backgrounds, and across levels of scientist productivity. PMID:27367860

Analyses of infectious disease patterns and drivers largely lack insights from social epidemiology: contemporary patterns and future opportunities

PubMed Central

Noppert, Grace A; Kubale, John T; Wilson, Mark L

2017-01-01

Background Infectious disease epidemiologists have long recognised the importance of social variables as drivers of epidemics and disease risk, yet few apply analytic approaches from social epidemiology. We quantified and evaluated the extent to which recent infectious disease research is employing the perspectives and methods of social epidemiology by replicating the methodology used by Cohen et al in a 2007 study. Methods 2 search strategies were used to identify and review articles published from 1 January 2005 to 31 December 2013. First, we performed a keyword search of ‘social epidemiology’ in the title/abstract/text of published studies identified in PubMed, PsychInfo and ISI Web of Science, and classified each study as pertaining to infectious, non-infectious or other outcomes. A second PubMed search identified articles that were cross-referenced under non-infectious or infectious, and search terms relating to social variables. The abstracts of all articles were read, classified and examined to identify patterns over time. Results Findings suggest that infectious disease research publications that explicitly or implicitly incorporate social epidemiological approaches have stagnated in recent years. While the number of publications that were explicitly self-classified as ‘social epidemiology’ has risen, the proportion that investigated infectious disease outcomes has declined. Furthermore, infectious diseases accounted for the smallest proportion of articles that were cross-referenced with Medical Subject Headings (MeSH) terms related to social factors, and most of these involved sexually transmitted diseases. Conclusions The current landscape of infectious disease epidemiology could benefit from new approaches to understanding how the social and biophysical environment sustains transmission and exacerbates disparities. The framework of social epidemiology provides infectious disease researchers with such a perspective and research opportunity. PMID:27799618

PubMed search strategies for the identification of etiologic associations between hypothalamic-pituitary disorders and other medical conditions.

PubMed

Guaraldi, Federica; Grottoli, Silvia; Arvat, Emanuela; Mattioli, Stefano; Ghigo, Ezio; Gori, Davide

2013-12-01

Biomedical literature has enormously grown in the last decades and become broadly available through online databases. Ad-hoc search methods, created on the basis of research field and goals, are required to enhance the quality of searching. Aim of this study was to formulate efficient, evidence-based PubMed search strategies to retrieve articles assessing etiologic associations between a condition of interest and hypothalamic-pituitary disorders (HPD). Based on expert knowledge, 17 MeSH (Medical Subjects Headings) and 79 free terms related to HPD were identified to search PubMed. Using random samples of abstracts retrieved by each term, we estimated the proportion of articles containing pertinent information and formulated two strings (one more specific, one more sensitive) for the detection of articles focusing on the etiology of HPD, that were then applied to retrieve articles identifying possible etiologic associations between HPD and three diseases (malaria, LHON and celiac disease) considered not associated to HPD, and define the number of abstracts needed to read (NNR) to find one potentially pertinent article. We propose two strings: one sensitive string derived from the combination of articles providing the largest literature coverage in the field and one specific including combined terms retrieving ≥40% of potentially pertinent articles. NNR were 2.1 and 1.6 for malaria, 3.36 and 2.29 for celiac disease, 2.8 and 2.2 for LHON, respectively. For the first time, two reliable, readily applicable strings are proposed for the retrieval of medical literature assessing putative etiologic associations between HPD and other medical conditions of interest.

Impact of PubMed search filters on the retrieval of evidence by physicians.

PubMed

Shariff, Salimah Z; Sontrop, Jessica M; Haynes, R Brian; Iansavichus, Arthur V; McKibbon, K Ann; Wilczynski, Nancy L; Weir, Matthew A; Speechley, Mark R; Thind, Amardeep; Garg, Amit X

2012-02-21

Physicians face challenges when searching PubMed for research evidence, and they may miss relevant articles while retrieving too many nonrelevant articles. We investigated whether the use of search filters in PubMed improves searching by physicians. We asked a random sample of Canadian nephrologists to answer unique clinical questions derived from 100 systematic reviews of renal therapy. Physicians provided the search terms that they would type into PubMed to locate articles to answer these questions. We entered the physician-provided search terms into PubMed and applied two types of search filters alone or in combination: a methods-based filter designed to identify high-quality studies about treatment (clinical queries "therapy") and a topic-based filter designed to identify studies with renal content. We evaluated the comprehensiveness (proportion of relevant articles found) and efficiency (ratio of relevant to nonrelevant articles) of the filtered and nonfiltered searches. Primary studies included in the systematic reviews served as the reference standard for relevant articles. The average physician-provided search terms retrieved 46% of the relevant articles, while 6% of the retrieved articles were relevant (corrected) (the ratio of relevant to nonrelevant articles was 1:16). The use of both filters together produced a marked improvement in efficiency, resulting in a ratio of relevant to nonrelevant articles of 1:5 (16 percentage point improvement; 99% confidence interval 9% to 22%; p < 0.003) with no substantive change in comprehensiveness (44% of relevant articles found; p = 0.55). The use of PubMed search filters improves the efficiency of physician searches. Improved search performance may enhance the transfer of research into practice and improve patient care.

Information Retrieval in Telemedicine: a Comparative Study on Bibliographic Databases

PubMed Central

Ahmadi, Maryam; Sarabi, Roghayeh Ershad; Orak, Roohangiz Jamshidi; Bahaadinbeigy, Kambiz

2015-01-01

Background and Aims: The first step in each systematic review is selection of the most valid database that can provide the highest number of relevant references. This study was carried out to determine the most suitable database for information retrieval in telemedicine field. Methods: Cinhal, PubMed, Web of Science and Scopus databases were searched for telemedicine matched with Education, cost benefit and patient satisfaction. After analysis of the obtained results, the accuracy coefficient, sensitivity, uniqueness and overlap of databases were calculated. Results: The studied databases differed in the number of retrieved articles. PubMed was identified as the most suitable database for retrieving information on the selected topics with the accuracy and sensitivity ratios of 50.7% and 61.4% respectively. The uniqueness percent of retrieved articles ranged from 38% for Pubmed to 3.0% for Cinhal. The highest overlap rate (18.6%) was found between PubMed and Web of Science. Less than 1% of articles have been indexed in all searched databases. Conclusion: PubMed is suggested as the most suitable database for starting search in telemedicine and after PubMed, Scopus and Web of Science can retrieve about 90% of the relevant articles. PMID:26236086

Time-dependent migration of citations through PubMed and OvidSP subsets: a study on a series of simultaneous PubMed and OvidSP searches.

PubMed

Boeker, Martin; Vach, Werner; Motschall, Edith

2013-01-01

To quantitatively describe (1) differences between search results derived at consecutive time points with the PubMed and OvidSP literature search interfaces over a five day interval, and (2) the migration of citations through different subsets to estimate the timeliness of OvidSP. PubMed-Identifiers (PMIDs) of the following subsets were retrieved from PubMed and OvidSP simultaneously (within 8 h) at 11 days in March and April 2010 including 5 consecutive days: as supplied by publisher, in process, PubMed not MEDLINE, and OLDMEDLINE. Search results were compared for difference and intersection sets. The migration of citations on individual level was determined by comparison of corresponding sets over several days. The "in process" set was stable with about 446,000 - 452,000 citations; a small fraction of up to 3 % of the total subsets were in PubMed only and OvidSP only subsets. About 96 % of the ca. 10,500 citations in the OvidSP only subset migrated within 2 days out of the "in process" subset. The database of OvidSP is updated within a period of two days.

Information Retrieval in Telemedicine: a Comparative Study on Bibliographic Databases.

PubMed

Ahmadi, Maryam; Sarabi, Roghayeh Ershad; Orak, Roohangiz Jamshidi; Bahaadinbeigy, Kambiz

2015-06-01

The first step in each systematic review is selection of the most valid database that can provide the highest number of relevant references. This study was carried out to determine the most suitable database for information retrieval in telemedicine field. Cinhal, PubMed, Web of Science and Scopus databases were searched for telemedicine matched with Education, cost benefit and patient satisfaction. After analysis of the obtained results, the accuracy coefficient, sensitivity, uniqueness and overlap of databases were calculated. The studied databases differed in the number of retrieved articles. PubMed was identified as the most suitable database for retrieving information on the selected topics with the accuracy and sensitivity ratios of 50.7% and 61.4% respectively. The uniqueness percent of retrieved articles ranged from 38% for Pubmed to 3.0% for Cinhal. The highest overlap rate (18.6%) was found between PubMed and Web of Science. Less than 1% of articles have been indexed in all searched databases. PubMed is suggested as the most suitable database for starting search in telemedicine and after PubMed, Scopus and Web of Science can retrieve about 90% of the relevant articles.

Identification of risk conditions for the development of adrenal disorders: how optimized PubMed search strategies makes the difference.

PubMed

Guaraldi, Federica; Parasiliti-Caprino, Mirko; Goggi, Riccardo; Beccuti, Guglielmo; Grottoli, Silvia; Arvat, Emanuela; Ghizzoni, Lucia; Ghigo, Ezio; Giordano, Roberta; Gori, Davide

2014-12-01

The exponential growth of scientific literature available through electronic databases (namely PubMed) has increased the chance of finding interesting articles. At the same time, search has become more complicated, time consuming, and at risk of missing important information. Therefore, optimized strategies have to be adopted to maximize searching impact. The aim of this study was to formulate efficient strings to search PubMed for etiologic associations between adrenal disorders (ADs) and other conditions. A comprehensive list of terms identifying endogenous conditions primarily affecting adrenals was compiled. An ad hoc analysis was performed to find the best way to express each term in order to find the highest number of potentially pertinent articles in PubMed. A predefined number of retrieved abstracts were read to assess their association with ADs' etiology. A more sensitive (providing the largest literature coverage) and a more specific (including only those terms retrieving >40 % of potentially pertinent articles) string were formulated. Various researches were performed to assess strings' ability to identify articles of interest in comparison with non-optimized literature searches. We formulated optimized, ready applicable tools for the identification of the literature assessing etiologic associations in the field of ADs using PubMed, and demonstrated the advantages deriving from their application. Detailed description of the methodological process is also provided, so that this work can easily be translated to other fields of practice.

Information sources for obesity prevention policy research: a review of systematic reviews.

PubMed

Hanneke, Rosie; Young, Sabrina K

2017-08-08

Systematic identification of evidence in health policy can be time-consuming and challenging. This study examines three questions pertaining to systematic reviews on obesity prevention policy, in order to identify the most efficient search methods: (1) What percentage of the primary studies selected for inclusion in the reviews originated in scholarly as opposed to gray literature? (2) How much of the primary scholarly literature in this topic area is indexed in PubMed/MEDLINE? (3) Which databases index the greatest number of primary studies not indexed in PubMed, and are these databases searched consistently across systematic reviews? We identified systematic reviews on obesity prevention policy and explored their search methods and citations. We determined the percentage of scholarly vs. gray literature cited, the most frequently cited journals, and whether each primary study was indexed in PubMed. We searched 21 databases for all primary study articles not indexed in PubMed to determine which database(s) indexed the highest number of these relevant articles. In total, 21 systematic reviews were identified. Ten of the 21 systematic reviews reported searching gray literature, and 12 reviews ultimately included gray literature in their analyses. Scholarly articles accounted for 577 of the 649 total primary study papers. Of these, 495 (76%) were indexed in PubMed. Google Scholar retrieved the highest number of the remaining 82 non-PubMed scholarly articles, followed by Scopus and EconLit. The Journal of the American Dietetic Association was the most-cited journal. Researchers can maximize search efficiency by searching a small yet targeted selection of both scholarly and gray literature resources. A highly sensitive search of PubMed and those databases that index the greatest number of relevant articles not indexed in PubMed, namely multidisciplinary and economics databases, could save considerable time and effort. When combined with a gray literature search and additional search methods, including cited reference searching and consulting with experts, this approach could help maintain broad retrieval of relevant studies while improving search efficiency. Findings also have implications for designing specialized databases for public health research.

Genetics Home Reference: CLN1 disease

MedlinePlus

... 10.1172/JCI33482. Citation on PubMed or Free article on PubMed Central Kollmann K, Uusi-Rauva K, Scifo E, Tyynelä J, Jalanko A, Braulke T. Cell biology and function of neuronal ceroid lipofuscinosis-related proteins. ...

Job-Related Stressors of Classical Instrumental Musicians: A Systematic Qualitative Review.

PubMed

Vervainioti, A; Alexopoulos, E C

2015-12-01

Epidemiological studies among performing artists have found elevated stress levels and health effects, but scarcely the full range of stressors has been reported. We review here the existing literature on job-related stressors of classical instrumental musicians (orchestra musicians). PubMed, Google Scholar and JSTOR databases were screened for relevant papers indexed up to August 2012. A total of 122 papers was initially identified which, after exclusion of duplicates and those not meeting eligibility criteria, yielded 67 articles for final analysis. We identified seven categories of stressors affecting musicians in their everyday working lives: public exposure, personal hazards, repertoire, competition, job context, injury/illness, and criticism, but with interrelated assigned factors. The proposed categories provide a framework for future comprehensive research on the impact and management of musician stressors.

Nintendo related injuries and other problems: review.

PubMed

Jalink, Maarten B; Heineman, Erik; Pierie, Jean-Pierre E N; ten Cate Hoedemaker, Henk O

2014-12-16

To identify all reported cases of injury and other problems caused by using a Nintendo video gaming system. Review. Search of PubMed and Embase in June 2014 for reports on injuries and other problems caused by using a Nintendo gaming system. Most of the 38 articles identified were case reports or case series. Injuries and problems ranged from neurological and psychological to surgical. Traditional controllers with buttons were associated with tendinitis of the extensor of the thumb. The joystick on the Nintendo 64 controller was linked to palmar ulceration. The motion sensitive Wii remote was associated with musculoskeletal problems and various traumas. Most problems are mild and prevalence is low. The described injuries were related to the way the games are controlled, which varies according to the video game console. © Jalink et al 2014.

Using noun phrases for navigating biomedical literature on Pubmed: how many updates are we losing track of?

PubMed

Srikrishna, Devabhaktuni; Coram, Marc A

2011-01-01

Author-supplied citations are a fraction of the related literature for a paper. The "related citations" on PubMed is typically dozens or hundreds of results long, and does not offer hints why these results are related. Using noun phrases derived from the sentences of the paper, we show it is possible to more transparently navigate to PubMed updates through search terms that can associate a paper with its citations. The algorithm to generate these search terms involved automatically extracting noun phrases from the paper using natural language processing tools, and ranking them by the number of occurrences in the paper compared to the number of occurrences on the web. We define search queries having at least one instance of overlap between the author-supplied citations of the paper and the top 20 search results as citation validated (CV). When the overlapping citations were written by same authors as the paper itself, we define it as CV-S and different authors is defined as CV-D. For a systematic sample of 883 papers on PubMed Central, at least one of the search terms for 86% of the papers is CV-D versus 65% for the top 20 PubMed "related citations." We hypothesize these quantities computed for the 20 million papers on PubMed to differ within 5% of these percentages. Averaged across all 883 papers, 5 search terms are CV-D, and 10 search terms are CV-S, and 6 unique citations validate these searches. Potentially related literature uncovered by citation-validated searches (either CV-S or CV-D) are on the order of ten per paper--many more if the remaining searches that are not citation-validated are taken into account. The significance and relationship of each search result to the paper can only be vetted and explained by a researcher with knowledge of or interest in that paper.

Using Noun Phrases for Navigating Biomedical Literature on Pubmed: How Many Updates Are We Losing Track of?

PubMed Central

Srikrishna, Devabhaktuni; Coram, Marc A.

2011-01-01

Author-supplied citations are a fraction of the related literature for a paper. The “related citations” on PubMed is typically dozens or hundreds of results long, and does not offer hints why these results are related. Using noun phrases derived from the sentences of the paper, we show it is possible to more transparently navigate to PubMed updates through search terms that can associate a paper with its citations. The algorithm to generate these search terms involved automatically extracting noun phrases from the paper using natural language processing tools, and ranking them by the number of occurrences in the paper compared to the number of occurrences on the web. We define search queries having at least one instance of overlap between the author-supplied citations of the paper and the top 20 search results as citation validated (CV). When the overlapping citations were written by same authors as the paper itself, we define it as CV-S and different authors is defined as CV-D. For a systematic sample of 883 papers on PubMed Central, at least one of the search terms for 86% of the papers is CV-D versus 65% for the top 20 PubMed “related citations.” We hypothesize these quantities computed for the 20 million papers on PubMed to differ within 5% of these percentages. Averaged across all 883 papers, 5 search terms are CV-D, and 10 search terms are CV-S, and 6 unique citations validate these searches. Potentially related literature uncovered by citation-validated searches (either CV-S or CV-D) are on the order of ten per paper – many more if the remaining searches that are not citation-validated are taken into account. The significance and relationship of each search result to the paper can only be vetted and explained by a researcher with knowledge of or interest in that paper. PMID:21935487

The proportion of cancer-related entries in PubMed has increased considerably; is cancer truly "The Emperor of All Maladies"?

PubMed

Reyes-Aldasoro, Constantino Carlos

2017-01-01

In this work, the public database of biomedical literature PubMed was mined using queries with combinations of keywords and year restrictions. It was found that the proportion of Cancer-related entries per year in PubMed has risen from around 6% in 1950 to more than 16% in 2016. This increase is not shared by other conditions such as AIDS, Malaria, Tuberculosis, Diabetes, Cardiovascular, Stroke and Infection some of which have, on the contrary, decreased as a proportion of the total entries per year. Organ-related queries were performed to analyse the variation of some specific cancers. A series of queries related to incidence, funding, and relationship with DNA, Computing and Mathematics, were performed to test correlation between the keywords, with the hope of elucidating the cause behind the rise of Cancer in PubMed. Interestingly, the proportion of Cancer-related entries that contain "DNA", "Computational" or "Mathematical" have increased, which suggests that the impact of these scientific advances on Cancer has been stronger than in other conditions. It is important to highlight that the results obtained with the data mining approach here presented are limited to the presence or absence of the keywords on a single, yet extensive, database. Therefore, results should be observed with caution. All the data used for this work is publicly available through PubMed and the UK's Office for National Statistics. All queries and figures were generated with the software platform Matlab and the files are available as supplementary material.

The proportion of cancer-related entries in PubMed has increased considerably; is cancer truly “The Emperor of All Maladies”?

PubMed Central

2017-01-01

In this work, the public database of biomedical literature PubMed was mined using queries with combinations of keywords and year restrictions. It was found that the proportion of Cancer-related entries per year in PubMed has risen from around 6% in 1950 to more than 16% in 2016. This increase is not shared by other conditions such as AIDS, Malaria, Tuberculosis, Diabetes, Cardiovascular, Stroke and Infection some of which have, on the contrary, decreased as a proportion of the total entries per year. Organ-related queries were performed to analyse the variation of some specific cancers. A series of queries related to incidence, funding, and relationship with DNA, Computing and Mathematics, were performed to test correlation between the keywords, with the hope of elucidating the cause behind the rise of Cancer in PubMed. Interestingly, the proportion of Cancer-related entries that contain “DNA”, “Computational” or “Mathematical” have increased, which suggests that the impact of these scientific advances on Cancer has been stronger than in other conditions. It is important to highlight that the results obtained with the data mining approach here presented are limited to the presence or absence of the keywords on a single, yet extensive, database. Therefore, results should be observed with caution. All the data used for this work is publicly available through PubMed and the UK’s Office for National Statistics. All queries and figures were generated with the software platform Matlab and the files are available as supplementary material. PMID:28282418

Qualitative Comparative Analysis: A Hybrid Method for Identifying Factors Associated with Program Effectiveness.

PubMed

Cragun, Deborah; Pal, Tuya; Vadaparampil, Susan T; Baldwin, Julie; Hampel, Heather; DeBate, Rita D

2016-07-01

Qualitative comparative analysis (QCA) was developed over 25 years ago to bridge the qualitative and quantitative research gap. Upon searching PubMed and the Journal of Mixed Methods Research , this review identified 30 original research studies that utilized QCA. Perceptions that QCA is complex and provides few relative advantages over other methods may be limiting QCA adoption. Thus, to overcome these perceptions, this article demonstrates how to perform QCA using data from fifteen institutions that implemented universal tumor screening (UTS) programs to identify patients at high risk for hereditary colorectal cancer. In this example, QCA revealed a combination of conditions unique to effective UTS programs. Results informed additional research and provided a model for improving patient follow-through after a positive screen.

GNormPlus: An Integrative Approach for Tagging Genes, Gene Families, and Protein Domains

PubMed Central

Lu, Zhiyong

2015-01-01

The automatic recognition of gene names and their associated database identifiers from biomedical text has been widely studied in recent years, as these tasks play an important role in many downstream text-mining applications. Despite significant previous research, only a small number of tools are publicly available and these tools are typically restricted to detecting only mention level gene names or only document level gene identifiers. In this work, we report GNormPlus: an end-to-end and open source system that handles both gene mention and identifier detection. We created a new corpus of 694 PubMed articles to support our development of GNormPlus, containing manual annotations for not only gene names and their identifiers, but also closely related concepts useful for gene name disambiguation, such as gene families and protein domains. GNormPlus integrates several advanced text-mining techniques, including SimConcept for resolving composite gene names. As a result, GNormPlus compares favorably to other state-of-the-art methods when evaluated on two widely used public benchmarking datasets, achieving 86.7% F1-score on the BioCreative II Gene Normalization task dataset and 50.1% F1-score on the BioCreative III Gene Normalization task dataset. The GNormPlus source code and its annotated corpus are freely available, and the results of applying GNormPlus to the entire PubMed are freely accessible through our web-based tool PubTator. PMID:26380306

A comparison of the performance of seven key bibliographic databases in identifying all relevant systematic reviews of interventions for hypertension.

PubMed

Rathbone, John; Carter, Matt; Hoffmann, Tammy; Glasziou, Paul

2016-02-09

Bibliographic databases are the primary resource for identifying systematic reviews of health care interventions. Reliable retrieval of systematic reviews depends on the scope of indexing used by database providers. Therefore, searching one database may be insufficient, but it is unclear how many need to be searched. We sought to evaluate the performance of seven major bibliographic databases for the identification of systematic reviews for hypertension. We searched seven databases (Cochrane library, Database of Abstracts of Reviews of Effects (DARE), Excerpta Medica Database (EMBASE), Epistemonikos, Medical Literature Analysis and Retrieval System Online (MEDLINE), PubMed Health and Turning Research Into Practice (TRIP)) from 2003 to 2015 for systematic reviews of any intervention for hypertension. Citations retrieved were screened for relevance, coded and checked for screening consistency using a fuzzy text matching query. The performance of each database was assessed by calculating its sensitivity, precision, the number of missed reviews and the number of unique records retrieved. Four hundred systematic reviews were identified for inclusion from 11,381 citations retrieved from seven databases. No single database identified all the retrieved systematic reviews for hypertension. EMBASE identified the most reviews (sensitivity 69 %) but also retrieved the most irrelevant citations with 7.2 % precision (Pr). The sensitivity of the Cochrane library was 60 %, DARE 57 %, MEDLINE 57 %, PubMed Health 53 %, Epistemonikos 49 % and TRIP 33 %. EMBASE contained the highest number of unique records (n = 43). The Cochrane library identified seven unique records and had the highest precision (Pr = 30 %), followed by Epistemonikos (n = 2, Pr = 19 %). No unique records were found in PubMed Health (Pr = 24 %) DARE (Pr = 21 %), TRIP (Pr = 10 %) or MEDLINE (Pr = 10 %). Searching EMBASE and the Cochrane library identified 88 % of all systematic reviews in the reference set, and searching the freely available databases (Cochrane, Epistemonikos, MEDLINE) identified 83 % of all the reviews. The databases were re-analysed after systematic reviews of non-conventional interventions (e.g. yoga, acupuncture) were removed. Similarly, no database identified all the retrieved systematic reviews. EMBASE identified the most relevant systematic reviews (sensitivity 73 %) but also retrieved the most irrelevant citations with Pr = 5 %. The sensitivity of the Cochrane database was 62 %, followed by MEDLINE (60 %), DARE (55 %), PubMed Health (54 %), Epistemonikos (50 %) and TRIP (31 %). The precision of the Cochrane library was the highest (20 %), followed by PubMed Health (Pr = 16 %), DARE (Pr = 13 %), Epistemonikos (Pr = 12 %), MEDLINE (Pr = 6 %), TRIP (Pr = 6 %) and EMBASE (Pr = 5 %). EMBASE contained the most unique records (n = 34). The Cochrane library identified seven unique records. The other databases held no unique records. The coverage of bibliographic databases varies considerably due to differences in their scope and content. Researchers wishing to identify systematic reviews should not rely on one database but search multiple databases.

Bruxism and genetics: a review of the literature.

PubMed

Lobbezoo, F; Visscher, C M; Ahlberg, J; Manfredini, D

2014-09-01

People who suffer from bruxism (teeth-grinding) often ask their dentists whether their condition is hereditary. The purpose of this study is to enable dentists to provide an 'evidence-based' answer to this question. The biomedical literature was searched using PubMed, and 32 publications were identified, of which nine proved relevant to the research question. The references cited by the publications identified yielded one further publication, bringing the total number of publications included in the analysis to 10. Four publications related to family studies, five related to twin studies and one related to a DNA analysis. With the exception of one of the twin studies, all the included studies concluded that bruxism appears to be (in part) genetically determined. Dentists whose patients ask them about bruxism can therefore tell them that teeth-grinding does indeed 'run in families'. © 2014 John Wiley & Sons Ltd.

[Parasomnias].

PubMed

Bjorvatn, Bjørn; Grønli, Janne; Pallesen, Ståle

2009-09-24

Parasomnias are undesirable experiences or motoric phenomena that occur in association with sleep. We have described characteristics of parasomnia subtypes. This review is based on the authors' research and clinical experience, and articles identified by non-systematic searches of Pubmed. Parasomnias are categorized into disorders of arousal (non-REM sleep parasomnias), e.g. sleepwalking, sleep terrors and confusional arousals, parasomnias associated with REM sleep, e.g. nightmare disorder, REM sleep behaviour disorder and recurrent isolated sleep paralysis, and other parasomnias, e.g. sleep-related groaning, exploding head syndrome, sleep-related hallucinations and sleep-related eating disorder. Prevalences for the subtypes vary. Most parasomnias are especially common in children. Drug treatment is seldom necessary, but may be indicated in severe cases.

Brain Injury as the Result of Violence: A Systematic Scoping Review.

PubMed

Bates, Annerley; Matthews, Sarah; Simpson, Grahame; Bates, Lyndel

2016-01-01

This scoping review investigated risk factors, impacts, outcomes, and service implications of violence-related traumatic brain injury (TBI) for individuals and their informal caregivers. A systematic search (Web of Science, PubMed, PsycInfo, ProQuest, Medline, Informit; 1990-2015) identified 17 studies meeting the inclusion and exclusion criteria. Violence was the cause of between 3% and 26% of all TBIs. Males, a non-White racial background, preinjury unemployment, and preinjury substance abuse problems all elevated the risk for sustaining a violence-related TBI compared to other-cause TBI. However, few differences were observed in 12 months postinjury outcomes. No studies investigated the impact of violence-related TBI on informal caregivers.

Towards eliminating malaria in high endemic countries: the roles of community health workers and related cadres and their challenges in integrated community case management for malaria: a systematic review.

PubMed

Sunguya, Bruno F; Mlunde, Linda B; Ayer, Rakesh; Jimba, Masamine

2017-01-03

Human resource for health crisis has impaired global efforts against malaria in highly endemic countries. To address this, the World Health Organization (WHO) recommended scaling-up of community health workers (CHWs) and related cadres owing to their documented success in malaria and other disease prevention and management. Evidence is inconsistent on the roles and challenges they encounter in malaria interventions. This systematic review aims to summarize evidence on roles and challenges of CHWs and related cadres in integrated community case management for malaria (iCCM). This systematic review retrieved evidence from PubMed, CINAHL, ISI Web of Knowledge, and WHO regional databases. Terms extracted from the Boolean phrase used for PubMed were also used in other databases. The review included studies with Randomized Control Trial, Quasi-experimental, Pre-post interventional, Longitudinal and cohort, Cross-sectional, Case study, and Secondary data analysis. Because of heterogeneity, only narrative synthesis was conducted for this review. A total of 66 articles were eligible for analysis out of 1380 studies retrieved. CHWs and related cadre roles in malaria interventions included: malaria case management, prevention including health surveillance and health promotion specific to malaria. Despite their documented success, CHWs and related cadres succumb to health system challenges. These are poor and unsustainable finance for iCCM, workforce related challenges, lack of and unsustainable supply of medicines and diagnostics, lack of information and research, service delivery and leadership challenges. Community health workers and related cadres had important preventive, case management and promotive roles in malaria interventions. To enable their effective integration into the health systems, the identified challenges should be addressed. They include: introducing sustainable financing on iCCM programmes, tailoring their training to address the identified gaps, improving sustainable supply chain management of malaria drugs and diagnostics, and addressing regulatory challenges in the local contexts.

Chinese literatures of radiation oncology covered by PubMed over the past five years.

PubMed

Niu, Dao-Li; Zhen, Jun-Jie; He, Fen

2010-04-01

PubMed is generally acknowledged for its scientificity in literature coverage and authority of literature retrieval . In recent years, many studies have been published in China about radiation oncology. We aimed to investigate the literatures about radiation oncology in China covered by PubMed over the past five years. We collected primary data by searching the PubMed database using the related subject words. The collected data were analyzed and evaluated by bibliometric methods. In the past five years, 550 articles by Chinese authors related to radiotherapy were indexed in PubMed. These articles were published in 160 journals among 26 Chinese provinces/cities. These articles mainly focused on radiation dose and computer-aided radiation therapy. Sixty-four articles were published by Chinese Journal of Cancer , which ranked the top. Forty-four articles were published by the International Journal of Radiation Oncology Biology Physics (IF=4.29), with the largest number among SCI journals. One hundred and sixteen articles from Guangdong Province were covered, accounting for 21.09%. Over the past five years, the discipline of radiation oncology has been greatly developed. The literatures mainly focus on clinical radiation oncology and their regional distribution is uneven.

Text mining, a race against time? An attempt to quantify possible variations in text corpora of medical publications throughout the years.

PubMed

Wagner, Mathias; Vicinus, Benjamin; Muthra, Sherieda T; Richards, Tereza A; Linder, Roland; Frick, Vilma Oliveira; Groh, Andreas; Rubie, Claudia; Weichert, Frank

2016-06-01

The continuous growth of medical sciences literature indicates the need for automated text analysis. Scientific writing which is neither unitary, transcending social situation nor defined by a timeless idea is subject to constant change as it develops in response to evolving knowledge, aims at different goals, and embodies different assumptions about nature and communication. The objective of this study was to evaluate whether publication dates should be considered when performing text mining. A search of PUBMED for combined references to chemokine identifiers and particular cancer related terms was conducted to detect changes over the past 36 years. Text analyses were performed using freeware available from the World Wide Web. TOEFL Scores of territories hosting institutional affiliations as well as various readability indices were investigated. Further assessment was conducted using Principal Component Analysis. Laboratory examination was performed to evaluate the quality of attempts to extract content from the examined linguistic features. The PUBMED search yielded a total of 14,420 abstracts (3,190,219 words). The range of findings in laboratory experimentation were coherent with the variability of the results described in the analyzed body of literature. Increased concurrence of chemokine identifiers together with cancer related terms was found at the abstract and sentence level, whereas complexity of sentences remained fairly stable. The findings of the present study indicate that concurrent references to chemokines and cancer increased over time whereas text complexity remained stable. Copyright © 2016 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Arterial complications of vascular Ehlers-Danlos syndrome.

PubMed

Eagleton, Matthew J

2016-12-01

Vascular Ehlers-Danlos syndrome (EDS) is a relatively rare genetic syndrome that occurs owing to disorders in the metabolism of fibrillary collagen. These defects affect the soft connective tissues resulting in abnormalities in the skin, joints, hollow organs, and blood vessels. Patients with these defects frequently present at a young age with spontaneous arterial complications involving the medium-sized arteries. Complications involving the hollow organs, such as spontaneous colonic perforation, are observed as well. Given the fragility of the soft tissue, open and endovascular intervention on patients with vascular EDS is fraught with high complication rates. A PubMed search was performed to identify manuscripts published related to vascular EDS. This search included more than 747 articles. These findings were cross-referenced using key terms, including endovascular, embolization, surgery, genetics, pathophysiology, connective tissue disorders, vascular complications, systematic review, type III collagen, and COL3A1. The references in key articles and review articles were evaluated for additional resources not identified in the PubMed search. Care must be taken to balance the risk of intervention vs the risk of continued observation. Life-threatening hemorrhage, however, mandates intervention. With careful, altered approaches to tissue handling, endovascular approaches may provide a safer option for managing the arterial complications observed in patients with vascular EDS. Additional hope may also be found in the use of pharmacologic agents that reduce the incidence and severity of the arterial complications. Copyright © 2016 Society for Vascular Surgery. Published by Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Breastfeeding and protection against diarrhea: an integrative review of literature

PubMed Central

Santos, Floriacy Stabnow; Santos, Felipe César Stabnow; dos Santos, Leonardo Hunaldo; Leite, Adriana Moraes; de Mello, Débora Falleiros

2015-01-01

Objective To identify, in national and international journals, the studies conducted in Brazil related to breast feeding and reducing cases of diarrhea in children under 2 years of age, featuring health interventions more used. Methods Descriptive study, based on an integrative review of literature from PubMed and LILACS data published between January 1992 and August 2011. The keywords “breastfeeding AND diarrhea” was searched in Portuguese, English and Spanish in PubMed and LILACS. The guiding question was: “What was knowledge produced about breast feeding and prevention of diarrhea in children under 2 years between 1992 and 2011 in studies conducted in Brazil?” Results We selected 11 studies that showed the importance of breast feeding in the prevention and protection against diarrhea in children under 6 months, especially among children in exclusive breastfeeding. Conclusion Public health policies should be directed to the context of each locality, in order to reduce the problems that involve the early weaning. PMID:26061078

Online Mendelian Inheritance in Man (OMIM).

PubMed

Hamosh, A; Scott, A F; Amberger, J; Valle, D; McKusick, V A

2000-01-01

Online Mendelian Inheritance In Man (OMIM) is a public database of bibliographic information about human genes and genetic disorders. Begun by Dr. Victor McKusick as the authoritative reference Mendelian Inheritance in Man, it is now distributed electronically by the National Center for Biotechnology Information (NCBI). Material in OMIM is derived from the biomedical literature and is written by Dr. McKusick and his colleagues at Johns Hopkins University and elsewhere. Each OMIM entry has a full text summary of a genetic phenotype and/or gene and has copious links to other genetic resources such as DNA and protein sequence, PubMed references, mutation databases, approved gene nomenclature, and more. In addition, NCBI's neighboring feature allows users to identify related articles from PubMed selected on the basis of key words in the OMIM entry. Through its many features, OMIM is increasingly becoming a major gateway for clinicians, students, and basic researchers to the ever-growing literature and resources of human genetics. Copyright 2000 Wiley-Liss, Inc.

Frontloading and intensity of skilled home health visits: a state of the science.

PubMed

O'Connor, Melissa; Bowles, Kathryn H; Feldman, Penny H; St Pierre, Mary; Jarrín, Olga; Shah, Shivani; Murtaugh, Christopher M

2014-01-01

Frontloading of skilled nursing visits is one way home health providers have attempted to reduce hospital readmissions among skilled home health patients. Upon review of the frontloading evidence, visit intensity emerged as being closely related. This state of the science presents a critique and synthesis of the published empirical evidence related to frontloading and visit intensity. OVID/Medline, PubMed, and Scopus were searched. Seven studies were eligible for inclusion. Further research is required to define frontloading and visit intensity, identify patients most likely to benefit, and to provide a better understanding of how home health agencies can best implement these strategies.

Frontloading and Intensity of Skilled Home Health Visits: A State of the Science

PubMed Central

O'CONNOR, MELISSA; BOWLES, KATHRYN H.; FELDMAN, PENNY H.; ST. PIERRE, MARY; JARRÍN, OLGA; SHAH, SHIVANI; MURTAUGH, CHRISTOPHER M.

2015-01-01

Frontloading of skilled nursing visits is one way home health providers have attempted to reduce hospital readmissions among skilled home health patients. Upon review of the frontloading evidence, visit intensity emerged as being closely related. This state of the science presents a critique and synthesis of the published empirical evidence related to frontloading and visit intensity. OVID/Medline, PubMed, and Scopus were searched. Seven studies were eligible for inclusion. Further research is required to define frontloading and visit intensity, identify patients most likely to benefit, and to provide a better understanding of how home health agencies can best implement these strategies. PMID:24924484

High-performance information search filters for acute kidney injury content in PubMed, Ovid Medline and Embase.

PubMed

Hildebrand, Ainslie M; Iansavichus, Arthur V; Haynes, R Brian; Wilczynski, Nancy L; Mehta, Ravindra L; Parikh, Chirag R; Garg, Amit X

2014-04-01

We frequently fail to identify articles relevant to the subject of acute kidney injury (AKI) when searching the large bibliographic databases such as PubMed, Ovid Medline or Embase. To address this issue, we used computer automation to create information search filters to better identify articles relevant to AKI in these databases. We first manually reviewed a sample of 22 992 full-text articles and used prespecified criteria to determine whether each article contained AKI content or not. In the development phase (two-thirds of the sample), we developed and tested the performance of >1.3-million unique filters. Filters with high sensitivity and high specificity for the identification of AKI articles were then retested in the validation phase (remaining third of the sample). We succeeded in developing and validating high-performance AKI search filters for each bibliographic database with sensitivities and specificities in excess of 90%. Filters optimized for sensitivity reached at least 97.2% sensitivity, and filters optimized for specificity reached at least 99.5% specificity. The filters were complex; for example one PubMed filter included >140 terms used in combination, including 'acute kidney injury', 'tubular necrosis', 'azotemia' and 'ischemic injury'. In proof-of-concept searches, physicians found more articles relevant to topics in AKI with the use of the filters. PubMed, Ovid Medline and Embase can be filtered for articles relevant to AKI in a reliable manner. These high-performance information filters are now available online and can be used to better identify AKI content in large bibliographic databases.

Nintendo related injuries and other problems: review

PubMed Central

Heineman, Erik; Pierie, Jean-Pierre E N; ten Cate Hoedemaker, Henk O

2014-01-01

Objective To identify all reported cases of injury and other problems caused by using a Nintendo video gaming system. Design Review. Data sources and review methods Search of PubMed and Embase in June 2014 for reports on injuries and other problems caused by using a Nintendo gaming system. Results Most of the 38 articles identified were case reports or case series. Injuries and problems ranged from neurological and psychological to surgical. Traditional controllers with buttons were associated with tendinitis of the extensor of the thumb. The joystick on the Nintendo 64 controller was linked to palmar ulceration. The motion sensitive Wii remote was associated with musculoskeletal problems and various traumas. Conclusions Most problems are mild and prevalence is low. The described injuries were related to the way the games are controlled, which varies according to the video game console. PMID:25515525

Health-promotion theories in nutritional interventions for community-dwelling older adults: a systematic review.

PubMed

Raffaele, Barbara; Matarese, Maria; Alvaro, Rosaria; De Marinis, Maria Grazia

2017-01-01

To identify theories applied in interventions promoting healthy nutrition among community-dwelling older adults and determine the efficacy of theories in changing knowledge, attitudes, and behaviors. The PubMed, PsycINFO, Embase, and ERIC databases were searched for English articles from January 1990 to December 2015. Mono or multicomponent randomized controlled trial studies were included, whereas research on nutritional interventions related to acute or chronic diseases were excluded. Eight articles satisfied the inclusion criteria. Only three articles referred explicitly to health promotion theories. Nutritional programs varied in terms of contents, outcomes, lengths of interventions and follow-up. Pooling the results and identifying the most effective theories were therefore impossible. Although researchers and practitioners recognize the significance of theoretical models in guiding the health-promoting interventions, referring to a theoretical model for such interventions is still relatively recent.

Qualitative Comparative Analysis: A Hybrid Method for Identifying Factors Associated with Program Effectiveness

PubMed Central

Cragun, Deborah; Pal, Tuya; Vadaparampil, Susan T.; Baldwin, Julie; Hampel, Heather; DeBate, Rita D.

2015-01-01

Qualitative comparative analysis (QCA) was developed over 25 years ago to bridge the qualitative and quantitative research gap. Upon searching PubMed and the Journal of Mixed Methods Research, this review identified 30 original research studies that utilized QCA. Perceptions that QCA is complex and provides few relative advantages over other methods may be limiting QCA adoption. Thus, to overcome these perceptions, this article demonstrates how to perform QCA using data from fifteen institutions that implemented universal tumor screening (UTS) programs to identify patients at high risk for hereditary colorectal cancer. In this example, QCA revealed a combination of conditions unique to effective UTS programs. Results informed additional research and provided a model for improving patient follow-through after a positive screen. PMID:27429602

Unreported links between trial registrations and published articles were identified using document similarity measures in a cross-sectional analysis of ClinicalTrials.gov.

PubMed

Dunn, Adam G; Coiera, Enrico; Bourgeois, Florence T

2018-03-01

Trial registries can be used to measure reporting biases and support systematic reviews, but 45% of registrations do not provide a link to the article reporting on the trial. We evaluated the use of document similarity methods to identify unreported links between ClinicalTrials.gov and PubMed. We extracted terms and concepts from a data set of 72,469 ClinicalTrials.gov registrations and 276,307 PubMed articles and tested methods for ranking articles across 16,005 reported links and 90 manually identified unreported links. Performance was measured by the median rank of matching articles and the proportion of unreported links that could be found by screening ranked candidate articles in order. The best-performing concept-based representation produced a median rank of 3 (interquartile range [IQR] 1-21) for reported links and 3 (IQR 1-19) for the manually identified unreported links, and term-based representations produced a median rank of 2 (1-20) for reported links and 2 (IQR 1-12) in unreported links. The matching article was ranked first for 40% of registrations, and screening 50 candidate articles per registration identified 86% of the unreported links. Leveraging the growth in the corpus of reported links between ClinicalTrials.gov and PubMed, we found that document similarity methods can assist in the identification of unreported links between trial registrations and corresponding articles. Copyright © 2017 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Exploring Research Topics and Trends in Nursing-related Communication in Intensive Care Units Using Social Network Analysis.

PubMed

Son, Youn-Jung; Lee, Soo-Kyoung; Nam, SeJin; Shim, Jae Lan

2018-05-04

This study used social network analysis to identify the main research topics and trends in nursing-related communication in intensive care units. Keywords from January 1967 to June 2016 were extracted from PubMed using Medical Subject Headings terms. Social network analysis was performed using Gephi software. Research publications and newly emerging topics in nursing-related communication in intensive care units were classified into five chronological phases. After the weighting was adjusted, the top five keyword searches were "conflict," "length of stay," "nursing continuing education," "family," and "nurses." During the most recent phase, research topics included "critical care nursing," "patient handoff," and "quality improvement." The keywords of the top three groups among the 10 groups identified were related to "neonatal nursing and practice guideline," "infant or pediatric and terminal care," and "family, aged, and nurse-patient relations," respectively. This study can promote a systematic understanding of communication in intensive care units by identifying topic networks. Future studies are needed to conduct large prospective cohort studies and randomized controlled trials to verify the effects of patient-centered communication in intensive care units on patient outcomes, such as length of hospital stay and mortality.

Medical literature searches: a comparison of PubMed and Google Scholar.

PubMed

Nourbakhsh, Eva; Nugent, Rebecca; Wang, Helen; Cevik, Cihan; Nugent, Kenneth

2012-09-01

Medical literature searches provide critical information for clinicians. However, the best strategy for identifying relevant high-quality literature is unknown. We compared search results using PubMed and Google Scholar on four clinical questions and analysed these results with respect to article relevance and quality. Abstracts from the first 20 citations for each search were classified into three relevance categories. We used the weighted kappa statistic to analyse reviewer agreement and nonparametric rank tests to compare the number of citations for each article and the corresponding journals' impact factors. Reviewers ranked 67.6% of PubMed articles and 80% of Google Scholar articles as at least possibly relevant (P = 0.116) with high agreement (all kappa P-values < 0.01). Google Scholar articles had a higher median number of citations (34 vs. 1.5, P < 0.0001) and came from higher impact factor journals (5.17 vs. 3.55, P = 0.036). PubMed searches and Google Scholar searches often identify different articles. In this study, Google Scholar articles were more likely to be classified as relevant, had higher numbers of citations and were published in higher impact factor journals. The identification of frequently cited articles using Google Scholar for searches probably has value for initial literature searches. © 2012 The authors. Health Information and Libraries Journal © 2012 Health Libraries Group.

Genetics Home Reference: distal hereditary motor neuropathy, type V

MedlinePlus

... PubMed Irobi J, De Jonghe P, Timmerman V. Molecular genetics of distal hereditary motor neuropathies. Hum Mol Genet. 2004 Oct 1;13 Spec No 2:R195-202. Review. Citation on PubMed Ito D, Suzuki N. Molecular pathogenesis of seipin/BSCL2-related motor neuron diseases. ...

PubMedReco: A Real-Time Recommender System for PubMed Citations.

PubMed

Samuel, Hamman W; Zaïane, Osmar R

2017-01-01

We present a recommender system, PubMedReco, for real-time suggestions of medical articles from PubMed, a database of over 23 million medical citations. PubMedReco can recommend medical article citations while users are conversing in a synchronous communication environment such as a chat room. Normally, users would have to leave their chat interface to open a new web browser window, and formulate an appropriate search query to retrieve relevant results. PubMedReco automatically generates the search query and shows relevant citations within the same integrated user interface. PubMedReco analyzes relevant keywords associated with the conversation and uses them to search for relevant citations using the PubMed E-utilities programming interface. Our contributions include improvements to the user experience for searching PubMed from within health forums and chat rooms, and a machine learning model for identifying relevant keywords. We demonstrate the feasibility of PubMedReco using BMJ's Doc2Doc forum discussions.

Use of scientific social networking to improve the research strategies of PubMed readers.

PubMed

Evdokimov, Pavel; Kudryavtsev, Alexey; Ilgisonis, Ekaterina; Ponomarenko, Elena; Lisitsa, Andrey

2016-02-18

Keeping up with journal articles on a daily basis is an important activity of scientists engaged in biomedical research. Usually, journal articles and papers in the field of biomedicine are accessed through the Medline/PubMed electronic library. In the process of navigating PubMed, researchers unknowingly generate user-specific reading profiles that can be shared within a social networking environment. This paper examines the structure of the social networking environment generated by PubMed users. A web browser plugin was developed to map [in Medical Subject Headings (MeSH) terms] the reading patterns of individual PubMed users. We developed a scientific social network based on the personal research profiles of readers of biomedical articles. A browser plugin is used to record the digital object identifier or PubMed ID of web pages. Recorded items are posted on the activity feed and automatically mapped to PubMed abstract. Within the activity feed a user can trace back previously browsed articles and insert comments. By calculating the frequency with which specific MeSH occur, the research interests of PubMed users can be visually represented with a tag cloud. Finally, research profiles can be searched for matches between network users. A social networking environment was created using MeSH terms to map articles accessed through the Medline/PubMed online library system. In-network social communication is supported by the recommendation of articles and by matching users with similar scientific interests. The system is available at http://bioknol.org/en/.

Analyses of infectious disease patterns and drivers largely lack insights from social epidemiology: contemporary patterns and future opportunities.

PubMed

Noppert, Grace A; Kubale, John T; Wilson, Mark L

2017-04-01

Infectious disease epidemiologists have long recognised the importance of social variables as drivers of epidemics and disease risk, yet few apply analytic approaches from social epidemiology. We quantified and evaluated the extent to which recent infectious disease research is employing the perspectives and methods of social epidemiology by replicating the methodology used by Cohen et al in a 2007 study. 2 search strategies were used to identify and review articles published from 1 January 2005 to 31 December 2013. First, we performed a keyword search of 'social epidemiology' in the title/abstract/text of published studies identified in PubMed, PsychInfo and ISI Web of Science, and classified each study as pertaining to infectious, non-infectious or other outcomes. A second PubMed search identified articles that were cross-referenced under non-infectious or infectious, and search terms relating to social variables. The abstracts of all articles were read, classified and examined to identify patterns over time. Findings suggest that infectious disease research publications that explicitly or implicitly incorporate social epidemiological approaches have stagnated in recent years. While the number of publications that were explicitly self-classified as 'social epidemiology' has risen, the proportion that investigated infectious disease outcomes has declined. Furthermore, infectious diseases accounted for the smallest proportion of articles that were cross-referenced with Medical Subject Headings (MeSH) terms related to social factors, and most of these involved sexually transmitted diseases. The current landscape of infectious disease epidemiology could benefit from new approaches to understanding how the social and biophysical environment sustains transmission and exacerbates disparities. The framework of social epidemiology provides infectious disease researchers with such a perspective and research opportunity. Published by the BMJ Publishing Group Limited. For permission to use (where not already granted under a licence) please go to http://www.bmj.com/company/products-services/rights-and-licensing/.

Intracardiac Shunting and Stroke in Children: A Systematic Review

PubMed Central

Dowling, Michael M.; Ikemba, Catherine M.

2017-01-01

In adults, patent foramen ovale or other potential intracardiac shunts are established risk factors for stroke via paradoxical embolization. Stroke is less common in children and risk factors differ. The authors examined the literature on intracardiac shunting and stroke in children, identifying the methods employed, the prevalence of detectible intracardiac shunts, associated conditions, and treatments. PubMed searches with keywords related to intracardiac shunting and stroke in children identified articles of interest. Additional articles were identified via citations in these articles or in reviews. The authors found that studies of intracardiac shunting in children with stroke are limited. No controlled studies were identified. Detection methods vary and the prevalence of echocardiographically detectible intracardiac shunting appears lower than reported in adults and autopsy studies. Defining the role of intracardiac shunting in pediatric stroke will require controlled studies with unified detection methods in populations stratified by additional risk factors for paradoxical embolization. Optimal treatment is unclear. PMID:21212453

Finding complex biological relationships in recent PubMed articles using Bio-LDA.

PubMed

Wang, Huijun; Ding, Ying; Tang, Jie; Dong, Xiao; He, Bing; Qiu, Judy; Wild, David J

2011-03-23

The overwhelming amount of available scholarly literature in the life sciences poses significant challenges to scientists wishing to keep up with important developments related to their research, but also provides a useful resource for the discovery of recent information concerning genes, diseases, compounds and the interactions between them. In this paper, we describe an algorithm called Bio-LDA that uses extracted biological terminology to automatically identify latent topics, and provides a variety of measures to uncover putative relations among topics and bio-terms. Relationships identified using those approaches are combined with existing data in life science datasets to provide additional insight. Three case studies demonstrate the utility of the Bio-LDA model, including association predication, association search and connectivity map generation. This combined approach offers new opportunities for knowledge discovery in many areas of biology including target identification, lead hopping and drug repurposing.

Finding Complex Biological Relationships in Recent PubMed Articles Using Bio-LDA

PubMed Central

Wang, Huijun; Ding, Ying; Tang, Jie; Dong, Xiao; He, Bing; Qiu, Judy; Wild, David J.

2011-01-01

The overwhelming amount of available scholarly literature in the life sciences poses significant challenges to scientists wishing to keep up with important developments related to their research, but also provides a useful resource for the discovery of recent information concerning genes, diseases, compounds and the interactions between them. In this paper, we describe an algorithm called Bio-LDA that uses extracted biological terminology to automatically identify latent topics, and provides a variety of measures to uncover putative relations among topics and bio-terms. Relationships identified using those approaches are combined with existing data in life science datasets to provide additional insight. Three case studies demonstrate the utility of the Bio-LDA model, including association predication, association search and connectivity map generation. This combined approach offers new opportunities for knowledge discovery in many areas of biology including target identification, lead hopping and drug repurposing. PMID:21448266

Autonomy of nurse practitioners in primary care: An integrative review.

PubMed

Choi, Min; De Gagne, Jennie C

2016-03-01

This integrative review of the existing literature was conducted to identify dimensions related to nurse practitioner (NP) autonomy and to recommend future areas of research related to the important topic of NP autonomy in this era of cost-conscious healthcare reform. Articles were identified from the following databases: CINAHL, MEDLINE, PubMed, Ovid, Scopus, Google Scholar, and EBSCO. Over 24 articles were found; 12 peer-reviewed articles met the inclusion criteria of research conducted with NPs, physicians, and patients. The results revealed three categories of association with regard to NP autonomy: job satisfaction, patient satisfaction, and physician-NP collaboration. This review was undertaken to advance understanding of autonomy among NPs and the dynamics involved in their delivery of care. Further research into the associations between NP autonomy and its dimensions are necessary to indicate a future direction to the NP role. ©2015 American Association of Nurse Practitioners.

Pediatric cancer risk in association with birth defects: A systematic review

PubMed Central

Padda, Hannah; Feng, Qianxi; Partap, Sonia; Fowler, Susan A.; Druley, Todd E.

2017-01-01

Background Many epidemiological studies have examined associations between birth defects (BDs) and pediatric malignancy over the past several decades. Our objective was to conduct a systematic literature review of studies reporting on this association. Methods We used librarian-designed searches of the PubMed Medline and Embase databases to identify primary research articles on pediatric neoplasms and BDs. English language articles from PubMed and Embase up to 10/12/2015, and in PubMed up to 5/12/2017 following an updated search, were eligible for inclusion if they reported primary epidemiological research results on associations between BDs and pediatric malignancies. Two reviewers coded each article based on the title and abstract to identify eligible articles that were abstracted using a structured form. Additional articles were identified through reference lists and other sources. Results were synthesized for pediatric cancers overall and for nine major pediatric cancer subtypes. Results A total of 14,778 article citations were identified, of which 80 met inclusion criteria. Pediatric cancer risk was increased in most studies in association with BDs overall with some notable specific findings, including increased risks for CNS tumors in association with CNS abnormalities and positive associations between rib anomalies and several pediatric cancer types. Conclusions Some children born with BDs may be at increased risk for specific pediatric malignancy types. This work provides a foundation for future investigations that are needed to clarify specific BD types predisposing toward malignancy and possible underlying causes of both BDs and malignancy. PMID:28749971

PuReD-MCL: a graph-based PubMed document clustering methodology.

PubMed

Theodosiou, T; Darzentas, N; Angelis, L; Ouzounis, C A

2008-09-01

Biomedical literature is the principal repository of biomedical knowledge, with PubMed being the most complete database collecting, organizing and analyzing such textual knowledge. There are numerous efforts that attempt to exploit this information by using text mining and machine learning techniques. We developed a novel approach, called PuReD-MCL (Pubmed Related Documents-MCL), which is based on the graph clustering algorithm MCL and relevant resources from PubMed. PuReD-MCL avoids using natural language processing (NLP) techniques directly; instead, it takes advantage of existing resources, available from PubMed. PuReD-MCL then clusters documents efficiently using the MCL graph clustering algorithm, which is based on graph flow simulation. This process allows users to analyse the results by highlighting important clues, and finally to visualize the clusters and all relevant information using an interactive graph layout algorithm, for instance BioLayout Express 3D. The methodology was applied to two different datasets, previously used for the validation of the document clustering tool TextQuest. The first dataset involves the organisms Escherichia coli and yeast, whereas the second is related to Drosophila development. PuReD-MCL successfully reproduces the annotated results obtained from TextQuest, while at the same time provides additional insights into the clusters and the corresponding documents. Source code in perl and R are available from http://tartara.csd.auth.gr/~theodos/

Ontology-based literature mining of E. coli vaccine-associated gene interaction networks.

PubMed

Hur, Junguk; Özgür, Arzucan; He, Yongqun

2017-03-14

Pathogenic Escherichia coli infections cause various diseases in humans and many animal species. However, with extensive E. coli vaccine research, we are still unable to fully protect ourselves against E. coli infections. To more rational development of effective and safe E. coli vaccine, it is important to better understand E. coli vaccine-associated gene interaction networks. In this study, we first extended the Vaccine Ontology (VO) to semantically represent various E. coli vaccines and genes used in the vaccine development. We also normalized E. coli gene names compiled from the annotations of various E. coli strains using a pan-genome-based annotation strategy. The Interaction Network Ontology (INO) includes a hierarchy of various interaction-related keywords useful for literature mining. Using VO, INO, and normalized E. coli gene names, we applied an ontology-based SciMiner literature mining strategy to mine all PubMed abstracts and retrieve E. coli vaccine-associated E. coli gene interactions. Four centrality metrics (i.e., degree, eigenvector, closeness, and betweenness) were calculated for identifying highly ranked genes and interaction types. Using vaccine-related PubMed abstracts, our study identified 11,350 sentences that contain 88 unique INO interactions types and 1,781 unique E. coli genes. Each sentence contained at least one interaction type and two unique E. coli genes. An E. coli gene interaction network of genes and INO interaction types was created. From this big network, a sub-network consisting of 5 E. coli vaccine genes, including carA, carB, fimH, fepA, and vat, and 62 other E. coli genes, and 25 INO interaction types was identified. While many interaction types represent direct interactions between two indicated genes, our study has also shown that many of these retrieved interaction types are indirect in that the two genes participated in the specified interaction process in a required but indirect process. Our centrality analysis of these gene interaction networks identified top ranked E. coli genes and 6 INO interaction types (e.g., regulation and gene expression). Vaccine-related E. coli gene-gene interaction network was constructed using ontology-based literature mining strategy, which identified important E. coli vaccine genes and their interactions with other genes through specific interaction types.

Radiolucent rim as a possible diagnostic aid for differentiating jaw lesions

PubMed Central

Mortazavi, Hamed; Rahmani, Somayeh; Jafari, Soudeh; Parvaei, Parvin

2015-01-01

In this study, we formulate a new proposal that complements previous classifications in order to assist dental practitioners in performing a differential diagnosis based on patients' radiographs. We used general search engines and specialized databases such as Google Scholar, PubMed, PubMed Central, MedLine Plus, Science Direct, Scopus, and well-recognized textbooks to find relevant studies by using keywords such as "jaw disease," "jaw lesions," "radiolucent rim," "radiolucent border," and "radiolucent halo." More than 200 articles were found, of which 70 were broadly relevant to the topic. We ultimately included 50 articles that were closely related to the topic of interest. When the relevant data were compiled, the following eight lesions were identified as having a radiolucent rim: periapical cemento-osseous dysplasia, focal cemento-osseous dysplasia, florid cemento-osseous dysplasia, cemento-ossifying fibroma, osteoid osteoma, osteoblastoma, odontoma, and cementoblastoma. We propose a novel subcategory, jaw lesions with a radiolucent rim, which includes eight entities. The implementation of this new category can help improve the diagnoses that dental practitioners make based on patients' radiographs. PMID:26730374

BIOSPIDA: A Relational Database Translator for NCBI.

PubMed

Hagen, Matthew S; Lee, Eva K

2010-11-13

As the volume and availability of biological databases continue widespread growth, it has become increasingly difficult for research scientists to identify all relevant information for biological entities of interest. Details of nucleotide sequences, gene expression, molecular interactions, and three-dimensional structures are maintained across many different databases. To retrieve all necessary information requires an integrated system that can query multiple databases with minimized overhead. This paper introduces a universal parser and relational schema translator that can be utilized for all NCBI databases in Abstract Syntax Notation (ASN.1). The data models for OMIM, Entrez-Gene, Pubmed, MMDB and GenBank have been successfully converted into relational databases and all are easily linkable helping to answer complex biological questions. These tools facilitate research scientists to locally integrate databases from NCBI without significant workload or development time.

Mother-child bonding assessment tools☆

PubMed Central

Perrelli, Jaqueline Galdino Albuquerque; Zambaldi, Carla Fonseca; Cantilino, Amaury; Sougey, Everton Botelho

2014-01-01

Objective: To identify and describe research tools used to evaluate bonding between mother and child up to one year of age, as well as to provide information on reliability and validity measures related to these tools. Data source: Research studies available on PUBMED, LILACS, ScienceDirect, PsycINFO and CINAHL databases with the following descriptors: mother-child relations and mother infant relationship, as well as the expressions validity, reliability and scale. Data synthesis: 23 research studies were selected and fully analyzed. Thirteen evaluation research tools were identified concerning mother and child attachment: seven scales, three questionnaires, two inventories and one observation method. From all tools analyzed, the Prenatal Attachment Inventory presented the higher validity and reliability measures to assess mother and fetus relation during pregnancy. Concerning the puerperal period, better consistency coefficients were found for Maternal Attachment Inventory and Postpartum Bonding Questionnaire. Besides, the last one revealed a higher sensibility to identify amenable and severe disorders in the affective relations between mother and child. Conclusions: The majority of research tools are reliable to study the phenomenon presented, although there are some limitations regarding the construct and criterion related to validity. In addition to this, only two of them are translated into Portuguese and adapted to women and children populations in Brazil, being a decisive gap to scientific production in this area. PMID:25479859

How to improve your PubMed/MEDLINE searches: 3. advanced searching, MeSH and My NCBI.

PubMed

Fatehi, Farhad; Gray, Leonard C; Wootton, Richard

2014-03-01

Although the basic PubMed search is often helpful, the results may sometimes be non-specific. For more control over the search process you can use the Advanced Search Builder interface. This allows a targeted search in specific fields, with the convenience of being able to select the intended search field from a list. It also provides a history of your previous searches. The search history is useful to develop a complex search query by combining several previous searches using Boolean operators. For indexing the articles in MEDLINE, the NLM uses a controlled vocabulary system called MeSH. This standardised vocabulary solves the problem of authors, researchers and librarians who may use different terms for the same concept. To be efficient in a PubMed search, you should start by identifying the most appropriate MeSH terms and use them in your search where possible. My NCBI is a personal workspace facility available through PubMed and makes it possible to customise the PubMed interface. It provides various capabilities that can enhance your search performance.

Comparison of PubMed and Google Scholar literature searches.

PubMed

Anders, Michael E; Evans, Dennis P

2010-05-01

Literature searches are essential to evidence-based respiratory care. To conduct literature searches, respiratory therapists rely on search engines to retrieve information, but there is a dearth of literature on the comparative efficiencies of search engines for researching clinical questions in respiratory care. To compare PubMed and Google Scholar search results for clinical topics in respiratory care to that of a benchmark. We performed literature searches with PubMed and Google Scholar, on 3 clinical topics. In PubMed we used the Clinical Queries search filter. In Google Scholar we used the search filters in the Advanced Scholar Search option. We used the reference list of a related Cochrane Collaboration evidence-based systematic review as the benchmark for each of the search results. We calculated recall (sensitivity) and precision (positive predictive value) with 2 x 2 contingency tables. We compared the results with the chi-square test of independence and Fisher's exact test. PubMed and Google Scholar had similar recall for both overall search results (71% vs 69%) and full-text results (43% vs 51%). PubMed had better precision than Google Scholar for both overall search results (13% vs 0.07%, P < .001) and full-text results (8% vs 0.05%, P < .001). Our results suggest that PubMed searches with the Clinical Queries filter are more precise than with the Advanced Scholar Search in Google Scholar for respiratory care topics. PubMed appears to be more practical to conduct efficient, valid searches for informing evidence-based patient-care protocols, for guiding the care of individual patients, and for educational purposes.

Identifying nurse staffing research in Medline: development and testing of empirically derived search strategies with the PubMed interface

PubMed Central

2010-01-01

Background The identification of health services research in databases such as PubMed/Medline is a cumbersome task. This task becomes even more difficult if the field of interest involves the use of diverse methods and data sources, as is the case with nurse staffing research. This type of research investigates the association between nurse staffing parameters and nursing and patient outcomes. A comprehensively developed search strategy may help identify nurse staffing research in PubMed/Medline. Methods A set of relevant references in PubMed/Medline was identified by means of three systematic reviews. This development set was used to detect candidate free-text and MeSH terms. The frequency of these terms was compared to a random sample from PubMed/Medline in order to identify terms specific to nurse staffing research, which were then used to develop a sensitive, precise and balanced search strategy. To determine their precision, the newly developed search strategies were tested against a) the pool of relevant references extracted from the systematic reviews, b) a reference set identified from an electronic journal screening, and c) a sample from PubMed/Medline. Finally, all newly developed strategies were compared to PubMed's Health Services Research Queries (PubMed's HSR Queries). Results The sensitivities of the newly developed search strategies were almost 100% in all of the three test sets applied; precision ranged from 6.1% to 32.0%. PubMed's HSR queries were less sensitive (83.3% to 88.2%) than the new search strategies. Only minor differences in precision were found (5.0% to 32.0%). Conclusions As with other literature on health services research, nurse staffing studies are difficult to identify in PubMed/Medline. Depending on the purpose of the search, researchers can choose between high sensitivity and retrieval of a large number of references or high precision, i.e. and an increased risk of missing relevant references, respectively. More standardized terminology (e.g. by consistent use of the term "nurse staffing") could improve the precision of future searches in this field. Empirically selected search terms can help to develop effective search strategies. The high consistency between all test sets confirmed the validity of our approach. PMID:20731858

Identifying nurse staffing research in Medline: development and testing of empirically derived search strategies with the PubMed interface.

PubMed

Simon, Michael; Hausner, Elke; Klaus, Susan F; Dunton, Nancy E

2010-08-23

The identification of health services research in databases such as PubMed/Medline is a cumbersome task. This task becomes even more difficult if the field of interest involves the use of diverse methods and data sources, as is the case with nurse staffing research. This type of research investigates the association between nurse staffing parameters and nursing and patient outcomes. A comprehensively developed search strategy may help identify nurse staffing research in PubMed/Medline. A set of relevant references in PubMed/Medline was identified by means of three systematic reviews. This development set was used to detect candidate free-text and MeSH terms. The frequency of these terms was compared to a random sample from PubMed/Medline in order to identify terms specific to nurse staffing research, which were then used to develop a sensitive, precise and balanced search strategy. To determine their precision, the newly developed search strategies were tested against a) the pool of relevant references extracted from the systematic reviews, b) a reference set identified from an electronic journal screening, and c) a sample from PubMed/Medline. Finally, all newly developed strategies were compared to PubMed's Health Services Research Queries (PubMed's HSR Queries). The sensitivities of the newly developed search strategies were almost 100% in all of the three test sets applied; precision ranged from 6.1% to 32.0%. PubMed's HSR queries were less sensitive (83.3% to 88.2%) than the new search strategies. Only minor differences in precision were found (5.0% to 32.0%). As with other literature on health services research, nurse staffing studies are difficult to identify in PubMed/Medline. Depending on the purpose of the search, researchers can choose between high sensitivity and retrieval of a large number of references or high precision, i.e. and an increased risk of missing relevant references, respectively. More standardized terminology (e.g. by consistent use of the term "nurse staffing") could improve the precision of future searches in this field. Empirically selected search terms can help to develop effective search strategies. The high consistency between all test sets confirmed the validity of our approach.

[Limiting a Medline/PubMed query to the "best" articles using the JCR relative impact factor].

PubMed

Avillach, P; Kerdelhué, G; Devos, P; Maisonneuve, H; Darmoni, S J

2014-12-01

Medline/PubMed is the most frequently used medical bibliographic research database. The aim of this study was to propose a new generic method to limit any Medline/PubMed query based on the relative impact factor and the A & B categories of the SIGAPS score. The entire PubMed corpus was used for the feasibility study, then ten frequent diseases in terms of PubMed indexing and the citations of four Nobel prize winners. The relative impact factor (RIF) was calculated by medical specialty defined in Journal Citation Reports. The two queries, which included all the journals in category A (or A OR B), were added to any Medline/PubMed query as a central point of the feasibility study. Limitation using the SIGAPS category A was larger than the when using the Core Clinical Journals (CCJ): 15.65% of PubMed corpus vs 8.64% for CCJ. The response time of this limit applied to the entire PubMed corpus was less than two seconds. For five diseases out of ten, limiting the citations with the RIF was more effective than with the CCJ. For the four Nobel prize winners, limiting the citations with the RIF was more effective than the CCJ. The feasibility study to apply a new filter based on the relative impact factor on any Medline/PubMed query was positive. Copyright © 2014 Elsevier Masson SAS. All rights reserved.

Transparency in ovarian cancer clinical trial results: ClinicalTrials.gov versus PubMed, Embase and Google scholar.

PubMed

Roberto, Anna; Radrezza, Silvia; Mosconi, Paola

2018-04-10

In recent years the question of the lack of transparency in clinical research has been debated by clinicians, researchers, citizens and their representatives, authors and publishers. This is particularly important for infrequent cancers such as ovarian cancer, where treatment still gives disappointing results in the majority of cases. Our aim was to assess the availability to the public of results in ClinicalTrials.gov, and the frequency of non-publication of results in ClinicalTrials.gov and in PubMed, Embase and Google Scholar. We collected all trials on ovarian cancer identified as "completed status" in the ClinicalTrials.gov registry on 17 January 2017. We checked the availability of the results in ClinicalTrials.gov and systematically identified published manuscripts on results. Out of 2725 trials on ovarian cancer identified, 752 were classified as "completed status". In those closed between 2008 and 2015, excluding phase I, the frequency of results in ClinicalTrials.gov was 35%. Of the 752 completed studies the frequency of published results in PubMed, Embase or Google Scholar ranged from 57.9% to 69.7% in the last years. These findings show a lack of transparency and credibility of research. Citizens or patients' representatives, with the medical community, should continuously support initiatives to improve the publication and dissemination of clinical study results.

Eye neoplasms research: a bibliometric analysis from 1966 to 2012.

PubMed

Boudry, Christophe; Mouriaux, Fréderic

2015-01-01

To calculate the growth rate of the biomedical literature on eye neoplasms and to assess which journals, countries, and continents are the most productive. PubMed was used to search for articles published from 1966 to 2012. Total number of articles per year was fitted to a linear equation as well as an exponential curve. To identify the core journals and predict the number of journals containing articles related to eye neoplasms, Bradford's law was applied. For each country and each continent, the gross domestic product (GDP) index (publications per $1 billion USD of GDP) and the population index (publications per million inhabitants) were calculated. A total of 27,943 references were retrieved. The growth in the number of publications showed a linear increase with a yearly average growth rate of 2.08%, which was lower than for the whole PubMed database (3.59%). Using Bradford's law, 17 core journals were identified, among which 2 journals produced more than 1000 articles (JAMA Ophthalmology and American Journal of Ophthalmology). Europe was the most productive continent, followed by North America and Asia. The United States was by far the predominant country in number of publications, followed by Germany and the United Kingdom. However, population and GDP indexes showed that absolute production did not reflect the production per capita or economic efficiency. This bibliometric study provides data contributing to a better understanding of the eye neoplasm research field.

Net Improvement of Correct Answers to Therapy Questions After PubMed Searches: Pre/Post Comparison

PubMed Central

Keepanasseril, Arun

2013-01-01

Background Clinicians search PubMed for answers to clinical questions although it is time consuming and not always successful. Objective To determine if PubMed used with its Clinical Queries feature to filter results based on study quality would improve search success (more correct answers to clinical questions related to therapy). Methods We invited 528 primary care physicians to participate, 143 (27.1%) consented, and 111 (21.0% of the total and 77.6% of those who consented) completed the study. Participants answered 14 yes/no therapy questions and were given 4 of these (2 originally answered correctly and 2 originally answered incorrectly) to search using either the PubMed main screen or PubMed Clinical Queries narrow therapy filter via a purpose-built system with identical search screens. Participants also picked 3 of the first 20 retrieved citations that best addressed each question. They were then asked to re-answer the original 14 questions. Results We found no statistically significant differences in the rates of correct or incorrect answers using the PubMed main screen or PubMed Clinical Queries. The rate of correct answers increased from 50.0% to 61.4% (95% CI 55.0%-67.8%) for the PubMed main screen searches and from 50.0% to 59.1% (95% CI 52.6%-65.6%) for Clinical Queries searches. These net absolute increases of 11.4% and 9.1%, respectively, included previously correct answers changing to incorrect at a rate of 9.5% (95% CI 5.6%-13.4%) for PubMed main screen searches and 9.1% (95% CI 5.3%-12.9%) for Clinical Queries searches, combined with increases in the rate of being correct of 20.5% (95% CI 15.2%-25.8%) for PubMed main screen searches and 17.7% (95% CI 12.7%-22.7%) for Clinical Queries searches. Conclusions PubMed can assist clinicians answering clinical questions with an approximately 10% absolute rate of improvement in correct answers. This small increase includes more correct answers partially offset by a decrease in previously correct answers. PMID:24217329

Net improvement of correct answers to therapy questions after pubmed searches: pre/post comparison.

PubMed

McKibbon, Kathleen Ann; Lokker, Cynthia; Keepanasseril, Arun; Wilczynski, Nancy L; Haynes, R Brian

2013-11-08

Clinicians search PubMed for answers to clinical questions although it is time consuming and not always successful. To determine if PubMed used with its Clinical Queries feature to filter results based on study quality would improve search success (more correct answers to clinical questions related to therapy). We invited 528 primary care physicians to participate, 143 (27.1%) consented, and 111 (21.0% of the total and 77.6% of those who consented) completed the study. Participants answered 14 yes/no therapy questions and were given 4 of these (2 originally answered correctly and 2 originally answered incorrectly) to search using either the PubMed main screen or PubMed Clinical Queries narrow therapy filter via a purpose-built system with identical search screens. Participants also picked 3 of the first 20 retrieved citations that best addressed each question. They were then asked to re-answer the original 14 questions. We found no statistically significant differences in the rates of correct or incorrect answers using the PubMed main screen or PubMed Clinical Queries. The rate of correct answers increased from 50.0% to 61.4% (95% CI 55.0%-67.8%) for the PubMed main screen searches and from 50.0% to 59.1% (95% CI 52.6%-65.6%) for Clinical Queries searches. These net absolute increases of 11.4% and 9.1%, respectively, included previously correct answers changing to incorrect at a rate of 9.5% (95% CI 5.6%-13.4%) for PubMed main screen searches and 9.1% (95% CI 5.3%-12.9%) for Clinical Queries searches, combined with increases in the rate of being correct of 20.5% (95% CI 15.2%-25.8%) for PubMed main screen searches and 17.7% (95% CI 12.7%-22.7%) for Clinical Queries searches. PubMed can assist clinicians answering clinical questions with an approximately 10% absolute rate of improvement in correct answers. This small increase includes more correct answers partially offset by a decrease in previously correct answers.

Extraction of Pharmacokinetic Evidence of Drug–Drug Interactions from the Literature

PubMed Central

Kolchinsky, Artemy; Lourenço, Anália; Wu, Heng-Yi; Li, Lang; Rocha, Luis M.

2015-01-01

Drug-drug interaction (DDI) is a major cause of morbidity and mortality and a subject of intense scientific interest. Biomedical literature mining can aid DDI research by extracting evidence for large numbers of potential interactions from published literature and clinical databases. Though DDI is investigated in domains ranging in scale from intracellular biochemistry to human populations, literature mining has not been used to extract specific types of experimental evidence, which are reported differently for distinct experimental goals. We focus on pharmacokinetic evidence for DDI, essential for identifying causal mechanisms of putative interactions and as input for further pharmacological and pharmacoepidemiology investigations. We used manually curated corpora of PubMed abstracts and annotated sentences to evaluate the efficacy of literature mining on two tasks: first, identifying PubMed abstracts containing pharmacokinetic evidence of DDIs; second, extracting sentences containing such evidence from abstracts. We implemented a text mining pipeline and evaluated it using several linear classifiers and a variety of feature transforms. The most important textual features in the abstract and sentence classification tasks were analyzed. We also investigated the performance benefits of using features derived from PubMed metadata fields, various publicly available named entity recognizers, and pharmacokinetic dictionaries. Several classifiers performed very well in distinguishing relevant and irrelevant abstracts (reaching F1≈0.93, MCC≈0.74, iAUC≈0.99) and sentences (F1≈0.76, MCC≈0.65, iAUC≈0.83). We found that word bigram features were important for achieving optimal classifier performance and that features derived from Medical Subject Headings (MeSH) terms significantly improved abstract classification. We also found that some drug-related named entity recognition tools and dictionaries led to slight but significant improvements, especially in classification of evidence sentences. Based on our thorough analysis of classifiers and feature transforms and the high classification performance achieved, we demonstrate that literature mining can aid DDI discovery by supporting automatic extraction of specific types of experimental evidence. PMID:25961290

All Information Is Not Equal: Using the Literature Databases PubMed and The Cochrane Library for Identifying the Evidence on Granulocyte Transfusion Therapy.

PubMed

Metzendorf, Maria-Inti; Schulz, Manuela; Braun, Volker

2014-10-01

To be able to take well-informed decisions or carry out sound research, clinicians and researchers alike require specific information seeking skills matching their respective information needs. Biomedical information is traditionally available via different literature databases. This article gives an introduction to two diverging sources, PubMed (23 million references) and The Cochrane Library (800,000 references), both of which offer sophisticated instruments for searching an increasing amount of medical publications of varied quality and ambition. Whereas PubMed as an unfiltered source of primary literature comprises all different kinds of publication types occurring in academic journals, The Cochrane Library is a pre-filtered source which offers access to either synthesized publication types or critically appraised and carefully selected references. A search approach has to be carried out deliberately and requires a good knowledge on the scope and features of the databases as well as on the ability to build a search strategy in a structured way. We present a specific and a sensitive search approach, making use of both databases within two application case scenarios in order to identify the evidence on granulocyte transfusions for infections in adult patients with neutropenia.

Endovascular Therapy Research in Lower Limb Peripheral Arterial Disease Published Over a 5-Year Period: Who is Publishing and Where?

DOE Office of Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI.GOV)

Asadi, H.; Lee, R. J.; Sheehan, M.

IntroductionPeripheral arterial disease (PAD) is being increasingly managed by endovascular therapies. In this study, we identified the clinical services publishing research as well as the journals of publication over a 5-year period.MethodsTwenty keywords and phrases related to endovascular intervention were identified, and a literature search was performed through the PubMed database from January 2009 to January 2014. Inclusion criteria were English language, study population more than five patients, and matching the keyword search. Eligible studies were collated into a database and classified by journal of publication, PubMed number, article title, publishing clinical service, type of publication, country of origin, andmore » authors.Results825 studies from 114 different journals were identified. 297 papers were excluded. Of the 528 included papers, 204 (39%) were published by Vascular Surgery (VS), 157 (30%) by Interventional Radiology (IR), 101 (19%) by Cardiology, 43 (8%) by Angiology, 6 (1%) by Vascular Medicine, and 17 (3%) from miscellaneous services. 283 (54%) studies originated from Europe, 157 (30%) from North America, 76 (14%) from Asia, 6 from Australia, 3 each from South America and Africa. IR published the most papers on PAD endovascular intervention in Europe with VS second while this trend was reversed in the USA. The 528 papers were published in 98 different journals with retrospective case series (72%), the majority.ConclusionIR continues to play a significant research role in endovascular intervention in PAD, particularly in Europe, and specifically in below the knee intervention, pedal intervention, and drug-eluting technologies.« less

Maternity leave in normal pregnancy.

PubMed

Leduc, Dean

2011-08-01

To assist maternity care providers in recognizing and discussing health- and illness-related issues in pregnancy and their relationship to maternity benefits. Published literature was retrieved through searches of PubMed or Medline, CINAHL, and The Cochrane Library in 2009 using appropriate controlled vocabulary (e.g., maternity benefits) and key words (e.g., maternity, benefits, pregnancy). Results were restricted to systematic reviews, randomized controlled trials/controlled clinical trials, and observational studies. There were no date or language restrictions. Searches were updated on a regular basis and incorporated in the guideline to December 2009. Grey (unpublished) literature was identified through searching the web sites of health technology assessment and health technology assessment-related agencies, clinical practice guideline collections, clinical trial registries, and national and international medical specialty societies.

Factors Increasing Vulnerability to Health Effects before, during and after Floods

PubMed Central

Lowe, Dianne; Ebi, Kristie L.; Forsberg, Bertil

2013-01-01

Identifying the risk factors for morbidity and mortality effects pre-, during and post-flood may aid the appropriate targeting of flood-related adverse health prevention strategies. We conducted a systematic PubMed search to identify studies examining risk factors for health effects of precipitation-related floods, among Organisation for Economic Co-Operation and Development (OECD) member countries. Research identifying flood-related morbidity and mortality risk factors is limited and primarily examines demographic characteristics such as age and gender. During floods, females, elderly and children appear to be at greater risk of psychological and physical health effects, while males between 10 to 29 years may be at greater risk of mortality. Post-flood, those over 65 years and males are at increased risk of physical health effects, while females appear at greater risk of psychological health effects. Other risk factors include previous flood experiences, greater flood depth or flood trauma, existing illnesses, medication interruption, and low education or socio-economic status. Tailoring messages to high-risk groups may increase their effectiveness. Target populations differ for morbidity and mortality effects, and differ pre-, during, and post-flood. Additional research is required to identify the risk factors associated with pre- and post-flood mortality and post-flood morbidity, preferably using prospective cohort studies. PMID:24336027

Factors increasing vulnerability to health effects before, during and after floods.

PubMed

Lowe, Dianne; Ebi, Kristie L; Forsberg, Bertil

2013-12-11

Identifying the risk factors for morbidity and mortality effects pre-, during and post-flood may aid the appropriate targeting of flood-related adverse health prevention strategies. We conducted a systematic PubMed search to identify studies examining risk factors for health effects of precipitation-related floods, among Organisation for Economic Co-Operation and Development (OECD) member countries. Research identifying flood-related morbidity and mortality risk factors is limited and primarily examines demographic characteristics such as age and gender. During floods, females, elderly and children appear to be at greater risk of psychological and physical health effects, while males between 10 to 29 years may be at greater risk of mortality. Post-flood, those over 65 years and males are at increased risk of physical health effects, while females appear at greater risk of psychological health effects. Other risk factors include previous flood experiences, greater flood depth or flood trauma, existing illnesses, medication interruption, and low education or socio-economic status. Tailoring messages to high-risk groups may increase their effectiveness. Target populations differ for morbidity and mortality effects, and differ pre-, during, and post-flood. Additional research is required to identify the risk factors associated with pre- and post-flood mortality and post-flood morbidity, preferably using prospective cohort studies.

Predicting clicks of PubMed articles.

PubMed

Mao, Yuqing; Lu, Zhiyong

2013-01-01

Predicting the popularity or access usage of an article has the potential to improve the quality of PubMed searches. We can model the click trend of each article as its access changes over time by mining the PubMed query logs, which contain the previous access history for all articles. In this article, we examine the access patterns produced by PubMed users in two years (July 2009 to July 2011). We explore the time series of accesses for each article in the query logs, model the trends with regression approaches, and subsequently use the models for prediction. We show that the click trends of PubMed articles are best fitted with a log-normal regression model. This model allows the number of accesses an article receives and the time since it first becomes available in PubMed to be related via quadratic and logistic functions, with the model parameters to be estimated via maximum likelihood. Our experiments predicting the number of accesses for an article based on its past usage demonstrate that the mean absolute error and mean absolute percentage error of our model are 4.0% and 8.1% lower than the power-law regression model, respectively. The log-normal distribution is also shown to perform significantly better than a previous prediction method based on a human memory theory in cognitive science. This work warrants further investigation on the utility of such a log-normal regression approach towards improving information access in PubMed.

Predicting clicks of PubMed articles

PubMed Central

Mao, Yuqing; Lu, Zhiyong

2013-01-01

Predicting the popularity or access usage of an article has the potential to improve the quality of PubMed searches. We can model the click trend of each article as its access changes over time by mining the PubMed query logs, which contain the previous access history for all articles. In this article, we examine the access patterns produced by PubMed users in two years (July 2009 to July 2011). We explore the time series of accesses for each article in the query logs, model the trends with regression approaches, and subsequently use the models for prediction. We show that the click trends of PubMed articles are best fitted with a log-normal regression model. This model allows the number of accesses an article receives and the time since it first becomes available in PubMed to be related via quadratic and logistic functions, with the model parameters to be estimated via maximum likelihood. Our experiments predicting the number of accesses for an article based on its past usage demonstrate that the mean absolute error and mean absolute percentage error of our model are 4.0% and 8.1% lower than the power-law regression model, respectively. The log-normal distribution is also shown to perform significantly better than a previous prediction method based on a human memory theory in cognitive science. This work warrants further investigation on the utility of such a log-normal regression approach towards improving information access in PubMed. PMID:24551386

Social Media Use Among Nurses: Literature Review.

PubMed

Cordoş, Ariana Anamaria; Bolboacă, Sorana D

2016-01-01

The scope of the research was to increase the understanding of social media's influence among nurses while highlighting gaps in the literature and areas for further research. The search of PubMed database was performed in November 2015, using terms to identify peer-reviewed articles that describe the use of social media for nursing students or nurse practitioners. A systematic approach was used to retrieve papers and extract relevant data. There were identified 23 full text articles involving social media and nurse-related terminology. The majority of the studies were interventional (n = 20) that assessed social media as a teaching tool. Podcasts, Multiplayer virtual worlds and mixed social media platforms has also been assessed. Social media is used as a tool of information for nurses mainly as the means for engaging and communicating.

Healthcare burden of depression in adults with arthritis.

PubMed

Sambamoorthi, Usha; Shah, Drishti; Zhao, Xiaohui

2017-02-01

Arthritis and depression are two of the top disabling conditions. When arthritis and depression exist in the same individual, they can interact with each other negatively and pose a significant healthcare burden on the patients, their families, payers, healthcare systems, and society as a whole. Areas covered: The primary objective of this review is to summarize, identify knowledge gaps and discuss the challenges in estimating the healthcare burden of depression among individuals with arthritis. Electronic literature searches were performed on PubMed, Embase, EBSCOhost, Scopus, the Cochrane Library, and Google Scholar to identify relevant studies. Expert Commentary: Our review revealed that the prevalence of depression varied depending on the definition of depression, type of arthritis, tools and threshold points used to identify depression, and the country of residence. Depression exacerbated arthritis-related complications as well as pain and was associated with poor health-related quality of life, disability, mortality, and high financial burden. There were significant knowledge gaps in estimates of incident depression rates, depression attributable disability, and healthcare utilization, direct and indirect healthcare costs among individuals with arthritis.

Correlates of stigma in adults with epilepsy: A systematic review of quantitative studies.

PubMed

Baker, David; Eccles, Fiona J R; Caswell, Helen L

2018-06-01

The aim of this review was to identify quantitative correlates, predictors, and outcomes of stigma in adults with epilepsy living in Western countries. To identify relevant literature, four academic databases (PsycINFO, CINAHL, PubMed, and Scopus) were systematically searched using key terms related to stigma and epilepsy. Thirty-three research papers reporting findings from 25 quantitative studies of correlates of stigma in epilepsy were identified. The findings suggest that stigma can be predicted by demographic, illness-related, and psychosocial factors, although associations were found to be highly culturally specific. Outcomes of stigma in people with epilepsy were replicated more consistently across cultures, and its impact was significant. Detrimental effects included both worse physical health, including less effective management of the condition, and reduced psychological well-being, including difficulties such as depression and anxiety. Educational initiatives and therapeutic interventions that aim to address stigma in people with epilepsy are recommended; however, these need to be culturally informed to ensure that they are valid and effective. Copyright © 2018 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Healthcare burden of depression in adults with arthritis

PubMed Central

Sambamoorthi, Usha; Shah, Drishti; Zhao, Xiaohui

2017-01-01

Introduction Arthritis and depression are two of the top disabling conditions. When arthritis and depression exist in the same individual, they can interact with each other negatively and pose a significant healthcare burden on the patients, their families, payers, healthcare systems, and society as a whole. Areas covered The primary objective of this review is to summarize, identify knowledge gaps and discuss the challenges in estimating the healthcare burden of depression among individuals with arthritis. Electronic literature searches were performed on PubMed, Embase, EBSCOhost, Scopus, the Cochrane Library, and Google Scholar to identify relevant studies. Expert Commentary Our review revealed that the prevalence of depression varied depending on the definition of depression, type of arthritis, tools and threshold points used to identify depression, and the country of residence. Depression exacerbated arthritis-related complications as well as pain and was associated with poor health-related quality of life, disability, mortality, and high financial burden. There were significant knowledge gaps in estimates of incident depression rates, depression attributable disability, and healthcare utilization, direct and indirect healthcare costs among individuals with arthritis. PMID:28092207

Anti-Hyperglycemic Agents for the Treatment of Type 2 Diabetes Mellitus: Role in Cardioprotection During the Last Decade.

PubMed

Kocyigit, Duygu; Gurses, Kadri Murat; Yalcin, Muhammed Ulvi; Tokgozoglu, Lale

2017-01-01

Type 2 diabetic patients are known to have a tendency to develop cardiovascular (CV) disease (CVD), and related unfavourable outcomes such as heart failure, myocardial infarction (MI), cerebrovascular events (e.g. stroke), and related mortality. Long- term clinical trials have revealed contradictory findings regarding the relationship between glycemic control and CV benefits due to variations in the key characteristics of the study population. During the last decade, number of pharmacological agents used for glucose- lowering in the treatment of type 2 diabetes mellitus (T2DM) has increased owing to the introduction of dipeptidyl peptidase- IV (DPP- IV) inhibitors, glucagon- like peptide- 1 (GLP- 1) receptor agonists, and sodium-glucose co-transporter 2 (SGLT- 2) inhibitors. This review aims to focus on the mechanisms of action of these drugs in the cardiovascular system and the trials evaluating their impact on CVD. Furthermore, trials in the last decade evaluating the impact of traditional glucose- lowering drugs on CVD are included. For this purpose, we searched PubMed for articles in English using the search terms "type 2 diabetes mellitus, glucose- lowering drugs, antidiabetic medications, cardiovascular, cardiovascular disease, cardiovascular system" between inception to September 2016. We also searched separately for each medication in addition to the keyword "cardiovascular disease" on PubMed. To identify further articles, we hand searched related citations in review articles and commentaries. Copyright© Bentham Science Publishers; For any queries, please email at epub@benthamscience.org.

The Energy Burden and Environmental Impact of Health Services

PubMed Central

Buettner, Petra G.; Canyon, Deon V.

2012-01-01

Objectives. We reviewed the English-language literature on the energy burden and environmental impact of health services. Methods. We searched all years of the PubMed, CINAHL, and ScienceDirect databases for publications reporting energy consumption, greenhouse gas emissions, or the environmental impact of health-related activities. We extracted and tabulated data to enable cross-comparisons among different activities and services; where possible, we calculated per patient or per event emissions. Results. We identified 38 relevant publications. Per patient or per event, health-related energy consumption and greenhouse gas emissions are quite modest; in the aggregate, however, they are considerable. In England and the United States, health-related emissions account for 3% and 8% of total national emissions, respectively. Conclusions. Although reducing health-related energy consumption and emissions alone will not resolve all of the problems of energy scarcity and climate change, it could make a meaningful contribution. PMID:23078475

Hotspots in research on the measurement of medical students' clinical competence from 2012-2016 based on co-word analysis.

PubMed

Chang, Xing; Zhou, Xin; Luo, Linzhi; Yang, Chengjia; Pan, Hui; Zhang, Shuyang

2017-09-12

This study aimed to identify hotspots in research on clinical competence measurements from 2012 to 2016. The authors retrieved literature published between 2012 and 2016 from PubMed using selected medical subject headings (MeSH) terms. They used BibExcel software to generate high-frequency MeSH terms and identified hotspots by co-word analysis and cluster analysis. The authors searched 588 related articles and identified 31 high-frequency MeSH terms. In addition, they obtained 6 groups of high-frequency MeSH terms that reflected the domain hotspots. This study identified 6 hotspots of domain research, including studies on influencing factors and perception evaluation, improving and developing measurement tools, feedback measurement, measurement approaches based on computer simulation, the measurement of specific students in different learning phases, and the measurement of students' communication ability. All of these research topics could provide useful information for educators and researchers to continually conduct in-depth studies.

BIOSPIDA: A Relational Database Translator for NCBI

PubMed Central

Hagen, Matthew S.; Lee, Eva K.

2010-01-01

As the volume and availability of biological databases continue widespread growth, it has become increasingly difficult for research scientists to identify all relevant information for biological entities of interest. Details of nucleotide sequences, gene expression, molecular interactions, and three-dimensional structures are maintained across many different databases. To retrieve all necessary information requires an integrated system that can query multiple databases with minimized overhead. This paper introduces a universal parser and relational schema translator that can be utilized for all NCBI databases in Abstract Syntax Notation (ASN.1). The data models for OMIM, Entrez-Gene, Pubmed, MMDB and GenBank have been successfully converted into relational databases and all are easily linkable helping to answer complex biological questions. These tools facilitate research scientists to locally integrate databases from NCBI without significant workload or development time. PMID:21347013

Aggregator: a machine learning approach to identifying MEDLINE articles that derive from the same underlying clinical trial.

PubMed

Shao, Weixiang; Adams, Clive E; Cohen, Aaron M; Davis, John M; McDonagh, Marian S; Thakurta, Sujata; Yu, Philip S; Smalheiser, Neil R

2015-03-01

It is important to identify separate publications that report outcomes from the same underlying clinical trial, in order to avoid over-counting these as independent pieces of evidence. We created positive and negative training sets (comprised of pairs of articles reporting on the same condition and intervention) that were, or were not, linked to the same clinicaltrials.gov trial registry number. Features were extracted from MEDLINE and PubMed metadata; pairwise similarity scores were modeled using logistic regression. Article pairs from the same trial were identified with high accuracy (F1 score=0.843). We also created a clustering tool, Aggregator, that takes as input a PubMed user query for RCTs on a given topic, and returns article clusters predicted to arise from the same clinical trial. Although painstaking examination of full-text may be needed to be conclusive, metadata are surprisingly accurate in predicting when two articles derive from the same underlying clinical trial. Copyright © 2014 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Indexing of randomised controlled trials of physiotherapy interventions: a comparison of AMED, CENTRAL, CINAHL, EMBASE, hooked on evidence, PEDro, PsycINFO and PubMed.

PubMed

Moseley, Anne M; Sherrington, Catherine; Elkins, Mark R; Herbert, Robert D; Maher, Christopher G

2009-09-01

To compare the comprehensiveness of indexing the reports of randomised controlled trials of physiotherapy interventions by eight bibliographic databases (AMED, CENTRAL, CINAHL, EMBASE, Hooked on Evidence, PEDro, PsycINFO and PubMed). Audit of bibliographic databases. Two hundred and eighty-one reports of randomised controlled trials of physiotherapy interventions were identified by screening the reference lists of 30 relevant systematic reviews published in four consecutive issues of the Cochrane Database of Systematic Reviews (Issue 3, 2007 to Issue 2, 2008). AMED, CENTRAL, CINAHL, EMBASE, Hooked on Evidence, PEDro, PsycINFO and PubMed were used to search for the trial reports. The number of trial reports indexed in each database was calculated. PEDro indexed 99% of the trial reports, CENTRAL indexed 98%, PubMed indexed 91%, EMBASE indexed 82%, CINAHL indexed 61%, Hooked on Evidence indexed 40%, AMED indexed 36% and PsycINFO indexed 17%. Most trial reports (92%) were indexed on four or more of the databases. One trial report was indexed on a single database (PEDro). Of the eight bibliographic databases examined, PEDro and CENTRAL provide the most comprehensive indexing of reports of randomised trials of physiotherapy interventions.

Petroleum pipeline explosions in sub-Saharan Africa: a comprehensive systematic review of the academic and lay literature.

PubMed

Carlson, Lucas C; Rogers, Tom T; Kamara, Thaim B; Rybarczyk, Megan M; Leow, Jeffrey J; Kirsch, Thomas D; Kushner, Adam L

2015-05-01

Experience indicates that the frequency and impact of petroleum pipeline fires and explosions in sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) is presently under-represented in the academic literature. Using adapted PRISMA guidelines, the authors reviewed both PubMed and the LexisNexis Academic news database, which includes periodicals, news transcripts and online reports. Country-by-country searches were conducted for petroleum pipeline fires and explosions in SSA occurring between June 1, 2004 and May 31, 2014. Initial search yielded 5730 articles from LexisNexis Academic and 3 from PubMed. On further review, a total of 28 separate petroleum pipeline-related incidents causing injuries and/or deaths were identified, 16 of which had not been previously reported in the academic literature. The events occurred in Nigeria (23), Kenya (2), Ghana (1), Sierra Leone (1), and Tanzania (1). A total of 1756 deaths were reported across all events. The most common cause of the original leak was intentional, either from theft or vandalism (13/20, 65%), or by militia activity (2/20, 10%). Fire disasters related to scavenging fuel from petroleum pipelines are common in SSA and cause significant morbidity and mortality. These events require better reporting tools and intervention strategies overall. Furthermore, our study demonstrates that non-academic sources can effectively supplement gaps in the academic literature. Copyright © 2014 Elsevier Ltd and ISBI. All rights reserved.

Critical factors for the success of orthodontic mini-implants: a systematic review.

PubMed

Chen, Yan; Kyung, Hee Moon; Zhao, Wen Ting; Yu, Won Jae

2009-03-01

This systematic review was undertaken to discuss factors that affect mini-implants as direct and indirect orthodontic anchorage. The data were collected from electronic databases (Medline [Entrez PubMed], Embase, Web of Science, Cochrane Library, and All Evidence Based Medicine Reviews). Randomized clinical trials, prospective and retrospective clinical studies, and clinical trials concerning the properties, affective factors, and requirements of mini-implants were considered. The titles and abstracts that appeared to fulfill the initial selection criteria were collected by consensus, and the original articles were retrieved and evaluated with a methodologic checklist. A hand search of key orthodontic journals was performed to identify recent unindexed literature. The search strategy resulted in 596 articles. By screening titles and abstracts, 126 articles were identified. After the exclusion criteria were applied, 16 articles remained. The analyzed results of the literature were divided into 2 topics: placement-related and loading-related factors. Mini-implants are effective as anchorage, and their success depends on proper initial mechanical stability and loading quality and quantity.

Accelerometer-measured daily physical activity related to aerobic fitness in children and adolescents.

PubMed

Dencker, Magnus; Andersen, Lars B

2011-06-01

Maximum oxygen uptake (VO(2PEAK)) is generally considered to be the best single marker for aerobic fitness. While a positive relationship between daily physical activity and aerobic fitness has been established in adults, the relationship appears less clear in children and adolescents. The purpose of this paper is to summarise recently published data on the relationship between daily physical activity, as measured by accelerometers, and VO(2PEAK) in children and adolescents. A PubMed search was performed on 29 October 2010 to identify relevant articles. Studies were considered relevant if they included measurement of daily physical activity by accelerometry and related to a VO(2PEAK) either measured directly at a maximal exercise test or estimated from maximal power output. A total of nine studies were identified, with a total number of 6116 children and adolescents investigated. Most studies reported a low-to-moderate relationship (r = 0.10-0.45) between objectively measured daily physical activity and VO(2PEAK). No conclusive evidence exists that physical activity of higher intensities are more closely related to VO(2PEAK), than lower intensities.

The Moroccan Genetic Disease Database (MGDD): a database for DNA variations related to inherited disorders and disease susceptibility.

PubMed

Charoute, Hicham; Nahili, Halima; Abidi, Omar; Gabi, Khalid; Rouba, Hassan; Fakiri, Malika; Barakat, Abdelhamid

2014-03-01

National and ethnic mutation databases provide comprehensive information about genetic variations reported in a population or an ethnic group. In this paper, we present the Moroccan Genetic Disease Database (MGDD), a catalogue of genetic data related to diseases identified in the Moroccan population. We used the PubMed, Web of Science and Google Scholar databases to identify available articles published until April 2013. The Database is designed and implemented on a three-tier model using Mysql relational database and the PHP programming language. To date, the database contains 425 mutations and 208 polymorphisms found in 301 genes and 259 diseases. Most Mendelian diseases in the Moroccan population follow autosomal recessive mode of inheritance (74.17%) and affect endocrine, nutritional and metabolic physiology. The MGDD database provides reference information for researchers, clinicians and health professionals through a user-friendly Web interface. Its content should be useful to improve researches in human molecular genetics, disease diagnoses and design of association studies. MGDD can be publicly accessed at http://mgdd.pasteur.ma.

[Scientific production from public hospitals of the City of Buenos Aires, 2017].

PubMed

Ibarra, Mariano; Torrents, Milagros; Ossorio, María Fabiana; Ferrero, Fernando

2018-01-01

The number of publications in the scientific literature coming from an institution is an indicator of its scientific production. The scientific production of the hospitals of the Government of the City of Buenos Aires (GCBA) has been evaluated previously, but without discriminating how much of that production corresponded to other academic institutions settled there (University of Buenos Aires, UBA, National Council of Scientific Research and Techniques, CONICET). Our objective was to evaluate the publications included in PubMed that correspond to hospitals of the GCBA, describe their main characteristics, and discriminate the contribution of other academic institutions (UBA and CONICET). It is a cross-sectional study based on a PubMed search, using the name of each of the 34 GCBA hospitals, CONICET and UBA in the "affiliation" field. In total, 2727 publications from GCBA hospitals were identified (4.6% of Argentine publications); 73.9% in English, 78.9% in relation to humans, 37.2% in the last 5 years; 6.4% with high level of evidence (clinical trials and meta-analysis), and 28.4% including children. Compared to the national total, the GCBA publications include fewer works in English, more research in humans, more clinical trials and more research in children. Of the publications corresponding to hospitals of the GCBA, 90.4% did not share the affiliation with CONICET or with UBA. In conclusion, the GCBA hospitals generated 4.6% of the total Argentine publications in PubMed; and 90% of these was not shared with UBA or CONICET. Publications from GCBA institutions include more clinical trials and research in children.

Information management and complementary alternative medicine: the anatomy of information about CAMs through PubMed.

PubMed

Corrao, Salvatore; Argano, Christiano; Colomba, Daniela; Ippolito, Calogero; Gargano, Vincenzo; Arcoraci, Vincenzo; Licata, Giuseppe

2013-10-01

In recent years, there has been a growing interest about complementary and alternative medicine (CAM), and the use of CAM interventions has become more common among people. For these reasons, health professionals must be able to effectively manage information in this field of knowledge according to an evidence-based point of view. This study assessed the anatomy of the available information about CAMs using PubMed, to give practical instructions to manage information in this field. We also analyzed the anatomy of information according to each alternative medicine branch, narrow and broad search methods, subset filters for indexed-for-Medline and non-indexed citations, and different publication types including randomized controlled trials (RCTs) and meta-analyses. Our results demonstrated that the use of CAMs subset (supplied by PubMed search engine) leads to a great number of citations determining an information overload. Our data reveal that it would be more useful to search for the CAM separately, identifying specific items and study design. Moreover, we found the largest number of randomized clinical trials and meta-analyses related to herbal medicine and acupuncture, neither RCTs nor meta-analyses were available for bach and flower remedies, auriculoacupuncture, iridology, and pranotherapy. For the first time, our study gives a comprehensive view of the anatomy of information regarding CAMs and each branch of them. We suggest a methodological approach to face with searching information about this emerging issue from an evidence-based point of view. Finally, our data pointed out some "grey zones" since neither RCTs nor meta-analyses were available for some CAMs.

[Bibliometric analysis of current glaucoma research based on Pubmed database].

PubMed

Huang, Wen-bin; Wang, Wei; Zhou, Min-wen; Chen, Shi-da; Zhang, Xiu-lan

2013-11-01

To survey the distribution pattern and subject domain knowledge of worldwide glaucoma research based on literatures in Pubmed database. Literatures on glaucoma published in 2007 to 2011 were identified in Pubmed database. The analytic items of an article include published year, country, language author, and journal. After core mesh terms had been characterized by BICOMS, the co-occurrence matrix was built. Cluster analysis was finished by SPSS 20.0. Then visualized network was drawn using ucinet 6.0. Totally 6427 literatures were included, the number of annual articles changed slightly between 2007 and 2011. The United States, England, Germany, Australia, and France together accounted for 77.63% of articles. There were 52 high-frequency subjects and hot topics were clustered into the following 10 categories: (1) Pathology of optic disc and nerve fibers and OCT application, (2) METHODS: of visual field (VF) and visual function examination, (3) Glaucoma drug medications, (4) Pathology and physiology of primary open angle glaucoma (POAG) including VF and intraocular pressure (IOP), (5) Glaucoma surgery, (6) Gene research related to POAG, (7) Glaucoma disease pathology and animal models, (8) Ocular hypertension (OHT) induced complications and corneal changes, (9) Etiology of congenital glaucoma and complications, (10) Etiology and epidemiology of glaucoma. The visualized domain knowledge mapping was successfully built. The pathology of optic disc and nerve fibers, medications, and surgery were well developed. Study on IOP and visual field was in the core domain, which have an important link to etiology, diagnosis, and therapy. The researches on glaucomatous gene, disease pathology model, congenital glaucoma, etiology and epidemiology were not developed well, which are of great promotion space. The distribution pattern and subject domain knowledge of worldwide glaucoma research in the recent five years were shown by using bibliometric analysis.Western developed countries play a leading role in the field of glaucoma research, the international influence of related research in China needs to be strengthened.

In the pursuit of a semantic similarity metric based on UMLS annotations for articles in PubMed Central Open Access.

PubMed

Garcia Castro, Leyla Jael; Berlanga, Rafael; Garcia, Alexander

2015-10-01

Although full-text articles are provided by the publishers in electronic formats, it remains a challenge to find related work beyond the title and abstract context. Identifying related articles based on their abstract is indeed a good starting point; this process is straightforward and does not consume as many resources as full-text based similarity would require. However, further analyses may require in-depth understanding of the full content. Two articles with highly related abstracts can be substantially different regarding the full content. How similarity differs when considering title-and-abstract versus full-text and which semantic similarity metric provides better results when dealing with full-text articles are the main issues addressed in this manuscript. We have benchmarked three similarity metrics - BM25, PMRA, and Cosine, in order to determine which one performs best when using concept-based annotations on full-text documents. We also evaluated variations in similarity values based on title-and-abstract against those relying on full-text. Our test dataset comprises the Genomics track article collection from the 2005 Text Retrieval Conference. Initially, we used an entity recognition software to semantically annotate titles and abstracts as well as full-text with concepts defined in the Unified Medical Language System (UMLS®). For each article, we created a document profile, i.e., a set of identified concepts, term frequency, and inverse document frequency; we then applied various similarity metrics to those document profiles. We considered correlation, precision, recall, and F1 in order to determine which similarity metric performs best with concept-based annotations. For those full-text articles available in PubMed Central Open Access (PMC-OA), we also performed dispersion analyses in order to understand how similarity varies when considering full-text articles. We have found that the PubMed Related Articles similarity metric is the most suitable for full-text articles annotated with UMLS concepts. For similarity values above 0.8, all metrics exhibited an F1 around 0.2 and a recall around 0.1; BM25 showed the highest precision close to 1; in all cases the concept-based metrics performed better than the word-stem-based one. Our experiments show that similarity values vary when considering only title-and-abstract versus full-text similarity. Therefore, analyses based on full-text become useful when a given research requires going beyond title and abstract, particularly regarding connectivity across articles. Visualization available at ljgarcia.github.io/semsim.benchmark/, data available at http://dx.doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.13323. Copyright © 2015 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Applications of geographic information systems (GIS) data and methods in obesity-related research.

PubMed

Jia, P; Cheng, X; Xue, H; Wang, Y

2017-04-01

Geographic information systems (GIS) data/methods offer good promise for public health programs including obesity-related research. This study systematically examined their applications and identified gaps and limitations in current obesity-related research. A systematic search of PubMed for studies published before 20 May 2016, utilizing synonyms for GIS in combination with synonyms for obesity as search terms, identified 121 studies that met our inclusion criteria. We found primary applications of GIS data/methods in obesity-related research included (i) visualization of spatial distribution of obesity and obesity-related phenomena, and basic obesogenic environmental features, and (ii) construction of advanced obesogenic environmental indicators. We found high spatial heterogeneity in obesity prevalence/risk and obesogenic environmental factors. Also, study design and characteristics varied considerably across studies because of lack of established guidance and protocols in the field, which may also have contributed to the mixed findings about environmental impacts on obesity. Existing findings regarding built environment are more robust than those regarding food environment. Applications of GIS data/methods in obesity research are still limited, and related research faces many challenges. More and better GIS data and more friendly analysis methods are needed to expand future GIS applications in obesity-related research. © 2017 World Obesity Federation.

GeneView: a comprehensive semantic search engine for PubMed.

PubMed

Thomas, Philippe; Starlinger, Johannes; Vowinkel, Alexander; Arzt, Sebastian; Leser, Ulf

2012-07-01

Research results are primarily published in scientific literature and curation efforts cannot keep up with the rapid growth of published literature. The plethora of knowledge remains hidden in large text repositories like MEDLINE. Consequently, life scientists have to spend a great amount of time searching for specific information. The enormous ambiguity among most names of biomedical objects such as genes, chemicals and diseases often produces too large and unspecific search results. We present GeneView, a semantic search engine for biomedical knowledge. GeneView is built upon a comprehensively annotated version of PubMed abstracts and openly available PubMed Central full texts. This semi-structured representation of biomedical texts enables a number of features extending classical search engines. For instance, users may search for entities using unique database identifiers or they may rank documents by the number of specific mentions they contain. Annotation is performed by a multitude of state-of-the-art text-mining tools for recognizing mentions from 10 entity classes and for identifying protein-protein interactions. GeneView currently contains annotations for >194 million entities from 10 classes for ∼21 million citations with 271,000 full text bodies. GeneView can be searched at http://bc3.informatik.hu-berlin.de/.

All Information Is Not Equal: Using the Literature Databases PubMed and The Cochrane Library for Identifying the Evidence on Granulocyte Transfusion Therapy

PubMed Central

Metzendorf, Maria-Inti; Schulz, Manuela; Braun, Volker

2014-01-01

Summary To be able to take well-informed decisions or carry out sound research, clinicians and researchers alike require specific information seeking skills matching their respective information needs. Biomedical information is traditionally available via different literature databases. This article gives an introduction to two diverging sources, PubMed (23 million references) and The Cochrane Library (800,000 references), both of which offer sophisticated instruments for searching an increasing amount of medical publications of varied quality and ambition. Whereas PubMed as an unfiltered source of primary literature comprises all different kinds of publication types occurring in academic journals, The Cochrane Library is a pre-filtered source which offers access to either synthesized publication types or critically appraised and carefully selected references. A search approach has to be carried out deliberately and requires a good knowledge on the scope and features of the databases as well as on the ability to build a search strategy in a structured way. We present a specific and a sensitive search approach, making use of both databases within two application case scenarios in order to identify the evidence on granulocyte transfusions for infections in adult patients with neutropenia. PMID:25538539

Gender indexing in publications of clinical trials: 1991-2008.

PubMed

Drye, Lea T; Meinert, Jill L; Meinert, Curtis L

2010-12-01

In 1993 Congress passed the NIH Revitalization Act, which instructed the Director of the NIH to ensure that phase III clinical trials are 'designed and carried out in a manner sufficient to provide for a valid analysis of whether the variables being studied in the trial affect females or members of minority groups, as the case may be, differently than other subjects in the trial.' The purpose of this article is to track the PubMed indexing of gender in clinical trial publications since 1991 with a view toward assessing the impact of the legislation on the number of gender specific trials. We searched PubMed for full-length publications from years 1991 to 2008 of research on humans indexed as publication type 'clinical trial', 'randomized clinical trial' and multicenter randomized trial ('multicenter study' AND 'randomized clinical trial'), and counted the number of trials indexed as male-only, female-only, male and female, and gender unknown in PubMed. The majority of trial publications were indexed in PubMed as including both genders. The proportion of publications indexed as including both genders has increased while the number of publications not indexed with respect to gender and the number of publications indexed as male-only have decreased. In 2005, approximately 13% of NIH expenditures were for female specific or related research compared to 6% for male specific or related research. The proportion of clinical trial publications that were indexed in PubMed as including females began to increase before the legislation so it is difficult to conclude that changes in the number of female-only or male-only trials are due to the legislation. PubMed listings do not include gender enrollment, so female and male enrollment totals could not be compared. The NIH policy should be rewritten to be made gender neutral to bring it in line with the principle of justice as embodied in the Belmont Report.

Health professionals working with First Nations, Inuit, and Métis consensus guideline.

PubMed

Wilson, Don; de la Ronde, Sandra; Brascoupé, Simon; Apale, Alisha Nicole; Barney, Lucy; Guthrie, Bing; Harrold, Elizabeth; Horn, Ojistoh; Johnson, Robin; Rattray, Darrien; Robinson, Nicole; Alainga-Kango, Natsiq; Becker, Gisela; Senikas, Vyta; Aningmiuq, Annie; Bailey, Geri; Birch, Darlene; Cook, Katsi; Danforth, Jessica; Daoust, Mary; Kitty, Darlene; Koebel, Jaime; Kornelsen, Judith; Tsatsa Kotwas, Ndakaitedzva; Lawrence, Audrey; Mudry, Amanda; Senikas, Vyta; Turner, Gail Theresa; Van Wagner, Vicki; Vides, Eduardo; Wasekeesikaw, Fjola Hart; Wolfe, Sara

2013-06-01

Our aim is to provide health care professionals in Canada with the knowledge and tools to provide culturally safe care to First Nations, Inuit, and Métis women and through them, to their families, in order to improve the health of First Nations, Inuit, and Métis. Published literature was retrieved through searches of PubMed, CINAHL, Sociological Abstracts, and The Cochrane Library in 2011 using appropriate controlled vocabulary (e.g.,cultural competency, health services, indigenous, transcultural nursing) and key words (e.g., indigenous health services, transcultural health care, cultural safety). Targeted searches on subtopics (e.g., ceremonial rites and sexual coming of age) were also performed. The PubMed search was restricted to the years 2005 and later because of the large number of records retrieved on this topic. Searches were updated on a regular basis and incorporated in the guideline to May 2012. Grey (unpublished) literature was identified through searching the websites of selected related agencies (e.g., Campbell Collaboration, Social Care Online, Institute for Healthcare Improvement). The quality of evidence in this document was rated using the criteria described in the Report of the Canadian Task force on Preventive Health Care (Table).

No. 263-Maternity Leave in Normal Pregnancy.

PubMed

Leduc, Dean

2017-10-01

To assist maternity care providers in recognizing and discussing health- and illness-related issues in pregnancy and their relationship to maternity benefits. Published literature was retrieved through searches of PubMed or Medline, CINAHL, and The Cochrane Library in 2009 using appropriate controlled vocabulary (e.g., maternity benefits) and key words (e.g., maternity, benefits, pregnancy). Results were restricted to systematic reviews, randomized controlled trials/controlled clinical trials, and observational studies. There were no date or language restrictions. Searches were updated on a regular basis and incorporated in the guideline to December 2009. Grey (unpublished) literature was identified through searching the web sites of health technology assessment and health technology assessment-related agencies, clinical practice guideline collections, clinical trial registries, and national and international medical specialty societies. Copyright © 2017. Published by Elsevier Inc.

Using PubMed search strings for efficient retrieval of manual therapy research literature.

PubMed

Pillastrini, Paolo; Vanti, Carla; Curti, Stefania; Mattioli, Stefano; Ferrari, Silvano; Violante, Francesco Saverio; Guccione, Andrew

2015-02-01

The aim of this study was to construct PubMed search strings that could efficiently retrieve studies on manual therapy (MT), especially for time-constrained clinicians. Our experts chose 11 Medical Subject Heading terms describing MT along with 84 additional potential terms. For each term that was able to retrieve more than 100 abstracts, we systematically extracted a sample of abstracts from which we estimated the proportion of studies potentially relevant to MT. We then constructed 2 search strings: 1 narrow (threshold of pertinent articles ≥40%) and 1 expanded (including all terms for which a proportion had been calculated). We tested these search strings against articles on 2 conditions relevant to MT (thoracic and temporomandibular pain). We calculated the number of abstracts needed to read (NNR) to identify 1 potentially pertinent article in the context of these conditions. Finally, we evaluated the efficiency of the proposed PubMed search strings to identify relevant articles included in a systematic review on spinal manipulative therapy for chronic low back pain. Fifty-five search terms were able to extract more than 100 citations. The NNR to find 1 potentially pertinent article using the narrow string was 1.2 for thoracic pain and 1.3 for temporomandibular pain, and the NNR for the expanded string was 1.9 and 1.6, respectively. The narrow search strategy retrieved all the randomized controlled trials included in the systematic review selected for comparison. The proposed PubMed search strings may help health care professionals locate potentially pertinent articles and review a large number of MT studies efficiently to better implement evidence-based practice. Copyright © 2015 National University of Health Sciences. Published by Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Home Health Care Utilization: A Review of the Research for Social Work

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Kadushin, Goldie

2004-01-01

The author reviewed the literature to identify the variables associated with home health care utilization using the Andersen-Newman model as a framework for analysis. Sixty-four studies published between 1985 and 2000 were identified through PUBMED, Sociofile, and PsycINFO databases. Home health care was defined as in-home skilled nursing,…

[A statistical analysis and perspective of headache-related papers covered in 2011 PubMed].

PubMed

Zhang, Ming-jie; Yu, Sheng-yuan; Chu, Bing-qian; Dai, Wei

2013-01-01

To investigate the distribution and hot spots of literatures on headache by bibliometric analysis in order to provide reference for further study. Literatures that contained headache or migraine in text words published in 2011 in PubMed databases (www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/Pubmed) were searched. Journals, countries and subjects were bibliometrically analysed. There were 3683 papers involved to headache published in PubMed in 2011, of which 1527 papers were on headache research. The number of papers on headache research published by USA was the most followed by Italy and Germany (USA 23.25%, Italy 10.74%, Germany 5.83%). The mainly studied subjects were therapy (29.60%), pathophysiology (18.66%) and etiology (16.31%). 14.86% papers published in Cephalalgia, which is one of the most important journals, reported negative results. The emphasis of headache research was on migraine. Therapy, pathophysiology and etiology were the hot spot. Literatures with negative result attracted authors to give the more attention.

PubMed Interact: an Interactive Search Application for MEDLINE/PubMed

PubMed Central

Muin, Michael; Fontelo, Paul; Ackerman, Michael

2006-01-01

Online search and retrieval systems are important resources for medical literature research. Progressive Web 2.0 technologies provide opportunities to improve search strategies and user experience. Using PHP, Document Object Model (DOM) manipulation and Asynchronous JavaScript and XML (Ajax), PubMed Interact allows greater functionality so users can refine search parameters with ease and interact with the search results to retrieve and display relevant information and related articles. PMID:17238658

Understanding constructive feedback: a commitment between teachers and students for academic and professional development.

PubMed

Hamid, Yasir; Mahmood, Sajid

2010-03-01

This review highlights the need in the Pakistani medical education system for teachers and students to be able to: define constructive feedback; provide constructive feedback; identify standards for constructive feedback; identify a suitable model for the provision of constructive feedback and evaluate the use of constructive feedback. For the purpose of literature review we had defined the key word glossary as: feedback, constructive feedback, teaching constructive feedback, models for feedback, models for constructive feedback and giving and receiving feedback. The data bases for the search include: Medline (EBSCO), Web of Knowledge, SCOPUS, TRIP, ScienceDirect, Pubmed, U.K. Pubmed Central, ZETOC, University of Dundee Library catalogue, SCIRUS (Elsevier) and Google Scholar. This article states that the Pakistani medical schools do not reflect on or use the benefits of the constructive feedback process. The discussion about constructive feedback suggests that in the context of Pakistan, constructive feedback will facilitate the teaching and learning activities.

A systematic review of validated methods for identifying erythema multiforme major/minor/not otherwise specified, Stevens-Johnson Syndrome, or toxic epidermal necrolysis using administrative and claims data.

PubMed

Schneider, Gary; Kachroo, Sumesh; Jones, Natalie; Crean, Sheila; Rotella, Philip; Avetisyan, Ruzan; Reynolds, Matthew W

2012-01-01

The Food and Drug Administration's (FDA) Mini-Sentinel pilot program aims to conduct active surveillance to refine safety signals that emerge for marketed medical products. A key facet of this surveillance is to develop and understand the validity of algorithms for identifying health outcomes of interest (HOIs) from administrative and claims data. This paper summarizes the process and findings of the algorithm review of erythema multiforme and related conditions. PubMed and Iowa Drug Information Service searches were conducted to identify citations applicable to the erythema multiforme HOI. Level 1 abstract reviews and Level 2 full-text reviews were conducted to find articles that used administrative and claims data to identify erythema multiforme, Stevens-Johnson syndrome, or toxic epidermal necrolysis and that included validation estimates of the coding algorithms. Our search revealed limited literature focusing on erythema multiforme and related conditions that provided administrative and claims data-based algorithms and validation estimates. Only four studies provided validated algorithms and all studies used the same International Classification of Diseases code, 695.1. Approximately half of cases subjected to expert review were consistent with erythema multiforme and related conditions. Updated research needs to be conducted on designing validation studies that test algorithms for erythema multiforme and related conditions and that take into account recent changes in the diagnostic coding of these diseases. Copyright © 2012 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

Informatics Support for Basic Research in Biomedicine

PubMed Central

Rindflesch, Thomas C.; Blake, Catherine L.; Fiszman, Marcelo; Kilicoglu, Halil; Rosemblat, Graciela; Schneider, Jodi; Zeiss, Caroline J.

2017-01-01

Abstract Informatics methodologies exploit computer-assisted techniques to help biomedical researchers manage large amounts of information. In this paper, we focus on the biomedical research literature (MEDLINE). We first provide an overview of some text mining techniques that offer assistance in research by identifying biomedical entities (e.g., genes, substances, and diseases) and relations between them in text. We then discuss Semantic MEDLINE, an application that integrates PubMed document retrieval, concept and relation identification, and visualization, thus enabling a user to explore concepts and relations from within a set of retrieved citations. Semantic MEDLINE provides a roadmap through content and helps users discern patterns in large numbers of retrieved citations. We illustrate its use with an informatics method we call “discovery browsing,” which provides a principled way of navigating through selected aspects of some biomedical research area. The method supports an iterative process that accommodates learning and hypothesis formation in which a user is provided with high level connections before delving into details. As a use case, we examine current developments in basic research on mechanisms of Alzheimer’s disease. Out of the nearly 90 000 citations returned by the PubMed query “Alzheimer’s disease,” discovery browsing led us to 73 citations on sortilin and that disorder. We provide a synopsis of the basic research reported in 15 of these. There is wide-spread consensus among researchers working with a range of animal models and human cells that increased sortilin expression and decreased receptor expression are associated with amyloid beta and/or amyloid precursor protein. PMID:28838071

A systematic review of validated methods for identifying transfusion-related ABO incompatibility reactions using administrative and claims data.

PubMed

Carnahan, Ryan M; Kee, Vicki R

2012-01-01

This paper aimed to systematically review algorithms to identify transfusion-related ABO incompatibility reactions in administrative data, with a focus on studies that have examined the validity of the algorithms. A literature search was conducted using PubMed, Iowa Drug Information Service database, and Embase. A Google Scholar search was also conducted because of the difficulty identifying relevant studies. Reviews were conducted by two investigators to identify studies using data sources from the USA or Canada because these data sources were most likely to reflect the coding practices of Mini-Sentinel data sources. One study was found that validated International Classification of Diseases (ICD-9-CM) codes representing transfusion reactions. None of these cases were ABO incompatibility reactions. Several studies consistently used ICD-9-CM code 999.6, which represents ABO incompatibility reactions, and a technical report identified the ICD-10 code for these reactions. One study included the E-code E8760 for mismatched blood in transfusion in the algorithm. Another study reported finding no ABO incompatibility reaction codes in the Healthcare Cost and Utilization Project Nationwide Inpatient Sample database, which contains data of 2.23 million patients who received transfusions, raising questions about the sensitivity of administrative data for identifying such reactions. Two studies reported perfect specificity, with sensitivity ranging from 21% to 83%, for the code identifying allogeneic red blood cell transfusions in hospitalized patients. There is no information to assess the validity of algorithms to identify transfusion-related ABO incompatibility reactions. Further information on the validity of algorithms to identify transfusions would also be useful. Copyright © 2012 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

Quality Primary Care and Family Planning Services for LGBT Clients: A Comprehensive Review of Clinical Guidelines.

PubMed

Klein, David A; Malcolm, Nikita M; Berry-Bibee, Erin N; Paradise, Scott L; Coulter, Jessica S; Keglovitz Baker, Kristin; Schvey, Natasha A; Rollison, Julia M; Frederiksen, Brittni N

2018-04-01

LGBT clients have unique healthcare needs but experience a wide range of quality in the care that they receive. This study provides a summary of clinical guideline recommendations related to the provision of primary care and family planning services for LGBT clients. In addition, we identify gaps in current guidelines, and inform future recommendations and guidance for clinical practice and research. PubMed, Cochrane, and Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality electronic bibliographic databases, and relevant professional organizations' websites, were searched to identify clinical guidelines related to the provision of primary care and family planning services for LGBT clients. Information obtained from a technical expert panel was used to inform the review. Clinical guidelines meeting the inclusion criteria were assessed to determine their alignment with Institute of Medicine (IOM) standards for the development of clinical practice guidelines and content relevant to the identified themes. The search parameters identified 2,006 clinical practice guidelines. Seventeen clinical guidelines met the inclusion criteria. Two of the guidelines met all eight IOM criteria. However, many recommendations were consistent regarding provision of services to LGBT clients within the following themes: clinic environment, provider cultural sensitivity and awareness, communication, confidentiality, coordination of care, general clinical principles, mental health considerations, and reproductive health. Guidelines for the primary and family planning care of LGBT clients are evolving. The themes identified in this review may guide professional organizations during guideline development, clinicians when providing care, and researchers conducting LGBT-related studies.

Technical and tactical skills related to performance levels in tennis: A systematic review.

PubMed

Kolman, Nikki S; Kramer, Tamara; Elferink-Gemser, Marije T; Huijgen, Barbara C H; Visscher, Chris

2018-06-11

The aim of this systematic review is to provide an overview of outcome measures and instruments identified in the literature for examining technical and tactical skills in tennis related to performance levels. Such instruments can be used to identify talent or the specific skill development training needs of particular players. Searches for this review were conducted using the PubMed, Web of Science, and PsycInfo databases. Out of 733 publications identified through these searches, 40 articles were considered relevant and included in this study. They were divided into three categories: (1) technical skills, (2) tactical skills and (3) integrated technical and tactical skills. There was strong evidence that technical skills (ball velocity and to a lesser extent ball accuracy) and tactical skills (decision making, anticipation, tactical knowledge and visual search strategies) differed among players according to their performance levels. However, integrated measurement of these skills is required, because winning a point largely hinges on a tactical decision to perform a particular stroke (i.e., technical execution). Therefore, future research should focus on examining the relationship between these skills and tennis performance and on the development of integrated methods for measuring these skills.

Beyond Food Promotion: A Systematic Review on the Influence of the Food Industry on Obesity-Related Dietary Behaviour among Children.

PubMed

Sonntag, Diana; Schneider, Sarah; Mdege, Noreen; Ali, Shehzad; Schmidt, Burkhard

2015-10-16

An increased consumption of energy-dense, nutrient-poor food and beverages as a result of a changing obesogenic environment contributes substantially to the increasing prevalence of childhood overweight and obesity. This paper reviews the nature and extent of food industry influences which expose children to commercial influences and thus might affect unhealthy dietary behaviour and finally contributes to obesity. A systematic search of nine electronic databases (including PubMed, PsycINFO, EconLit) and reference lists of original studies and reviews using key search terms identified 1900 articles. Of these only thirty-six articles met the inclusion and quality criteria. A narrative synthesis of the reviewed studies revealed six key obesogenic environments by which the food industry possibly influences obesity-related dietary behaviours in young children. These were schools, retailers, mass media "television", mass media "internet", home and promotional campaigns. Identifying these obesogenic environments is critical for monitoring and controlling the food industry, the development of effective environmental-level interventions to prevent childhood overweight and obesity and to identify knowledge gaps to be addressed in future research to support informed decisions of policy makers.

Beyond Food Promotion: A Systematic Review on the Influence of the Food Industry on Obesity-Related Dietary Behaviour among Children

PubMed Central

Sonntag, Diana; Schneider, Sarah; Mdege, Noreen; Ali, Shehzad; Schmidt, Burkhard

2015-01-01

An increased consumption of energy-dense, nutrient-poor food and beverages as a result of a changing obesogenic environment contributes substantially to the increasing prevalence of childhood overweight and obesity. This paper reviews the nature and extent of food industry influences which expose children to commercial influences and thus might affect unhealthy dietary behaviour and finally contributes to obesity. A systematic search of nine electronic databases (including PubMed, PsycINFO, EconLit) and reference lists of original studies and reviews using key search terms identified 1900 articles. Of these only thirty-six articles met the inclusion and quality criteria. A narrative synthesis of the reviewed studies revealed six key obesogenic environments by which the food industry possibly influences obesity-related dietary behaviours in young children. These were schools, retailers, mass media “television”, mass media “internet”, home and promotional campaigns. Identifying these obesogenic environments is critical for monitoring and controlling the food industry, the development of effective environmental-level interventions to prevent childhood overweight and obesity and to identify knowledge gaps to be addressed in future research to support informed decisions of policy makers. PMID:26501319

Nominal ISOMERs (Incorrect Spellings Of Medicines Eluding Researchers)—variants in the spellings of drug names in PubMed: a database review

PubMed Central

Aronson, Jeffrey K

2016-01-01

Objective To examine how misspellings of drug names could impede searches for published literature. Design Database review. Data source PubMed. Review methods The study included 30 drug names that are commonly misspelt on prescription charts in hospitals in Birmingham, UK (test set), and 30 control names randomly chosen from a hospital formulary (control set). The following definitions were used: standard names—the international non-proprietary names, variant names—deviations in spelling from standard names that are not themselves standard names in English language nomenclature, and hidden reference variants—variant spellings that identified publications in textword (tw) searches of PubMed or other databases, and which were not identified by textword searches for the standard names. Variant names were generated from standard names by applying letter substitutions, omissions, additions, transpositions, duplications, deduplications, and combinations of these. Searches were carried out in PubMed (30 June 2016) for “standard name[tw]” and “variant name[tw] NOT standard name[tw].” Results The 30 standard names of drugs in the test set gave 325 979 hits in total, and 160 hidden reference variants gave 3872 hits (1.17%). The standard names of the control set gave 470 064 hits, and 79 hidden reference variants gave 766 hits (0.16%). Letter substitutions (particularly i to y and vice versa) and omissions together accounted for 2924 (74%) of the variants. Amitriptyline (8530 hits) yielded 18 hidden reference variants (179 (2.1%) hits). Names ending in “in,” “ine,” or “micin” were commonly misspelt. Failing to search for hidden reference variants of “gentamicin,” “amitriptyline,” “mirtazapine,” and “trazodone” would miss at least 19 systematic reviews. A hidden reference variant related to Christmas, “No-el”, was rare; variants of “X-miss” were rarer. Conclusion When performing searches, researchers should include misspellings of drug names among their search terms. PMID:27974346

Nominal ISOMERs (Incorrect Spellings Of Medicines Eluding Researchers)-variants in the spellings of drug names in PubMed: a database review.

PubMed

Ferner, Robin E; Aronson, Jeffrey K

2016-12-14

 To examine how misspellings of drug names could impede searches for published literature.  Database review.  PubMed.  The study included 30 drug names that are commonly misspelt on prescription charts in hospitals in Birmingham, UK (test set), and 30 control names randomly chosen from a hospital formulary (control set). The following definitions were used: standard names-the international non-proprietary names, variant names-deviations in spelling from standard names that are not themselves standard names in English language nomenclature, and hidden reference variants-variant spellings that identified publications in textword (tw) searches of PubMed or other databases, and which were not identified by textword searches for the standard names. Variant names were generated from standard names by applying letter substitutions, omissions, additions, transpositions, duplications, deduplications, and combinations of these. Searches were carried out in PubMed (30 June 2016) for "standard name[tw]" and "variant name[tw] NOT standard name[tw]."  The 30 standard names of drugs in the test set gave 325 979 hits in total, and 160 hidden reference variants gave 3872 hits (1.17%). The standard names of the control set gave 470 064 hits, and 79 hidden reference variants gave 766 hits (0.16%). Letter substitutions (particularly i to y and vice versa) and omissions together accounted for 2924 (74%) of the variants. Amitriptyline (8530 hits) yielded 18 hidden reference variants (179 (2.1%) hits). Names ending in "in," "ine," or "micin" were commonly misspelt. Failing to search for hidden reference variants of "gentamicin," "amitriptyline," "mirtazapine," and "trazodone" would miss at least 19 systematic reviews. A hidden reference variant related to Christmas, "No-el", was rare; variants of "X-miss" were rarer.  When performing searches, researchers should include misspellings of drug names among their search terms. Published by the BMJ Publishing Group Limited. For permission to use (where not already granted under a licence) please go to http://group.bmj.com/group/rights-licensing/permissions.

Analysis of vascular endothelial dysfunction genes and related pathways in obesity through systematic bioinformatics.

PubMed

Zhang, Hui; Wang, Jing; Sun, Ling; Xu, Qiuqin; Hou, Miao; Ding, Yueyue; Huang, Jie; Chen, Ye; Cao, Lei; Zhang, Jianmin; Qian, Weiguo; Lv, Haitao

2015-01-01

Obesity has become an increasingly serious health problem and popular research topic. It is associated with many diseases, especially cardiovascular disease (CVD)-related endothelial dysfunction. This study analyzed genes related to endothelial dysfunction and obesity and then summarized their most significant signaling pathways. Genes related to vascular endothelial dysfunction and obesity were extracted from a PubMed database, and analyzed by STRING, DAVID, and Gene-Go Meta-Core software. 142 genes associated with obesity were found to play a role in endothelial dysfunction in PubMed. A significant pathway (Angiotensin system maturation in protein folding and maturation) associated with obesity and endothelial dysfunction was explored. The genes and the pathway explored may play an important role in obesity. Further studies about preventing vascular endothelial dysfunction obesity should be conducted through targeting these loci and pathways.

Factors related to the association of social anxiety disorder and alcohol use among adolescents: a systematic review.

PubMed

Cruz, Elisabeth Lima Dias da; Martins, Priscila Diniz de Carvalho; Diniz, Paula Rejane Beserra

To identify the risk factors related to the association between social anxiety disorder and alcohol use in adolescents. The PICO research strategy was used to perform a systematic review in Medline, LILACS, Pubmed, IBECS and Cochrane Library databases. DeCS/MeSH: Phobic Disorders, Adolescent, Behavior, Ethanol, Risk Factors, and the Boolean operator "AND" were used. Inclusion criteria were: cross-sectional, prospective/retrospective cohort, and case-control studies, carried out in adolescents (10-19 years), original articles on social anxiety disorder and alcohol use published between 2010 and 2015. Studies that did not report the terms "anxiety disorder" and "alcohol use" in the title and abstract were excluded. 409 articles were retrieved; after the exclusion of 277 repeated articles, the following were eligible: 94 in MEDLINE, 68 in Pubmed, 12 in IBCS, and three in LILACS. Titles and abstracts were independently read by two examiners, which resulted in the selection of eight articles for the analysis. Risk factors associated to the two disorders were female gender, age, peer approval and affective problems for alcohol use, confrontation situations and/or compliance reasons, frequency of alcohol use, and secondary comorbidities, such as depression and generalized anxiety. It is necessary to assess the period of social anxiety disorders first symptom onset, as well as the risks for alcohol use in order to establish corrective intervention guidelines, especially for socially anxious students. Copyright © 2017. Published by Elsevier Editora Ltda.

Adaptive optics imaging of the retina

PubMed Central

Battu, Rajani; Dabir, Supriya; Khanna, Anjani; Kumar, Anupama Kiran; Roy, Abhijit Sinha

2014-01-01

Adaptive optics is a relatively new tool that is available to ophthalmologists for study of cellular level details. In addition to the axial resolution provided by the spectral-domain optical coherence tomography, adaptive optics provides an excellent lateral resolution, enabling visualization of the photoreceptors, blood vessels and details of the optic nerve head. We attempt a mini review of the current role of adaptive optics in retinal imaging. PubMed search was performed with key words Adaptive optics OR Retina OR Retinal imaging. Conference abstracts were searched from the Association for Research in Vision and Ophthalmology (ARVO) and American Academy of Ophthalmology (AAO) meetings. In total, 261 relevant publications and 389 conference abstracts were identified. PMID:24492503

Implication of Emotional Labor, Cognitive Flexibility, and Relational Energy among Cabin Crew: A Review.

PubMed

Baruah, Rithi; Reddy, K Jayasankara

2018-01-01

The primary aim of the civil aviation industry is to provide a secured and comfortable service to their customers and clients. This review concentrates on the cabin crew members, who are the frontline employees of the aviation industry and are salaried to smile. The objective of this review article is to analyze the variables of emotional labor, cognitive flexibility, and relational energy using the biopsychosocial model and identify organizational implications among cabin crew. Online databases such as EBSCOhost, JSTOR, Springerlink, and PubMed were used to gather articles for the review. The authors analyzed 17 articles from 2001 to 2016 and presented a comprehensive review. The review presented an integrative approach and suggested a hypothetical model that can prove to be a signitficant contribution to the avaition industry in particular and to research findings of aviation psychology.

Polymerase chain reaction: A molecular diagnostic tool in periodontology

PubMed Central

Maheaswari, Rajendran; Kshirsagar, Jaishree Tukaram; Lavanya, Nallasivam

2016-01-01

This review discusses the principles of polymerase chain reaction (PCR) and its application as a diagnostic tool in periodontology. The relevant MEDLINE and PubMed indexed journals were searched manually and electronically by typing PCR, applications of PCR, PCR in periodontics, polymorphism studies in periodontitis, and molecular techniques in periodontology. The searches were limited to articles in English language and the articles describing PCR process and its relation to periodontology were collected and used to prepare a concise review. PCR has now become a standard diagnostic and research tool in periodontology. Various studies reveal that its sensitivity and specificity allow it as a rapid, efficient method of detecting, identifying, and quantifying organism. Different immune and inflammatory markers can be identified at the mRNA expression level, and also the determination of genetic polymorphisms, thus providing the deeper insight into the mechanisms underlying the periodontal disease. PMID:27143822

[Complexity of care: meanings and interpretation].

PubMed

Cologna, Marina; Zanolli, Daniela; Saiani, Luisa

2010-01-01

Although the concept of complexity of care is widely used and discussed, its meaning is blurred and its characteristics are not well defined. To identify the words used to define the concept of complexity in the literature and its meaning. A literature search was performed on the following databases: Pubmed, Medline, Ebsco, Cinahl and Cochrane. No temporal limits were set; publications written in English and Italian were included. Several terms are used to define the concept of complexity, often interchangeably notwithstanding their different meaning. Three main concepts were identified: nursing intensity that includes the concepts of dependency, severity and complexity of patients care; nursing workload that comprises the concept of nursing intensity and all the activities not patient-related; and the patient acuity that includes the severity of illness and the caring intensity. A common definition is needed to be able to use the concept of complexity of care to allocate nursing resources.

PubMedMiner: Mining and Visualizing MeSH-based Associations in PubMed.

PubMed

Zhang, Yucan; Sarkar, Indra Neil; Chen, Elizabeth S

2014-01-01

The exponential growth of biomedical literature provides the opportunity to develop approaches for facilitating the identification of possible relationships between biomedical concepts. Indexing by Medical Subject Headings (MeSH) represent high-quality summaries of much of this literature that can be used to support hypothesis generation and knowledge discovery tasks using techniques such as association rule mining. Based on a survey of literature mining tools, a tool implemented using Ruby and R - PubMedMiner - was developed in this study for mining and visualizing MeSH-based associations for a set of MEDLINE articles. To demonstrate PubMedMiner's functionality, a case study was conducted that focused on identifying and comparing comorbidities for asthma in children and adults. Relative to the tools surveyed, the initial results suggest that PubMedMiner provides complementary functionality for summarizing and comparing topics as well as identifying potentially new knowledge.

Health Economics of Dengue: A Systematic Literature Review and Expert Panel's Assessment

PubMed Central

Beatty, Mark E.; Beutels, Philippe; Meltzer, Martin I.; Shepard, Donald S.; Hombach, Joachim; Hutubessy, Raymond; Dessis, Damien; Coudeville, Laurent; Dervaux, Benoit; Wichmann, Ole; Margolis, Harold S.; Kuritsky, Joel N.

2011-01-01

Dengue vaccines are currently in development and policymakers need appropriate economic studies to determine their potential financial and public health impact. We searched five databases (PubMed, EMBASE, LILAC, EconLit, and WHOLIS) to identify health economics studies of dengue. Forty-three manuscripts were identified that provided primary data: 32 report economic burden of dengue and nine are comparative economic analyses assessing various interventions. The remaining two were a willingness-to-pay study and a policymaker survey. An expert panel reviewed the existing dengue economic literature and recommended future research to fill information gaps. Although dengue is an important vector-borne disease, the economic literature is relatively sparse and results have often been conflicting because of use of inconsistent assumptions. Health economic research specific to dengue is urgently needed to ensure informed decision making on the various options for controlling and preventing this disease. PMID:21363989

Breaking down the gut microbiome composition in multiple sclerosis.

PubMed

Budhram, Adrian; Parvathy, Seema; Kremenchutzky, Marcelo; Silverman, Michael

2017-04-01

The gut microbiome, which consists of a highly diverse ecologic community of micro-organisms, has increasingly been studied regarding its role in multiple sclerosis (MS) immunopathogenesis. This review critically examines the literature investigating the gut microbiome in MS. A comprehensive search was performed of PubMed databases and ECTRIMS meeting abstracts for literature relating to the gut microbiome in MS. Controlled studies examining the gut microbiome in patients with MS were included for review. Identified studies were predominantly case-control in their design and consistently found differences in the gut microbiome of MS patients compared to controls. We examine plausible mechanistic links between these differences and MS immunopathogenesis, and discuss the therapeutic implications of these findings. Review of the available literature reveals potential immunopathogenic links between the gut microbiome and MS, identifies avenues for therapeutic advancement, and emphasizes the need for further systematic study in this emerging field.

Effectiveness of Traditional Chinese Acupuncture versus Sham Acupuncture: a Systematic Review

PubMed Central

Carlos, Luís; da Cruz, Lóris Aparecida Prado; Leopoldo, Vanessa Cristina; de Campos, Fabrício Ribeiro; de Almeida, Ana Maria; Silveira, Renata Cristina de Campos Pereira

2016-01-01

ABSTRACT Objective: to identify and synthesize the evidence from randomized clinical trials that tested the effectiveness of traditional Chinese acupuncture in relation to sham acupuncture for the treatment of hot flashes in menopausal women with breast cancer. Method: systematic review guided by the recommendations of the Cochrane Collaboration. Citations were searched in the following databases: MEDLINE via PubMed, Web of Science, CENTRAL, CINAHL, and LILACS. A combination of the following keywords was used: breast neoplasm, acupuncture, acupuncture therapy, acupuncture points, placebos, sham treatment, hot flashes, hot flushes, menopause, climacteric, and vasomotor symptoms. Results: a total of 272 studies were identified, five of which were selected and analyzed. Slight superiority of traditional acupuncture compared with sham acupuncture was observed; however, there were no strong statistical associations. Conclusions: the evidence gathered was not sufficient to affirm the effectiveness of traditional acupuncture compared with sham acupuncture. PMID:27533271

Polymerase chain reaction: A molecular diagnostic tool in periodontology.

PubMed

Maheaswari, Rajendran; Kshirsagar, Jaishree Tukaram; Lavanya, Nallasivam

2016-01-01

This review discusses the principles of polymerase chain reaction (PCR) and its application as a diagnostic tool in periodontology. The relevant MEDLINE and PubMed indexed journals were searched manually and electronically by typing PCR, applications of PCR, PCR in periodontics, polymorphism studies in periodontitis, and molecular techniques in periodontology. The searches were limited to articles in English language and the articles describing PCR process and its relation to periodontology were collected and used to prepare a concise review. PCR has now become a standard diagnostic and research tool in periodontology. Various studies reveal that its sensitivity and specificity allow it as a rapid, efficient method of detecting, identifying, and quantifying organism. Different immune and inflammatory markers can be identified at the mRNA expression level, and also the determination of genetic polymorphisms, thus providing the deeper insight into the mechanisms underlying the periodontal disease.

Developments in Ocular Genetics: 2013 Annual Review

PubMed Central

Aboobakar, Inas F.; Allingham, R. Rand

2014-01-01

Purpose To highlight major advancements in ocular genetics from the year 2013. Design Literature review. Methods A literature search was conducted on PubMed to identify articles pertaining to genetic influences on human eye diseases. This review focuses on manuscripts published in print or online in the English language between January 1, 2013 and December 31, 2013. A total of 120 papers from 2013 were included in this review. Results Significant progress has been made in our understanding of the genetic basis of a broad group of ocular disorders, including glaucoma, age-related macular degeneration, cataract, diabetic retinopathy, keratoconus, Fuchs’ endothelial dystrophy, and refractive error. Conclusions The latest next-generation sequencing technologies have become extremely effective tools for identifying gene mutations associated with ocular disease. These technological advancements have also paved the way for utilization of genetic information in clinical practice, including disease diagnosis, prediction of treatment response and molecular interventions guided by gene-based knowledge. PMID:25097799

Identifying Complementary and Alternative Medicine Usage Information from Internet Resources. A Systematic Review.

PubMed

Sharma, Vivekanand; Holmes, John H; Sarkar, Indra N

2016-08-05

Identify and highlight research issues and methods used in studying Complementary and Alternative Medicine (CAM) information needs, access, and exchange over the Internet. A literature search was conducted using Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analysis guidelines from PubMed to identify articles that have studied Internet use in the CAM context. Additional searches were conducted at Nature.com and Google Scholar. The Internet provides a major medium for attaining CAM information and can also serve as an avenue for conducting CAM related surveys. Based on the literature analyzed in this review, there seems to be significant interest in developing methodologies for identifying CAM treatments, including the analysis of search query data and social media platform discussions. Several studies have also underscored the challenges in developing approaches for identifying the reliability of CAM-related information on the Internet, which may not be supported with reliable sources. The overall findings of this review suggest that there are opportunities for developing approaches for making available accurate information and developing ways to restrict the spread and sale of potentially harmful CAM products and information. Advances in Internet research are yet to be used in context of understanding CAM prevalence and perspectives. Such approaches may provide valuable insights into the current trends and needs in context of CAM use and spread.

IDENTIFYING COMPLEMENTARY AND ALTERNATIVE MEDICINE USAGE INFORMATION FROM INTERNET RESOURCES: A SYSTEMATIC REVIEW

PubMed Central

Sharma, V.; Holmes, J.H.; Sarkar, I.N.

2016-01-01

SUMMARY Objective Identify and highlight research issues and methods used in studying Complementary and Alternative Medicine (CAM) information needs, access, and exchange over the Internet. Methods A literature search was conducted using Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analysis guidelines from PubMed to identify articles that have studied Internet use in the CAM context. Additional searches were conducted at Nature.com and Google Scholar. Results The Internet provides a major medium for attaining CAM information and can also serve as an avenue for conducting CAM related surveys. Based on the literature analyzed in this review, there seems to be significant interest in developing methodologies for identifying CAM treatments, including the analysis of search query data and social media platform discussions. Several studies have also underscored the challenges in developing approaches for identifying the reliability of CAM-related information on the Internet, which may not be supported with reliable sources. The overall findings of this review suggest that there are opportunities for developing approaches for making available accurate information and developing ways to restrict the spread and sale of potentially harmful CAM products and information. Conclusions Advances in Internet research are yet to be used in context of understanding CAM prevalence and perspectives. Such approaches may provide valuable insights into the current trends and needs in context of CAM use and spread. PMID:27352304

Medication Regimen Complexity Measured by MRCI: A Systematic Review to Identify Health Outcomes.

PubMed

Alves-Conceição, Vanessa; Rocha, Kérilin Stancine Santos; Silva, Fernanda Vilanova Nascimento; Silva, Rafaella Oliveira Santos; Silva, Daniel Tenório da; Lyra-Jr, Divaldo Pereira de

2018-05-01

To perform a systematic review to identify health outcomes related to medication regimen complexity as measured by the Medication Regimen Complexity Index (MRCI) instrument. Cochrane Library, LILACS, PubMed, Scopus, EMBASE, Open Thesis, and Web of Science were searched from January 1, 2004, until April 02, 2018, using the following search terms: outcome assessment, drug therapy, and Medication Regimen Complexity Index and their synonyms in different combinations. Studies that used the MRCI instrument to measure medication regimen complexity and related it to clinical, humanistic, and/or economic outcomes were evaluated. Two reviewers independently carried out the analysis of the titles, abstracts, and complete texts according to the eligibility criteria, performed data extraction, and evaluated study quality. A total of 23 studies met the inclusion criteria; 18 health outcomes related to medication regimen complexity were found. The health outcomes most influenced by medication regimen complexity were hospital readmission, medication adherence, hospitalization, adverse drug events, and emergency sector visit. Only one study related medication regimen complexity with humanistic outcomes, and no study related medication regimen complexity to economic outcomes. Most of the studies were of good methodological quality. Relevance to Patient Care and Clinical Practice: Health care professionals should pay attention to medication regimen complexity of the patients because this may influence health outcomes. This study identified some health outcomes that may be influenced by medication regimen complexity: hospitalization, hospital readmission, and medication adherence were more prevalent, showing a significant association between MRCI increase and these health outcomes.

Publication outcomes for research presented at a Canadian surgical conference.

PubMed

Crawford, Sean A; Roche-Nagle, Graham

2017-04-01

The failure of investigators to publish research in peer-reviewed journals following acceptance at a national or international meeting can lead to significant publication biases in the literature. Our objective was to evaluate the abstract to manuscript conversion rate for abstracts presented at the Canadian Society for Vascular Surgery (CSVS) annual meeting and to evaluate the conversion rate for CSVS-awarded research grants. We searched for authors of abstracts accepted at the CSVS Annual Meeting (2007-2013) and recipients of CSVS research awards (2005-2013) on Scopus and PubMed databases to identify related publications. We identified 84 publications from 188 research abstracts (45%) and 17 publications from 39 research grants (44%). The mean time to publication was 1.8 years and the mean impact factor was 2.7. Studies related to endovascular therapies demonstrated a trend toward a higher rate of publication relative to open surgical therapies (64 [56%] v. 37 [27%]). Additionally, we observed a similar trend in research grant topics related to endovascular therapies relative to open surgical therapies (9 [67%] v. 8 [38%]). Finally, CSVS research grant recipients who subsequently published had a significantly higher h-index at the time of receipt than those who had not published. The CSVS annual meeting's abstract to publication conversion rate is comparable to that of its Canadian peers as well as to other medical specialties; however, a substantial publication gap remains. We identified several potential areas that may help to improve the effectiveness of CSVS research grants.

Global health-related publications in otolaryngology are increasing.

PubMed

Chambers, Kyle J; Creighton, Francis; Abdul-Aziz, Dunia; Cheney, Mack; Randolph, Gregory W

2015-04-01

Determine trends in global health-related publication in otolaryngology. A review of research databases. A search of publications available on PubMed and nine additional databases was undertaken reviewing two time periods 10 years apart for the timeframes 1998 to 2002 (early time period) and 2008 to 2012 (recent time period) using specific search terms to identify global health-related publications in otolaryngology. Publications were examined for region of origin, subspecialty, type of publication, and evidence of international collaboration. χ and t test analyses were used to identify trends. In the 1998 to 2002 time period, a total of 26 publications met inclusion criteria for the study, with a mean of 5.2 ± 2.8 publications per year. In the 2008 to 2012 time period, a total of 61 publications met inclusion criteria, with a mean of 12.3 ± 5.6 publications per year. The 235% increase in global health-related publications identified between the two study periods was statistically significant (P = .02). The absolute number of publications in which collaboration occurred between countries increased from three in the early time period to nine the recent time period. There has been a significant increase in the volume of global health-related publications in English language otolaryngology journals over the past decade, providing strong evidence of the increasing trend of global health as an academic pursuit within the field of otolaryngology. © 2014 The American Laryngological, Rhinological and Otological Society, Inc.

Key concepts in consumer and community engagement: a scoping meta-review.

PubMed

Sarrami-Foroushani, Pooria; Travaglia, Joanne; Debono, Deborah; Braithwaite, Jeffrey

2014-06-13

Although consumer and community engagement (CCE) in health care is receiving increasing attention, research and practice in this area are hampered by the variability of concepts and terminology commonly employed. This scoping meta-review aims to identify key CCE concepts and examine terminology used to describe them. In a scoping meta-review, an extensive list of 47 phrases and 11 Medical Subject Headings (MeSH) was used to undertake a comprehensive and systematic search in PubMed Central, Embase, EBM reviews, CINAHL, APAPsycNET, and Scopus. 59 systematic reviews met the selection criteria and were included in the final analysis. The analysis identified nine different concepts related to CCE: shared decision making, self-management, CCE in health care systems, community-based health promotion, providing access to health care, rehabilitation, participation in research, collaboration in research design and conduct, and peer support. The identified concepts differ from each other in many aspects including the aim of the activity, the role of consumers and the type of professionals' involvement. Each concept was described by a range of terms, with some terms shared by different concepts. In addition, two overlapping concepts of patient-centeredness and patient empowerment were recognised. This study describes CCE-related key concepts and provides new insight into their relationship with different CCE-related terms. Identification of key CCE-related concepts and terms will be useful to focus future studies and initiatives and enhance production of CCE-related evidence.

Key concepts in consumer and community engagement: a scoping meta-review

PubMed Central

2014-01-01

Background Although consumer and community engagement (CCE) in health care is receiving increasing attention, research and practice in this area are hampered by the variability of concepts and terminology commonly employed. This scoping meta-review aims to identify key CCE concepts and examine terminology used to describe them. Methods In a scoping meta-review, an extensive list of 47 phrases and 11 Medical Subject Headings (MeSH) was used to undertake a comprehensive and systematic search in PubMed Central, Embase, EBM reviews, CINAHL, APAPsycNET, and Scopus. Results 59 systematic reviews met the selection criteria and were included in the final analysis. The analysis identified nine different concepts related to CCE: shared decision making, self-management, CCE in health care systems, community-based health promotion, providing access to health care, rehabilitation, participation in research, collaboration in research design and conduct, and peer support. The identified concepts differ from each other in many aspects including the aim of the activity, the role of consumers and the type of professionals’ involvement. Each concept was described by a range of terms, with some terms shared by different concepts. In addition, two overlapping concepts of patient-centeredness and patient empowerment were recognised. Conclusions This study describes CCE-related key concepts and provides new insight into their relationship with different CCE-related terms. Identification of key CCE-related concepts and terms will be useful to focus future studies and initiatives and enhance production of CCE-related evidence. PMID:24923771

GO2PUB: Querying PubMed with semantic expansion of gene ontology terms

PubMed Central

2012-01-01

Background With the development of high throughput methods of gene analyses, there is a growing need for mining tools to retrieve relevant articles in PubMed. As PubMed grows, literature searches become more complex and time-consuming. Automated search tools with good precision and recall are necessary. We developed GO2PUB to automatically enrich PubMed queries with gene names, symbols and synonyms annotated by a GO term of interest or one of its descendants. Results GO2PUB enriches PubMed queries based on selected GO terms and keywords. It processes the result and displays the PMID, title, authors, abstract and bibliographic references of the articles. Gene names, symbols and synonyms that have been generated as extra keywords from the GO terms are also highlighted. GO2PUB is based on a semantic expansion of PubMed queries using the semantic inheritance between terms through the GO graph. Two experts manually assessed the relevance of GO2PUB, GoPubMed and PubMed on three queries about lipid metabolism. Experts’ agreement was high (kappa = 0.88). GO2PUB returned 69% of the relevant articles, GoPubMed: 40% and PubMed: 29%. GO2PUB and GoPubMed have 17% of their results in common, corresponding to 24% of the total number of relevant results. 70% of the articles returned by more than one tool were relevant. 36% of the relevant articles were returned only by GO2PUB, 17% only by GoPubMed and 14% only by PubMed. For determining whether these results can be generalized, we generated twenty queries based on random GO terms with a granularity similar to those of the first three queries and compared the proportions of GO2PUB and GoPubMed results. These were respectively of 77% and 40% for the first queries, and of 70% and 38% for the random queries. The two experts also assessed the relevance of seven of the twenty queries (the three related to lipid metabolism and four related to other domains). Expert agreement was high (0.93 and 0.8). GO2PUB and GoPubMed performances were similar to those of the first queries. Conclusions We demonstrated that the use of genes annotated by either GO terms of interest or a descendant of these GO terms yields some relevant articles ignored by other tools. The comparison of GO2PUB, based on semantic expansion, with GoPubMed, based on text mining techniques, showed that both tools are complementary. The analysis of the randomly-generated queries suggests that the results obtained about lipid metabolism can be generalized to other biological processes. GO2PUB is available at http://go2pub.genouest.org. PMID:22958570

Health-related quality of life questionnaires in lung cancer trials: a systematic literature review

PubMed Central

2013-01-01

Background Lung cancer is one of the leading causes of cancer deaths. Treatment goals are the relief of symptoms and the increase of overall survival. With the rising number of treatment alternatives, the need for comparable assessments of health-related quality of life (HRQoL) parameters grows. The aim of this paper was to identify and describe measurement instruments applied in lung cancer patients under drug therapy. Methods We conducted a systematic literature review at the beginning of 2011 using the electronic database Pubmed. Results A total of 43 studies were included in the review. About 17 different measurement instruments were identified, including 5 generic, 5 cancer-specific, 4 lung cancer-specific and 3 symptom-specific questionnaires. In 29 studies at least 2 instruments were used. In most cases these were cancer and lung cancer-specific ones. The most frequently used instruments are the EORTC QLQ-C30 and its lung cancer modules LC13 or LC17. Only 5 studies combined (lung) cancer-specific questionnaires with generic instruments. Conclusions The EORTC-C30 and EORTC-LC13 are the most frequently used health-related quality of life measurement instruments in pharmacological lung cancer trials. PMID:23680096

Consumption of garlic and risk of colorectal cancer: An updated meta-analysis of prospective studies

PubMed Central

Hu, Ji-Yi; Hu, Yi-Wang; Zhou, Jiao-Jiao; Zhang, Meng-Wen; Li, Dan; Zheng, Shu

2014-01-01

AIM: To conduct an updated meta-analysis of prospective studies addressing the association between garlic consumption and colorectal cancer. METHODS: Eligible cohort studies were identified by searching MEDLINE (PubMed) and screening the references of related articles published up to October 2013. Meta-analyses were conducted for colorectal cancer in relation to consumption of raw and cooked (RC) garlic and garlic supplements, separately. The summary relative risks (RR) with 95%CI were calculated using fixed-effects or random-effects model depending on the heterogeneity among studies. RESULTS: A total of 5 prospective cohort studies were identified. In contrast to the previous meta-analysis, no significant associations were found between consumption of RC garlic (RR: 1.06; 95%CI: 0.95-1.19) or garlic supplements (RR: 1.12; 95%CI: 0.96-1.31) and risk of colorectal cancer. A non-significant protective effect of garlic supplement intake against colorectal cancer was observed in females (RR: 0.84; 95%CI: 0.64-1.11), but the opposite was the case in males (RR: 1.24; 95%CI: 0.96-1.59). CONCLUSION: Consumption of RC garlic or garlic supplements is not significantly associated with reduced colorectal cancer risk. PMID:25386091

Consumption of garlic and risk of colorectal cancer: an updated meta-analysis of prospective studies.

PubMed

Hu, Ji-Yi; Hu, Yi-Wang; Zhou, Jiao-Jiao; Zhang, Meng-Wen; Li, Dan; Zheng, Shu

2014-11-07

To conduct an updated meta-analysis of prospective studies addressing the association between garlic consumption and colorectal cancer. Eligible cohort studies were identified by searching MEDLINE (PubMed) and screening the references of related articles published up to October 2013. Meta-analyses were conducted for colorectal cancer in relation to consumption of raw and cooked (RC) garlic and garlic supplements, separately. The summary relative risks (RR) with 95%CI were calculated using fixed-effects or random-effects model depending on the heterogeneity among studies. A total of 5 prospective cohort studies were identified. In contrast to the previous meta-analysis, no significant associations were found between consumption of RC garlic (RR: 1.06; 95%CI: 0.95-1.19) or garlic supplements (RR: 1.12; 95%CI: 0.96-1.31) and risk of colorectal cancer. A non-significant protective effect of garlic supplement intake against colorectal cancer was observed in females (RR: 0.84; 95%CI: 0.64-1.11), but the opposite was the case in males (RR: 1.24; 95%CI: 0.96-1.59). Consumption of RC garlic or garlic supplements is not significantly associated with reduced colorectal cancer risk.

Liver-related safety assessment of green tea extracts in humans: a systematic review of randomized controlled trials

PubMed Central

Isomura, T; Suzuki, S; Origasa, H; Hosono, A; Suzuki, M; Sawada, T; Terao, S; Muto, Y; Koga, T

2016-01-01

There remain liver-related safety concerns, regarding potential hepatotoxicity in humans, induced by green tea intake, despite being supposedly beneficial. Although many randomized controlled trials (RCTs) of green tea extracts have been reported in the literature, the systematic reviews published to date were only based on subjective assessment of case reports. To more objectively examine the liver-related safety of green tea intake, we conducted a systematic review of published RCTs. A systematic literature search was conducted using three databases (PubMed, EMBASE and Cochrane Central Register of Controlled Trials) in December 2013 to identify RCTs of green tea extracts. Data on liver-related adverse events, including laboratory test abnormalities, were abstracted from the identified articles. Methodological quality of RCTs was assessed. After excluding duplicates, 561 titles and abstracts and 119 full-text articles were screened, and finally 34 trials were identified. Of these, liver-related adverse events were reported in four trials; these adverse events involved seven subjects (eight events) in the green tea intervention group and one subject (one event) in the control group. The summary odds ratio, estimated using a meta-analysis method for sparse event data, for intervention compared with placebo was 2.1 (95% confidence interval: 0.5–9.8). The few events reported in both groups were elevations of liver enzymes. Most were mild, and no serious liver-related adverse events were reported. Results of this review, although not conclusive, suggest that liver-related adverse events after intake of green tea extracts are expected to be rare. PMID:27188915

Early direct and indirect impact of quadrivalent HPV (4HPV) vaccine on genital warts: a systematic review.

PubMed

Mariani, Luciano; Vici, Patrizia; Suligoi, Barbara; Checcucci-Lisi, Giovanni; Drury, Rosybel

2015-01-01

Since 2007, many countries have implemented national human papillomavirus (HPV) vaccination programs with the quadrivalent HPV (4HPV) vaccine that has been shown to be efficacious in clinical trials involving 25,000 subjects. Two vaccine serotypes, HPV16 and 18, are responsible for cervical cancer and other HPV-related cancers, but the impact of the 4HPV vaccine on these cancers cannot be seen immediately as there is a considerable lag between infection with HPV and cancer development. The other two serotypes, HPV6 and 11, are responsible for genital warts (GWs), which develop within a few months after infection, making GWs an early clinical endpoint for the assessment of the impact of 4HPV vaccination. We performed a systematic literature search in PubMed to identify all published studies on 4HPV vaccination, including those that assessed the impact of 4HPV vaccination programs on the incidence of GWs at a population level around the world. A total of 354 records were identified in the PubMed search. After screening and obtaining full papers for 56 publications, 16 publications presenting data on the impact or effectiveness of 4HPV vaccination on GWs were identified. These reported data on the impact or effectiveness of 4HPV in six countries [Australia (n = 6), New Zealand (n = 2), United States (n = 3), Denmark (n = 2), Germany (n = 1), and Sweden (n = 2)]. In Australia, no GWs were diagnosed in women aged <21 years who reported being vaccinated. A 92.6% reduction in GWs incidence was reported for all women in this age group, where the vaccine uptake rate (VUR) was 70% for 3 doses. The highest reductions were reported in countries with high VURs, mostly through school-based vaccination programs, although high VURs were obtained with some non-school-based programs. The results are coherent with the GWs incidence reduction reported in clinical trials and are an early indicator of what can be expected for the long-term clinical impact on vaccine-type HPV-related cancers.

Semantic relatedness and similarity of biomedical terms: examining the effects of recency, size, and section of biomedical publications on the performance of word2vec.

PubMed

Zhu, Yongjun; Yan, Erjia; Wang, Fei

2017-07-03

Understanding semantic relatedness and similarity between biomedical terms has a great impact on a variety of applications such as biomedical information retrieval, information extraction, and recommender systems. The objective of this study is to examine word2vec's ability in deriving semantic relatedness and similarity between biomedical terms from large publication data. Specifically, we focus on the effects of recency, size, and section of biomedical publication data on the performance of word2vec. We download abstracts of 18,777,129 articles from PubMed and 766,326 full-text articles from PubMed Central (PMC). The datasets are preprocessed and grouped into subsets by recency, size, and section. Word2vec models are trained on these subtests. Cosine similarities between biomedical terms obtained from the word2vec models are compared against reference standards. Performance of models trained on different subsets are compared to examine recency, size, and section effects. Models trained on recent datasets did not boost the performance. Models trained on larger datasets identified more pairs of biomedical terms than models trained on smaller datasets in relatedness task (from 368 at the 10% level to 494 at the 100% level) and similarity task (from 374 at the 10% level to 491 at the 100% level). The model trained on abstracts produced results that have higher correlations with the reference standards than the one trained on article bodies (i.e., 0.65 vs. 0.62 in the similarity task and 0.66 vs. 0.59 in the relatedness task). However, the latter identified more pairs of biomedical terms than the former (i.e., 344 vs. 498 in the similarity task and 339 vs. 503 in the relatedness task). Increasing the size of dataset does not always enhance the performance. Increasing the size of datasets can result in the identification of more relations of biomedical terms even though it does not guarantee better precision. As summaries of research articles, compared with article bodies, abstracts excel in accuracy but lose in coverage of identifiable relations.

PubMed search strings for the study of agricultural workers' diseases.

PubMed

Mattioli, Stefano; Gori, Davide; Di Gregori, Valentina; Ricotta, Lara; Baldasseroni, Alberto; Farioli, Andrea; Zanardi, Francesca; Galletti, Stefania; Colosio, Claudio; Curti, Stefania; Violante, Francesco S

2013-12-01

Several optimized search strategies have been developed in Medicine, and more recently in Occupational Medicine. The aim of this study was to identify efficient PubMed search strategies to retrieve articles regarding putative occupational determinants of agricultural workers' diseases. We selected the Medical Subjects Heading (MeSH) term agricultural workers' diseases and six MeSH terms describing farm work (agriculture, agrochemicals NOT pesticides, animal husbandry, pesticides, rural health, rural population) alongside 61 other promising terms. We estimated proportions of articles containing potentially pertinent information regarding occupational etiology to formulate two search strategies (one "more specific," one "more sensitive"). We applied these strategies to retrieve information on the possible occupational etiology among agricultural workers of kidney cancer, knee osteoarthritis, and multiple sclerosis. We evaluated the number of needed to read (NNR) abstracts to identify one potentially pertinent article in the context of these pathologies. The "more specific" search string was based on the combination of terms that yielded the highest proportion (40%) of potentially pertinent abstracts. The "more sensitive" string was based on use of broader search fields and additional coverage provided by other search terms under study. Using the "more specific" string, the NNR to find one potentially pertinent article were: 1.1 for kidney cancer; 1.4 for knee osteoarthritis; 1.2 for multiple sclerosis. Using the sensitive strategy, the NNR were 1.4, 3.6, and 6.3, respectively. The proposed strings could help health care professionals explore putative occupational etiology for agricultural workers' diseases (even if not generally thought to be work related). © 2013 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.

What can alcohol researchers learn from research about the relationship between macro-level gender equality and violence against women?

PubMed

Roberts, Sarah C M

2011-01-01

This systematic review focuses on research about macro-level gender equality and violence against women (VAW) and identifies conceptually and theoretically driven hypotheses as well as lessons relevant for alcohol research. Hypotheses include: amelioration--increased equality decreases VAW; backlash--increased equality increases VAW; and convergence--increased equality reduces the gender gap; and hypotheses that distinguish between relative and absolute status, with relative status comparing men's and women's status and absolute status measuring women's status without regard to men. Systematic review of studies published through June 2009 identified through PubMed and Web of Science, as well as citing and cited articles. A total of 30 studies are included. Of 85 findings examining amelioration/backlash, 25% support amelioration, 22% backlash; and 53% are null. Of 13 findings examining convergence, 31% support and 23% are inconsistent with convergence; 46% are null. Neither the existence nor the direction of the equality and VAW relationship can be assumed. This suggests that the relationship between macro-level gender equality and alcohol should also not be assumed, but rather investigated through research.

Applying a Social-Ecological Framework to Factors Related to Nicotine Replacement Therapy for Adolescent Smoking Cessation.

PubMed

King, Jessica L; Merten, Julie W; Wong, Tzu-Jung; Pomeranz, Jamie L

2018-06-01

This systematic review synthesizes factors related to nicotine replacement therapy (NRT) use among adolescents seeking to quit smoking, using the social-ecological model as a guiding framework. Searches of PubMED, ProQuest, EBSCOhost, and ERIC were conducted in July 2016. Original studies of cigarette smokers younger than 18 years that discussed NRT were included. Two reviewers individually extracted study purpose, sample, design, and results. Factors were categorized by social-ecological model level and summarized. A total of 103 907 articles were identified during initial search. After narrowing to peer-reviewed articles in English and eliminating reviews and adult-only studies, we reviewed 51 articles. These 51 articles identified factors from studies at each level of the social-ecological model: intrapersonal ( k = 20), interpersonal ( k = 2), organizational ( k = 7), community ( k = 11), and public policy ( k = 14). Findings provide insight into the applicability of NRT for adolescent smoking cessation, and factors by social-ecological model level highlight areas for additional research. Future adolescent NRT studies should assess factors at the interpersonal, organizational, and community levels, as well as the interactions between levels.

Photobiomodulation for the treatment of retinal diseases: a review.

PubMed

Geneva, Ivayla I

2016-01-01

Photobiomodulation (PBM), also known as low level laser therapy, has recently risen to the attention of the ophthalmology community as a promising new approach to treat a variety of retinal conditions including age-related macular degeneration, retinopathy of prematurity, diabetic retinopathy, Leber's hereditary optic neuropathy, amblyopia, methanol-induced retinal damage, and possibly others. This review evaluates the existing research pertaining to PBM applications in the retina, with a focus on the mechanisms of action and clinical outcomes. All available literature until April 2015 was reviewed using PubMed and the following keywords: "photobiomodulation AND retina", "low level light therapy AND retina", "low level laser therapy AND retina", and "FR/NIR therapy AND retina". In addition, the relevant references listed within the papers identified through PubMed were incorporated. The literature supports the conclusion that the low-cost and non-invasive nature of PBM, coupled with the first promising clinical reports and the numerous preclinical-studies in animal models, make PBM well-poised to become an important player in the treatment of a wide range of retinal disorders. Nevertheless, large-scale clinical trials will be necessary to establish the PBM therapeutic ranges for the various retinal diseases, as well as to gain a deeper understanding of its mechanisms of action.

Pathological and Clinical Correlation between Celiac Disease and Helicobacter Pylori Infection; a Review of Controversial Reports

PubMed Central

Rostami-Nejad, Mohammad; Javad Ehsani-Ardakani, Mohammad; Assadzadeh, Hamid; Shahbazkhani, Bijan; Ierardi, Enzo; Losurdo, Giuseppe; Zojaji, Homayon; Alizadeh, Amirhoshang Mohammad; Naderi, Nosratollah; Sadeghi, Amir; Zali, Mohammad Reza

2016-01-01

There are overwhelming reports and descriptions about celiac associated disorders. Although there is a clear genetic association between celiac disease (CD) and some gastrointestinal disorders, there are controversial reports claiming an association between CD and Helicobacter pylori (H. pylori) infection. Different studies indicated the possible association between lymphocytic gastritis and both CD and H. pylori infection, although this evidence is not consistently accepted. Also it was shown that an increase in intraepithelial lymphocytes count is associated with both H. pylori infection and celiac disease. Therefore the following questions may raise: how far is this infection actually related to CD?, which are the underlying patho-mechanisms for these associations? what are the clinical implications? what is the management? and what would be the role of gluten free diet in treating these conditions? PubMed (PubMed Central), Ovid, ISI of web knowledge, and Google scholar were searched for full text articles published between 1985 and 2015. The associated keywords were used, and papers described particularly the impact of pathological and clinical correlation between CD and H. pylori infection were identified. In this review we tried to answer the above questions and discussed some of the recent developments in the pathological and clinical aspects of CD and H. pylori infection. PMID:27252814

Pathological and Clinical Correlation between Celiac Disease and Helicobacter Pylori Infection; a Review of Controversial Reports.

PubMed

Rostami-Nejad, Mohammad; Javad Ehsani-Ardakani, Mohammad; Assadzadeh, Hamid; Shahbazkhani, Bijan; Ierardi, Enzo; Losurdo, Giuseppe; Zojaji, Homayon; Alizadeh, Amirhoshang Mohammad; Naderi, Nosratollah; Sadeghi, Amir; Zali, Mohammad Reza

2016-04-01

There are overwhelming reports and descriptions about celiac associated disorders. Although there is a clear genetic association between celiac disease (CD) and some gastrointestinal disorders, there are controversial reports claiming an association between CD and Helicobacter pylori (H. pylori) infection. Different studies indicated the possible association between lymphocytic gastritis and both CD and H. pylori infection, although this evidence is not consistently accepted. Also it was shown that an increase in intraepithelial lymphocytes count is associated with both H. pylori infection and celiac disease. Therefore the following questions may raise: how far is this infection actually related to CD?, which are the underlying patho-mechanisms for these associations? what are the clinical implications? what is the management? and what would be the role of gluten free diet in treating these conditions? PubMed (PubMed Central), Ovid, ISI of web knowledge, and Google scholar were searched for full text articles published between 1985 and 2015. The associated keywords were used, and papers described particularly the impact of pathological and clinical correlation between CD and H. pylori infection were identified. In this review we tried to answer the above questions and discussed some of the recent developments in the pathological and clinical aspects of CD and H. pylori infection.

Reengineering of MeSH thesauri for term selection to optimize literature retrieval and knowledge reconstruction in support of stem cell research.

PubMed

Su, Yan; Andrews, James; Huang, Hong; Wang, Yue; Kong, Liangliang; Cannon, Peter; Xu, Ping

2016-05-23

PubMed is a widely used database for scientists to find biomedical-related literature. Due to the complexity of the selected research subject and its interdisciplinary nature, as well as the exponential growth in the number of disparate pieces of biomedical literature, it is an overwhelming challenge for scientists to define the right search strategies and quickly locate all related information. Specialized subsets and groupings of controlled vocabularies, such as Medical Subject Headings (MeSH), can enhance information retrieval in specialized domains, such as stem cell research. There is a need to develop effective search strategies and convenient solutions for knowledge organization in stem cell research. The understanding of the interrelationships between these MeSH terms also facilitates the building of knowledge organization systems in related subject fields. This study collected empirical data for MeSH-related terms from stem cell literature and developed a novel approach that uses both automation and expert-selection to create a set of terms that supports enhanced retrieval. The selected MeSH terms were reconstructed into a classified thesaurus that can guide researchers towards a successful search and knowledge organization of stem cell literature. First, 4253 MeSH terms were harvested from a sample of 5527 stem cell related research papers from the PubMed database. Next, unrelated terms were filtered out based on term frequency and specificity. Precision and recall measures were used to help identify additional valuable terms, which were mostly non-MeSH terms. The study identified 15 terms that specifically referred to stem cell research for information retrieval, which would yield a higher precision (97.7 %) and recall (94.4 %) rates in comparison to other approaches. In addition, 128 root MeSH terms were selected to conduct knowledge organization of stem cell research in categories of anatomy, disease, and others. This study presented a novel strategy and procedure to reengineer term selections of the MeSH thesaurus for literature retrieval and knowledge organization using stem cell research as a case. It could help scientists to select their own search terms and build up a thesaurus-based knowledge organization system in interested and interdisciplinary research subject areas.

MOrtality and infectious complications of therapeutic EndoVAscular interventional radiology: a systematic and meta-analysis protocol.

PubMed

Mellouk Aid, Kaoutar; Tchala Vignon Zomahoun, Hervé; Soulaymani, Abdelmajid; Lebascle, Karin; Silvera, Stephane; Astagneau, Pascal; Misset, Benoit

2017-04-24

Endovascular interventional radiology (EIR) is an increasingly popular, mini invasive treatment option for patient with symptomatic vascular disease. The EIR practiced by qualified hands is an effective, well-tolerated procedure that offers relief of patient's symptoms with a low risk of complications. During acute post procedural period, immediate complications may relate to vascular access, restenosis, thromboembolic events, uterine ischemia, infection, necrosis, sepsis, ICU stay, surgical recovery, pain management, treatment failure, and death. Moreover, additional non-life-threatening complications exist, but they are not well described and represent disparate information. A range of databases will be screened consulted to identify the relevant studies: PubMed, EMBASE, The Cochrane Library, NosoBase, and Google Scholar (to identify articles not yet indexed). Scientist librarian used Medical Subject Headings (MeSH) and free terms to construct the search strategy in PubMed. This search strategy will be adapted in other databases. Two coauthors will independently select the relevant studies, extract the relevant data, and assess the risk of bias in the included studies. Any disagreements between the two authors will be solved by a third author. This systematic review will provide a synthesis of EIR complications. The spotlighted results will be analyzed in order to provide a state-of-knowledge synopsis of the current evidence base in relation to the epidemiology of the infectious complications after EIR. In the event of conclusive results, our findings will serve as a reference background to assess guidelines on reality of the problem of the infections linked to endovascular interventional radiology and to formulate of assumptions and propose preventive measures, based on the results of our investigations. These propositions will aim to reduce the risk and/or the severity of these complications in the concerned population in favor a positive medical economics report. It will also aim to decrease the antibio-resistance and in fine will improve health status and security of patients. PROSPERO CRD42015025594.

Neurology Research in Saudi Arabia: Urgent call for action.

PubMed

Algahtani, Hussein; Shirah, Bader; Boker, Faisal; Algamdi, Albaraa; Alkahtani, Abdulah

2017-08-01

Research activities in Saudi Arabia are promoted at the governmental and institutional levels. However, the output and quality of research conducted in the field of neurology has not yet been measured quantitatively. This study therefore aimed to analyse neurology-related publications from Saudi Arabia. This study was conducted in January 2016. A systematic search using the PubMed ® search engine (National Library of Medicine, Bethesda, Maryland, USA) was conducted to identify all neurology-related articles published from Saudi Arabia between January 1996 and December 2015. A total of 1,292 neurology-related publications were identified. Neurology research increased linearly with time, with most publications originating from Riyadh (67%) and the university sector (≈47%). However, most neurology-related articles were published in journals which had an impact factor of <1 (55%). Neurology research in Saudi Arabia has increased substantially over the last 20 years. However, as most articles were published in low-impact journals, the quality of research remains inadequate and should be improved. It is important that an official research culture be established in both governmental and private universities as well as colleges and health institutions in Saudi Arabia. The formation of clinical academic departments staffed by research experts is recommended to ensure the quality of neurology research output.

Diabetes-related emotional distress instruments: a systematic review of measurement properties.

PubMed

Lee, Jiyeon; Lee, Eun-Hyun; Kim, Chun-Ja; Moon, Seung Hei

2015-12-01

The objectives of this study were to identify all available diabetes-related emotional distress instruments and evaluate the evidence regarding their measurement properties to help in the selection of the most appropriate instrument for use in practice and research. A systematic literature search was performed. PubMed, Embase, CINAHL, and PsycINFO were searched systematically for articles on diabetes-related emotional distress instruments. The Consensus-based Standards for the Selection of Health Measurement Instruments checklist was used to evaluate the methodological quality of the identified studies. The quality of results with respect to the measurement properties of each study was evaluated using Terwee's quality criteria. An ancillary meta-analysis was performed. Of the 2345 articles yielded by the search, 19 full-text articles evaluating 6 diabetes-related emotional distress instruments were included in this study. No instrument demonstrated evidence for all measurement properties. The Problem Areas in Diabetes scale (PAID) was the most frequently studied and the best validated of the instruments. Pooled summary estimates of the correlation coefficient between the PAID and serum glycated hemoglobin revealed a positive but weak correlation. No diabetes-related emotional distress instrument demonstrated evidence for all measurement properties. No instrument was better than another, although the PAID was the best validated and is thus recommended for use. Further psychometric studies of the diabetes-related emotional distress instruments with rigorous methodologies are required. Copyright © 2015 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Current Trends in Electronic Medication Reminders for Self Care.

PubMed

Fang, Kerry Y; Maeder, Anthony J; Bjering, Heidi

2016-01-01

Poor adherence to medication can lead to negative health outcomes and increased financial burdens. We present a literature review on electronic medication reminders used for medication adherence in self care settings, to identify current and possible future trends. A structured PubMed search based on extracted MeSH terms provided a total of 45 publications which were identified as most relevant. Three main categories of electronic solutions were identified: mobile phone reminders, in-home electronic reminder devices, and portable reminder devices.

Automatically finding relevant citations for clinical guideline development.

PubMed

Bui, Duy Duc An; Jonnalagadda, Siddhartha; Del Fiol, Guilherme

2015-10-01

Literature database search is a crucial step in the development of clinical practice guidelines and systematic reviews. In the age of information technology, the process of literature search is still conducted manually, therefore it is costly, slow and subject to human errors. In this research, we sought to improve the traditional search approach using innovative query expansion and citation ranking approaches. We developed a citation retrieval system composed of query expansion and citation ranking methods. The methods are unsupervised and easily integrated over the PubMed search engine. To validate the system, we developed a gold standard consisting of citations that were systematically searched and screened to support the development of cardiovascular clinical practice guidelines. The expansion and ranking methods were evaluated separately and compared with baseline approaches. Compared with the baseline PubMed expansion, the query expansion algorithm improved recall (80.2% vs. 51.5%) with small loss on precision (0.4% vs. 0.6%). The algorithm could find all citations used to support a larger number of guideline recommendations than the baseline approach (64.5% vs. 37.2%, p<0.001). In addition, the citation ranking approach performed better than PubMed's "most recent" ranking (average precision +6.5%, recall@k +21.1%, p<0.001), PubMed's rank by "relevance" (average precision +6.1%, recall@k +14.8%, p<0.001), and the machine learning classifier that identifies scientifically sound studies from MEDLINE citations (average precision +4.9%, recall@k +4.2%, p<0.001). Our unsupervised query expansion and ranking techniques are more flexible and effective than PubMed's default search engine behavior and the machine learning classifier. Automated citation finding is promising to augment the traditional literature search. Copyright © 2015 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

GAPscreener: an automatic tool for screening human genetic association literature in PubMed using the support vector machine technique.

PubMed

Yu, Wei; Clyne, Melinda; Dolan, Siobhan M; Yesupriya, Ajay; Wulf, Anja; Liu, Tiebin; Khoury, Muin J; Gwinn, Marta

2008-04-22

Synthesis of data from published human genetic association studies is a critical step in the translation of human genome discoveries into health applications. Although genetic association studies account for a substantial proportion of the abstracts in PubMed, identifying them with standard queries is not always accurate or efficient. Further automating the literature-screening process can reduce the burden of a labor-intensive and time-consuming traditional literature search. The Support Vector Machine (SVM), a well-established machine learning technique, has been successful in classifying text, including biomedical literature. The GAPscreener, a free SVM-based software tool, can be used to assist in screening PubMed abstracts for human genetic association studies. The data source for this research was the HuGE Navigator, formerly known as the HuGE Pub Lit database. Weighted SVM feature selection based on a keyword list obtained by the two-way z score method demonstrated the best screening performance, achieving 97.5% recall, 98.3% specificity and 31.9% precision in performance testing. Compared with the traditional screening process based on a complex PubMed query, the SVM tool reduced by about 90% the number of abstracts requiring individual review by the database curator. The tool also ascertained 47 articles that were missed by the traditional literature screening process during the 4-week test period. We examined the literature on genetic associations with preterm birth as an example. Compared with the traditional, manual process, the GAPscreener both reduced effort and improved accuracy. GAPscreener is the first free SVM-based application available for screening the human genetic association literature in PubMed with high recall and specificity. The user-friendly graphical user interface makes this a practical, stand-alone application. The software can be downloaded at no charge.

Integrative literature review: sleep patterns in infants attending nurseries.

PubMed

Cerqueira, Ana Carolina Dantas Rocha; Cardoso, Maria Vera Lúcia Moreira Leitão; Viana, Tamires Rebeca Forte; Lopes, Márcia Maria Coelho Oliveira

2018-01-01

To identify evidence available in the literature about sleep patterns of infants attending nurseries. An integrative review of studies published in Portuguese, English or Spanish available in full text on LILACS, CINAHL, and PubMed databases. The following descriptors sono, lactente and creches or berçários (in Portuguese) and sleep, infant and childcare or nurseries were used for LILACS, CINAHL and Pubmed, respectively. Nine studies were selected and analyzed. The main component explored in the studies about sleep pattern is the sleep position of the infants, due to its association with sudden infant death syndrome. The results pointed to the need to promote and develop written guidelines regarding behavioral practices to reduce the risk of this phenomenon. Evidence has identified sleep issues, mainly regarding the sleep position of the infant and the environment where the infant sleeps, showing that it is critical to set routines and interventions to improve the quality of sleep care of infants attending nurseries.

Implementing the community health worker model within diabetes management: challenges and lessons learned from programs across the United States.

PubMed

Cherrington, Andrea; Ayala, Guadalupe X; Amick, Halle; Allison, Jeroan; Corbie-Smith, Giselle; Scarinci, Isabel

2008-01-01

The purpose of this qualitative study was to examine methods of implementation of the community health worker (CHW) model within diabetes programs, as well as related challenges and lessons learned. Semi-structured interviews were conducted with program managers. Four databases (PubMed, CINAHL, ISI Web of Knowledge, PsycInfo), the CDC's 1998 directory of CHW programs, and Google Search Engine were used to identify CHW programs. Criteria for inclusion were: DM program; used CHW strategy; occurred in United States. Two independent reviewers performed content analyses to identify major themes and findings. Sixteen programs were assessed, all but 3 focused on minority populations. Most CHWs were recruited informally; 6 programs required CHWs to have diabetes. CHW roles and responsibilities varied across programs; educator was the most commonly identified role. Training also varied in terms of both content and intensity. All programs gave CHWs remuneration for their work. Common challenges included difficulties with CHW retention, intervention fidelity and issues related to sustainability. Cultural and gender issues also emerged. Examples of lessons learned included the need for community buy-in and the need to anticipate nondiabetes related issues. Lessons learned from these programs may be useful to others as they apply the CHW model to diabetes management within their own communities. Further research is needed to elucidate the specific features of this model necessary to positively impact health outcomes.

Prenatal exposure to polychlorinated biphenyls: a neuropsychologic analysis.

PubMed

Boucher, Olivier; Muckle, Gina; Bastien, Célyne H

2009-01-01

A large body of literature documents the effects of prenatal exposure to polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs) on cognitive development of children. Despite this fact, no integrative synthesis has been published yet to identify the cognitive functions that are particularly affected. Our aim is to review this literature in an attempt to identify the cognitive profile associated with prenatal PCB exposure. Studies were identified by searching the PubMed database for articles published before June 2008. We reviewed data from nine prospective longitudinal birth cohorts for different aspects of cognition. Associations between indicators of prenatal PCB exposure and performance on cognitive tasks reported in the selected studies are summarized and classified as general cognitive abilities, verbal or visual-spatial skills, memory, attention, and executive functions. The most consistent effects observed across studies are impaired executive functioning related to increased prenatal PCB exposure. Negative effects on processing speed, verbal abilities, and visual recognition memory are also reported by most studies. Converging results from different cohort studies in which exposure arises from different sources make it unlikely that co-exposure with another associated contaminant is responsible for the observed effects. Prenatal PCB exposure appears to be related to a relatively specific cognitive profile of impairments. Failure to assess functions that are specifically impaired may explain the absence of effects found in some studies. Our findings have implications in the selection of cognitive assessment methods in future studies.

Toward a Mixed-Methods Research Approach to Content Analysis in The Digital Age: The Combined Content-Analysis Model and its Applications to Health Care Twitter Feeds.

PubMed

Hamad, Eradah O; Savundranayagam, Marie Y; Holmes, Jeffrey D; Kinsella, Elizabeth Anne; Johnson, Andrew M

2016-03-08

Twitter's 140-character microblog posts are increasingly used to access information and facilitate discussions among health care professionals and between patients with chronic conditions and their caregivers. Recently, efforts have emerged to investigate the content of health care-related posts on Twitter. This marks a new area for researchers to investigate and apply content analysis (CA). In current infodemiology, infoveillance and digital disease detection research initiatives, quantitative and qualitative Twitter data are often combined, and there are no clear guidelines for researchers to follow when collecting and evaluating Twitter-driven content. The aim of this study was to identify studies on health care and social media that used Twitter feeds as a primary data source and CA as an analysis technique. We evaluated the resulting 18 studies based on a narrative review of previous methodological studies and textbooks to determine the criteria and main features of quantitative and qualitative CA. We then used the key features of CA and mixed-methods research designs to propose the combined content-analysis (CCA) model as a solid research framework for designing, conducting, and evaluating investigations of Twitter-driven content. We conducted a PubMed search to collect studies published between 2010 and 2014 that used CA to analyze health care-related tweets. The PubMed search and reference list checks of selected papers identified 21 papers. We excluded 3 papers and further analyzed 18. Results suggest that the methods used in these studies were not purely quantitative or qualitative, and the mixed-methods design was not explicitly chosen for data collection and analysis. A solid research framework is needed for researchers who intend to analyze Twitter data through the use of CA. We propose the CCA model as a useful framework that provides a straightforward approach to guide Twitter-driven studies and that adds rigor to health care social media investigations. We provide suggestions for the use of the CCA model in elder care-related contexts.

Toward a Mixed-Methods Research Approach to Content Analysis in The Digital Age: The Combined Content-Analysis Model and its Applications to Health Care Twitter Feeds

PubMed Central

Hamad, Eradah O; Savundranayagam, Marie Y; Holmes, Jeffrey D; Kinsella, Elizabeth Anne

2016-01-01

Background Twitter’s 140-character microblog posts are increasingly used to access information and facilitate discussions among health care professionals and between patients with chronic conditions and their caregivers. Recently, efforts have emerged to investigate the content of health care-related posts on Twitter. This marks a new area for researchers to investigate and apply content analysis (CA). In current infodemiology, infoveillance and digital disease detection research initiatives, quantitative and qualitative Twitter data are often combined, and there are no clear guidelines for researchers to follow when collecting and evaluating Twitter-driven content. Objective The aim of this study was to identify studies on health care and social media that used Twitter feeds as a primary data source and CA as an analysis technique. We evaluated the resulting 18 studies based on a narrative review of previous methodological studies and textbooks to determine the criteria and main features of quantitative and qualitative CA. We then used the key features of CA and mixed-methods research designs to propose the combined content-analysis (CCA) model as a solid research framework for designing, conducting, and evaluating investigations of Twitter-driven content. Methods We conducted a PubMed search to collect studies published between 2010 and 2014 that used CA to analyze health care-related tweets. The PubMed search and reference list checks of selected papers identified 21 papers. We excluded 3 papers and further analyzed 18. Results Results suggest that the methods used in these studies were not purely quantitative or qualitative, and the mixed-methods design was not explicitly chosen for data collection and analysis. A solid research framework is needed for researchers who intend to analyze Twitter data through the use of CA. Conclusions We propose the CCA model as a useful framework that provides a straightforward approach to guide Twitter-driven studies and that adds rigor to health care social media investigations. We provide suggestions for the use of the CCA model in elder care-related contexts. PMID:26957477

International patent applications for non-injectable naloxone for opioid overdose reversal: Exploratory search and retrieve analysis of the PatentScope database.

PubMed

McDonald, Rebecca; Danielsson Glende, Øyvind; Dale, Ola; Strang, John

2018-02-01

Non-injectable naloxone formulations are being developed for opioid overdose reversal, but only limited data have been published in the peer-reviewed domain. Through examination of a hitherto-unsearched database, we expand public knowledge of non-injectable formulations, tracing their development and novelty, with the aim to describe and compare their pharmacokinetic properties. (i) The PatentScope database of the World Intellectual Property Organization was searched for relevant English-language patent applications; (ii) Pharmacokinetic data were extracted, collated and analysed; (iii) PubMed was searched using Boolean search query '(nasal OR intranasal OR nose OR buccal OR sublingual) AND naloxone AND pharmacokinetics'. Five hundred and twenty-two PatentScope and 56 PubMed records were identified: three published international patent applications and five peer-reviewed papers were eligible. Pharmacokinetic data were available for intranasal, sublingual, and reference routes. Highly concentrated formulations (10-40 mg mL -1 ) had been developed and tested. Sublingual bioavailability was very low (1%; relative to intravenous). Non-concentrated intranasal spray (1 mg mL -1 ; 1 mL per nostril) had low bioavailability (11%). Concentrated intranasal formulations (≥10 mg mL -1 ) had bioavailability of 21-42% (relative to intravenous) and 26-57% (relative to intramuscular), with peak concentrations (dose-adjusted C max  = 0.8-1.7 ng mL -1 ) reached in 19-30 min (t max ). Exploratory analysis identified intranasal bioavailability as associated positively with dose and negatively with volume. We find consistent direction of development of intranasal sprays to high-concentration, low-volume formulations with bioavailability in the 20-60% range. These have potential to deliver a therapeutic dose in 0.1 mL volume. [McDonald R, Danielsson Glende Ø, Dale O, Strang J. International patent applications for non-injectable naloxone for opioid overdose reversal: Exploratory search and retrieve analysis of the PatentScope database. Drug Alcohol Rev 2017;00:000-000]. © 2017 Australasian Professional Society on Alcohol and other Drugs.

DATS, the data tag suite to enable discoverability of datasets.

PubMed

Sansone, Susanna-Assunta; Gonzalez-Beltran, Alejandra; Rocca-Serra, Philippe; Alter, George; Grethe, Jeffrey S; Xu, Hua; Fore, Ian M; Lyle, Jared; Gururaj, Anupama E; Chen, Xiaoling; Kim, Hyeon-Eui; Zong, Nansu; Li, Yueling; Liu, Ruiling; Ozyurt, I Burak; Ohno-Machado, Lucila

2017-06-06

Today's science increasingly requires effective ways to find and access existing datasets that are distributed across a range of repositories. For researchers in the life sciences, discoverability of datasets may soon become as essential as identifying the latest publications via PubMed. Through an international collaborative effort funded by the National Institutes of Health (NIH)'s Big Data to Knowledge (BD2K) initiative, we have designed and implemented the DAta Tag Suite (DATS) model to support the DataMed data discovery index. DataMed's goal is to be for data what PubMed has been for the scientific literature. Akin to the Journal Article Tag Suite (JATS) used in PubMed, the DATS model enables submission of metadata on datasets to DataMed. DATS has a core set of elements, which are generic and applicable to any type of dataset, and an extended set that can accommodate more specialized data types. DATS is a platform-independent model also available as an annotated serialization in schema.org, which in turn is widely used by major search engines like Google, Microsoft, Yahoo and Yandex.

Evaluation of generic medical information accessed via mobile phones at the point of care in resource-limited settings

PubMed Central

Goldbach, Hayley; Chang, Aileen Y; Kyer, Andrea; Ketshogileng, Dineo; Taylor, Lynne; Chandra, Amit; Dacso, Matthew; Kung, Shiang-Ju; Rijken, Taatske; Fontelo, Paul; Littman-Quinn, Ryan; Seymour, Anne K; Kovarik, Carrie L

2014-01-01

Objective Many mobile phone resources have been developed to increase access to health education in the developing world, yet few studies have compared these resources or quantified their performance in a resource-limited setting. This study aims to compare the performance of resident physicians in answering clinical scenarios using PubMed abstracts accessed via the PubMed for Handhelds (PubMed4Hh) website versus medical/drug reference applications (Medical Apps) accessed via software on the mobile phone. Methods A two-arm comparative study with crossover design was conducted. Subjects, who were resident physicians at the University of Botswana, completed eight scenarios, each with multi-part questions. The primary outcome was a grade for each question. The primary independent variable was the intervention arm and other independent variables included residency and question. Results Within each question type there were significant differences in ‘percentage correct’ between Medical Apps and PubMed4Hh for three of the six types of questions: drug-related, diagnosis/definitions, and treatment/management. Within each of these question types, Medical Apps had a higher percentage of fully correct responses than PubMed4Hh (63% vs 13%, 33% vs 12%, and 41% vs 13%, respectively). PubMed4Hh performed better for epidemiologic questions. Conclusions While mobile access to primary literature remains important and serves an information niche, mobile applications with condensed content may be more appropriate for point-of-care information needs. Further research is required to examine the specific information needs of clinicians in resource-limited settings and to evaluate the appropriateness of current resources in bridging location- and context-specific information gaps. PMID:23535665

LGscore: A method to identify disease-related genes using biological literature and Google data.

PubMed

Kim, Jeongwoo; Kim, Hyunjin; Yoon, Youngmi; Park, Sanghyun

2015-04-01

Since the genome project in 1990s, a number of studies associated with genes have been conducted and researchers have confirmed that genes are involved in disease. For this reason, the identification of the relationships between diseases and genes is important in biology. We propose a method called LGscore, which identifies disease-related genes using Google data and literature data. To implement this method, first, we construct a disease-related gene network using text-mining results. We then extract gene-gene interactions based on co-occurrences in abstract data obtained from PubMed, and calculate the weights of edges in the gene network by means of Z-scoring. The weights contain two values: the frequency and the Google search results. The frequency value is extracted from literature data, and the Google search result is obtained using Google. We assign a score to each gene through a network analysis. We assume that genes with a large number of links and numerous Google search results and frequency values are more likely to be involved in disease. For validation, we investigated the top 20 inferred genes for five different diseases using answer sets. The answer sets comprised six databases that contain information on disease-gene relationships. We identified a significant number of disease-related genes as well as candidate genes for Alzheimer's disease, diabetes, colon cancer, lung cancer, and prostate cancer. Our method was up to 40% more accurate than existing methods. Copyright © 2015 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Implication of Emotional Labor, Cognitive Flexibility, and Relational Energy among Cabin Crew: A Review

PubMed Central

Baruah, Rithi; Reddy, K. Jayasankara

2018-01-01

The primary aim of the civil aviation industry is to provide a secured and comfortable service to their customers and clients. This review concentrates on the cabin crew members, who are the frontline employees of the aviation industry and are salaried to smile. The objective of this review article is to analyze the variables of emotional labor, cognitive flexibility, and relational energy using the biopsychosocial model and identify organizational implications among cabin crew. Online databases such as EBSCOhost, JSTOR, Springerlink, and PubMed were used to gather articles for the review. The authors analyzed 17 articles from 2001 to 2016 and presented a comprehensive review. The review presented an integrative approach and suggested a hypothetical model that can prove to be a signitficant contribution to the avaition industry in particular and to research findings of aviation psychology. PMID:29743777

Suicide in childhood: a literatura review.

PubMed

Sousa, Girliani Silva de; Santos, Marília Suzi Pereira Dos; Silva, Amanda Tabosa Pereira da; Perrelli, Jaqueline Galdino Albuquerque; Sougey, Everton Botelho

2017-09-01

This is an integrated review of specific literature on the main factors associated to suicidal behavior in children under 14 years. Data were retrieved from PubMed and PsycInfo databases for the 1980-2016 period, with the following descriptors: "risk of suicide"; "children"; "suicide"; "childhood". Twenty-nine papers complied with the eligibility criteria of the review and were thus selected and analyzed. Results pointed to an association of suicide with neurobiological, school-related, social and mental factors, among which the role of impulsivity stands out. In addition, results found show that most of suicidal behavior-vulnerable factors are preventable insofar as they are identified and the child receives psychological and medical treatment. We conclude that family conflicts, school-related problems, bullying, impulsivity and depression are associated with childhood suicide. In addition, the scarce national research on suicide can contribute to the invisibility of this theme when establishing health promotion and treatment programs.

Stent fracture in the superficial femoral and proximal popliteal arteries: literature summary and economic impacts.

PubMed

Neil, Nancy

2013-06-01

To summarize available evidence regarding stent fracture in the femoropopliteal region. We searched PubMed, 2000-2011, using MeSH search terms "stents," "popliteal artery," and "femoral artery." We identified 29 original studies reporting 0% to 65% incidence of stent fracture. Fracture-related repeat revascularization could be avoided in the absence of device failure. Recently published data suggest that even a 5% rate of fracture-related reintervention would generate $118.4 million in health care cost in the United States. These excess procedures would also result in major complications and deaths that might have been avoided in the absence of stent fracture. Reported incidence and clinical relevance of femoropopliteal stent fractures vary across studies. Stent fracture may lead to repeat revascularization. These reinterventions create considerable--and potentially avoidable--economic burden for patients and payers. Further, these costs are effectively invisible wherever stent fractures are not systematically documented as the reason for reintervention.

An Evidence-Based Review on Wound Healing Herbal Remedies From Reports of Traditional Persian Medicine

PubMed Central

Hosseinkhani, Ayda; Falahatzadeh, Maryam; Raoofi, Elahe; Zarshenas, Mohammad M.

2016-01-01

Research on wound healing agents is a developing area in biomedical sciences. Traditional Persian medicine is one of holistic systems of medicine providing valuable information on natural remedies. To collect the evidences for wound-healing medicaments from traditional Persian medicine sources, 5 main pharmaceutical manuscripts in addition to related contemporary reports from Scopus, PubMed, and ScienceDirect were studied. The underlying mechanisms were also saved and discussed. Totally, 65 herbs used in traditional Persian medicine for their wound healing properties was identified. Related anti-inflammatory, antioxidant, antimicrobial, and wound-healing activities of those remedies were studied. Forty remedies had at least one of those properties and 10 of the filtered plants possessed all effects. The medicinal plants used in wound healing treatment in traditional Persian medicine could be a good topic for further in vivo and clinical research. This might lead to development of effective products for wound treatment. PMID:27330012

The comparative recall of Google Scholar versus PubMed in identical searches for biomedical systematic reviews: a review of searches used in systematic reviews.

PubMed

Bramer, Wichor M; Giustini, Dean; Kramer, Bianca Mr; Anderson, Pf

2013-12-23

The usefulness of Google Scholar (GS) as a bibliographic database for biomedical systematic review (SR) searching is a subject of current interest and debate in research circles. Recent research has suggested GS might even be used alone in SR searching. This assertion is challenged here by testing whether GS can locate all studies included in 21 previously published SRs. Second, it examines the recall of GS, taking into account the maximum number of items that can be viewed, and tests whether more complete searches created by an information specialist will improve recall compared to the searches used in the 21 published SRs. The authors identified 21 biomedical SRs that had used GS and PubMed as information sources and reported their use of identical, reproducible search strategies in both databases. These search strategies were rerun in GS and PubMed, and analyzed as to their coverage and recall. Efforts were made to improve searches that underperformed in each database. GS' overall coverage was higher than PubMed (98% versus 91%) and overall recall is higher in GS: 80% of the references included in the 21 SRs were returned by the original searches in GS versus 68% in PubMed. Only 72% of the included references could be used as they were listed among the first 1,000 hits (the maximum number shown). Practical precision (the number of included references retrieved in the first 1,000, divided by 1,000) was on average 1.9%, which is only slightly lower than in other published SRs. Improving searches with the lowest recall resulted in an increase in recall from 48% to 66% in GS and, in PubMed, from 60% to 85%. Although its coverage and precision are acceptable, GS, because of its incomplete recall, should not be used as a single source in SR searching. A specialized, curated medical database such as PubMed provides experienced searchers with tools and functionality that help improve recall, and numerous options in order to optimize precision. Searches for SRs should be performed by experienced searchers creating searches that maximize recall for as many databases as deemed necessary by the search expert.

The comparative recall of Google Scholar versus PubMed in identical searches for biomedical systematic reviews: a review of searches used in systematic reviews

PubMed Central

2013-01-01

Background The usefulness of Google Scholar (GS) as a bibliographic database for biomedical systematic review (SR) searching is a subject of current interest and debate in research circles. Recent research has suggested GS might even be used alone in SR searching. This assertion is challenged here by testing whether GS can locate all studies included in 21 previously published SRs. Second, it examines the recall of GS, taking into account the maximum number of items that can be viewed, and tests whether more complete searches created by an information specialist will improve recall compared to the searches used in the 21 published SRs. Methods The authors identified 21 biomedical SRs that had used GS and PubMed as information sources and reported their use of identical, reproducible search strategies in both databases. These search strategies were rerun in GS and PubMed, and analyzed as to their coverage and recall. Efforts were made to improve searches that underperformed in each database. Results GS’ overall coverage was higher than PubMed (98% versus 91%) and overall recall is higher in GS: 80% of the references included in the 21 SRs were returned by the original searches in GS versus 68% in PubMed. Only 72% of the included references could be used as they were listed among the first 1,000 hits (the maximum number shown). Practical precision (the number of included references retrieved in the first 1,000, divided by 1,000) was on average 1.9%, which is only slightly lower than in other published SRs. Improving searches with the lowest recall resulted in an increase in recall from 48% to 66% in GS and, in PubMed, from 60% to 85%. Conclusions Although its coverage and precision are acceptable, GS, because of its incomplete recall, should not be used as a single source in SR searching. A specialized, curated medical database such as PubMed provides experienced searchers with tools and functionality that help improve recall, and numerous options in order to optimize precision. Searches for SRs should be performed by experienced searchers creating searches that maximize recall for as many databases as deemed necessary by the search expert. PMID:24360284

Chronic kidney disease of unknown etiology in Sri Lanka

PubMed Central

2016-01-01

Introduction In the last two decades, chronic kidney disease of unknown etiology (CKDu) has emerged as a significant contributor to the burden of chronic kidney disease (CKD) in rural Sri Lanka. It is characterized by the absence of identified causes for CKD. The prevalence of CKDu is 15.1–22.9% in some Sri Lankan districts, and previous research has found an association with farming occupations. Methods A systematic literature review in Pubmed, Embase, Scopus, and Lilacs databases identified 46 eligible peer-reviewed articles and one conference abstract. Results Geographical mapping indicates a relationship between CKDu and agricultural irrigation water sources. Health mapping studies, human biological studies, and environment-based studies have explored possible causative agents. Most studies focused on likely causative agents related to agricultural practices, geographical distribution based on the prevalence and incidence of CKDu, and contaminants identified in drinking water. Nonetheless, the link between agrochemicals or heavy metals and CKDu remains to be established. No definitive cause for CKDu has been identified. Discussion Evidence to date suggests that the disease is related to one or more environmental agents, however pinpointing a definite cause for CKDu is challenging. It is plausible that CKDu is multifactorial. No specific guidelines or recommendations exist for treatment of CKDu, and standard management protocols for CKD apply. Changes in agricultural practices, provision of safe drinking water, and occupational safety precautions are recommended by the World Health Organization. PMID:27399161

Chronic kidney disease of unknown etiology in Sri Lanka.

PubMed

Rajapakse, Senaka; Shivanthan, Mitrakrishnan Chrishan; Selvarajah, Mathu

2016-07-01

In the last two decades, chronic kidney disease of unknown etiology (CKDu) has emerged as a significant contributor to the burden of chronic kidney disease (CKD) in rural Sri Lanka. It is characterized by the absence of identified causes for CKD. The prevalence of CKDu is 15.1-22.9% in some Sri Lankan districts, and previous research has found an association with farming occupations. A systematic literature review in Pubmed, Embase, Scopus, and Lilacs databases identified 46 eligible peer-reviewed articles and one conference abstract. Geographical mapping indicates a relationship between CKDu and agricultural irrigation water sources. Health mapping studies, human biological studies, and environment-based studies have explored possible causative agents. Most studies focused on likely causative agents related to agricultural practices, geographical distribution based on the prevalence and incidence of CKDu, and contaminants identified in drinking water. Nonetheless, the link between agrochemicals or heavy metals and CKDu remains to be established. No definitive cause for CKDu has been identified. Evidence to date suggests that the disease is related to one or more environmental agents, however pinpointing a definite cause for CKDu is challenging. It is plausible that CKDu is multifactorial. No specific guidelines or recommendations exist for treatment of CKDu, and standard management protocols for CKD apply. Changes in agricultural practices, provision of safe drinking water, and occupational safety precautions are recommended by the World Health Organization.

Systematic Review of Medical Informatics-Supported Medication Decision Making.

PubMed

Melton, Brittany L

2017-01-01

This systematic review sought to assess the applications and implications of current medical informatics-based decision support systems related to medication prescribing and use. Studies published between January 2006 and July 2016 which were indexed in PubMed and written in English were reviewed, and 39 studies were ultimately included. Most of the studies looked at computerized provider order entry or clinical decision support systems. Most studies examined decision support systems as a means of reducing errors or risk, particularly associated with medication prescribing, whereas a few studies evaluated the impact medical informatics-based decision support systems have on workflow or operations efficiency. Most studies identified benefits associated with decision support systems, but some indicate there is room for improvement.

Anesthetic Considerations in Patients Undergoing Bariatric Surgery: A Review Article

PubMed Central

Soleimanpour, Hassan; Safari, Saeid; Sanaie, Sarvin; Nazari, Mehdi; Alavian, Seyed Moayed

2017-01-01

Context This article discusses the anesthetic considerations in patients undergoing bariatric surgery in the preoperative, intraoperative, and postoperative phases of surgery. Evidence Acquisition This review includes studies involving obese patients undergoing bariatric surgery. Searches have been conducted in PubMed, MEDLINE, EMBASE, Google Scholar, Scopus, and Cochrane Database of Systematic Review using the terms obese, obesity, bariatric, anesthesia, perioperative, preoperative, perioperative, postoperative, and their combinations. Results Obesity is a major worldwide health problem associated with many comorbidities. Bariatric surgery has been proposed as the best alternative treatment for extreme obese patients when all other therapeutic options have failed. Conclusions Anesthetists must completely assess the patients before the surgery to identify anesthesia- related potential risk factors and prepare for management during the surgery. PMID:29430407

Community-acquired methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus: a global problem.

PubMed

Evangelista, Síntia de Souza; de Oliveira, Adriana Cristina

2015-01-01

To describe the epidemiology of CA-MRSA cases in Brazil order to understand its occurrence, risk factors and forms of management in the country compared with the worldwide situation. Literature review and for articles selection considering the databases: Scopus, Science Direct, Isi Web of Knowledge, PubMed and BVS. Ten national articles describing 21 cases of CA-MRSA were identified, mostly in children, adolescents and adults with skin and soft tissue infection progressing to severe infections related to Oceania Southwest Pacific Clone (OSPC) leading to hospitalization. Conclusión: Although CA-MRSA is considered a global important microorganism we found a lack of published data about its epidemiology in Brazil, which hinder the design of the reality of the country against CA-MRSA.

Effects of diabetes-related family stress on glycemic control in young patients with type 1 diabetes: Systematic review.

PubMed

Tsiouli, Elina; Alexopoulos, Evangelos C; Stefanaki, Charikleia; Darviri, Christina; Chrousos, George P

2013-02-01

To investigate the way that family stress influences glycemic control among patients with diabetes who are younger than 18 years of age. PubMed and Scopus were searched for relevant studies published since 1990 using the following key words: diabetes type 1, glycemic control, family stress, family conflict, and family function. In total, 1478 papers were identified in the initial search. The final review included 6 cohort studies, 3 cross-sectional studies, and 1 qualitative review in which family stress was assessed using specific diabetes-related conflict measurement instruments, and glycemic control was evaluated by glycosylated hemoglobin measurement. In most studies family stress was negatively correlated with patients' glycemic control. Family function was strongly related to patients' glycemic control, while family conflict was adversely associated with glycemic control. Families of low socioeconomic status, those of adolescents with diabetes, and those of single parents were more prone to diabetes-related stress and thus more susceptible to worse glycemic control. Therapeutic psychological interventions and educational programs can help alleviate family diabetes-related stress and will likely improve glycemic control.

Genetics Home Reference: PRICKLE1-related progressive myoclonus epilepsy with ataxia

MedlinePlus

... PROGRESSIVE MYOCLONIC, 1B Sources for This Page Bassuk AG, Wallace RH, Buhr A, Buller AR, Afawi Z, ... Jan 10. Citation on PubMed Fox MH, Bassuk AG. PRICKLE1-Related Progressive Myoclonus Epilepsy with Ataxia. 2009 ...

Dialysis search filters for PubMed, Ovid MEDLINE, and Embase databases.

PubMed

Iansavichus, Arthur V; Haynes, R Brian; Lee, Christopher W C; Wilczynski, Nancy L; McKibbon, Ann; Shariff, Salimah Z; Blake, Peter G; Lindsay, Robert M; Garg, Amit X

2012-10-01

Physicians frequently search bibliographic databases, such as MEDLINE via PubMed, for best evidence for patient care. The objective of this study was to develop and test search filters to help physicians efficiently retrieve literature related to dialysis (hemodialysis or peritoneal dialysis) from all other articles indexed in PubMed, Ovid MEDLINE, and Embase. A diagnostic test assessment framework was used to develop and test robust dialysis filters. The reference standard was a manual review of the full texts of 22,992 articles from 39 journals to determine whether each article contained dialysis information. Next, 1,623,728 unique search filters were developed, and their ability to retrieve relevant articles was evaluated. The high-performance dialysis filters consisted of up to 65 search terms in combination. These terms included the words "dialy" (truncated), "uremic," "catheters," and "renal transplant wait list." These filters reached peak sensitivities of 98.6% and specificities of 98.5%. The filters' performance remained robust in an independent validation subset of articles. These empirically derived and validated high-performance search filters should enable physicians to effectively retrieve dialysis information from PubMed, Ovid MEDLINE, and Embase.

Ozone Exposure, Cardiopulmonary Health, and Obesity: A Substantive Review.

PubMed

Koman, Patricia D; Mancuso, Peter

2017-07-17

From 1999-2014, obesity prevalence increased among adults and youth. Obese individuals may be uniquely susceptible to the proinflammatory effects of ozone because obese humans and animals have been shown to experience a greater decline in lung function than normal-weight subjects. Obesity is independently associated with limitations in lung mechanics with increased ozone dose. However, few epidemiologic studies have examined the interaction between excess weight and ozone exposure among adults. Using PubMed keyword searches and reference lists, we reviewed epidemiologic evidence to identify potential response-modifying factors and determine if obese or overweight adults are at increased risk of ozone-related health effects. We initially identified 170 studies, of which seven studies met the criteria of examining the interaction of excess weight and ozone exposure on cardiopulmonary outcomes in adults, including four short-term ozone exposure studies in controlled laboratory settings and three community epidemiologic studies. In the studies identified, obesity was associated with decreased lung function and increased inflammatory mediators. Results were inconclusive about the effect modification when data were stratified by sex. Obese and overweight populations should be considered as candidate at-risk groups for epidemiologic studies of cardiopulmonary health related to air pollution exposures. Air pollution is a modifiable risk factor that may decrease lung function among obese individuals with implications for environmental and occupational health policy.

An update to the toxicological profile for water-soluble and sparingly soluble tungsten substances

PubMed Central

Lemus, Ranulfo; Venezia, Carmen F.

2015-01-01

Abstract Tungsten is a relatively rare metal with numerous applications, most notably in machine tools, catalysts, and superalloys. In 2003, tungsten was nominated for study under the National Toxicology Program, and in 2011, it was nominated for human health assessment under the US Environmental Protection Agency's (EPA) Integrated Risk Information System. In 2005, the Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry (ATSDR) issued a toxicological profile for tungsten, identifying several data gaps in the hazard assessment of tungsten. By filling the data gaps identified by the ATSDR, this review serves as an update to the toxicological profile for tungsten and tungsten substances. A PubMed literature search was conducted to identify reports published during the period 2004–2014, in order to gather relevant information related to tungsten toxicity. Additional information was also obtained directly from unpublished studies from within the tungsten industry. A systematic approach to evaluate the quality of data was conducted according to published criteria. This comprehensive review has gathered new toxicokinetic information and summarizes the details of acute and repeated-exposure studies that include reproductive, developmental, neurotoxicological, and immunotoxicological endpoints. Such new evidence involves several relevant studies that must be considered when regulators estimate and propose a tungsten reference or concentration dose. PMID:25695728

Association between foot type and tibial stress injuries: a systematic review.

PubMed

Barnes, A; Wheat, J; Milner, C

2008-02-01

To systematically review published articles investigating the association between structural foot characteristics and tibial stress injuries, and to suggest possible future avenues of research in this area. Literature was identified, selected and appraised in accordance with the methods of a systematic review. Articles potentially relevant to the research question were identified by searching the following electronic databases: Amed, Cinahl, Index to UK theses, Medline, PubMed, Scopus, Sports discus and Web of science. Duplicates were removed and, based on the title and abstract, the full text of relevant studies were retrieved. Two reviewers independently assessed papers; this formed the basis for the inclusion of the most appropriate trials. From the 479 articles originally identified, nine were deemed appropriate for inclusion in the review. In general, specific data relating to this relationship was limited. Outcomes of the nine investigations were difficult to compare due to differing methods used across studies. Results have proved conflicting, with limited evidence found to implicate any specific foot type as a potential risk factor for tibial stress injuries. No definitive conclusions can be drawn relating foot structure or function to an increased risk of tibial stress injuries. Extremes of foot types are likely to pose an increased risk of tibial stress injuries compared to normal arched feet.

Defining immunological dysfunction in sepsis: A requisite tool for precision medicine.

PubMed

Bermejo-Martin, Jesús F; Andaluz-Ojeda, David; Almansa, Raquel; Gandía, Francisco; Gómez-Herreras, Jose Ignacio; Gomez-Sanchez, Esther; Heredia-Rodríguez, María; Eiros, Jose Maria; Kelvin, David J; Tamayo, Eduardo

2016-05-01

Immunological dysregulation is now recognised as a major pathogenic event in sepsis. Stimulation of immune response and immuno-modulation are emerging approaches for the treatment of this disease. Defining the underlying immunological alterations in sepsis is important for the design of future therapies with immuno-modulatory drugs. Clinical studies evaluating the immunological response in adult patients with Sepsis and published in PubMed were reviewed to identify features of immunological dysfunction. For this study we used key words related with innate and adaptive immunity. Ten major features of immunological dysfunction (FID) were identified involving quantitative and qualitative alterations of [antigen presentation](FID1), [T and B lymphocytes] (FID2), [natural killer cells] (FID3), [relative increase in T regulatory cells] (FID4), [increased expression of PD-1 and PD-ligand1](FID5), [low levels of immunoglobulins](FID6), [low circulating counts of neutrophils and/or increased immature forms in non survivors](FID7), [hyper-cytokinemia] (FID8), [complement consumption] (FID9), [defective bacterial killing by neutrophil extracellular traps](FID10). This review article identified ten major features associated with immunosuppression and immunological dysregulation in sepsis. Assessment of these features could help in utilizing precision medicine for the treatment of sepsis with immuno-modulatory drugs. Copyright © 2016 The British Infection Association. Published by Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Breast cancer screening in developing countries

PubMed Central

da Costa Vieira, René Aloísio; Biller, Gabriele; Uemura, Gilberto; Ruiz, Carlos Alberto; Curado, Maria Paula

2017-01-01

Developing countries have limited healthcare resources and use different strategies to diagnose breast cancer. Most of the population depends on the public healthcare system, which affects the diagnosis of the tumor. Thus, the indicators observed in developed countries cannot be directly compared with those observed in developing countries because the healthcare infrastructures in developing countries are deficient. The aim of this study was to evaluate breast cancer screening strategies and indicators in developing countries. A systematic review and the Population, Intervention, Comparison, Outcomes, Timing, and Setting methodology were performed to identify possible indicators of presentation at diagnosis and the methodologies used in developing countries. We searched PubMed for the terms “Breast Cancer” or “Breast Cancer Screening” and “Developing Country” or “Developing Countries”. In all, 1,149 articles were identified. Of these articles, 45 full articles were selected, which allowed us to identify indicators related to epidemiology, diagnostic intervention (diagnostic strategy, diagnostic infrastructure, percentage of women undergoing mammography), quality of intervention (presentation of symptoms at diagnosis, time to diagnosis, early stage disease), comparisons (trend curves, subpopulations at risk) and survival among different countries. The identification of these indicators will improve the reporting of methodologies used in developing countries and will allow us to evaluate improvements in public health related to breast cancer. PMID:28492725

Oral Health and the Oral Microbiome in Pancreatic Cancer: An Overview of Epidemiological Studies.

PubMed

Bracci, Paige M

The aim was to provide a cohesive overview of epidemiological studies of periodontal disease, oral microbiome profiles, and pancreatic cancer risk. A PubMed search of articles published in English through July 2017 with additional review of bibliographies of identified articles. Risk estimates for periodontal disease associated with pancreatic cancer consistently ranged from 1.5 to 2, aligning with a meta-analysis summary relative risk of 1.74. Analyses of antibodies to pathogenic and/or commensal oral bacteria in prediagnostic blood provided evidence that some oral bacteria and oral microbial diversity may be related to pancreatic cancer. Overall, the data present a plausible but complex relationship among pancreatic cancer, the oral microbiome, periodontal disease, and other risk factors that might be explained by systemic effects on immune and inflammatory processes. Larger comprehensive studies that examine serially collected epidemiological/clinical data and blood, tissue, and various microbial samples are needed to definitively determine how and whether oral health-related factors contribute to pancreatic cancer risk.

The Silence of Our Science: Nursing Research on LGBT Older Adult Health.

PubMed

Cloyes, Kristin G

2016-01-01

Lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) older adults have been largely invisible within health and aging services research, despite being disproportionately burdened by poor health and aging outcomes. The current study examines the prevalence of LGBT aging and older adult health-related studies in the 2010-2014 nursing literature, and how this topic is being addressed. Systematic CINAHL and PubMed searches were conducted and compared to (a) quantify the prevalence of LGBT older adult-related scholarship in nursing research; (b) document the appearance of relevant publications in top nursing journals; (c) identify the focus of articles with a substantive focus on LGBT older adult health or aging; and (d) compare the prevalence of LGBT older adult-related literature in nursing, gerontology, medicine, and social work. Findings indicate that research explicitly including LGBT older adults is lacking across the health sciences, particularly in nursing (where it has been largely absent). Implications for nursing research, practice, and education are discussed. Copyright 2016, SLACK Incorporated.

CAM on PubMed

MedlinePlus

... citations from the MEDLINE database and additional life science journals. It also includes links to many full-text articles at journal Web sites and other related Web resources. Sample Searches ...

The Uniqueness of Speech among Motor Systems

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Kent, Ray

2004-01-01

This paper considers evidence that the speech muscles are unique in their genetic, developmental, functional and phenotypical properties. The literature was reviewed using PubMed, ScienceDirect, ComDisDome and other literature-retrieval systems to identify studies reporting on the craniofacial and laryngeal muscles. Particular emphasis was given…

Weight change and all-cause mortality in older adults: A meta-analysis

USDA-ARS?s Scientific Manuscript database

This meta-analysis of observational cohort studies examined the association between weight change (weight loss, weight gain, and weight fluctuation) and all-cause mortality among older adults. We used PubMed (MEDLINE), Web of Science, and Cochrane Library to identify prospective studies published in...

One Size Fits All? Slow Cortical Potentials Neurofeedback: A Review

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Mayer, Kerstin; Wyckoff, Sarah N.; Strehl, Ute

2013-01-01

Objective: The intent of this manuscript was to review all published studies on slow cortical potentials (SCP) neurofeedback for the treatment of ADHD, with emphasis on neurophysiological rationale, study design, protocol, outcomes, and limitations. Method: For review, PubMed, MEDLINE, ERIC, and Google Scholar searches identified six studies and…

The cost-effectiveness of drug therapies to treat secondary hyperparathyroidism in renal failure: a focus on evidence regarding paricalcitol and cinacalcet.

PubMed

Lorenzoni, Valentina; Trieste, Leopoldo; Turchetti, Giuseppe

2015-01-01

The present review aims to assess the state-of-the-art regarding cost-effectiveness of therapy for secondary hyperparathyroidism in order to identify the best treatment and review methodological issues. PubMed and the Cochrane Library were searched to identify papers performing comparative analysis of costs and effects of treatment for secondary hyperparathyroidism in adult patients. Among the 66 papers identified, only 10 were included in the analysis. Treatment strategies evaluated in the selected papers were: cinacalcet in addition to vitamin D and phosphate binders versus vitamin D and phosphate binders only (seven papers), paricalcitol versus non-selective vitamin D (two papers), early and late introduction of cinacalcet in addition to vitamin D and phosphate binders (one paper) and paricalcitol versus cinacalcet (one paper). The high degree of heterogeneity among alternative treatments and methodological limits related to cost items considered, resource valuation methods and so on, make it unfeasible to reach a definite conclusion regarding cost-effectiveness but allow for future research opportunities.

The Influence of Organizational Culture on School-Based Obesity Prevention Interventions: A Systematic Review of the Literature.

PubMed

Fair, Kayla N; Solari Williams, Kayce D; Warren, Judith; McKyer, E Lisako Jones; Ory, Marcia G

2018-06-01

Although the influence of organizational culture has been examined on a variety of student outcomes, few studies consider the influence that culture may have on school-based obesity prevention interventions. We present a systematic review of the literature to examine how elements of organizational culture may affect the adoption, implementation, and sustainability of school-based obesity prevention interventions. Fourteen studies examining the impact of organizational-level characteristics on school-based obesity prevention interventions were identified through the online databases EBSCO (CINAHL, ERIC, Agricola), Web of Science, Medline (PubMed), and Scopus. Five themes were identified as elements of organizational culture that influence the adoption, implementation, and sustainability of school-based obesity prevention interventions: organizational response to limited resources, value placed on staff training and professional development, internal support, organizational values, and school climate. Organizational culture can greatly influence the success of school-based obesity interventions. The collection of data related to organizational-level factors may be used to identify strategies for creating and sustaining a supportive environment for obesity prevention interventions in the school setting. © 2018, American School Health Association.

The stress-vulnerability model how does stress impact on mental illness at the level of the brain and what are the consequences?

PubMed

Goh, Cindy; Agius, Mark

2010-06-01

The stress -vulnerability model (Zubin et al. 1977) is an extremely useful model for identifying and treating relapses of mental illness. We accept that human persons carry genetic and other predisposition to mental illness. However, the question arises as to how stress impacts on a person in order to cause mental illness to develop. Furthermore there arises the issue as to what other effects such stress has on the human body beyond the human brain. Our aim was to research and integrate the current literature in order to establish how stress impacts on the brain at the cellular level, and to establish whether there are other consequences for the human body brought about by the impact of stress on the human brain. Literature Search, using pubmed. We have identified much literature on how stress affects biological mechanisms within the brain, and how it relates to biological vulnerabilities carried by different individuals. We have identified communalities in how the interplay between stress and vulnerability occurs in different disease processes.

Three-dimensional kinematics of the lumbar spine during gait using marker-based systems: a systematic review.

PubMed

Needham, Robert; Stebbins, Julie; Chockalingam, Nachiappan

2016-01-01

To review the current scientific literature on the assessment of three-dimensional movement of the lumbar spine with a focus on the utilisation of a 3D cluster. Electronic databases PubMed, OVID, CINAHL, The Cochrance Library, ScienceDirect, ProQuest and Web of Knowledge were searched between 1966 and March 2015. The reference lists of the articles that met the inclusion criteria were also searched. From the 1530 articles identified through an initial search, 16 articles met the inclusion criteria. All information relating to methodology and kinematic modelling of the lumbar segment along with the outcome measures were extracted from the studies identified for synthesis. Guidelines detailing 3D cluster construction were limited in the identified articles and the lack of information presented makes it difficult to assess the external validity of this technique. Scarce information was presented detailing time-series angle data of the lumbar spine during gait. Further developments of the 3D cluster technique are required and it is essential that the authors provide clear instruction, definitions and standards in their manuscript to improve clarity and reproducibility.

Heat Exposure and Maternal Health in the Face of Climate Change

PubMed Central

Kuehn, Leeann; McCormick, Sabrina

2017-01-01

Climate change will increasingly affect the health of vulnerable populations, including maternal and fetal health. This systematic review aims to identify recent literature that investigates increasing heat and extreme temperatures on pregnancy outcomes globally. We identify common research findings in order to create a comprehensive understanding of how immediate effects will be sustained in the next generation. Following the Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses (PRISMA) guide, we systematically reviewed articles from PubMed and Cochrane Reviews. We included articles that identify climate change-related exposures and adverse health effects for pregnant women. There is evidence that temperature extremes adversely impact birth outcomes, including, but not limited to: changes in length of gestation, birth weight, stillbirth, and neonatal stress in unusually hot temperature exposures. The studies included in this review indicate that not only is there a need for further research on the ways that climate change, and heat in particular, may affect maternal health and neonatal outcomes, but that uniform standards for assessing the effects of heat on maternal fetal health also need to be established. PMID:28758917

Clinical and Molecular Epidemiology of Extended-Spectrum Beta-Lactamase-Producing Klebsiella spp.: A Systematic Review and Meta-Analyses

PubMed Central

Hendrik, Tirza C.; Voor in ‘t holt, Anne F.; Vos, Margreet C.

2015-01-01

Healthcare-related infections caused by extended-spectrum beta-lactamase (ESBL)-producing Klebsiella spp. are of major concern. To control transmission, deep understanding of the transmission mechanisms is needed. This systematic review aimed to identify risk factors and sources, clonal relatedness using molecular techniques, and the most effective control strategies for ESBL-producing Klebsiella spp. A systematic search of PubMed, Embase, and Outbreak Database was performed. We identified 2771 articles from November 25th, 1960 until April 7th, 2014 of which 148 were included in the systematic review and 23 in a random-effects meta-analysis study. The random-effects meta-analyses showed that underlying disease or condition (odds ratio [OR] = 6.25; 95% confidence interval [CI] = 2.85 to 13.66) generated the highest pooled estimate. ESBL-producing Klebsiella spp. were spread through person-to-person contact and via sources in the environment; we identified both monoclonal and polyclonal presence. Multi-faceted interventions are needed to prevent transmission of ESBL-producing Klebsiella spp. PMID:26485570

How Patient Cost-Sharing Trends Affect Adherence and Outcomes

PubMed Central

Eaddy, Michael T.; Cook, Christopher L.; O’Day, Ken; Burch, Steven P.; Cantrell, C. Ron

2012-01-01

Objective We sought to assess the relationship between patient cost sharing; medication adherence; and clinical, utilization, and economic outcomes. Methodology: We conducted a literature review of articles and abstracts published from January 1974 to May 2008. Articles were identified using PubMed, Ovid, medline, Web of Science, and Google Scholar databases. The following terms were used in the search: adherence, compliance, copay, cost sharing, costs, noncompliance, outcomes, hospitalization, utilization, economics, income, and persistence. Results: We identified and included 160 articles in the review. Although the types of interventions, measures, and populations studied varied widely, we were able to identify relatively clear relationships between cost sharing, adherence, and outcomes. Of the articles that evaluated the relationship between changes in cost sharing and adherence, 85% showed that an increasing patient share of medication costs was significantly associated with a decrease in adherence. For articles that investigated the relationship between adherence and outcomes, the majority noted that increased adherence was associated with a statistically significant improvement in outcomes. Conclusion: Increasing patient cost sharing was associated with declines in medication adherence, which in turn was associated with poorer health outcomes. PMID:22346336

Heat Exposure and Maternal Health in the Face of Climate Change.

PubMed

Kuehn, Leeann; McCormick, Sabrina

2017-07-29

Climate change will increasingly affect the health of vulnerable populations, including maternal and fetal health. This systematic review aims to identify recent literature that investigates increasing heat and extreme temperatures on pregnancy outcomes globally. We identify common research findings in order to create a comprehensive understanding of how immediate effects will be sustained in the next generation. Following the Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses (PRISMA) guide, we systematically reviewed articles from PubMed and Cochrane Reviews. We included articles that identify climate change-related exposures and adverse health effects for pregnant women. There is evidence that temperature extremes adversely impact birth outcomes, including, but not limited to: changes in length of gestation, birth weight, stillbirth, and neonatal stress in unusually hot temperature exposures. The studies included in this review indicate that not only is there a need for further research on the ways that climate change, and heat in particular, may affect maternal health and neonatal outcomes, but that uniform standards for assessing the effects of heat on maternal fetal health also need to be established.

Systematic Review of the Economic Burden of Overt Hepatic Encephalopathy and Pharmacoeconomic Impact of Rifaximin.

PubMed

Neff, Guy; Iii, Woodie Zachry

2018-04-12

Hepatic encephalopathy (HE), a common neurologic complication in cirrhosis, is associated with substantial disease and economic burden. Rifaximin is a non-systemic antibiotic that reduces the risk of overt HE recurrence and overt HE-related hospitalizations. Our objective was to provide an overview of the direct HE-related costs and cost benefits of rifaximin, lactulose, and rifaximin plus lactulose. A systematic review of PubMed and relevant meeting abstracts was conducted to identify publications since 1 January 2007 reporting economic data related to HE and rifaximin and/or lactulose. Further, a public database and published literature were used to estimate current costs of hospitalization for overt HE, and potential cost savings of HE-related hospitalizations with rifaximin. The methodological quality of included studies was evaluated using the Drummond checklist. A total of 16 reports were identified for inclusion in the systematic review. Globally, HE-related direct costs ranged from $US5370 to $US50,120 annually per patient. Rifaximin was associated with shorter hospital stays and reduced healthcare costs. Rifaximin also has the potential to reduce overt HE-related hospitalization risk by 50% compared with lactulose. Rifaximin was shown to have a favourable pharmacoeconomic profile compared with lactulose (based on the incremental cost-effectiveness ratio). In addition to its clinical benefits (e.g. reduction in the risk of recurrence of overt HE, overt HE-related hospitalizations, favourable adverse event profile), economic data are favourable for the use of rifaximin in patients with a history of overt HE.

Genetics Home Reference: CATSPER1-related nonsyndromic male infertility

MedlinePlus

... Avenarius MR, Hildebrand MS, Zhang Y, Meyer NC, Smith LL, Kahrizi K, Najmabadi H, Smith RJ. Human male infertility caused by mutations in ... article on PubMed Central Hildebrand MS, Avenarius MR, Smith RJH. CATSPER-Related Male Infertility. 2009 Dec 3 [ ...

Gender differences in prevalence of the metabolic syndrome in Gulf Cooperation Council Countries: a systematic review.

PubMed

Mabry, R M; Reeves, M M; Eakin, E G; Owen, N

2010-05-01

To systematically review studies documenting the prevalence of the metabolic syndrome among men and women in Member States of the Gulf Cooperative Council (GCC; Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates)-countries in which obesity, Type 2 diabetes and related metabolic and cardiovascular diseases are highly prevalent. A search was conducted on PubMed and CINAHL using the term 'metabolic syndrome' and the country name of each GCC Member State. The search was limited to studies published in the English language. The metabolic syndrome was defined according to the Third Adult Treatment Panel (ATPIII) of the National Cholesterol Education Program (NCEP) and/or International Diabetes Federation (IDF) definitions. The methodological quality of each study was evaluated based on four criteria: a national-level population sample; equal gender representation; robustness of the sample size; an explicit sampling methodology. PubMed, CINAHL and reference list searches identified nine relevant studies. Only four were considered high quality and found that, for men, the prevalence of the metabolic syndrome ranged from 20.7% to 37.2% (ATPIII definition) and from 29.6% to 36.2% (IDF definition); and, for women, from 32.1% to 42.7% (ATPIII definition) and from 36.1% to 45.9% (IDF definition). Overall, the prevalence of the metabolic syndrome in the GCC states is some 10-15% higher than in most developed countries, with generally higher prevalence rates for women. Preventive strategies will require identifying socio-demographic and environmental correlates (particularly those influencing women) and addressing modifiable risk behaviours, including lack of physical activity, prolonged sitting time and dietary intake.

Transfusion in critically ill children: indications, risks, and challenges.

PubMed

Parker, Robert I

2014-03-01

To provide a concise review of transfusion-related issues and practices in the pediatric patient population, with a focus on those issues of particular importance to the care of critically ill children. Electronic search of the PubMed database using the search terms "pediatric transfusion," "transfusion practices," "transfusion risks," "packed red blood cell transfusion," "white blood cell transfusion," "platelet transfusion," "plasma transfusion," and "massive transfusion" either singly or in combination. All identified articles published since 2000 were manually reviewed for study design, content, and support for indicated conclusions, and the bibliographies were scrutinized for pertinent references not identified in the PubMed search. Selected studies from this group were then manually reviewed for possible inclusion in this review. Well-designed studies have demonstrated the benefit of "restrictive" transfusion practices across the entire age spectrum of pediatric patients across a wide spectrum of pediatric illness. However, clinician implementation of the more restrictive transfusion practices supported by these studies is variable. Additionally, the utilization of both platelet and plasma transfusions in either a "prophylactic" or "therapeutic" setting appears to be greater than that supported by published data. The preponderance of prospective, randomized trials and retrospective analyses support the use of a restrictive packed RBC transfusion policy in most clinical conditions in children. Neonatal transfusions guidelines rely largely on "expert opinion" rather than experimental data. Current transfusion practices for both platelets and coagulant products (e.g., fresh-frozen plasma and recombinant-activated factor VII) are poorly aligned with recommended transfusion guidelines. As with adults, current transfusion practices in children often do not reflect implementation of our current knowledge on the need for transfusion. Greater efforts to implement current evidence-based transfusion practices are needed.

Meta-analysis of the prognostic value of CpG island methylator phenotype in gastric cancer.

PubMed

Powell, A G M T; Soul, S; Christian, A; Lewis, W G

2018-01-01

CpG island methylator phenotype (CIMP) has been identified as a distinct molecular subtype of gastric cancer, yet associations with survival are conflicting. A meta-analysis was performed to estimate the prognostic significance of CIMP. Embase, MEDLINE, PubMed, PubMed Central and Cochrane databases were searched systematically for studies related to the association between CIMP and survival in patients undergoing potentially curative resection for gastric cancer. A total of 918 patients from ten studies were included, and the median proportion of tumours with CIMP-high (CIMP-H) status was 40·9 (range 4·8-63) per cent. Gene panels for assessing CIMP status varied between the studies. Pooled analysis suggested that specimens exhibiting CIMP-H were associated with poorer 5-year survival (odds ratio (OR) for death 1·48, 95 per cent c.i. 1·10 to 1·99; P = 0·009). Significant heterogeneity was observed between studies (I 2 = 88 per cent, P < 0·001). Subgroup analysis according to whether studies showed a tendency towards poor (5 studies) or improved (5) outcomes for patients with CIMP-H tumours, revealed that CIMP-H was associated with both poor (OR for death 8·15, 4·65 to 14·28, P < 0·001; heterogeneity I 2 = 52 per cent, P = 0·08) and improved (OR 0·42, 0·27 to 0·65; P < 0·001, heterogeneity I 2 = 0 per cent, P = 0·960) survival. There was heterogeneity in the gene panels used to identify CIMP, which may explain the survival differences. © 2018 BJS Society Ltd Published by John Wiley & Sons Ltd.

CENTRAL, PEDro, PubMed, and EMBASE are the most comprehensive databases indexing randomized controlled trials of physical therapy interventions.

PubMed

Michaleff, Zoe A; Costa, Leonardo O P; Moseley, Anne M; Maher, Christopher G; Elkins, Mark R; Herbert, Robert D; Sherrington, Catherine

2011-02-01

Many bibliographic databases index research studies evaluating the effects of health care interventions. One study has concluded that the Physiotherapy Evidence Database (PEDro) has the most complete indexing of reports of randomized controlled trials of physical therapy interventions, but the design of that study may have exaggerated estimates of the completeness of indexing by PEDro. The purpose of this study was to compare the completeness of indexing of reports of randomized controlled trials of physical therapy interventions by 8 bibliographic databases. This study was an audit of bibliographic databases. Prespecified criteria were used to identify 400 reports of randomized controlled trials from the reference lists of systematic reviews published in 2008 that evaluated physical therapy interventions. Eight databases (AMED, CENTRAL, CINAHL, EMBASE, Hooked on Evidence, PEDro, PsycINFO, and PubMed) were searched for each trial report. The proportion of the 400 trial reports indexed by each database was calculated. The proportions of the 400 trial reports indexed by the databases were as follows: CENTRAL, 95%; PEDro, 92%; PubMed, 89%; EMBASE, 88%; CINAHL, 53%; AMED, 50%; Hooked on Evidence, 45%; and PsycINFO, 6%. Almost all of the trial reports (99%) were found in at least 1 database, and 88% were indexed by 4 or more databases. Four trial reports were uniquely indexed by a single database only (2 in CENTRAL and 1 each in PEDro and PubMed). The results are only applicable to searching for English-language published reports of randomized controlled trials evaluating physical therapy interventions. The 4 most comprehensive databases of trial reports evaluating physical therapy interventions were CENTRAL, PEDro, PubMed, and EMBASE. Clinicians seeking quick answers to clinical questions could search any of these databases knowing that all are reasonably comprehensive. PEDro, unlike the other 3 most complete databases, is specific to physical therapy, so studies not relevant to physical therapy are less likely to be retrieved. Researchers could use CENTRAL, PEDro, PubMed, and EMBASE in combination to conduct exhaustive searches for randomized trials in physical therapy.

Identifying Best Practices for and Utilities of the Pharmacy Curriculum Outcome Assessment Examination.

PubMed

Mok, Timothy Y; Romanelli, Frank

2016-12-25

Objective. A review was conducted to determine implementation strategies, utilities, score interpretation, and limitations of the Pharmacy Curriculum Outcome Assessment (PCOA) examination. Methods. Articles were identified through the PubMed and American Journal of Pharmaceutical Education , and International Pharmaceutical Abstracts databases using the following terms: "Pharmacy Curriculum Outcomes Assessment," "pharmacy comprehensive examination," and "curricular assessment." Studies containing information regarding implementation, utility, and predictive values for US student pharmacists, curricula, and/or PGY1/PGY2 residents were included. Publications from the Academic Medicine Journal , the Accreditation Council for Pharmacy Education (ACPE), and the American Association of Colleges of Pharmacy (ACCP) were included for background information and comparison of predictive utilities of comprehensive examinations in medicine. Results. Ten PCOA and nine residency-related publications were identified. Based on published information, the PCOA may be best used as an additional tool to identify knowledge gaps for third-year student pharmacists. Conclusion. Administering the PCOA to students after they have completed their didactic coursework may yield scores that reflect student knowledge. Predictive utility regarding the North American Pharmacy Licensure Examination (NAPLEX) and potential applications is limited, and more research is required to determine ways to use the PCOA.

Key elements of high-quality practice organisation in primary health care: a systematic review.

PubMed

Crossland, Lisa; Janamian, Tina; Jackson, Claire L

2014-08-04

To identify elements that are integral to high-quality practice and determine considerations relating to high-quality practice organisation in primary care. A narrative systematic review of published and grey literature. Electronic databases (PubMed, CINAHL, the Cochrane Library, Embase, Emerald Insight, PsycInfo, the Primary Health Care Research and Information Service website, Google Scholar) were searched in November 2013 and used to identify articles published in English from 2002 to 2013. Reference lists of included articles were searched for relevant unpublished articles and reports. Data were configured at the study level to allow for the inclusion of findings from a broad range of study types. Ten elements were most often included in the existing organisational assessment tools. A further three elements were identified from an inductive thematic analysis of descriptive articles, and were noted as important considerations in effective quality improvement in primary care settings. Although there are some validated tools available to primary care that identify and build quality, most are single-strategy approaches developed outside health care settings. There are currently no validated organisational improvement tools, designed specifically for primary health care, which combine all elements of practice improvement and whose use does not require extensive external facilitation.

Identifying duplicate content using statistically improbable phrases

PubMed Central

Errami, Mounir; Sun, Zhaohui; George, Angela C.; Long, Tara C.; Skinner, Michael A.; Wren, Jonathan D.; Garner, Harold R.

2010-01-01

Motivation: Document similarity metrics such as PubMed's ‘Find related articles’ feature, which have been primarily used to identify studies with similar topics, can now also be used to detect duplicated or potentially plagiarized papers within literature reference databases. However, the CPU-intensive nature of document comparison has limited MEDLINE text similarity studies to the comparison of abstracts, which constitute only a small fraction of a publication's total text. Extending searches to include text archived by online search engines would drastically increase comparison ability. For large-scale studies, submitting short phrases encased in direct quotes to search engines for exact matches would be optimal for both individual queries and programmatic interfaces. We have derived a method of analyzing statistically improbable phrases (SIPs) for assistance in identifying duplicate content. Results: When applied to MEDLINE citations, this method substantially improves upon previous algorithms in the detection of duplication citations, yielding a precision and recall of 78.9% (versus 50.3% for eTBLAST) and 99.6% (versus 99.8% for eTBLAST), respectively. Availability: Similar citations identified by this work are freely accessible in the Déjà vu database, under the SIP discovery method category at http://dejavu.vbi.vt.edu/dejavu/ Contact: merrami@collin.edu PMID:20472545

A systematic review of validated methods for identifying acute respiratory failure using administrative and claims data.

PubMed

Jones, Natalie; Schneider, Gary; Kachroo, Sumesh; Rotella, Philip; Avetisyan, Ruzan; Reynolds, Matthew W

2012-01-01

The Food and Drug Administration's (FDA) Mini-Sentinel pilot program initially aims to conduct active surveillance to refine safety signals that emerge for marketed medical products. A key facet of this surveillance is to develop and understand the validity of algorithms for identifying health outcomes of interest (HOIs) from administrative and claims data. This paper summarizes the process and findings of the algorithm review of acute respiratory failure (ARF). PubMed and Iowa Drug Information Service searches were conducted to identify citations applicable to the anaphylaxis HOI. Level 1 abstract reviews and Level 2 full-text reviews were conducted to find articles using administrative and claims data to identify ARF, including validation estimates of the coding algorithms. Our search revealed a deficiency of literature focusing on ARF algorithms and validation estimates. Only two studies provided codes for ARF, each using related yet different ICD-9 codes (i.e., ICD-9 codes 518.8, "other diseases of lung," and 518.81, "acute respiratory failure"). Neither study provided validation estimates. Research needs to be conducted on designing validation studies to test ARF algorithms and estimating their predictive power, sensitivity, and specificity. Copyright © 2012 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

Antepartum amnioinfusion: a review.

PubMed

Gramellini, D; Fieni, S; Kaihura, C; Piantelli, G; Verrotti, C

2003-11-01

Antepartum amnioinfusion is a relatively recent procedure introduced with fetal medicine techniques. It is usually indicated for severe oligohydramnios in order to avoid the related complications such as pulmonary hypoplasia, the deforming effects of oligohydramnios, variable fetal heart rate decelerations and intraventricular hemorrhage. Antepartum amnioinfusion is also employed to improve ultrasound visualization in cases with oligohydramnios. Our objective was to evaluate the benefits and complications related to this procedure which is still less commonly used compared to intrapartum amnioinfusion, and whose risks are therefore not well established. Reports of study designs identified from searches of MEDLINE, PUBMED, the Cochrane Collaboration, specialized databases and bibliographies of review articles were identified. Studies in women who underwent amnioinfusion between 1987 and 2002 were included. Amnioinfusion seems to offer several benefits, in terms of both prenatal diagnosis and favorable perinatal outcome. Most clinical experiences report that amnioinfusion is safe, both for the mother and for the fetus. However, randomized control-group studies subdivided on the basis of the cause of oligohydramnios (e.g. premature rupture of membranes, fetal growth restriction, obstructive uropathy and renal agenesis) could help to determine the advantages and risks linked to this procedure. Prospective randomized studies should therefore be encouraged, to clarify any possible doubts regarding the procedure, before it can be introduced into routine practice in the management of oligohydramnios.

Mental and Physical Health Correlates of Discrimination Against People Who Inject Drugs: A Systematic Review.

PubMed

Couto Cruz, Camila E; Salom, Caroline; Maravilla, Joemer; Alati, Rosa

2018-05-01

The perception that people who use illicit drugs are deviant has contributed to the stigmatization of this population. The primary aim of this review is to examine the links among injection-related discrimination, mental health, physical health, and quality of life in people who inject drugs. We also identify settings, perpetrators of discrimination, and coping strategies developed by people who inject drugs to deal with the issue. Online databases MEDLINE (PubMed), EMBASE, CINAHL (EbscoHost), and PsycINFO (APA PsycNET) were searched for articles focusing on injection-related discrimination against people who inject drugs. Findings were compared for consistency. Qualitative and quantitative articles were evaluated separately. Eleven articles were included in the final review. Several links between discrimination and negative health outcomes were identified. Discrimination was associated with engagement in risky injecting behavior as well as psychological distress. The perpetrators of discrimination against people who inject drugs included general community members and service providers. Attempts to hide addiction was the main strategy used to cope with discrimination. Injection-related discrimination was associated with higher psychological distress levels, unhealthy behaviors, and low quality of life in people who inject drugs. By addressing the stigma of deviance, discrimination and associated negative health outcomes may be reduced.

THE PATHOPHYSIOLOGY OF GEOGRAPHIC ATROPHY SECONDARY TO AGE-RELATED MACULAR DEGENERATION AND THE COMPLEMENT PATHWAY AS A THERAPEUTIC TARGET

PubMed Central

Schmidt-Erfurth, Ursula; van Lookeren Campagne, Menno; Henry, Erin C.; Brittain, Christopher

2017-01-01

Purpose: Geographic atrophy (GA) is an advanced, vision-threatening form of age-related macular degeneration (AMD) affecting approximately five million individuals worldwide. To date, there are no approved therapeutics for GA treatment; however, several are in clinical trials. This review focuses on the pathophysiology of GA, particularly the role of complement cascade dysregulation and emerging therapies targeting the complement cascade. Methods: Primary literature search on PubMed for GA, complement cascade in age-related macular degeneration. ClinicalTrials.gov was searched for natural history studies in GA and clinical trials of drugs targeting the complement cascade for GA. Results: Cumulative damage to the retina by aging, environmental stress, and other factors triggers inflammation via multiple pathways, including the complement cascade. When regulatory components in these pathways are compromised, as with several GA-linked genetic risk factors in the complement cascade, chronic inflammation can ultimately lead to the retinal cell death characteristic of GA. Complement inhibition has been identified as a key candidate for therapeutic intervention, and drugs targeting the complement pathway are currently in clinical trials. Conclusion: The complement cascade is a strategic target for GA therapy. Further research, including on natural history and genetics, is crucial to expand the understanding of GA pathophysiology and identify effective therapeutic targets. PMID:27902638

A systematic review of nurse-related social network analysis studies.

PubMed

Benton, D C; Pérez-Raya, F; Fernández-Fernández, M P; González-Jurado, M A

2015-09-01

Nurses frequently work as part of both uni- and multidisciplinary teams. Communication between team members is critical in the delivery of quality care. Social network analysis is increasingly being used to explore such communication. To explore the use of social network analysis involving nurses either as subjects of the study or as researchers. Standard systematic review procedures were applied to identify nurse-related studies that utilize social network analysis. A comparative thematic approach to synthesis was used. Both published and grey literature written in English, Spanish and Portuguese between January 1965 and December 2013 were identified via a structured search of CINAHL, SciELO and PubMed. In addition, Google and Yahoo search engines were used to identify additional grey literature using the same search strategy. Forty-three primary studies were identified with literature from North America dominating the published work. So far it would appear that no author or group of authors have developed a programme of research in the nursing field using the social network analysis approach although several authors may be in the process of doing so. The dominance of literature from North America may be viewed as problematic as the underlying structures and themes may be an artefact of cultural communication norms from this region. The use of social network analysis in relation to nursing and by nurse researchers has increased rapidly over the past two decades. The lack of longitudinal studies and the absence of replication across multiple sites should be seen as an opportunity for further research. This analytical approach is relatively new in the field of nursing but does show considerable promise in offering insights into the way information flows between individuals, teams, institutions and other structures. An understanding of these structures provides a means of improving communication. © 2014 International Council of Nurses.

Association Between Substance Use and Gun-Related Behaviors

PubMed Central

Chen, Danhong; Wu, Li-Tzy

2016-01-01

Gun-related violence is a public health concern. This study synthesizes findings on associations between substance use and gun-related behaviors. Searches through PubMed, Embase, and PsycINFO located 66 studies published in English between 1992 and 2014. Most studies found a significant bivariate association between substance use and increased odds of gun-related behaviors. However, their association after adjustment was mixed, which could be attributed to a number of factors such as variations in definitions of substance use and gun activity, study design, sample demographics, and the specific covariates considered. Fewer studies identified a significant association between substance use and gun access/possession than other gun activities. The significant association between nonsubstance covariates (e.g., demographic covariates and other behavioral risk factors) and gun-related behaviors might have moderated the association between substance use and gun activities. Particularly, the strength of association between substance use and gun activities tended to reduce appreciably or to become nonsignificant after adjustment for mental disorders. Some studies indicated a positive association between the frequency of substance use and the odds of engaging in gun-related behaviors. Overall, the results suggest a need to consider substance use in research and prevention programs for gun-related violence. PMID:26769722

Identifying Barriers to Delivering the Awakening and Breathing Coordination, Delirium, and Early Exercise/Mobility Bundle to Minimize Adverse Outcomes for Mechanically Ventilated Patients: A Systematic Review.

PubMed

Costa, Deena Kelly; White, Matthew R; Ginier, Emily; Manojlovich, Milisa; Govindan, Sushant; Iwashyna, Theodore J; Sales, Anne E

2017-08-01

Improved outcomes are associated with the Awakening and Breathing Coordination, Delirium, and Early exercise/mobility bundle (ABCDE); however, implementation issues are common. As yet, no study has integrated the barriers to ABCDE to provide an overview of reasons for less successful efforts. The purpose of this review was to identify and catalog the barriers to ABCDE delivery based on a widely used implementation framework, and to provide a resource to guide clinicians in overcoming barriers to implementation. We searched MEDLINE via PubMed, CINAHL, and Scopus for original research articles from January 1, 2007, to August 31, 2016, that identified barriers to ABCDE implementation for adult patients in the ICU. Two reviewers independently reviewed studies, extracted barriers, and conducted thematic content analysis of the barriers, guided by the Consolidated Framework for Implementation Research. Discrepancies were discussed, and consensus was achieved. Our electronic search yielded 1,908 articles. After applying our inclusion/exclusion criteria, we included 49 studies. We conducted thematic content analysis of the 107 barriers and identified four classes of ABCDE barriers: (1) patient-related (ie, patient instability and safety concerns); (2) clinician-related (ie, lack of knowledge, staff safety concerns); (3) protocol-related (ie, unclear protocol criteria, cumbersome protocols to use); and, not previously identified in past reviews, (4) ICU contextual barriers (ie, interprofessional team care coordination). We provide the first, to our knowledge, systematic differential diagnosis of barriers to ABCDE delivery, moving beyond the conventional focus on patient-level factors. Our analysis offers a differential diagnosis checklist for clinicians planning ABCDE implementation to improve patient care and outcomes. Copyright © 2017 American College of Chest Physicians. All rights reserved.

The natural history of conducting and reporting clinical trials: interviews with trialists.

PubMed

Smyth, Rebecca M D; Jacoby, Ann; Altman, Douglas G; Gamble, Carrol; Williamson, Paula R

2015-01-26

To investigate the nature of the research process as a whole, factors that might influence the way in which research is carried out, and how researchers ultimately report their findings. Semi-structured qualitative telephone interviews with authors of trials, identified from two sources: trials published since 2002 included in Cochrane systematic reviews selected for the ORBIT project; and trial reports randomly sampled from 14,758 indexed on PubMed over the 12-month period from August 2007 to July 2008. A total of 268 trials were identified for inclusion, 183 published since 2002 and included in the Cochrane systematic reviews selected for the ORBIT project and 85 randomly selected published trials indexed on PubMed. The response rate from researchers in the former group was 21% (38/183) and in the latter group was 25% (21/85). Overall, 59 trialists were interviewed from the two different sources. A number of major but related themes emerged regarding the conduct and reporting of trials: establishment of the research question; identification of outcome variables; use of and adherence to the study protocol; conduct of the research; reporting and publishing of findings. Our results reveal that, although a substantial proportion of trialists identify outcome variables based on their clinical experience and knowing experts in the field, there can be insufficient reference to previous research in the planning of a new trial. We have revealed problems with trial recruitment: not reaching the target sample size, over-estimation of recruitment potential and recruiting clinicians not being in equipoise. We found a wide variation in the completeness of protocols, in terms of detailing study rationale, outlining the proposed methods, trial organisation and ethical considerations. Our results confirm that the conduct and reporting of some trials can be inadequate. Interviews with researchers identified aspects of clinical research that can be especially challenging: establishing appropriate and relevant outcome variables to measure, use of and adherence to the study protocol, recruiting of study participants and reporting and publishing the study findings. Our trialists considered the prestige and impact factors of academic journals to be the most important criteria for selecting those to which they would submit manuscripts.

PubMed-EX: a web browser extension to enhance PubMed search with text mining features.

PubMed

Tsai, Richard Tzong-Han; Dai, Hong-Jie; Lai, Po-Ting; Huang, Chi-Hsin

2009-11-15

PubMed-EX is a browser extension that marks up PubMed search results with additional text-mining information. PubMed-EX's page mark-up, which includes section categorization and gene/disease and relation mark-up, can help researchers to quickly focus on key terms and provide additional information on them. All text processing is performed server-side, freeing up user resources. PubMed-EX is freely available at http://bws.iis.sinica.edu.tw/PubMed-EX and http://iisr.cse.yzu.edu.tw:8000/PubMed-EX/.

Association of polymorphisms rs1800012 in COL1A1 with sports-related tendon and ligament injuries: a meta-analysis

PubMed Central

Wang, Chunguang; Li, Hao; Chen, Kang; Wu, Bing; Liu, Haifeng

2017-01-01

It has been reported that the single nucleotide polymorphism (SNP) rs1800012 in COL1A1 might be associated with the susceptibility to sports-related tendon and ligament injuries such as ACL injuries, Achilles tendon injuries, shoulder dislocations and tennis elbow. But the data from different studies have been conflicting. Here we attempted to systematically summarize and clarify the association between the SNP and sports-related tendon and ligament injuries risk. Six eligible studies including 933 cases and 1,381 controls were acquired from PubMed, Web Of Science and Cochrane library databases. Significant association was identified in homozygote model (TT versus GG: OR=0.17, 95%CI 0.08-0.35, PH=0.00) and recessive model (TT versus GT/GG: OR=0.21, 95%CI 0.10-0.44, PH=0.00). Our results indicated that COL1A1 rs1800012 polymorphism may be associated with the reduced risk of sports-related tendon or ligament injuries, especially in ACL injuries, and that rare TT may played as a protective role. PMID:28206959

Post-cardiac arrest syndrome: epidemiology, pathophysiology, treatment, and prognostication. A Scientific Statement from the International Liaison Committee on Resuscitation; the American Heart Association Emergency Cardiovascular Care Committee; the Council on Cardiovascular Surgery and Anesthesia; the Council on Cardiopulmonary, Perioperative, and Critical Care; the Council on Clinical Cardiology; the Council on Stroke.

PubMed

Nolan, Jerry P; Neumar, Robert W; Adrie, Christophe; Aibiki, Mayuki; Berg, Robert A; Böttiger, Bernd W; Callaway, Clifton; Clark, Robert S B; Geocadin, Romergryko G; Jauch, Edward C; Kern, Karl B; Laurent, Ivan; Longstreth, W T; Merchant, Raina M; Morley, Peter; Morrison, Laurie J; Nadkarni, Vinay; Peberdy, Mary Ann; Rivers, Emanuel P; Rodriguez-Nunez, Antonio; Sellke, Frank W; Spaulding, Christian; Sunde, Kjetil; Hoek, Terry Vanden

2008-12-01

To review the epidemiology, pathophysiology, treatment and prognostication in relation to the post-cardiac arrest syndrome. Relevant articles were identified using PubMed, EMBASE and an American Heart Association EndNote master resuscitation reference library, supplemented by hand searches of key papers. Writing groups comprising international experts were assigned to each section. Drafts of the document were circulated to all authors for comment and amendment. The 4 key components of post-cardiac arrest syndrome were identified as (1) post-cardiac arrest brain injury, (2) post-cardiac arrest myocardial dysfunction, (3) systemic ischaemia/reperfusion response, and (4) persistent precipitating pathology. A growing body of knowledge suggests that the individual components of the post-cardiac arrest syndrome are potentially treatable.

The role of physical activity and heart rate variability for the control of work related stress.

PubMed

Tonello, Laís; Rodrigues, Fábio B; Souza, Jeniffer W S; Campbell, Carmen S G; Leicht, Anthony S; Boullosa, Daniel A

2014-01-01

Physical activity (PA) and exercise are often used as tools to reduce stress and therefore the risk for developing cardiovascular diseases (CVD). Meanwhile, heart rate variability (HRV) has been utilized to assess both stress and PA or exercise influences. The objective of the present review was to examine the current literature in regards to workplace stress, PA/exercise and HRV to encourage further studies. We considered original articles from known databases (PubMed, ISI Web of Knowledge) over the last 10 years that examined these important factors. A total of seven studies were identified with workplace stress strongly associated with reduced HRV in workers. Longitudinal workplace PA interventions may provide a means to improve worker stress levels and potentially cardiovascular risk with mechanisms still to be clarified. Future studies are recommended to identify the impact of PA, exercise, and fitness on stress levels and HRV in workers and their subsequent influence on cardiovascular health.

Mapping annotations with textual evidence using an scLDA model.

PubMed

Jin, Bo; Chen, Vicky; Chen, Lujia; Lu, Xinghua

2011-01-01

Most of the knowledge regarding genes and proteins is stored in biomedical literature as free text. Extracting information from complex biomedical texts demands techniques capable of inferring biological concepts from local text regions and mapping them to controlled vocabularies. To this end, we present a sentence-based correspondence latent Dirichlet allocation (scLDA) model which, when trained with a corpus of PubMed documents with known GO annotations, performs the following tasks: 1) learning major biological concepts from the corpus, 2) inferring the biological concepts existing within text regions (sentences), and 3) identifying the text regions in a document that provides evidence for the observed annotations. When applied to new gene-related documents, a trained scLDA model is capable of predicting GO annotations and identifying text regions as textual evidence supporting the predicted annotations. This study uses GO annotation data as a testbed; the approach can be generalized to other annotated data, such as MeSH and MEDLINE documents.

Nursing process in mental health: an integrative literature review.

PubMed

Garcia, Ana Paula Rigon Francischetti; Freitas, Maria Isabel Pedreira de; Lamas, José Luiz Tatagiba; Toledo, Vanessa Pellegrino

2017-01-01

to identify evidences from the literature on the application of nursing process in care developed by the nurse in mental health. integrative literature review between 1990 and 2013, in the PubMed, Scopus, CINAHL and LILCACS bases. Descriptors: nursing processes, mental health, nursing care. 19 papers were identified. Limited and partial usage of the nursing process in care established by a therapeutic relationship that respects the patient's individuality. We observe care proposals systematized for patients that present pathological aspects in the limits between the physical and psychical, which might be a response to the influence of the practice based on evidences. it was found an antagonistic movement between care based on the relationship and located in the standardization of diagnoses that respond to physical malaise. A lack of evidence was verified for the usage of the nursing process in mental health, and we point at the necessity for the creation of new possibilities for dialogue between relational and biological perspectives.

Assessing new developments in the pre-market regulatory process of medical devices in the People's Republic of China.

PubMed

Zhang, Shixuan; Kriza, Christine; Kolominsky-Rabas, Peter L

2014-09-01

The objective of this paper is to provide a systematic overview of the Chinese medical device registration processes, identify challenges and suggest how these can be addressed. In addition, the paper will outline the impact of new policies and regulations since the restructuring of the China FDA. A systematic review was performed for journal articles between the year of 2009 and 2013 in the following databases: PubMed, ScienceDirect and Zhongguozhiwang. The review has identified 184 papers which were potentially relevant. Seventeen articles were included in the review, which highlights the challenges and opportunities related to the medical device registration process. In order to understand the actual impact of the regulation environment and its policies including the lack of regulatory guidance regular assessment updates are crucial. The results of this paper are aimed at informing regulatory bodies, health policy decision makers, national and international Health Technology Assessment networks as well as medical devices manufacturers.

Integrative review of factors related to the nursing diagnosis nausea during antineoplastic chemotherapy.

PubMed

Moysés, Aline Maria Bonini; Durant, Lais Corsino; Almeida, Ana Maria de; Gozzo, Thais de Oliveira

2016-10-10

to identify factors related to the nursing diagnosis nausea among cancer patients undergoing chemotherapy. integrative review conducted in four electronic databases (PUBMED, EMBASE, CINAHL and LILACS) using the key words: neoplasia, antineoplastic agents and nausea. only 30 out of 1,258 papers identified met the inclusion criteria. The most frequent related factors were: being younger than 50 years old, motion sickness, being a woman, emetogenic potential of the chemotherapy, anxiety, conditioned stimulus, and expecting nausea after treatment. this review's findings, coupled with the incidence of nausea among cancer patients undergoing chemotherapy, reveal an important difference between evidence found and that used by NANDA International, Inc. Even though it provides an appropriate definition of related factors, it does not mention chemotherapy, despite the various studies addressing the topic using different designs and presenting various objectives and outcomes. identificar os fatores relacionados ao diagnóstico de enfermagem náusea entre pacientes oncológicos durante o tratamento quimioterápico. revisão integrativa de quatro bases eletrônicas de dados (PUBMED, EMBASE, CINAHL e LILACS) com as palavras-chaves neoplasia, agentes antineoplásicos e náusea. dos 1258 artigos identificados, somente 30 atenderam aos critérios de inclusão. Os fatores relacionados mais frequentes foram: idade abaixo de 50 anos, doença do movimento, sexo feminino, potencial emético do quimioterápico, ansiedade, estímulo condicionado e expectativa de náuseas depois do tratamento. diante dos resultados encontrados e da incidência de náusea entre os pacientes oncológicos em tratamento quimioterápico, observa-se diferença importante entre as evidências encontradas e as utilizadas pela NANDA International, Inc. Apesar da definição estar adequada entre os fatores relacionados, não há menção à quimioterapia mesmo com inúmeros estudos, com diferentes delineamentos, objetivos e desfechos encontrados sobre esta temática. identificar los factores relacionados al diagnóstico de enfermería náusea entre pacientes oncológicos durante el tratamiento de quimioterapia. revisión integradora de cuatro bases electrónicas de datos (PUBMED, EMBASE, CINAHL y LILACS) con las palabras clave: neoplasia, agentes antineoplásicos y náusea. de los 1.258 artículos identificados, solamente 30 atendieron los criterios de inclusión. Los factores relacionados más frecuentes fueron: edad abajo de 50 años, enfermedad del movimiento, sexo femenino, potencial emético de la quimioterapia, ansiedad, estímulo condicionado y expectativa de náuseas después del tratamiento. delante de los resultados encontrados y de la incidencia de náusea entre los pacientes oncológicos en tratamiento de quimioterapia, se observó diferencia importante entre las evidencias encontradas y las utilizadas por la NANDA International, Inc. A pesar de que la definición está adecuada entre los factores relacionados, no se menciona a la quimioterapia, inclusive encontrándose datos sobre esta temática en numerosos estudios con diferentes delineamientos, objetivos y resultados.

A Framework and Methodology for Navigating Disaster and Global Health in Crisis Literature

PubMed Central

Chan, Jennifer L.; Burkle, Frederick M.

2013-01-01

Both ‘disasters’ and ‘global health in crisis’ research has dramatically grown due to the ever-increasing frequency and magnitude of crises around the world. Large volumes of peer-reviewed literature are not only a testament to the field’s value and evolution, but also present an unprecedented outpouring of seemingly unmanageable information across a wide array of crises and disciplines. Disaster medicine, health and humanitarian assistance, global health and public health disaster literature all lie within the disaster and global health in crisis literature spectrum and are increasingly accepted as multidisciplinary and transdisciplinary disciplines. Researchers, policy makers, and practitioners now face a new challenge; that of accessing this expansive literature for decision-making and exploring new areas of research. Individuals are also reaching beyond the peer-reviewed environment to grey literature using search engines like Google Scholar to access policy documents, consensus reports and conference proceedings. What is needed is a method and mechanism with which to search and retrieve relevant articles from this expansive body of literature. This manuscript presents both a framework and workable process for a diverse group of users to navigate the growing peer-reviewed and grey disaster and global health in crises literature. Methods: Disaster terms from textbooks, peer-reviewed and grey literature were used to design a framework of thematic clusters and subject matter ‘nodes’. A set of 84 terms, selected from 143 curated terms was organized within each node reflecting topics within the disaster and global health in crisis literature. Terms were crossed with one another and the term ‘disaster’. The results were formatted into tables and matrices. This process created a roadmap of search terms that could be applied to the PubMed database. Each search in the matrix or table results in a listed number of articles. This process was applied to literature from PubMed from 2005-2011. A complementary process was also applied to Google Scholar using the same framework of clusters, nodes, and terms expanding the search process to include the broader grey literature assets. Results: A framework of four thematic clusters and twelve subject matter nodes were designed to capture diverse disaster and global health in crisis-related content. From 2005-2011 there were 18,660 articles referring to the term [disaster]. Restricting the search to human research, MeSH, and English language there remained 7,736 identified articles representing an unmanageable number to adequately process for research, policy or best practices. However, using the crossed search and matrix process revealed further examples of robust realms of research in disasters, emergency medicine, EMS, public health and global health. Examples of potential gaps in current peer-reviewed disaster and global health in crisis literature were identified as mental health, elderly care, and alternate sites of care. The same framework and process was then applied to Google Scholar, specifically for topics that resulted in few PubMed search returns. When applying the same framework and process to the Google Scholar example searches retrieved unique peer-reviewed articles not identified in PubMed and documents including books, governmental documents and consensus papers. Conclusions: The proposed framework, methodology and process using four clusters, twelve nodes and a matrix and table process applied to PubMed and Google Scholar unlocks otherwise inaccessible opportunities to better navigate the massively growing body of peer-reviewed disaster and global health in crises literature. This approach will assist researchers, policy makers, and practitioners to generate future research questions, report on the overall evolution of the disaster and global health in crisis field and further guide disaster planning, prevention, preparedness, mitigation response and recovery. PMID:23591457

A framework and methodology for navigating disaster and global health in crisis literature.

PubMed

Chan, Jennifer L; Burkle, Frederick M

2013-04-04

Both 'disasters' and 'global health in crisis' research has dramatically grown due to the ever-increasing frequency and magnitude of crises around the world. Large volumes of peer-reviewed literature are not only a testament to the field's value and evolution, but also present an unprecedented outpouring of seemingly unmanageable information across a wide array of crises and disciplines. Disaster medicine, health and humanitarian assistance, global health and public health disaster literature all lie within the disaster and global health in crisis literature spectrum and are increasingly accepted as multidisciplinary and transdisciplinary disciplines. Researchers, policy makers, and practitioners now face a new challenge; that of accessing this expansive literature for decision-making and exploring new areas of research. Individuals are also reaching beyond the peer-reviewed environment to grey literature using search engines like Google Scholar to access policy documents, consensus reports and conference proceedings. What is needed is a method and mechanism with which to search and retrieve relevant articles from this expansive body of literature. This manuscript presents both a framework and workable process for a diverse group of users to navigate the growing peer-reviewed and grey disaster and global health in crises literature. Disaster terms from textbooks, peer-reviewed and grey literature were used to design a framework of thematic clusters and subject matter 'nodes'. A set of 84 terms, selected from 143 curated terms was organized within each node reflecting topics within the disaster and global health in crisis literature. Terms were crossed with one another and the term 'disaster'. The results were formatted into tables and matrices. This process created a roadmap of search terms that could be applied to the PubMed database. Each search in the matrix or table results in a listed number of articles. This process was applied to literature from PubMed from 2005-2011. A complementary process was also applied to Google Scholar using the same framework of clusters, nodes, and terms expanding the search process to include the broader grey literature assets. A framework of four thematic clusters and twelve subject matter nodes were designed to capture diverse disaster and global health in crisis-related content. From 2005-2011 there were 18,660 articles referring to the term [disaster]. Restricting the search to human research, MeSH, and English language there remained 7,736 identified articles representing an unmanageable number to adequately process for research, policy or best practices. However, using the crossed search and matrix process revealed further examples of robust realms of research in disasters, emergency medicine, EMS, public health and global health. Examples of potential gaps in current peer-reviewed disaster and global health in crisis literature were identified as mental health, elderly care, and alternate sites of care. The same framework and process was then applied to Google Scholar, specifically for topics that resulted in few PubMed search returns. When applying the same framework and process to the Google Scholar example searches retrieved unique peer-reviewed articles not identified in PubMed and documents including books, governmental documents and consensus papers. The proposed framework, methodology and process using four clusters, twelve nodes and a matrix and table process applied to PubMed and Google Scholar unlocks otherwise inaccessible opportunities to better navigate the massively growing body of peer-reviewed disaster and global health in crises literature. This approach will assist researchers, policy makers, and practitioners to generate future research questions, report on the overall evolution of the disaster and global health in crisis field and further guide disaster planning, prevention, preparedness, mitigation response and recovery.

Depression in diabetes mellitus-A comprehensive systematic review of literature from an Indian perspective.

PubMed

Naskar, Subrata; Victor, Robin; Nath, Kamal

2017-06-01

Diabetes and depression are rapidly growing chronic health conditions that have significant negative impact upon the physical, psychological, social and occupational functioning, quality of life and often leads to socio-economic burden. Presence of both these comorbid diseases results in various short term and long term complications and increases the mortality as compared to those with depression or diabetes alone. Systematic review of the epidemiological data, risk factors and relationship between depression and glycaemic control among the Indian studies. We searched Pubmed, Pubmed Central, Google Scholar and Directory of Open Access Journal (DOAJ) databases to identify relevant Indian studies. Substantial variation in the prevalence of depression in people with diabetes was found across the 41 selected studies; according to this review the range is 2% to 84% (T1DM - 2-7%; T2DM - 8%-84%). Correlates of depression in diabetic patients are advancing age, female gender, low literacy rate, burden of being from a lower socioeconomic status, rural domicile, marriage and duration of diabetes of >2years, diabetes related complications and poor glycaemic control. Sedentary life without adequate physical activities, lack of self-care are often the factors that precipitates depression in a T2DM patient and vice versa. According to this review, among Indian population there is a significant association between depression and diabetes. Copyright © 2017 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

Database citation in supplementary data linked to Europe PubMed Central full text biomedical articles.

PubMed

Kafkas, Şenay; Kim, Jee-Hyub; Pi, Xingjun; McEntyre, Johanna R

2015-01-01

In this study, we present an analysis of data citation practices in full text research articles and their corresponding supplementary data files, made available in the Open Access set of articles from Europe PubMed Central. Our aim is to investigate whether supplementary data files should be considered as a source of information for integrating the literature with biomolecular databases. Using text-mining methods to identify and extract a variety of core biological database accession numbers, we found that the supplemental data files contain many more database citations than the body of the article, and that those citations often take the form of a relatively small number of articles citing large collections of accession numbers in text-based files. Moreover, citation of value-added databases derived from submission databases (such as Pfam, UniProt or Ensembl) is common, demonstrating the reuse of these resources as datasets in themselves. All the database accession numbers extracted from the supplementary data are publicly accessible from http://dx.doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.11771. Our study suggests that supplementary data should be considered when linking articles with data, in curation pipelines, and in information retrieval tasks in order to make full use of the entire research article. These observations highlight the need to improve the management of supplemental data in general, in order to make this information more discoverable and useful.

Autologous blood injection for treatment of chronic recurrent TMJ dislocation: is it successful? Is it safe enough? A systematic review.

PubMed

Varedi, Payam; Bohluli, Behnam

2015-09-01

The purpose of this article is to review the English literature about the efficacy and safety of autologous blood injection in treating patients suffering from chronic recurrent temporomandibular joint dislocation. In this article, we highlight the key trials and recent directions about this modality and discuss about the mechanism, advantages, and disadvantages of this approach. A literature search was performed using PubMed, Medline, and Ovid Medline databases to identify articles reporting on the injection of autologous blood for treatment of chronic recurrent dislocation of temporomandibular joint. Other references cited in the retrieved reports, as well as the "related articles" tool in PubMed Medline, were also checked to improve the search and, if relevant, were included in the study. The search was restricted to articles published in the English language. Seven studies meeting the inclusion criteria were reviewed. The selected articles included four prospective clinical trials and three case report articles. There are a few articles about the clinical use of autologous blood for treating patients with chronic recurrent temporomandibular joint dislocation. Reviewing of the literature shows that there are successful results about this modality, but there are still some concerns about it in terms of the effect of the injected blood on the articular cartilage and formation of fibrous or bony ankylosis.

Surgical management of facial nerve paralysis in the pediatric population.

PubMed

Barr, Jason S; Katz, Karin A; Hazen, Alexes

2011-11-01

In the pediatric patient population, both the pathology and the surgical managements of seventh cranial nerve palsy are complicated by the small size of the patients. Adding to the technical difficulty is the relative infrequency of the diagnosis, thus making it harder to become proficient in the management of the condition. The magnitude of the functional and aesthetic deficits these children manifest is significantly troubling to both the patient and the parents, which makes immediate attention, treatment, and functional restoration essential. A literature search using PubMed (http://www.pubmed.org) was undertaken to identify the current state of surgical management of pediatric facial paralysis. Although a multitude of techniques have been used, the ideal reconstructive procedure that addresses all of the functional and cosmetic needs of these children has yet to be described. Certainly, future research and innovative thinking will yield progressively better techniques that may, one day, emulate the native facial musculature with remarkable precision. The necessity for surgical intervention in children with facial nerve paralysis differs depending on many factors including the acute/chronic nature of the defect as well as the extent of functional and cosmetic damage. In this article, we review the surgical procedures that have been used to treat pediatric facial nerve paralysis and provide therapeutic facial reanimation. Copyright © 2011 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Assessment of quality of life in patients with laryngeal cancer: A review of articles.

PubMed

Kolator, Mateusz; Kolator, Patrycja; Zatoński, Tomasz

2018-04-19

This article presents a review of the medical literature published between 1994 and 2014 with the use of the PubMed database concerning quality-of-life instruments for head and neck cancer patients used to assess general well-being of patients with laryngeal cancer. The PubMed database was searched for articles containing the keywords "quality of life", "laryngeal neoplasm" and "questionnaires". The resulting articles were reviewed and analyzed. After the identification of questionnaires, an additional search was performed. The articles and questionnaires were described and analyzed. In 43 articles, the authors used questionnaires specific to the head and neck regions in order to assess the quality of life in patients with laryngeal cancer. Four different questionnaires were identified. The European Organization for Research and Treatment of Cancer (EORTC) questionnaire is most commonly used to assess the quality of life in patients with laryngeal cancer. Questionnaires are generally used in order to select from a range of different treatment methods. There are a few head and neck cancer-related quality-of-life instruments which are widely used to assess the quality of life in patients with laryngeal cancer, but they are not dedicated to that region of the body. Today, there is much more attention paid to the quality of life; therefore, there is a real need to develop specific scales for different types of cancer.

Preferences for trauma treatment: A systematic review of the empirical literature.

PubMed

Simiola, Vanessa; Neilson, Elizabeth C; Thompson, Richard; Cook, Joan M

2015-11-01

The prevalence of trauma histories and related psychological problems is high in general clinical settings, but little is known about trauma patient preferences for mental health treatment. The purpose of this article is to systematically review and synthesize the literature on treatment preferences in survivors of traumatic events. Studies were identified using comprehensive searches of PsycINFO, Medline, PubMed, Published International Literature on Traumatic Stress, and Cumulative Index to Nursing and Allied Health Literature databases. Included in the review were articles published between January 1980 and September 2014, in English that reported patient preference of treatment for trauma related disorders in either clinical or nonclinical (e.g., analog) samples. The total number of individual participants was 6,091. Of the identified studies, 35 were quantitative and 6 were qualitative. Methodological concerns included the use of analog samples, small sample sizes, and the assessment of a limited number of treatment options (e.g., asking about only 1 type of psychotherapy or medication). Overall, participants expressed a preference for psychotherapy over medication and for talking about their trauma. Understanding and addressing trauma patient preferences may assist in improving treatment initiation as well as facilitate engagement, retention and outcome. (c) 2015 APA, all rights reserved).

Discovering disease associations by integrating electronic clinical data and medical literature.

PubMed

Holmes, Antony B; Hawson, Alexander; Liu, Feng; Friedman, Carol; Khiabanian, Hossein; Rabadan, Raul

2011-01-01

Electronic health record (EHR) systems offer an exceptional opportunity for studying many diseases and their associated medical conditions within a population. The increasing number of clinical record entries that have become available electronically provides access to rich, large sets of patients' longitudinal medical information. By integrating and comparing relations found in the EHRs with those already reported in the literature, we are able to verify existing and to identify rare or novel associations. Of particular interest is the identification of rare disease co-morbidities, where the small numbers of diagnosed patients make robust statistical analysis difficult. Here, we introduce ADAMS, an Application for Discovering Disease Associations using Multiple Sources, which contains various statistical and language processing operations. We apply ADAMS to the New York-Presbyterian Hospital's EHR to combine the information from the relational diagnosis tables and textual discharge summaries with those from PubMed and Wikipedia in order to investigate the co-morbidities of the rare diseases Kaposi sarcoma, toxoplasmosis, and Kawasaki disease. In addition to finding well-known characteristics of diseases, ADAMS can identify rare or previously unreported associations. In particular, we report a statistically significant association between Kawasaki disease and diagnosis of autistic disorder.

Discovering Disease Associations by Integrating Electronic Clinical Data and Medical Literature

PubMed Central

Holmes, Antony B.; Hawson, Alexander; Liu, Feng; Friedman, Carol; Khiabanian, Hossein; Rabadan, Raul

2011-01-01

Electronic health record (EHR) systems offer an exceptional opportunity for studying many diseases and their associated medical conditions within a population. The increasing number of clinical record entries that have become available electronically provides access to rich, large sets of patients' longitudinal medical information. By integrating and comparing relations found in the EHRs with those already reported in the literature, we are able to verify existing and to identify rare or novel associations. Of particular interest is the identification of rare disease co-morbidities, where the small numbers of diagnosed patients make robust statistical analysis difficult. Here, we introduce ADAMS, an Application for Discovering Disease Associations using Multiple Sources, which contains various statistical and language processing operations. We apply ADAMS to the New York-Presbyterian Hospital's EHR to combine the information from the relational diagnosis tables and textual discharge summaries with those from PubMed and Wikipedia in order to investigate the co-morbidities of the rare diseases Kaposi sarcoma, toxoplasmosis, and Kawasaki disease. In addition to finding well-known characteristics of diseases, ADAMS can identify rare or previously unreported associations. In particular, we report a statistically significant association between Kawasaki disease and diagnosis of autistic disorder. PMID:21731656

Organizational climate in primary care settings: implications for nurse practitioner practice.

PubMed

Poghosyan, Lusine; Nannini, Angela; Clarke, Sean

2013-03-01

The purpose of this review is to investigate literature related to organizational climate, define organizational climate, and identify its domains for nurse practitioner (NP) practice in primary care settings. A search was conducted using MEDLINE, PubMed, HealthSTAR/Ovid, ISI Web of Science, and several other health policy and nursingy databases. In primary care settings, organizational climate for NPs is a set of organizational attributes, which are perceived by NPs about their practice setting, emerge from the way the organization interacts with NPs, and affect NP behaviors and outcomes. Autonomy, NP-physician relations, and professional visibility were identified as organizational climate domains. NPs should be encouraged to assess organizational climate in their workplace and choose organizations that promote autonomy, collegiality between NPs and physicians, and encourage professional visibility. Organizational and NP awareness of qualities that foster NP practice will be a first step for developing strategies to creating an optimal organizational climate for NPs to deliver high-quality care. More research is needed to develop a comprehensive conceptual framework for organizational climate and develop new instruments to accurately measure organizational climate and link it to NP and patient outcomes. ©2012 The Author(s) Journal compilation ©2012 American Association of Nurse Practitioners.

Examples of applied public health through the work of the Epidemic Intelligence Service officers at CDC's National Center for Environmental Health: 2006-2015.

PubMed

Carroll, Yulia I; Rashid, Fauzia A; Falk, Henry; Howley, Meredith M

2017-01-01

The Epidemic Intelligence Service officers (EISOs) at the National Center for Environmental Health (NCEH)/Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry (ATSDR) respond to public health outbreaks, assist public health surveillance, and recommend public health actions. We summarize the breadth of work done by EISOs assigned to NCEH/ATSDR during 2006-2015. We used the Web of Science, Scopus, and PubMed databases to identify articles authored by the EISOs, number and types of epidemiologic assistance field investigations (Epi-Aids), and interviewed NCEH/ATSDR programs with EISO assignees. The largest number of NCEH/ATSDR EISO publications ( n = 61) and Epi-Aids ( n = 110) related to toxic chemicals (23 and 37, respectively), followed by natural disasters and those caused by humans (19 and 25, respectively), extreme temperature-related illness (9), and chronic diseases (8). The investigations raised awareness, identified risk factors and public health needs, and introduced better prevention and protection measures for human health. Through field investigations and other technical assistance, NCEH/ATSDR provided leadership and staff scientists to assist in the field, as well as knowledge transfer to local, state, territorial, and international health departments.

What Can Alcohol Researchers Learn from Research about the Relationship Between Macro-Level Gender Equality and Violence against Women?

PubMed Central

Roberts, Sarah C.M.

2011-01-01

Aims: This systematic review focuses on research about macro-level gender equality and violence against women (VAW) and identifies conceptually and theoretically driven hypotheses as well as lessons relevant for alcohol research. Hypotheses include: amelioration—increased equality decreases VAW; backlash—increased equality increases VAW; and convergence—increased equality reduces the gender gap; and hypotheses that distinguish between relative and absolute status, with relative status comparing men's and women's status and absolute status measuring women's status without regard to men. Methods: Systematic review of studies published through June 2009 identified through PubMed and Web of Science, as well as citing and cited articles. Results: A total of 30 studies are included. Of 85 findings examining amelioration/backlash, 25% support amelioration, 22% backlash; and 53% are null. Of 13 findings examining convergence, 31% support and 23% are inconsistent with convergence; 46% are null. Conclusion: Neither the existence nor the direction of the equality and VAW relationship can be assumed. This suggests that the relationship between macro-level gender equality and alcohol should also not be assumed, but rather investigated through research. PMID:21239417

Dioxin risk assessment: mechanisms of action and possible toxicity in human health.

PubMed

Tavakoly Sany, Seyedeh Belin; Hashim, Rosli; Salleh, Aishah; Rezayi, Majid; Karlen, David J; Razavizadeh, Bi Bi Marzieh; Abouzari-Lotf, Ebrahim

2015-12-01

Dioxin-like compounds (DLCs) have been classified by the World Health Organization (WHO) as one of the most persistent toxic chemical substances in the environment, and they are associated with several occupational activities and industrial accidents around the world. Since the end of the 1970s, these toxic chemicals have been banned because of their human toxicity potential, long half-life, wide dispersion, and they bioaccumulate in the food web. This review serves as a primer for environmental health professionals to provide guidance on short-term risk assessment of dioxin and to identify key findings for health and exposure assessment based on policies of different agencies. It also presents possible health effects of dioxins, mechanisms of action, toxic equivalency factors (TEFs), and dose-response characterization. Key studies related to toxicity values of dioxin-like compounds and their possible human health risk were identified through PubMed and supplemented with relevant studies characterized by reviewing the reference lists in the review articles and primary literature. Existing data decreases the scope of analyses and models in relevant studies to a manageable size by focusing on the set of important studies related to the perspective of developing toxicity values of DLCs.

Meta-analysis of All Immune Epitope Data in the Flavivirus Genus: Inventory of Current Immune Epitope Data Status in the Context of Virus Immunity and Immunopathology

PubMed Central

Greenbaum, Jason; Blythe, Martin; Peters, Bjoern; Sette, Alessandro

2010-01-01

Abstract A meta-analysis was performed in order to inventory the immune epitope data related to viruses in the genus Flavivirus. Nearly 2000 epitopes were captured from over 130 individual Flavivirus-related references identified from PubMed and reported as of September 2009. This report includes all epitope structures and associated immune reactivity from the past and current literature, including: the epitope distribution among pathogens and related strains, the epitope distribution among different pathogen antigens, the number of epitopes defined in human and animal models of disease, the relationship between epitopes identified in different disease states following natural (or experimental) infection, and data from studies focused on candidate vaccines. We found that the majority of epitopes were defined for dengue virus (DENV) and West Nile virus (WNV). The prominence of DENV and WNV data in the epitope literature is likely a reflection of their overall worldwide impact on human disease, and the lack of vaccines. Conversely, the relatively smaller number of epitopes defined for the other viruses within the genus (yellow fever and Japanese encephalitis virus) most likely reflects the presence of established prophylaxis and/or their more modest impact on morbidity and mortality globally. Through this work we hope to provide useful data to those working in the area of Flavivirus research. PMID:20565291

Health State Utility Values for Age-Related Macular Degeneration: Review and Advice.

PubMed

Butt, Thomas; Tufail, Adnan; Rubin, Gary

2017-02-01

Health state utility values are a major source of uncertainty in economic evaluations of interventions for age-related macular degeneration (AMD). This review identifies and critiques published utility values and methods for eliciting de novo utility values in AMD. We describe how utility values have been used in healthcare decision making and provide guidance on the choice of utility values for future economic evaluations for AMD. Literature was searched using PubMed, and health technology assessments (HTA) were searched using HTA agency websites to identify articles reporting utility values or approaches to derive utility values in AMD and articles applying utilities for use in healthcare decision making relating to treatments for AMD. A total of 70 studies qualified for data extraction, 22 of which were classified as containing utility values and/or elicitation methods, and 48 were classified as using utility values in decision making. A large number of studies have elicited utility values for AMD, although those applied to decision making have focused on a few of these. There is an appreciation of the challenges in the measurement and valuation of health states, with recent studies addressing challenges such as the insensitivity of generic health-related quality of life (HRQoL) questionnaires and utility in the worse-seeing eye. We would encourage careful consideration when choosing utility values in decision making and an explicit critique of their applicability to the decision problem.

Interventions for the treatment of craniopharyngioma-related hypothalamic obesity: a systematic review.

PubMed

Ni, Weimin; Shi, Xiang'en

2018-06-23

Craniopharyngiomas (CPs) and their treatment are associated with hypothalamic damage that causes hypothalamic obesity (HO) in 30-70% of cases. Thus, there is ongoing research regarding tangible solutions for HO, as these patients have unrelenting resistance to basic weight-loss interventions. This review aims to summarize the interventions that are currently used to treat CP-related HO (CP-HO), including pharmacotherapy and bariatric surgery. The Cochrane Library, EMBASE, and PubMed databases were searched up to June 2017 for relevant reports. Two reviewers conducted independent evaluations of the identified studies. Eighteen publications were included in the systematic review, with three reports describing pharmacotherapy in randomized controlled trials and 15 reports describing bariatric surgery. Although several studies described effective interventions for treating CP-HO, the evidence base was limited by its low quality and our inability to perform a meta-analysis, which was related to a lack of adequate or integrated data. Octreotide appears to be a preferred treatment for CP-HO patients, based on currently limited data. Gastric bypass surgery may also be suitable for select CP-HO patients, based on a review of various procedures in this setting. Microsurgical preservation of the hypothalamic structures is mandatory to decrease CP-HO-related morbidity and mortality. Further studies with adequate analytical power and sufficient follow-up are needed to identify effective strategies for CP-HO treatment. Copyright © 2018 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Interactive text mining with Pipeline Pilot: a bibliographic web-based tool for PubMed.

PubMed

Vellay, S G P; Latimer, N E Miller; Paillard, G

2009-06-01

Text mining has become an integral part of all research in the medical field. Many text analysis software platforms support particular use cases and only those. We show an example of a bibliographic tool that can be used to support virtually any use case in an agile manner. Here we focus on a Pipeline Pilot web-based application that interactively analyzes and reports on PubMed search results. This will be of interest to any scientist to help identify the most relevant papers in a topical area more quickly and to evaluate the results of query refinement. Links with Entrez databases help both the biologist and the chemist alike. We illustrate this application with Leishmaniasis, a neglected tropical disease, as a case study.

Analysis of PubMed User Sessions Using a Full-Day PubMed Query Log: A Comparison of Experienced and Nonexperienced PubMed Users

PubMed Central

2015-01-01

Background PubMed is the largest biomedical bibliographic information source on the Internet. PubMed has been considered one of the most important and reliable sources of up-to-date health care evidence. Previous studies examined the effects of domain expertise/knowledge on search performance using PubMed. However, very little is known about PubMed users’ knowledge of information retrieval (IR) functions and their usage in query formulation. Objective The purpose of this study was to shed light on how experienced/nonexperienced PubMed users perform their search queries by analyzing a full-day query log. Our hypotheses were that (1) experienced PubMed users who use system functions quickly retrieve relevant documents and (2) nonexperienced PubMed users who do not use them have longer search sessions than experienced users. Methods To test these hypotheses, we analyzed PubMed query log data containing nearly 3 million queries. User sessions were divided into two categories: experienced and nonexperienced. We compared experienced and nonexperienced users per number of sessions, and experienced and nonexperienced user sessions per session length, with a focus on how fast they completed their sessions. Results To test our hypotheses, we measured how successful information retrieval was (at retrieving relevant documents), represented as the decrease rates of experienced and nonexperienced users from a session length of 1 to 2, 3, 4, and 5. The decrease rate (from a session length of 1 to 2) of the experienced users was significantly larger than that of the nonexperienced groups. Conclusions Experienced PubMed users retrieve relevant documents more quickly than nonexperienced PubMed users in terms of session length. PMID:26139516

[Publication performances of university clinics for anesthesiology: Germany, Austria and Switzerland from 2001 to 2010].

PubMed

Putzer, G; Ausserer, J; Wenzel, V; Pehböck, D; Widmann, T; Lindner, K; Hamm, P; Paal, P

2014-04-01

This study assessed the publication performance of university departments of anesthesiology in Austria, Germany and Switzerland. The number of publications, original articles, impact factors and citations were evaluated. A search was performed in PubMed to identify publications related to anesthesiology from 2001 to 2010. All articles from anesthesiology journals listed in the fields of anesthesia/pain therapy, critical care and emergency medicine by the "journal citation report 2013" in Thomson Reuters ISI web of knowledge were included. Articles from non-anaesthesiology journals, where the stem of the word anesthesia (anes*, anaes*, anäst*, anast*) appears in the affiliation field of PubMed, were included as well. The time periods 2001-2005 and 2006-2010 were compared. Articles were allocated to university departments in Austria, Germany and Switzerland via the affiliation field. A total of 45 university departments in Austria, Germany and Switzerland and 125,979 publications from 2,863 journals (65 anesthesiology journals, 2,798 non-anesthesiology journals) were analyzed. Of the publications 23 % could not be allocated to a given university department of anesthesiology. In the observation period the university department of anesthesiology in Berlin achieved most publications (n = 479) and impact points (1,384), whereas Vienna accumulated most original articles (n = 156). Austria had the most publications per million inhabitants in 2006-2010 (n=50) followed by Switzerland (n=49) and Germany (n=35). The number of publications during the observation period decreased in Germany (0.5 %), Austria (7 %) and Switzerland (8 %). Tables 2 and 4-8 of this article are available at Springer Link under Supplemental. The research performance varied among the university departments of anesthesiology in Germany, Austria and Switzerland whereby larger university departments, such as Berlin or Vienna published most. Publication output in Germany, Austria and Switzerland has decreased. Data processing in PubMed should be improved.

Measuring Person-Centered Care: A Critical Comparative Review of Published Tools

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Edvardsson, David; Innes, Anthea

2010-01-01

Purpose of the study: To present a critical comparative review of published tools measuring the person-centeredness of care for older people and people with dementia. Design and Methods: Included tools were identified by searches of PubMed, Cinahl, the Bradford Dementia Group database, and authors' files. The terms "Person-centered,"…

Factors Influencing Consent to Having Videotaped Mental Health Sessions

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Ko, Kenton; Goebert, Deborah

2011-01-01

Objective: The authors critically reviewed the literature regarding factors influencing consent to having videotaped mental health sessions. Methods: The authors searched the literature in PubMed, PsycINFO, Google Scholar, and Web of Science from the mid-1950s through February 2009. Results: The authors identified 27 studies, of which 19 (73%)…

Physical Activity Measurement Instruments for Children with Cerebral Palsy: A Systematic Review

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Capio, Catherine M.; Sit, Cindy H. P.; Abernethy, Bruce; Rotor, Esmerita R.

2010-01-01

Aim: This paper is a systematic review of physical activity measurement instruments for field-based studies involving children with cerebral palsy (CP). Method: Database searches using PubMed Central, MEDLINE, CINAHL Plus, PsycINFO, EMBASE, Cochrane Library, and PEDro located 12 research papers, identifying seven instruments that met the inclusion…

The Diabetes Disparity and Puerto Rican Identified Individuals.

PubMed

Johnson, Jalil A; Cavanagh, Stephen; Jacelon, Cynthia S; Chasan-Taber, Lisa

2017-04-01

Purpose The purpose of this systematic review was to describe what is known about the diabetes disparity affecting Puerto Rican identified adults living in the continental United States as well as illuminate areas that merit further investigation. Methods The CINAHL and PubMed databases were searched using the keywords Hispanic, Puerto Rican, and type 2 diabetes. Search limits included < 10-year-old, peer-reviewed, systematic reviews, available in the English language. The abstracts of 124 articles were reviewed, and 7 articles were reviewed in depth. Results The Puerto Rican identified Hispanic subgroup is disproportionately affected by diabetes-the diabetes disparity. Puerto Rican identified Hispanic adults are less affected by citizenship status, may be less affected by English proficiency, use health care services differently, and have contextually different fatalistic views of diabetes compared with other Hispanic identified people. Spiritual/religious influences, associated mental health problems, and general cultural practices related to diabetes self-care are understudied in this group. Conclusion Ambiguous use of the term Hispanic should be avoided when describing Hispanic subgroups. Stronger, more robust studies are needed to understand the unique cultural forces influencing the poor diabetes outcomes and individual behaviors that contribute to generally suboptimal diabetes self-care for Puerto Rican adults with type 2 diabetes.

Children's perceptions of smile esthetics and their influence on social judgment.

PubMed

Rossini, Gabriele; Parrini, Simone; Castroflorio, Tommaso; Fortini, Arturo; Deregibus, Andrea; Debernardi, Cesare L

2016-11-01

To define a threshold of acceptance of smile esthetics for children and adolescents. A systematic search in the medical literature (PubMed, PubMed Central, National Library of Medicine's Medline, Embase, Cochrane Central Register of Controlled Clinical Trials, Web of Knowledge, Scopus, Google Scholar, and LILACs) was performed to identify all peer-reviewed papers reporting data regarding the evaluation of children's and adolescents' perceptions of dental esthetic factors. The search was conducted using a research strategy based on keywords such as "children," "adolescents," "smile aesthetics perception," "smile aesthetics evaluation." Studies analyzing smile esthetics involving at least 10 observers younger than 18 years of age were selected. Among the 1667 analyzed articles, five studies were selected for the final review process. No study included in the review analyzed perception of smile anomalies in a quantitative or qualitative way, thus no threshold was identified for smile features. Among the analyzed samples, unaltered smiles were always significantly associated with better evaluation scores when compared with altered smiles. Smile esthetics influence social perception during childhood and adolescence. However, thresholds of smile esthetic acceptance in children and adolescents are still not available.

Addressing gaps on risk and resilience factors for alcohol use outcomes in sexual and gender minority populations

PubMed Central

Talley, Amelia E.; Gilbert, Paul A.; Mitchell, Jason; Goldbach, Jeremy; Marshall, Brandon D. L.; Kaysen, Debra

2016-01-01

Issues In 2011, the Institute of Medicine (IOM) released a report that constituted the first comprehensive effort by a federal body to understand the current state of science pertinent to the health needs of sexual and gender minority populations. This mini-review summarises recent empirical, methodological and theoretical advances in alcohol-related research among to lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender populations and highlights progress toward addressing gaps, with a particular interest in those identified by the IOM report. Approach Articles published since 2011 were identified from PsycINFO and PubMed database searches, using various combinations of keyword identifiers (alcohol, alcohol abuse, substance abuse, LGBT, lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender). Reference sections of included articles were also examined for additional citations. Key Findings Recent empirical work has contributed to a greater understanding of sub-group differences within this diverse population. Evidence has supported theorised influences that can account for alcohol-related disparities, yet important gaps remain. Studies that examine the role of gender identity and its intersection with sexual identity within transgender and gender non-conforming sub-populations are lacking. Methodological advances in this literature have begun to allow for examinations of how minority-specific and general risk factors of alcohol misuse may contribute to patterns of alcohol involvement over time and within social-relational contexts. Conclusions The recommendations made in the current mini-review are meant to facilitate future collaborative efforts, scale development, thoughtful methodological design and analysis, and theoretically-driven nuanced hypotheses to better understand, and ultimately address, alcohol-related disparities among sexual and gender minority populations. PMID:27072658

Self-Management in Liver Transplant Recipients: A Narrative Review.

PubMed

Ko, Dami; Muehrer, Rebecca J; Bratzke, Lisa C

2018-06-01

Although self-management is essential for liver transplant recipients, there is no review that has synthesized findings related to self-management in this population. This narrative review aimed to synthesize the current findings and identify the gaps in knowledge about self-management in liver recipients. A search of PubMed, CINAHL Plus, PsychINFO, ProQuest, and Web of Science was conducted using the following terms: [Self-care OR Self-management OR Health behavior] AND [Liver transplantation]. Peer-reviewed published research articles focusing on self-management of adult recipients were selected. A total of 23 articles were included for review. Two reviewers independently reviewed the full text of selected articles and extracted the data about definitions, measurements, and findings regarding self-management. Three areas of self-management were identified, including medication nonadherence (n = 11), alcohol recidivism (n = 11), and health maintenance (n = 5). Reported rates of medication nonadherence ranged from 8% to 66%. Medication nonadherence was related to recipients' demographic (eg, age or sex), transplant-related (eg, time since transplant), and pretransplant variables (eg, history of substance/alcohol abuse). Reported alcohol recidivism rates ranged from 3% to 95%. Age, pretransplant variables (eg, abstinent time before transplant), and personality disorder were identified to be related to alcohol recidivism after transplant. The health maintenance studies discussed behaviors such as smoking, clinic appointment attendance, or vaccination/health screening behaviors of recipients. Self-management studies in liver recipients have been narrowly focused on medication nonadherence and alcohol recidivism. To improve self-management in recipients, self-management beyond medication nonadherence and alcohol recidivism should be comprehensively examined.

Exploring the psychological health of emergency dispatch centre operatives: a systematic review and narrative synthesis.

PubMed

Golding, Sarah E; Horsfield, Claire; Davies, Annette; Egan, Bernadette; Jones, Martyn; Raleigh, Mary; Schofield, Patricia; Squires, Allison; Start, Kath; Quinn, Tom; Cropley, Mark

2017-01-01

The study objective was to investigate and synthesize available evidence relating to the psychological health of Emergency Dispatch Centre (EDC) operatives, and to identify key stressors experienced by EDC operatives. Eight electronic databases (Embase, PubMed, Medline, CINAHL, PsycInfo, PsycArticles, The Psychology and Behavioural Sciences Collection, and Google Scholar) were searched. All study designs were included, and no date limits were set. Studies were included if they were published in English, and explored the psychological health of any EDC operatives, across fire, police, and emergency medical services. Studies were excluded if they related solely to other emergency workers, such as police officers or paramedics. Methodological quality of included studies was assessed using checklists adapted from the Critical Appraisal Skills Programme. A narrative synthesis was conducted, using thematic analysis. A total of 16 articles were included in the review. Two overarching themes were identified during the narrative synthesis: 'Organisational and Operational Factors' and 'Interactions with Others'. Stressors identified included being exposed to traumatic calls, lacking control over high workload, and working in under-resourced and pressured environments. Lack of support from management and providing an emotionally demanding service were additional sources of stress. Peer support and social support from friends and family were helpful in managing work-related stress. EDC operatives experience stress as a result of their work, which appears to be related to negative psychological health outcomes. Future research should explore the long-term effects of this stress, and the potential for workplace interventions to alleviate the negative impacts on psychological health. CRD42014010806.

Cutaneous lichen planus: A systematic review of treatments.

PubMed

Fazel, Nasim

2015-06-01

Various treatment modalities are available for cutaneous lichen planus. Pubmed, EMBASE, Cochrane Database of Systematic Reviews, Cochrane Central Register of Controlled Trials, Database of Abstracts of Reviews of Effects, and Health Technology Assessment Database were searched for all the systematic reviews and randomized controlled trials related to cutaneous lichen planus. Two systematic reviews and nine relevant randomized controlled trials were identified. Acitretin, griseofulvin, hydroxychloroquine and narrow band ultraviolet B are demonstrated to be effective in the treatment of cutaneous lichen planus. Sulfasalazine is effective, but has an unfavorable safety profile. KH1060, a vitamin D analogue, is not beneficial in the management of cutaneous lichen planus. Evidence from large scale randomized trials demonstrating the safety and efficacy for many other treatment modalities used to treat cutaneous lichen planus is simply not available.

"The Western gaze"--an analysis of medical research publications concerning the expressions of depression, focusing on ethnicity and gender.

PubMed

Lehti, Arja Helena; Johansson, Eva E; Bengs, Carita; Danielsson, Ulla; Hammarström, Anne

2010-02-01

Our aim of this study was to explore how authors of medical articles wrote about different symptoms and expressions of depression in men and women from various ethnic groups as well as to analyze the meaning of gender and ethnicity for expressions of depression. A database search was carried out using PubMed. Thirty articles were identified and analyzed using qualitative content analysis. Approaches differ with regard to how depression is described and interpreted in different cultures in relation to illness complaints, illness meaning, and diagnosis of depression. Articles often present issues based on a Western point of view. This may lead to "cultural or gender gaps," which we refer to as "the Western gaze," which may in turn influence the diagnosis of depression.

HEALTH GeoJunction: place-time-concept browsing of health publications.

PubMed

MacEachren, Alan M; Stryker, Michael S; Turton, Ian J; Pezanowski, Scott

2010-05-18

The volume of health science publications is escalating rapidly. Thus, keeping up with developments is becoming harder as is the task of finding important cross-domain connections. When geographic location is a relevant component of research reported in publications, these tasks are more difficult because standard search and indexing facilities have limited or no ability to identify geographic foci in documents. This paper introduces HEALTH GeoJunction, a web application that supports researchers in the task of quickly finding scientific publications that are relevant geographically and temporally as well as thematically. HEALTH GeoJunction is a geovisual analytics-enabled web application providing: (a) web services using computational reasoning methods to extract place-time-concept information from bibliographic data for documents and (b) visually-enabled place-time-concept query, filtering, and contextualizing tools that apply to both the documents and their extracted content. This paper focuses specifically on strategies for visually-enabled, iterative, facet-like, place-time-concept filtering that allows analysts to quickly drill down to scientific findings of interest in PubMed abstracts and to explore relations among abstracts and extracted concepts in place and time. The approach enables analysts to: find publications without knowing all relevant query parameters, recognize unanticipated geographic relations within and among documents in multiple health domains, identify the thematic emphasis of research targeting particular places, notice changes in concepts over time, and notice changes in places where concepts are emphasized. PubMed is a database of over 19 million biomedical abstracts and citations maintained by the National Center for Biotechnology Information; achieving quick filtering is an important contribution due to the database size. Including geography in filters is important due to rapidly escalating attention to geographic factors in public health. The implementation of mechanisms for iterative place-time-concept filtering makes it possible to narrow searches efficiently and quickly from thousands of documents to a small subset that meet place-time-concept constraints. Support for a more-like-this query creates the potential to identify unexpected connections across diverse areas of research. Multi-view visualization methods support understanding of the place, time, and concept components of document collections and enable comparison of filtered query results to the full set of publications.

GAPscreener: An automatic tool for screening human genetic association literature in PubMed using the support vector machine technique

PubMed Central

Yu, Wei; Clyne, Melinda; Dolan, Siobhan M; Yesupriya, Ajay; Wulf, Anja; Liu, Tiebin; Khoury, Muin J; Gwinn, Marta

2008-01-01

Background Synthesis of data from published human genetic association studies is a critical step in the translation of human genome discoveries into health applications. Although genetic association studies account for a substantial proportion of the abstracts in PubMed, identifying them with standard queries is not always accurate or efficient. Further automating the literature-screening process can reduce the burden of a labor-intensive and time-consuming traditional literature search. The Support Vector Machine (SVM), a well-established machine learning technique, has been successful in classifying text, including biomedical literature. The GAPscreener, a free SVM-based software tool, can be used to assist in screening PubMed abstracts for human genetic association studies. Results The data source for this research was the HuGE Navigator, formerly known as the HuGE Pub Lit database. Weighted SVM feature selection based on a keyword list obtained by the two-way z score method demonstrated the best screening performance, achieving 97.5% recall, 98.3% specificity and 31.9% precision in performance testing. Compared with the traditional screening process based on a complex PubMed query, the SVM tool reduced by about 90% the number of abstracts requiring individual review by the database curator. The tool also ascertained 47 articles that were missed by the traditional literature screening process during the 4-week test period. We examined the literature on genetic associations with preterm birth as an example. Compared with the traditional, manual process, the GAPscreener both reduced effort and improved accuracy. Conclusion GAPscreener is the first free SVM-based application available for screening the human genetic association literature in PubMed with high recall and specificity. The user-friendly graphical user interface makes this a practical, stand-alone application. The software can be downloaded at no charge. PMID:18430222

Comparison of the time-to-indexing in PubMed between biomedical journals according to impact factor, discipline, and focus.

PubMed

Irwin, Adriane N; Rackham, Daniel

Practicing evidence-based medicine requires health care professionals to efficiently retrieve relevant and current literature. The purpose of this study was to compare the time interval between PubMed entry and indexing with Medical Subject Headings (MeSH) between biomedical journals with varying impact factors, focus areas, and health care discipline representation. This was a cross-sectional study of articles entered into PubMed database between January 1 and December 31, 2012. The primary endpoint was the number of days between PubMed entry and indexing with MeSH terms. A total of 7906 articles were reviewed across 18 journals. In the first comparison, the time-to-indexing was 177 ± 100 days, 111 ± 69 days, and 23 ± 40 days for articles published in journals with impact factors of 2.0-2.5, 4.5-6.5, and >25, respectively (P ≤ 0.001). In the second comparison, the time-to-indexing was 111 ± 69 days for general medicine versus 170 ± 74 days for specialty journals (P ≤ 0.001). In the third comparison, the overall time-to-indexing was 177 ± 100 days, 234 ± 107 days, and 163 ± 58 days for medicine, nursing, and pharmacy journals, respectively (P ≤ 0.001). Study results identified a significant delay between entry of articles into the PubMed database and time-to-indexing with MeSH terms across journals of varying impact factor, discipline, and focus. Results suggest that there may be factors that influence the priority by which articles are indexed with MeSH terms. Future research should focus on determining those journal characteristics and any impact of this delay on clinical practice. Copyright © 2016 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Citation searches are more sensitive than keyword searches to identify studies using specific measurement instruments.

PubMed

Linder, Suzanne K; Kamath, Geetanjali R; Pratt, Gregory F; Saraykar, Smita S; Volk, Robert J

2015-04-01

To compare the effectiveness of two search methods in identifying studies that used the Control Preferences Scale (CPS), a health care decision-making instrument commonly used in clinical settings. We searched the literature using two methods: (1) keyword searching using variations of "Control Preferences Scale" and (2) cited reference searching using two seminal CPS publications. We searched three bibliographic databases [PubMed, Scopus, and Web of Science (WOS)] and one full-text database (Google Scholar). We report precision and sensitivity as measures of effectiveness. Keyword searches in bibliographic databases yielded high average precision (90%) but low average sensitivity (16%). PubMed was the most precise, followed closely by Scopus and WOS. The Google Scholar keyword search had low precision (54%) but provided the highest sensitivity (70%). Cited reference searches in all databases yielded moderate sensitivity (45-54%), but precision ranged from 35% to 75% with Scopus being the most precise. Cited reference searches were more sensitive than keyword searches, making it a more comprehensive strategy to identify all studies that use a particular instrument. Keyword searches provide a quick way of finding some but not all relevant articles. Goals, time, and resources should dictate the combination of which methods and databases are used. Copyright © 2015 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Citation searches are more sensitive than keyword searches to identify studies using specific measurement instruments

PubMed Central

Linder, Suzanne K.; Kamath, Geetanjali R.; Pratt, Gregory F.; Saraykar, Smita S.; Volk, Robert J.

2015-01-01

Objective To compare the effectiveness of two search methods in identifying studies that used the Control Preferences Scale (CPS), a healthcare decision-making instrument commonly used in clinical settings. Study Design & Setting We searched the literature using two methods: 1) keyword searching using variations of “control preferences scale” and 2) cited reference searching using two seminal CPS publications. We searched three bibliographic databases [PubMed, Scopus, Web of Science (WOS)] and one full-text database (Google Scholar). We report precision and sensitivity as measures of effectiveness. Results Keyword searches in bibliographic databases yielded high average precision (90%), but low average sensitivity (16%). PubMed was the most precise, followed closely by Scopus and WOS. The Google Scholar keyword search had low precision (54%) but provided the highest sensitivity (70%). Cited reference searches in all databases yielded moderate sensitivity (45–54%), but precision ranged from 35–75% with Scopus being the most precise. Conclusion Cited reference searches were more sensitive than keyword searches, making it a more comprehensive strategy to identify all studies that use a particular instrument. Keyword searches provide a quick way of finding some but not all relevant articles. Goals, time and resources should dictate the combination of which methods and databases are used. PMID:25554521

Psychosocial Factors That Shape Patient and Carer Experiences of Dementia Diagnosis and Treatment: A Systematic Review of Qualitative Studies

PubMed Central

Bunn, Frances; Goodman, Claire; Sworn, Katie; Rait, Greta; Brayne, Carol; Robinson, Louise; McNeilly, Elaine; Iliffe, Steve

2012-01-01

Background Early diagnosis and intervention for people with dementia is increasingly considered a priority, but practitioners are concerned with the effects of earlier diagnosis and interventions on patients and caregivers. This systematic review evaluates the qualitative evidence about how people accommodate and adapt to the diagnosis of dementia and its immediate consequences, to guide practice. Methods and Findings We systematically reviewed qualitative studies exploring experiences of community-dwelling individuals with dementia, and their carers, around diagnosis and the transition to becoming a person with dementia. We searched PubMed, PsychINFO, Embase, CINAHL, and the British Nursing Index (all searched in May 2010 with no date restrictions; PubMed search updated in February 2012), checked reference lists, and undertook citation searches in PubMed and Google Scholar (ongoing to September 2011). We used thematic synthesis to identify key themes, commonalities, barriers to earlier diagnosis, and support identified as helpful. We identified 126 papers reporting 102 studies including a total of 3,095 participants. Three overarching themes emerged from our analysis: (1) pathways through diagnosis, including its impact on identity, roles, and relationships; (2) resolving conflicts to accommodate a diagnosis, including the acceptability of support, focusing on the present or the future, and the use or avoidance of knowledge; and (3) strategies and support to minimise the impact of dementia. Consistent barriers to diagnosis include stigma, normalisation of symptoms, and lack of knowledge. Studies report a lack of specialist support particularly post-diagnosis. Conclusions There is an extensive body of qualitative literature on the experiences of community-dwelling individuals with dementia on receiving and adapting to a diagnosis of dementia. We present a thematic analysis that could be useful to professionals working with people with dementia. We suggest that research emphasis should shift towards the development and evaluation of interventions, particularly those providing support after diagnosis. Please see later in the article for the Editors' Summary. PMID:23118618

[Role of academic social networks in disseminating the scientific production of researchers in biology/medicine: the example of ResearchGate].

PubMed

Boudry, Christophe; Bouchard, Aline

2017-01-01

Over time, academic social networks are more and more used by researchers, especially thanks to the possibilities of sharing articles they offer. The objective of the present study was to evaluate the proportion, the typology (pre-print, post-print author/publisher) and the legality of the full-text publications deposited by researchers on ResearchGate which is widely used by the medical and biological community, using a sample of 1,500 randomly selected articles in PubMed and published between 2013 and 2015. To compare, the access to the full-text of the 1500 articles via PubMed and PubMed Central has been assessed, putting into evidence the important role ResearchGate plays for providing full-texts of articles in biology/medicine. It also puts academic social networks into perspective in relation to open-access repositories and open access. © 2017 médecine/sciences – Inserm.

How unique is continuity of care? A review of continuity and related concepts.

PubMed

Uijen, Annemarie A; Schers, Henk J; Schellevis, François G; van den Bosch, Wil J H M

2012-06-01

The concept of 'continuity of care' has changed over time and seems to be entangled with other care concepts, for example coordination and integration of care. These concepts may overlap, and differences between them often remain unclear. In order to clarify the confusion of tongues and to identify core values of these patient-centred concepts, we provide a historical overview of continuity of care and four related concepts: coordination of care, integration of care, patient-centred care and case management. We identified and reviewed articles including a definition of one of these concepts by performing an extensive literature search in PubMed. In addition, we checked the definition of these concepts in the Oxford English Dictionary. Definitions of continuity, coordination, integration, patient-centred care and case management vary over time. These concepts show both great entanglement and also demonstrate differences. Three major common themes could be identified within these concepts: personal relationship between patient and care provider, communication between providers and cooperation between providers. Most definitions of the concepts are formulated from the patient's perspective. The identified themes appear to be core elements of care to patients. Thus, it may be valuable to develop an instrument to measure these three common themes universally. In the patient-centred medical home, such an instrument might turn out to be an important quality measure, which will enable researchers and policy makers to compare care settings and practices and to evaluate new care interventions from the patient perspective.

Retrieving clinical evidence: a comparison of PubMed and Google Scholar for quick clinical searches.

PubMed

Shariff, Salimah Z; Bejaimal, Shayna Ad; Sontrop, Jessica M; Iansavichus, Arthur V; Haynes, R Brian; Weir, Matthew A; Garg, Amit X

2013-08-15

Physicians frequently search PubMed for information to guide patient care. More recently, Google Scholar has gained popularity as another freely accessible bibliographic database. To compare the performance of searches in PubMed and Google Scholar. We surveyed nephrologists (kidney specialists) and provided each with a unique clinical question derived from 100 renal therapy systematic reviews. Each physician provided the search terms they would type into a bibliographic database to locate evidence to answer the clinical question. We executed each of these searches in PubMed and Google Scholar and compared results for the first 40 records retrieved (equivalent to 2 default search pages in PubMed). We evaluated the recall (proportion of relevant articles found) and precision (ratio of relevant to nonrelevant articles) of the searches performed in PubMed and Google Scholar. Primary studies included in the systematic reviews served as the reference standard for relevant articles. We further documented whether relevant articles were available as free full-texts. Compared with PubMed, the average search in Google Scholar retrieved twice as many relevant articles (PubMed: 11%; Google Scholar: 22%; P<.001). Precision was similar in both databases (PubMed: 6%; Google Scholar: 8%; P=.07). Google Scholar provided significantly greater access to free full-text publications (PubMed: 5%; Google Scholar: 14%; P<.001). For quick clinical searches, Google Scholar returns twice as many relevant articles as PubMed and provides greater access to free full-text articles.

Nuclear Medicine

MedlinePlus

... VIEW MORE RELATED NEWS Government Resources Kids.gov – Science Information and services on the web from government agencies, ... and educational organizations. Science.gov Gateway to government science information and research results. PubMed Central Free full-text ...

Genetics Home Reference: Costello syndrome

MedlinePlus

... MedlinePlus (5 links) Diagnostic Tests Drug Therapy Genetic Counseling Palliative Care Surgery and Rehabilitation Related Information How ... 44. Citation on PubMed Rauen KA. Distinguishing Costello versus cardio-facio-cutaneous syndrome: BRAF mutations in patients ...

Dataset of breath research manuscripts curated using PubMed search strings from 1995-2016.

PubMed

Geer Wallace, M Ariel; Pleil, Joachim D

2018-06-01

The data contained in this article are PubMed search strings and search string builders used to curate breath research manuscripts published from 1995-2016 and the respective number of articles found that satisfied the search requirements for selected categories. Breath sampling represents a non-invasive technique that has gained usefulness for public health, clinical, diagnostic, and environmental exposure assessment applications over the years. This data article includes search strings that were utilized to retrieve publications through the PubMed database for different breath research-related topics that were related to the analysis of exhaled breath, exhaled breath condensate (EBC), and exhaled breath aerosol (EBA) as well as the analysis of cellular headspace. Manuscripts were curated for topics including EBC, EBA, Direct MS, GC-MS, LC-MS, alcohol, and sensors. A summary of the number of papers published per year for the data retrieved using each of the search strings is also included. These data can be utilized to discern trends in the number of breath research publications in each of the different topics over time. A supplementary Appendix A containing the titles, author lists, journal names, publication dates, PMID numbers, and EntrezUID numbers for each of the journal articles curated using the finalized search strings for the seven breath research-related topics can also be found within this article. The selected manuscripts can be used to explore the impact that breath research has had on expanding the scientific knowledge in each of the investigated topics.

Return to work after vocational rehabilitation for sick-listed workers with long-term back, neck and shoulder problems: A follow-up study of factors involved.

PubMed

Rinaldo, Ulrika; Selander, John

2016-09-27

Absence from work due to musculoskeletal disorders is a significant problem from a number of perspectives, and there is a great need to identify factors that facilitate return to work (RTW). To identify factors related to RTW after vocational rehabilitation for sick-listed workers with long-term back, neck and/or shoulder problems, and to compare the results with those from a previous literature review based on studies from 1980 to 2000. A literature review based on studies published 2001-2014 in PubMed, CINAHL, EMBASE, ERIC and the Cochrane Library. Major risk factors for not returning to work are: higher age, factors related to pain such as higher levels of pain and pain related fear, avoidance of activity, high distress and depression. Facilitating factors for RTW are: lower functional disability, gaining control over one's own condition, believing in RTW and work-related factors such as occupational training, and having a job coach or an RTW coordinator. Compared with the results from the previous review, the present review shows less of a focus on sociodemographic factors and more on psychological factors. Both studies highlight risk factors such as older age, higher levels of pain, depression and less internal locus of control. Psychosocial and work-related factors are important and should be included in interventions for the RTW of people with long-term back, neck and/or shoulder problems.

Development of a PubMed Based Search Tool for Identifying Sex and Gender Specific Health Literature.

PubMed

Song, Michael M; Simonsen, Cheryl K; Wilson, Joanna D; Jenkins, Marjorie R

2016-02-01

An effective literature search strategy is critical to achieving the aims of Sex and Gender Specific Health (SGSH): to understand sex and gender differences through research and to effectively incorporate the new knowledge into the clinical decision making process to benefit both male and female patients. The goal of this project was to develop and validate an SGSH literature search tool that is readily and freely available to clinical researchers and practitioners. PubMed, a freely available search engine for the Medline database, was selected as the platform to build the SGSH literature search tool. Combinations of Medical Subject Heading terms, text words, and title words were evaluated for optimal specificity and sensitivity. The search tool was then validated against reference bases compiled for two disease states, diabetes and stroke. Key sex and gender terms and limits were bundled to create a search tool to facilitate PubMed SGSH literature searches. During validation, the search tool retrieved 50 of 94 (53.2%) stroke and 62 of 95 (65.3%) diabetes reference articles selected for validation. A general keyword search of stroke or diabetes combined with sex difference retrieved 33 of 94 (35.1%) stroke and 22 of 95 (23.2%) diabetes reference base articles, with lower sensitivity and specificity for SGSH content. The Texas Tech University Health Sciences Center SGSH PubMed Search Tool provides higher sensitivity and specificity to sex and gender specific health literature. The tool will facilitate research, clinical decision-making, and guideline development relevant to SGSH.

Development of a PubMed Based Search Tool for Identifying Sex and Gender Specific Health Literature

PubMed Central

Song, Michael M.; Simonsen, Cheryl K.; Wilson, Joanna D.

2016-01-01

Abstract Background: An effective literature search strategy is critical to achieving the aims of Sex and Gender Specific Health (SGSH): to understand sex and gender differences through research and to effectively incorporate the new knowledge into the clinical decision making process to benefit both male and female patients. The goal of this project was to develop and validate an SGSH literature search tool that is readily and freely available to clinical researchers and practitioners. Methods: PubMed, a freely available search engine for the Medline database, was selected as the platform to build the SGSH literature search tool. Combinations of Medical Subject Heading terms, text words, and title words were evaluated for optimal specificity and sensitivity. The search tool was then validated against reference bases compiled for two disease states, diabetes and stroke. Results: Key sex and gender terms and limits were bundled to create a search tool to facilitate PubMed SGSH literature searches. During validation, the search tool retrieved 50 of 94 (53.2%) stroke and 62 of 95 (65.3%) diabetes reference articles selected for validation. A general keyword search of stroke or diabetes combined with sex difference retrieved 33 of 94 (35.1%) stroke and 22 of 95 (23.2%) diabetes reference base articles, with lower sensitivity and specificity for SGSH content. Conclusions: The Texas Tech University Health Sciences Center SGSH PubMed Search Tool provides higher sensitivity and specificity to sex and gender specific health literature. The tool will facilitate research, clinical decision-making, and guideline development relevant to SGSH. PMID:26555409

A survey of retracted articles in dentistry.

PubMed

Nogueira, Túlio Eduardo; Gonçalves, Andréia Souza; Leles, Cláudio Rodrigues; Batista, Aline Carvalho; Costa, Luciane Rezende

2017-07-06

Publication retraction is a mechanism to preserve the scientific literature against publications that contain seriously flawed or erroneous data, redundant publication, plagiarism, unethical research, and other features that compromise the integrity of science. An increase in the occurrence of retractions in recent years has been reported. Nevertheless, there is scarce information on this topic concerning publications in dentistry and related specialties. Thus, this study aimed to investigate retracted papers published in dental journals. Data collection included an exploratory search in PubMed and a specific search in SCImago Journal Rank indexed journals, complemented by the cases reported on the Retraction Watch website and in PubMed. All 167 dental journals included in SCImago were searched for identification of retracted articles up to March 2016. The selected retracted articles and their corresponding retraction notices were recorded and assessed for classification according to the reason for retraction and other additional information. Forty of the 167 journals scrutinised at SCImago (23.9%) had at least one retracted article, and four additional journals were identified from the Retraction Watch website. A total of 72 retracted found were retracted for the reasons: redundant publication (20.8%), plagiarism (18.1%), misconduct (13.8%), overlap (13.6%) and honest error (9.7%). Higher number of retractions were reported in those journals with cites/doc <2.0-n = 49 (74.2%). The types of studies were mainly laboratory studies (34.7%), case reports (22.2%) and review articles (13.9%). The approach to ethical problems in papers published in dental scientific journals is still incipient; retractions were mostly due to the authors' malpractice and were more frequently related to journals with less impact.

Search strings for the study of putative occupational determinants of disease

PubMed Central

Mattioli, Stefano; Zanardi, Francesca; Baldasseroni, Alberto; Schaafsma, Frederieke; Cooke, Robin MT; Mancini, Gianpiero; Fierro, Mauro; Santangelo, Chiara; Farioli, Andrea; Fucksia, Serenella; Curti, Stefania; Verbeek, Jos

2010-01-01

Objective To identify efficient PubMed search strategies to retrieve articles regarding putative occupational determinants of conditions not generally considered to be work related. Methods Based on MeSH definitions and expert knowledge, we selected as candidate search terms the four MeSH terms describing ‘occupational disease’, ‘occupational exposure’, ‘occupational health’ and ‘occupational medicine’ (DEHM) alongside 22 other promising terms. We first explored overlaps between the candidate terms in PubMed. Using random samples of abstracts retrieved by each term, we estimated the proportions of articles containing potentially pertinent information regarding occupational aetiology in order to formulate two search strategies (one more ‘specific’, one more ‘sensitive’). We applied these strategies to retrieve information on the possible occupational aetiology of meningioma, pancreatitis and atrial fibrillation. Results Only 20.3% of abstracts were retrieved by more than one DEHM term. The more ‘specific’ search string was based on the combination of terms that yielded the highest proportion (40%) of potentially pertinent abstracts. The more ‘sensitive’ string was based on the use of broader search fields and additional coverage provided by other search terms under study. Using the specific string, the numbers of abstracts needed to read to find one potentially pertinent article were 1.2 for meningioma, 1.9 for pancreatitis and 1.8 for atrial fibrillation. Using the sensitive strategy, the numbers needed to read were 4.4 for meningioma, 8.9 for pancreatitis and 10.5 for atrial fibrillation. Conclusions The proposed strings could help health care professionals explore putative occupational aetiology for diseases that are not generally thought to be work related. PMID:19819858

Mobile Phone Health Applications for the Federal Sector.

PubMed

Burrows, Christin S; Weigel, Fred K

2016-01-01

As the US healthcare system moves toward a mobile care model, mobile phones will play a significant role in the future of healthcare delivery. Today, 90% of American adults own a mobile phone and 64% own a smartphone, yet many healthcare organizations are only beginning to explore the opportunities in which mobile phones can improve and streamline care. After searching Google Scholar, the Association for Computing Machinery Database, and PubMed for articles related to mobile phone health applications and cell phone text message health, we selected articles and studies related to the application of mobile phones in healthcare. From our initial review, we identified the potential application areas and continued to refine our search, identifying a total of 55 articles for additional review and analysis. From the literature, we identified 3 main themes for mobile phone implementation in improving healthcare: primary, preventive, and population health. We recommend federal health leaders pursue the value and potential in these areas; not only because 90% of Americans already own mobile phones, but also because mobile phone integration can provide substantial access and potential cost savings. From the positive findings of multiple studies in primary, preventive, and population health, we propose a 5-year federal implementation plan to integrate mobile phone capabilities into federal healthcare delivery. Our proposal has the potential to improve access, reduce costs, and increase patient satisfaction, therefore changing the way the federal sector delivers healthcare by 2021.

Interventions for Weight Gain Prevention During the Transition to Young Adulthood: A review of the literature

PubMed Central

Laska, Melissa N.; Pelletier, Jennifer E.; Larson, Nicole I.; Story, Mary

2012-01-01

Purpose To review studies examining weight gain prevention interventions among young adults. Methods A snowball strategy was used to identify relevant studies, beginning with systematic PubMed, MEDLINE, PsychInfo, ERIC, and CINAHL searches. Included studies: (a) were published from 1985-2011, (b) were completed in the US or Canada, (a) focused on weight gain prevention among young adults ages 18-35 years, assessing weight, body mass index (BMI), body composition, diet or physical activity as an outcome, and (d) included pre- and post-intervention assessments. Results Thirty-seven interventions were identified. Ten interventions assessed weight, BMI, or body composition; twenty-seven addressed other relevant outcomes (e.g., diet, physical activity). Of the studies examining weight or body composition, six evaluated university courses or seminar-based interventions. Overall, many studies focused on individual-level intervention delivery and changes in weight-related knowledge and/or skills, though some incorporated relatively unique aspects (e.g., focusing on eating disorders and obesity simultaneously, using online technology, providing personalized feedback on weight change). Most showed promising results as small-scale pilot studies but lacked data from fully-powered randomized trials. Conclusions There is an urgent need to develop effective young adult-focused weight gain prevention strategies. This review identified promising areas for future work, though much additional research is needed. PMID:22443834

Automatically identifying health outcome information in MEDLINE records.

PubMed

Demner-Fushman, Dina; Few, Barbara; Hauser, Susan E; Thoma, George

2006-01-01

Understanding the effect of a given intervention on the patient's health outcome is one of the key elements in providing optimal patient care. This study presents a methodology for automatic identification of outcomes-related information in medical text and evaluates its potential in satisfying clinical information needs related to health care outcomes. An annotation scheme based on an evidence-based medicine model for critical appraisal of evidence was developed and used to annotate 633 MEDLINE citations. Textual, structural, and meta-information features essential to outcome identification were learned from the created collection and used to develop an automatic system. Accuracy of automatic outcome identification was assessed in an intrinsic evaluation and in an extrinsic evaluation, in which ranking of MEDLINE search results obtained using PubMed Clinical Queries relied on identified outcome statements. The accuracy and positive predictive value of outcome identification were calculated. Effectiveness of the outcome-based ranking was measured using mean average precision and precision at rank 10. Automatic outcome identification achieved 88% to 93% accuracy. The positive predictive value of individual sentences identified as outcomes ranged from 30% to 37%. Outcome-based ranking improved retrieval accuracy, tripling mean average precision and achieving 389% improvement in precision at rank 10. Preliminary results in outcome-based document ranking show potential validity of the evidence-based medicine-model approach in timely delivery of information critical to clinical decision support at the point of service.

Sources of error in the retracted scientific literature.

PubMed

Casadevall, Arturo; Steen, R Grant; Fang, Ferric C

2014-09-01

Retraction of flawed articles is an important mechanism for correction of the scientific literature. We recently reported that the majority of retractions are associated with scientific misconduct. In the current study, we focused on the subset of retractions for which no misconduct was identified, in order to identify the major causes of error. Analysis of the retraction notices for 423 articles indexed in PubMed revealed that the most common causes of error-related retraction are laboratory errors, analytical errors, and irreproducible results. The most common laboratory errors are contamination and problems relating to molecular biology procedures (e.g., sequencing, cloning). Retractions due to contamination were more common in the past, whereas analytical errors are now increasing in frequency. A number of publications that have not been retracted despite being shown to contain significant errors suggest that barriers to retraction may impede correction of the literature. In particular, few cases of retraction due to cell line contamination were found despite recognition that this problem has affected numerous publications. An understanding of the errors leading to retraction can guide practices to improve laboratory research and the integrity of the scientific literature. Perhaps most important, our analysis has identified major problems in the mechanisms used to rectify the scientific literature and suggests a need for action by the scientific community to adopt protocols that ensure the integrity of the publication process. © FASEB.

How Complementary and Alternative Medicine Practitioners Use PubMed

PubMed Central

Quint-Rapoport, Mia

2007-01-01

Background PubMed is the largest bibliographic index in the life sciences. It is freely available online and is used by professionals and the public to learn more about medical research. While primarily intended to serve researchers, PubMed provides an array of tools and services that can help a wider readership in the location, comprehension, evaluation, and utilization of medical research. Objective This study sought to establish the potential contributions made by a range of PubMed tools and services to the use of the database by complementary and alternative medicine practitioners. Methods In this study, 10 chiropractors, 7 registered massage therapists, and a homeopath (N = 18), 11 with prior research training and 7 without, were taken through a 2-hour introductory session with PubMed. The 10 PubMed tools and services considered in this study can be divided into three functions: (1) information retrieval (Boolean Search, Limits, Related Articles, Author Links, MeSH), (2) information access (Publisher Link, LinkOut, Bookshelf ), and (3) information management (History, Send To, Email Alert). Participants were introduced to between six and 10 of these tools and services. The participants were asked to provide feedback on the value of each tool or service in terms of their information needs, which was ranked as positive, positive with emphasis, negative, or indifferent. Results The participants in this study expressed an interest in the three types of PubMed tools and services (information retrieval, access, and management), with less well-regarded tools including MeSH Database and Bookshelf. In terms of their comprehension of the research, the tools and services led the participants to reflect on their understanding as well as their critical reading and use of the research. There was universal support among the participants for greater access to complete articles, beyond the approximately 15% that are currently open access. The abstracts provided by PubMed were felt to be necessary in selecting literature to read but entirely inadequate for both evaluating and learning from the research. Thus, the restrictions and fees the participants faced in accessing full-text articles were points of frustration. Conclusions The study found strong indications of PubMed’s potential value in the professional development of these complementary and alternative medicine practitioners in terms of engaging with and understanding research. It provides support for the various initiatives intended to increase access, including a recommendation that the National Library of Medicine tap into the published research that is being archived by authors in institutional archives and through other websites. PMID:17613489

TRAINING ERRORS AND RUNNING RELATED INJURIES: A SYSTEMATIC REVIEW

PubMed Central

Buist, Ida; Sørensen, Henrik; Lind, Martin; Rasmussen, Sten

2012-01-01

Purpose: The purpose of this systematic review was to examine the link between training characteristics (volume, duration, frequency, and intensity) and running related injuries. Methods: A systematic search was performed in PubMed, Web of Science, Embase, and SportDiscus. Studies were included if they examined novice, recreational, or elite runners between the ages of 18 and 65. Exposure variables were training characteristics defined as volume, distance or mileage, time or duration, frequency, intensity, speed or pace, or similar terms. The outcome of interest was Running Related Injuries (RRI) in general or specific RRI in the lower extremity or lower back. Methodological quality was evaluated using quality assessment tools of 11 to 16 items. Results: After examining 4561 titles and abstracts, 63 articles were identified as potentially relevant. Finally, nine retrospective cohort studies, 13 prospective cohort studies, six case-control studies, and three randomized controlled trials were included. The mean quality score was 44.1%. Conflicting results were reported on the relationships between volume, duration, intensity, and frequency and RRI. Conclusion: It was not possible to identify which training errors were related to running related injuries. Still, well supported data on which training errors relate to or cause running related injuries is highly important for determining proper prevention strategies. If methodological limitations in measuring training variables can be resolved, more work can be conducted to define training and the interactions between different training variables, create several hypotheses, test the hypotheses in a large scale prospective study, and explore cause and effect relationships in randomized controlled trials. Level of evidence: 2a PMID:22389869

Usability flaws of medication-related alerting functions: A systematic qualitative review.

PubMed

Marcilly, Romaric; Ammenwerth, Elske; Vasseur, Francis; Roehrer, Erin; Beuscart-Zéphir, Marie-Catherine

2015-06-01

Medication-related alerting functions may include usability flaws that limit their optimal use. A first step on the way to preventing usability flaws is to understand the characteristics of these usability flaws. This systematic qualitative review aims to analyze the type of usability flaws found in medication-related alerting functions. Papers were searched via PubMed, Scopus and Ergonomics Abstracts databases, along with references lists. Paper selection, data extraction and data analysis was performed by two to three Human Factors experts. Meaningful semantic units representing instances of usability flaws were the main data extracted. They were analyzed through qualitative methods: categorization following general usability heuristics and through an inductive process for the flaws specific to medication-related alerting functions. From the 6380 papers initially identified, 26 met all eligibility criteria. The analysis of the papers identified a total of 168 instances of usability flaws that could be classified into 13 categories of usability flaws representing either violations of general usability principles (i.e. they could be found in any system, e.g. guidance and workload issues) or infractions specific to medication-related alerting functions. The latter refer to issues of low signal-to-noise ratio, incomplete content of alerts, transparency, presentation mode and timing, missing alert features, tasks and control distribution. The list of 168 instances of usability flaws of medication-related alerting functions provides a source of knowledge for checking the usability of medication-related alerting functions during their design and evaluation process and ultimately constructs evidence-based usability design principles for these functions. Copyright © 2015 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

The inclusion of an online journal in PubMed central - a difficult path.

PubMed

Grech, Victor

2016-01-01

The indexing of a journal in a prominent database (such as PubMed) is an important imprimatur. Journals accepted for inclusion in PubMed Central (PMC) are automatically indexed in PubMed but must provide the entire contents of their publications as XML-tagged (Extensible Markup Language) data files compliant with PubMed's document type definition (DTD). This paper describes the various attempts that the journal Images in Paediatric Cardiology made in its efforts to convert the journal contents (including all of the extant backlog) to PMC-compliant XML for archiving and indexing in PubMed after the journal was accepted for inclusion by the database.

Peer-Led Nutrition Education Programs for School-Aged Youth: A Systematic Review of the Literature

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Yip, Calvin; Gates, Michelle; Gates, Allison; Hanning, Rhona M.

2016-01-01

To date, the impacts of school-based, peer-led nutrition education initiatives have not been summarized or assessed collectively. This review presents the current evidence, identifies knowledge gaps, and provides recommendations for future research. PubMed, Scopus, ERIC and Google Scholar were searched for refereed Canadian and American primary…

Nutrition Education and Body Mass Index in Grades K-12: A Systematic Review

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Price, Cayla; Cohen, Deborah; Pribis, Peter; Cerami, Jean

2017-01-01

Background: Overweight and obese body mass index (BMI) status affects an increasing number of children in the United States. The school setting has been identified as a focus area to implement obesity prevention programs. Methods: A database search of PubMed, Education Search Complete, and Cumulative Index to Nursing and Allied Health Literature…

Retrieving Clinical Evidence: A Comparison of PubMed and Google Scholar for Quick Clinical Searches

PubMed Central

Bejaimal, Shayna AD; Sontrop, Jessica M; Iansavichus, Arthur V; Haynes, R Brian; Weir, Matthew A; Garg, Amit X

2013-01-01

Background Physicians frequently search PubMed for information to guide patient care. More recently, Google Scholar has gained popularity as another freely accessible bibliographic database. Objective To compare the performance of searches in PubMed and Google Scholar. Methods We surveyed nephrologists (kidney specialists) and provided each with a unique clinical question derived from 100 renal therapy systematic reviews. Each physician provided the search terms they would type into a bibliographic database to locate evidence to answer the clinical question. We executed each of these searches in PubMed and Google Scholar and compared results for the first 40 records retrieved (equivalent to 2 default search pages in PubMed). We evaluated the recall (proportion of relevant articles found) and precision (ratio of relevant to nonrelevant articles) of the searches performed in PubMed and Google Scholar. Primary studies included in the systematic reviews served as the reference standard for relevant articles. We further documented whether relevant articles were available as free full-texts. Results Compared with PubMed, the average search in Google Scholar retrieved twice as many relevant articles (PubMed: 11%; Google Scholar: 22%; P<.001). Precision was similar in both databases (PubMed: 6%; Google Scholar: 8%; P=.07). Google Scholar provided significantly greater access to free full-text publications (PubMed: 5%; Google Scholar: 14%; P<.001). Conclusions For quick clinical searches, Google Scholar returns twice as many relevant articles as PubMed and provides greater access to free full-text articles. PMID:23948488

Using data sources beyond PubMed has a modest impact on the results of systematic reviews of therapeutic interventions.

PubMed

Halladay, Christopher W; Trikalinos, Thomas A; Schmid, Ian T; Schmid, Christopher H; Dahabreh, Issa J

2015-09-01

Searching multiple sources when conducting systematic reviews is considered good practice. We aimed to investigate the impact of using sources beyond PubMed in systematic reviews of therapeutic interventions. We randomly selected 50 Cochrane reviews that searched the PubMed (or MEDLINE) and EMBASE databases and included a meta-analysis of ≥10 studies. We checked whether each eligible record in each review (n = 2,700) was retrievable in PubMed and EMBASE. For the first-listed meta-analysis of ≥10 studies in each review, we examined whether excluding studies not found in PubMed affected results. A median of one record per review was indexed in EMBASE but not in PubMed; a median of four records per review was not indexed in PubMed or EMBASE. Meta-analyses included a median of 13.5 studies; a median of zero studies per meta-analysis was indexed in EMBASE but not in PubMed; a median of one study per meta-analysis was not indexed in PubMed or EMBASE. Meta-analysis using only PubMed-indexed vs. all available studies led to a different conclusion in a single case (on the basis of conventional criteria for statistical significance). In meta-regression analyses, effects in PubMed- vs. non-PubMed-indexed studies were statistically significantly different in a single data set. For systematic reviews of the effects of therapeutic interventions, gains from searching sources beyond PubMed, and from searching EMBASE in particular are modest. Copyright © 2015 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Genetics Home Reference: ichthyosis with confetti

MedlinePlus

... from the University of Kansas Medical Center: Ichthyosis Scientific Articles on PubMed (1 link) PubMed OMIM (1 link) ... 1;330(6000):94-7. doi: 10.1126/science.1192280. Epub 2010 Aug 26. Citation on PubMed or Free article on PubMed Central Krunic AL, Palcesky D, Busbey S, ...

Allergy and orthodontics

PubMed Central

Chakravarthi, Sunitha; Padmanabhan, Sridevi; Chitharanjan, Arun B.

2012-01-01

The aim of this paper is to review the current literature on allergy in orthodontics and to identify the predisposing factors and the implications of the allergic reaction in the management of patients during orthodontic treatment. A computerized literature search was conducted in PubMed for articles published on allergy in relation to orthodontics. The MeSH term used was allergy and orthodontics. Allergic response to alloys in orthodontics, particularly nickel, has been extensively studied and several case reports of nickel-induced contact dermatitis have been documented. Current evidence suggests that the most common allergic reaction reported in orthodontics is related to nickel in orthodontic appliances and allergic response is more common in women due to a previous sensitizing exposure from nickel in jewellery. Studies have implicated allergy in the etiology of hypo-dontia. It has also been considered as a high-risk factor for development of extensive root resorption during the course of orthodontic treatment. This review discusses the relationship and implications of allergy in orthodontics. PMID:24987632

Measuring orthographic transparency and morphological-syllabic complexity in alphabetic orthographies: a narrative review.

PubMed

Borleffs, Elisabeth; Maassen, Ben A M; Lyytinen, Heikki; Zwarts, Frans

2017-01-01

This narrative review discusses quantitative indices measuring differences between alphabetic languages that are related to the process of word recognition. The specific orthography that a child is acquiring has been identified as a central element influencing reading acquisition and dyslexia. However, the development of reliable metrics to measure differences between language scripts hasn't received much attention so far. This paper therefore reviews metrics proposed in the literature for quantifying orthographic transparency, syllabic complexity, and morphological complexity of alphabetic languages. The review included searches of Web of Science, PubMed, PsychInfo, Google Scholar, and various online sources. Search terms pertained to orthographic transparency, morphological complexity, and syllabic complexity in relation to reading acquisition, and dyslexia. Although the predictive value of these metrics is promising, more research is needed to validate the value of the metrics discussed and to understand the 'developmental footprint' of orthographic transparency, morphological complexity, and syllabic complexity in the lexical organization and processing strategies.

An Evidence-Based Review on Wound Healing Herbal Remedies From Reports of Traditional Persian Medicine.

PubMed

Hosseinkhani, Ayda; Falahatzadeh, Maryam; Raoofi, Elahe; Zarshenas, Mohammad M

2016-06-20

Research on wound healing agents is a developing area in biomedical sciences. Traditional Persian medicine is one of holistic systems of medicine providing valuable information on natural remedies. To collect the evidences for wound-healing medicaments from traditional Persian medicine sources, 5 main pharmaceutical manuscripts in addition to related contemporary reports from Scopus, PubMed, and ScienceDirect were studied. The underlying mechanisms were also saved and discussed. Totally, 65 herbs used in traditional Persian medicine for their wound healing properties was identified. Related anti-inflammatory, antioxidant, antimicrobial, and wound-healing activities of those remedies were studied. Forty remedies had at least one of those properties and 10 of the filtered plants possessed all effects. The medicinal plants used in wound healing treatment in traditional Persian medicine could be a good topic for further in vivo and clinical research. This might lead to development of effective products for wound treatment. © The Author(s) 2016.

Geriatric management in medieval Persian medicine

PubMed Central

Emami, Morteza; Sadeghpour, Omid; Zarshenas, Mohammad M.

2013-01-01

In Iran, a large group of patients are elderly people and they intend to have natural remedies as treatment. These remedies are rooted in historical of Persian and humoral medicine with a backbone of more than 1000 years. The current study was conducted to draw together medieval pharmacological information related to geriatric medicine from some of the most often manuscripts of traditional Persian medicine. Moreover, we investigated the efficacy of medicinal plants through a search of the PubMed, Scopus and Google Scholar databases. In the medieval Persian documents, digestible and a small amount of food such as chicken broth, honey, fig and plum at frequent intervals as well as body massage and morning unctioning are highly recommended. In the field of pharmacotherapy, 35 herbs related to 25 families were identified. Plants were classified as tonic, anti-aging, appetizer, memory and mood enhancer, topical analgesic and laxative as well as health improvement agents. Other than historical elucidation, this paper presents medical and pharmacological approaches that medieval Persian practitioners applied to deal with geriatric complications. PMID:24381461

A review: Fentanyl and non-pharmaceutical fentanyls.

PubMed

Suzuki, Joji; El-Haddad, Saria

2017-02-01

Fentanyl and non-pharmaceutical fentanyls (NPFs) have been responsible for numerous outbreaks of overdoses all over the United States since the 1970s. However, there has been a growing concern in recent years that NPFs are contributing to an alarming rise in the number of opioid-related overdoses. The authors conducted a narrative review of the published and grey literature on fentanyl and NPFs in PubMed, Google Scholar, and Google using the following search terms: "fentanyl", "non-pharmaceutical fentanyl", "fentanyl analogs", "fentanyl laced heroin" and "fentanyl overdose". References from relevant publications and grey literature were also reviewed to identify additional citations for inclusion. The article reviews the emergence and misuse of fentanyl and NPFs, their clinical pharmacology, and the clinical management and prevention of fentanyl-related overdoses. Fentanyl and NPFs may be contributing to the recent rise in overdose deaths in the United States. There is an urgent need to educate clinicians, researchers, and patients about this public health threat. Copyright © 2016 Elsevier Ireland Ltd. All rights reserved.

Ethnic/Racial Comparisons in Strategies Parents Use to Cope with Food Insecurity: A Systematic Review of Published Research.

PubMed

Kamdar, Nipa; Rozmus, Cathy L; Grimes, Deanna E; Meininger, Janet C

2018-03-16

Food insecurity in US affects African Americans, Hispanic, and American Indians disproportionately compared to Caucasians. Ethnicity/race may influence the strategies parents use to reduce the effects of food insecurity. The purpose of this review is to compare coping strategies for food insecurity used by parents of different ethnicities/race as reported in published literature. A systematic search on PubMed and Embase yielded 983 studies, of which 13 studies met inclusion criteria and were reviewed. All groups used public and private assistance, social networks, nutrition related, and financial-related strategies. The limited evidence suggests that there are differences in how parents of different ethnicities/race apply these coping strategies. Current evidence is insufficient to confidently determine the extent of these differences. This review is a starting point for exploration of cultural differences in how parents of various ethnicities/race cope with food insecurity and identifies specific areas for further research.

Making processes reliable: a validated pubmed search strategy for identifying new or emerging technologies.

PubMed

Varela-Lema, Leonora; Punal-Riobóo, Jeanette; Acción, Beatriz Casal; Ruano-Ravina, Alberto; García, Marisa López

2012-10-01

Horizon scanning systems need to handle a wide range of sources to identify new or emerging health technologies. The objective of this study is to develop a validated Medline bibliographic search strategy (PubMed search engine) to systematically identify new or emerging health technologies. The proposed Medline search strategy combines free text terms commonly used in article titles to denote innovation within index terms that make reference to the specific fields of interest. Efficacy was assessed by running the search over a period of 1 year (2009) and analyzing its retrieval performance (number and characteristics). For comparison purposes, all article abstracts published during 2009 in six preselected key research journals and eight high impact surgery journals were scanned. Sensitivity was defined as the proportion of relevant new or emerging technologies published in key journals that would be identified in the search strategy within the first 2 years of publication. The search yielded 6,228 abstracts of potentially new or emerging technologies. Of these, 459 were classified as new or emerging (383 truly new or emerging and 76 new indications). The scanning of 12,061 journal abstracts identified 35 relevant new or emerging technologies. Of these, twenty-nine were located within the Medline search strategy during the first 2 years of publication (sensitivity = 83 percent). The current search strategy, validated against key journals, has demonstrated to be effective for horizon scanning. Even though it can require adaptations depending on the scope of the horizon scanning system, it could serve to simplify and standardize scanning processes.

Robotic renal surgery: The future or a passing curiosity?

PubMed Central

Warren, Jeff; da Silva, Vitor; Caumartin, Yves; Luke, Patrick P.W.

2009-01-01

The development, advancement and clinical integration of robotic technology in surgery continue at a staggering pace. In no other discipline has this rapid evolution occurred to a greater degree than in urology. Although radical prostatectomy has grown to become the prototypical application for the robot, the role of the robot in renal surgery remains controversial. Herein we review the literature on robotic renal surgery. A comprehensive PubMed literature search was performed to identify all published reports relating to robotic renal surgery. All clinically related articles involving human participants were critically appraised in this review. Fifty-one clinical articles were included, encompassing robot-assisted pyeloplasty, nephrectomy, nephroureterectomy, living-donor nephrectomy and partial nephrectomy. Feasibility has been shown for each of these procedures. Robot-assisted techniques have been described for almost all renal-related procedures. However, the intersect between feasibility and necessity as it pertains to robotic renal surgery has yet to be defined. Also, the high cost of surgical robotic technology mandates critical appraisal before adoption, especially in a publicly funded health care system, such as the one present in Canada. PMID:19543471

The Temporal Impact of Economic Insecurity on Child Maltreatment: A Systematic Review.

PubMed

Conrad-Hiebner, Aislinn; Byram, Elizabeth

2018-01-01

Economically insecure children experience 3-9 times more maltreatment than economically secure children. Although economic insecurity is associated with child physical abuse, neglect, and psychological maltreatment, there have been no systematic reviews dedicated to the relation between familial economic insecurity and child maltreatment. This is problematic because multiple forms of familial economic insecurity-including debt, material hardship, income, unemployment, and income transfers-are related to child maltreatment. These findings, however, are not causal or reliably replicated across studies. Until we identify the state of the evidence concerning the temporal association between economic insecurity and child maltreatment, our ability to reduce child maltreatment may be limited. In this systematic review (PROSPERO registration # CRD42017081445), we searched PsycINFO, PubMed, Scopus, ProQuest Dissertations, and the gray literature for English-language, peer-reviewed articles and dissertations published between 1970 and 2016. We synthesized evidence from 26 longitudinal studies on the temporal relation between economic insecurity and child maltreatment. Income losses, cumulative material hardship, and housing hardship were the most reliable predictors of child maltreatment. Implications for research, policy, and practice are discussed.

Processing of food, body and emotional stimuli in anorexia nervosa: a systematic review and meta-analysis of functional magnetic resonance imaging studies.

PubMed

Zhu, Yikang; Hu, Xiaochen; Wang, Jijun; Chen, Jue; Guo, Qian; Li, Chunbo; Enck, Paul

2012-11-01

The characteristics of the cognitive processing of food, body and emotional information in patients with anorexia nervosa (AN) are debatable. We reviewed functional magnetic resonance imaging studies to assess whether there were consistent neural basis and networks in the studies to date. Searching PubMed, Ovid, Web of Science, The Cochrane Library and Google Scholar between January 1980 and May 2012, we identified 17 relevant studies. Activation likelihood estimation was used to perform a quantitative meta-analysis of functional magnetic resonance imaging studies. For both food stimuli and body stimuli, AN patients showed increased hemodynamic response in the emotion-related regions (frontal, caudate, uncus, insula and temporal) and decreased activation in the parietal region. Although no robust brain activation has been found in response to emotional stimuli, emotion-related neural networks are involved in the processing of food and body stimuli among AN. It suggests that negative emotional arousal is related to cognitive processing bias of food and body stimuli in AN. Copyright © 2012 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd and Eating Disorders Association.

Prevalence of musculoskeletal disorders and related occupational causative factors among electricity linemen: A narrative review.

PubMed

Padmanathan, Vinothini; Joseph, Leonard; Omar, Baharudin; Nawawi, Roslizawati

2016-01-01

Occupational tasks of linemen are highly associated with the development of work related musculoskeletal disorders (WRMDs). Although linemen are prone to develop WRMDs, there is paucity of information on the prevalence of WRMDs and related occupational causative factors. Therefore, the present review was conducted to report on the prevalence of WRMDs and to outline causative risk factors within occupational tasks in the lineman profession. Literature search was conducted in various databases such as Scopus, PubMed and ScienceDirect for articles published between 1996-2013. The articles were analyzed, selected and retrieved based on predetermined objectives, inclusion criteria and Medical Subject Headings (MeSH). In the review process only articles published in English were considered. The review identified moderate to high prevalence of WRMDs among the linemen population. Back and shoulder regions were highly affected compared to the other body regions. The review also reported occupational tasks such as bar installation, insulator fixation and manual handling of tools as high risk tasks that lead to the development of WRMDs. In addition, occupational tools such as ladders, manual cutters and manual presses were also identified as a potential ergonomic hazard. In conclusion, the current review identified that WRMDs are common in the back and shoulder regions among linemen. Also, a number of occupational risk factors were identified to be associated with WRMDs among the linemen. Hence, future research on prevention and intervention studies concerning lineman profession population in order to develop a good job practice are recommended. Int J Occup Med Environ Health 2016;29(5):725-734. This work is available in Open Access model and licensed under a CC BY-NC 3.0 PL license.

Health-Related Internet Use by Children and Adolescents: Systematic Review

PubMed Central

Kwon, Misol

2018-01-01

Background The internet is widely used by children and adolescents, who generally have a high level of competency with technology. Thus, the internet has become a great resource for supporting youth self-care and health-related services. However, few studies have explored adolescents’ internet use for health-related matters. Objective The objective of this systematic literature review was to examine the phenomenon of children and adolescents’ health-related internet use and to identify gaps in the research. Methods A total of 19 studies were selected from a search of major electronic databases: PubMed, Cumulative Index of Nursing and Allied Health Literature, and PsycINFO using the following search terms: “health-related internet use,” “eHealth,” “Internet use for health-related purpose,” “Web-based resource,” “health information seeking,” and “online resource,” combined with “child,” “adolescent,” “student,” “youth,” and “teen.” The children’s and adolescents’ ages were limited to 24 years and younger. The search was conducted from September 2015 to October 2017. The studies identified to contain youth (<24 years) health-related internet use were all published in peer-reviewed journals in the past 10 years; these studies examined general internet use seeking health care services, resources, information, or using the internet for health promotion and self-care. Studies were excluded if they explored the role of the internet as a modality for surveys, recruitment, or searching for relevant literature without specifically aiming to study participants’ health-related internet use; focused solely on quality assurance for specific websites; or were designed to test a specific internet-based intervention. Results Interesting patterns in adolescents’ health-related internet use, such as seeking preventative health care and specific information about medical issues, were identified. Quantitative studies reported rates of the internet use and access among youth, and the purpose and patterns of health-related internet use among youth were identified. A major objective of health-related internet use is to gain information, but there are inconsistencies in adolescents’ perceptions of health-related internet use. Conclusions This study’s findings provide important information on how youth seek information and related support systems for their health care on the internet. The conceptual and methodological limitations of the identified studies, such as the lack of a theoretical background and unrepresentative samples, are discussed, and gaps within the studies are identified for future research. This review also suggests important features for potential Web-based health interventions for children and adolescents. PMID:29615385

Nutrition and Adults with Intellectual or Developmental Disabilities: Systematic Literature Review Results

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Humphries, Kathleen; Traci, Meg Ann; Seekins, Tom

2009-01-01

Approximately 4.5 million Americans have an intellectual or developmental disability. Concern is increasing about these individuals' nutrition-related behavior and its implications for their health. This article reports on a systematic search of the current literature listed in the "PsycINFO" and "PubMed" databases related to nutritional status of…

Using Clinical Data, Hypothesis Generation Tools and PubMed Trends to Discover the Association between Diabetic Retinopathy and Antihypertensive Drugs

DOE Office of Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI.GOV)

Senter, Katherine G; Sukumar, Sreenivas R; Patton, Robert M

Diabetic retinopathy (DR) is a leading cause of blindness and common complication of diabetes. Many diabetic patients take antihypertensive drugs to prevent cardiovascular problems, but these drugs may have unintended consequences on eyesight. Six common classes of antihypertensive drug are angiotensin converting enzyme (ACE) inhibitors, alpha blockers, angiotensin receptor blockers (ARBs), -blockers, calcium channel blockers, and diuretics. Analysis of medical history data might indicate which of these drugs provide safe blood pressure control, and a literature review is often used to guide such analyses. Beyond manual reading of relevant publications, we sought to identify quantitative trends in literature from themore » biomedical database PubMed to compare with quantitative trends in the clinical data. By recording and analyzing PubMed search results, we found wide variation in the prevalence of each antihypertensive drug in DR literature. Drug classes developed more recently such as ACE inhibitors and ARBs were most prevalent. We also identified instances of change-over-time in publication patterns. We then compared these literature trends to a dataset of 500 diabetic patients from the UT Hamilton Eye Institute. Data for each patient included class of antihypertensive drug, presence and severity of DR. Graphical comparison revealed that older drug classes such as diuretics, calcium channel blockers, and -blockers were much more prevalent in the clinical data than in the DR and antihypertensive literature. Finally, quantitative analysis of the dataset revealed that patients taking -blockers were statistically more likely to have DR than patients taking other medications, controlling for presence of hypertension and year of diabetes onset. This finding was concerning given the prevalence of -blockers in the clinical data. We determined that clinical use of -blockers should be minimized in diabetic patients to prevent retinal damage.« less

The first step in the development of text mining technology for cancer risk assessment: identifying and organizing scientific evidence in risk assessment literature

PubMed Central

Korhonen, Anna; Silins, Ilona; Sun, Lin; Stenius, Ulla

2009-01-01

Background One of the most neglected areas of biomedical Text Mining (TM) is the development of systems based on carefully assessed user needs. We have recently investigated the user needs of an important task yet to be tackled by TM -- Cancer Risk Assessment (CRA). Here we take the first step towards the development of TM technology for the task: identifying and organizing the scientific evidence required for CRA in a taxonomy which is capable of supporting extensive data gathering from biomedical literature. Results The taxonomy is based on expert annotation of 1297 abstracts downloaded from relevant PubMed journals. It classifies 1742 unique keywords found in the corpus to 48 classes which specify core evidence required for CRA. We report promising results with inter-annotator agreement tests and automatic classification of PubMed abstracts to taxonomy classes. A simple user test is also reported in a near real-world CRA scenario which demonstrates along with other evaluation that the resources we have built are well-defined, accurate, and applicable in practice. Conclusion We present our annotation guidelines and a tool which we have designed for expert annotation of PubMed abstracts. A corpus annotated for keywords and document relevance is also presented, along with the taxonomy which organizes the keywords into classes defining core evidence for CRA. As demonstrated by the evaluation, the materials we have constructed provide a good basis for classification of CRA literature along multiple dimensions. They can support current manual CRA as well as facilitate the development of an approach based on TM. We discuss extending the taxonomy further via manual and machine learning approaches and the subsequent steps required to develop TM technology for the needs of CRA. PMID:19772619

G-Bean: an ontology-graph based web tool for biomedical literature retrieval

PubMed Central

2014-01-01

Background Currently, most people use NCBI's PubMed to search the MEDLINE database, an important bibliographical information source for life science and biomedical information. However, PubMed has some drawbacks that make it difficult to find relevant publications pertaining to users' individual intentions, especially for non-expert users. To ameliorate the disadvantages of PubMed, we developed G-Bean, a graph based biomedical search engine, to search biomedical articles in MEDLINE database more efficiently. Methods G-Bean addresses PubMed's limitations with three innovations: (1) Parallel document index creation: a multithreaded index creation strategy is employed to generate the document index for G-Bean in parallel; (2) Ontology-graph based query expansion: an ontology graph is constructed by merging four major UMLS (Version 2013AA) vocabularies, MeSH, SNOMEDCT, CSP and AOD, to cover all concepts in National Library of Medicine (NLM) database; a Personalized PageRank algorithm is used to compute concept relevance in this ontology graph and the Term Frequency - Inverse Document Frequency (TF-IDF) weighting scheme is used to re-rank the concepts. The top 500 ranked concepts are selected for expanding the initial query to retrieve more accurate and relevant information; (3) Retrieval and re-ranking of documents based on user's search intention: after the user selects any article from the existing search results, G-Bean analyzes user's selections to determine his/her true search intention and then uses more relevant and more specific terms to retrieve additional related articles. The new articles are presented to the user in the order of their relevance to the already selected articles. Results Performance evaluation with 106 OHSUMED benchmark queries shows that G-Bean returns more relevant results than PubMed does when using these queries to search the MEDLINE database. PubMed could not even return any search result for some OHSUMED queries because it failed to form the appropriate Boolean query statement automatically from the natural language query strings. G-Bean is available at http://bioinformatics.clemson.edu/G-Bean/index.php. Conclusions G-Bean addresses PubMed's limitations with ontology-graph based query expansion, automatic document indexing, and user search intention discovery. It shows significant advantages in finding relevant articles from the MEDLINE database to meet the information need of the user. PMID:25474588

G-Bean: an ontology-graph based web tool for biomedical literature retrieval.

PubMed

Wang, James Z; Zhang, Yuanyuan; Dong, Liang; Li, Lin; Srimani, Pradip K; Yu, Philip S

2014-01-01

Currently, most people use NCBI's PubMed to search the MEDLINE database, an important bibliographical information source for life science and biomedical information. However, PubMed has some drawbacks that make it difficult to find relevant publications pertaining to users' individual intentions, especially for non-expert users. To ameliorate the disadvantages of PubMed, we developed G-Bean, a graph based biomedical search engine, to search biomedical articles in MEDLINE database more efficiently. G-Bean addresses PubMed's limitations with three innovations: (1) Parallel document index creation: a multithreaded index creation strategy is employed to generate the document index for G-Bean in parallel; (2) Ontology-graph based query expansion: an ontology graph is constructed by merging four major UMLS (Version 2013AA) vocabularies, MeSH, SNOMEDCT, CSP and AOD, to cover all concepts in National Library of Medicine (NLM) database; a Personalized PageRank algorithm is used to compute concept relevance in this ontology graph and the Term Frequency - Inverse Document Frequency (TF-IDF) weighting scheme is used to re-rank the concepts. The top 500 ranked concepts are selected for expanding the initial query to retrieve more accurate and relevant information; (3) Retrieval and re-ranking of documents based on user's search intention: after the user selects any article from the existing search results, G-Bean analyzes user's selections to determine his/her true search intention and then uses more relevant and more specific terms to retrieve additional related articles. The new articles are presented to the user in the order of their relevance to the already selected articles. Performance evaluation with 106 OHSUMED benchmark queries shows that G-Bean returns more relevant results than PubMed does when using these queries to search the MEDLINE database. PubMed could not even return any search result for some OHSUMED queries because it failed to form the appropriate Boolean query statement automatically from the natural language query strings. G-Bean is available at http://bioinformatics.clemson.edu/G-Bean/index.php. G-Bean addresses PubMed's limitations with ontology-graph based query expansion, automatic document indexing, and user search intention discovery. It shows significant advantages in finding relevant articles from the MEDLINE database to meet the information need of the user.

Ototoxicity (cochleotoxicity) classifications: A review.

PubMed

Crundwell, Gemma; Gomersall, Phil; Baguley, David M

2016-01-01

Drug-mediated ototoxicity, specifically cochleotoxicity, is a concern for patients receiving medications for the treatment of serious illness. A number of classification schemes exist, most of which are based on pure-tone audiometry, in order to assist non-audiological/non-otological specialists in the identification and monitoring of iatrogenic hearing loss. This review identifies the primary classification systems used in cochleototoxicity monitoring. By bringing together classifications published in discipline-specific literature, the paper aims to increase awareness of their relative strengths and limitations in the assessment and monitoring of ototoxic hearing loss and to indicate how future classification systems may improve upon the status-quo. Literature review. PubMed identified 4878 articles containing the search term ototox*. A systematic search identified 13 key classification systems. Cochleotoxicity classification systems can be divided into those which focus on hearing change from a baseline audiogram and those that focus on the functional impact of the hearing loss. Common weaknesses of these grading scales included a lack of sensitivity to small adverse changes in hearing thresholds, a lack of high-frequency audiometry (>8 kHz), and lack of indication of which changes are likely to be clinically significant for communication and quality of life.

Integrating text mining, data mining, and network analysis for identifying genetic breast cancer trends.

PubMed

Jurca, Gabriela; Addam, Omar; Aksac, Alper; Gao, Shang; Özyer, Tansel; Demetrick, Douglas; Alhajj, Reda

2016-04-26

Breast cancer is a serious disease which affects many women and may lead to death. It has received considerable attention from the research community. Thus, biomedical researchers aim to find genetic biomarkers indicative of the disease. Novel biomarkers can be elucidated from the existing literature. However, the vast amount of scientific publications on breast cancer make this a daunting task. This paper presents a framework which investigates existing literature data for informative discoveries. It integrates text mining and social network analysis in order to identify new potential biomarkers for breast cancer. We utilized PubMed for the testing. We investigated gene-gene interactions, as well as novel interactions such as gene-year, gene-country, and abstract-country to find out how the discoveries varied over time and how overlapping/diverse are the discoveries and the interest of various research groups in different countries. Interesting trends have been identified and discussed, e.g., different genes are highlighted in relationship to different countries though the various genes were found to share functionality. Some text analysis based results have been validated against results from other tools that predict gene-gene relations and gene functions.

Post-Thalamic Stroke Movement Disorders: A Systematic Review.

PubMed

Gupta, Navnika; Pandey, Sanjay

2018-06-05

After a stroke, movement disorders are rare manifestations mainly affecting the deep structures of the brain like the basal ganglia (44%) and thalamus (37%), although there have been case studies of movement disorders in strokes affecting the cerebral cortex also. This review aims to delineate the various movement disorders seen in association with thalamic strokes and tries to identify the location of the nuclei affected in each of the described movement disorders. Cases were identified through a search of PubMed database using different search terms related to post-thalamic stroke movement disorders and a secondary search of references of identified articles. We reviewed 2,520 research articles and only 86 papers met the inclusion criteria. Cases were included if they met criteria for post-thalamic stroke movement disorders. Case-cohort studies were also reviewed and will be discussed further. Key Messages: The most common post-stroke abnormal movement disorder reported in our review was dystonia followed by hemiataxia. There was a higher association between ischaemic stroke and movement disorder. Acute onset movement disorders were more common than delayed. The posterolateral thalamus was most commonly involved in post-thalamic stroke movement disorders. © 2018 S. Karger AG, Basel.

Cyber threats to health information systems: A systematic review.

PubMed

Luna, Raul; Rhine, Emily; Myhra, Matthew; Sullivan, Ross; Kruse, Clemens Scott

2016-01-01

Recent legislation empowering providers to embrace the electronic exchange of health information leaves the healthcare industry increasingly vulnerable to cybercrime. The objective of this systematic review is to identify the biggest threats to healthcare via cybercrime. The rationale behind this systematic review is to provide a framework for future research by identifying themes and trends of cybercrime in the healthcare industry. The authors conducted a systematic search through the CINAHL, Academic Search Complete, PubMed, and ScienceDirect databases to gather literature relative to cyber threats in healthcare. All authors reviewed the articles collected and excluded literature that did not focus on the objective. Researchers selected and examined 19 articles for common themes. The most prevalent cyber-criminal activity in healthcare is identity theft through data breach. Other concepts identified are internal threats, external threats, cyber-squatting, and cyberterrorism. The industry has now come to rely heavily on digital technologies, which increase risks such as denial of service and data breaches. Current healthcare cyber-security systems do not rival the capabilities of cyber criminals. Security of information is a costly resource and therefore many HCOs may hesitate to invest what is required to protect sensitive information.

Botulinum toxin for the treatment of bruxism.

PubMed

Tinastepe, Neslihan; Küçük, Burcu Bal; Oral, Koray

2015-10-01

Botulinum toxin, the most potent biological toxin, has been shown to be effective for a variety of disorders in several medical conditions, when used both therapeutically and cosmetically. In recent years, there has been a rising trend in the use of this pharmacological agent to control bruxing activity, despite its reported adverse effects. The aim of this review was to provide a brief overview to clarify the underlying essential ideas for the use of botulinum toxin in bruxism based on available scientific papers. An electronic literature search was performed to identify publications related to botulinum toxin and its use for bruxism in PubMed. Hand searching of relevant articles was also made to identify additional studies. Of the eleven identified studies, only two were randomized controlled trials, compared with the effectiveness of botulinum toxins on the reduction in the frequency of bruxism events and myofascial pain after injection. The authors of these studies concluded that botulinum toxin could be used as an effective treatment for reducing nocturnal bruxism and myofascial pain in patients with bruxism. Evidence-based research was limited on this topic. More randomized controlled studies are needed to confirm that botulinum toxin is safe and reliable for routine clinical use in bruxism.

Botulinum toxin for the treatment of bruxism.

PubMed

Tinastepe, Neslihan; Küçük, Burcu Bal; Oral, Koray

2014-08-14

Aims: Botulinum toxin, the most potent biological toxin, has been shown to be effective for a variety of disorders in several medical conditions, when used both therapeutically and cosmetically. In recent years, there has been a rising trend in the use of this pharmacological agent to control bruxing activity, despite its reported adverse effects. The aim of this review was to provide a brief overview to clarify the underlying essential ideas for the use of botulinum toxin in bruxism based on available scientific papers. Methodology: An electronic literature search was performed to identify publications related to botulinum toxin and its use for bruxism in PubMed. Hand searching of relevant articles was also made to identify additional studies. Results: Of the eleven identified studies, only two were randomized controlled trials, compared with the effectiveness of botulinum toxins on the reduction in the frequency of bruxism events and myofascial pain after injection. The authors of these studies concluded that botulinum toxin could be used as an effective treatment for reducing nocturnal bruxism and myofascial pain in patients with bruxism. Conclusion: Evidence-based research was limited on this topic. More randomized controlled studies are needed to confirm that botulinum toxin is safe and reliable for routine clinical use in bruxism.

[The roles and the impacts of pharmacists in the management of medical devices at the hospital: A literature review].

PubMed

Ferrand, É; Painchart, L; Grimandi, G; Décaudin, B; Bussières, J-F

2017-11-01

Identify the training profile and the published evidences about the roles and the impacts of hospital pharmacists in medical devices. A literature review was conducted using Google, Google Scholar and Pubmed for 1990-2016 associated with a manual search conducted in three non-indexed pharmaceutical journals for 2000-2016. The analysis of training programs available did not allow us to identify a specific training profile. A total of 72 articles related to the roles and the impacts of the pharmacist were identified, 52 of which came from non-indexed journals. Those articles did not deal specifically about the roles and the impacts of pharmacist; however, articles were analyses for three spheres including the referencing of medical devices (n=36), the evaluation (n=19) and the distribution system (n=13). French pharmacists have many theoretical and practical training opportunities. There are a few articles describing precisely the roles and the impacts of hospital pharmacists in medical device. It appears urgent to better document this activity in professional and indexed literature. Copyright © 2017 Académie Nationale de Pharmacie. Published by Elsevier Masson SAS. All rights reserved.

Implementing large-scale programmes to optimise the health workforce in low- and middle-income settings: a multicountry case study synthesis.

PubMed

Gopinathan, Unni; Lewin, Simon; Glenton, Claire

2014-12-01

To identify factors affecting the implementation of large-scale programmes to optimise the health workforce in low- and middle-income countries. We conducted a multicountry case study synthesis. Eligible programmes were identified through consultation with experts and using Internet searches. Programmes were selected purposively to match the inclusion criteria. Programme documents were gathered via Google Scholar and PubMed and from key informants. The SURE Framework - a comprehensive list of factors that may influence the implementation of health system interventions - was used to organise the data. Thematic analysis was used to identify the key issues that emerged from the case studies. Programmes from Brazil, Ethiopia, India, Iran, Malawi, Venezuela and Zimbabwe were selected. Key system-level factors affecting the implementation of the programmes were related to health worker training and continuing education, management and programme support structures, the organisation and delivery of services, community participation, and the sociopolitical environment. Existing weaknesses in health systems may undermine the implementation of large-scale programmes to optimise the health workforce. Changes in the roles and responsibilities of cadres may also, in turn, impact the health system throughout. © 2014 John Wiley & Sons Ltd.

Cognitive impairment among prostate cancer patients: An overview of reviews.

PubMed

Treanor, C J; Li, J; Donnelly, M

2017-11-01

To identify and clarify definitions and methods of measuring cancer-related cognitive impairment among prostate cancer patients treated with androgen deprivation therapy (ADT) and to assess the incidence and prevalence of cognitive impairment. A systematic review of Medline, EMBASE, PubMed, PsycINFO and CINAHL up to December 2015 was undertaken to identify English-language reviews. A total of 28 reviews were identified describing 20 primary studies. There were no studies of incidence. Reported prevalence rates varied between 10% and 69%. Cognitive domains impaired by ADT included: verbal memory, visuospatial ability and executive functions. Cognitive impairment was infrequently defined and four definitions were reported. A variety of measures and methods were used to assess cognitive function including neuropsychological tests, self-report measures and clinical assessments. The finding that, often, one measure was used to assess more than one aspect of cognition is likely to have contributed to imprecise estimates. There is a need to agree a definition of cognitive impairment in the clinical epidemiology of cancer and to standardise the selection of measures in order to aid accurate assessment and fair comparisons across studies regarding the prevalence of cognitive impairment among prostate cancer patients. © 2017 John Wiley & Sons Ltd.

Identifying Best Practices for and Utilities of the Pharmacy Curriculum Outcome Assessment Examination

PubMed Central

Romanelli, Frank

2016-01-01

Objective. A review was conducted to determine implementation strategies, utilities, score interpretation, and limitations of the Pharmacy Curriculum Outcome Assessment (PCOA) examination. Methods. Articles were identified through the PubMed and American Journal of Pharmaceutical Education, and International Pharmaceutical Abstracts databases using the following terms: “Pharmacy Curriculum Outcomes Assessment,” “pharmacy comprehensive examination,” and “curricular assessment.” Studies containing information regarding implementation, utility, and predictive values for US student pharmacists, curricula, and/or PGY1/PGY2 residents were included. Publications from the Academic Medicine Journal, the Accreditation Council for Pharmacy Education (ACPE), and the American Association of Colleges of Pharmacy (ACCP) were included for background information and comparison of predictive utilities of comprehensive examinations in medicine. Results. Ten PCOA and nine residency-related publications were identified. Based on published information, the PCOA may be best used as an additional tool to identify knowledge gaps for third-year student pharmacists. Conclusion. Administering the PCOA to students after they have completed their didactic coursework may yield scores that reflect student knowledge. Predictive utility regarding the North American Pharmacy Licensure Examination (NAPLEX) and potential applications is limited, and more research is required to determine ways to use the PCOA. PMID:28179712

Literature overview highlights lack of paediatric donation protocols but identifies common themes that could guide their development.

PubMed

Vileito, A; Siebelink, M J; Verhagen, Aae

2018-05-01

Paediatric donation is a unique and extremely sensitive process that requires specific knowledge and competencies. Most countries use protocols for organ and tissue donation to ensure optimal care for the donor and family, but these mainly focus on adults. However, the donation process for children differs from adults in many ways. An overview of the literature was performed to identify protocols for the paediatric population. PubMed, Web of Science, EMBASE and the Internet were searched up to March 2016 for papers or other sources in English related to specific organ and tissue donation protocols for children and neonates. This comprised title, abstract and then full-text screening of relevant data. We included 12 papers and two electronic sources that were mainly from North America and Europe. Most discussed donations after cardiac death. The recurring themes included identifying potential donors, approaching parents, palliative care and collaboration with organ procurement organisations. Most papers called for paediatric donation policies to be standardised. Scientific publications in English on paediatric donation protocols are very scarce. No comprehensive paediatric donation protocol was found. We identified several recurring themes in the literature that could be used to develop such protocols. ©2018 The Authors. Acta Paediatrica published by John Wiley & Sons Ltd on behalf of Foundation Acta Paediatrica.

Application of the Andersen's health care utilization framework to secondary complications of spinal cord injury: a scoping review.

PubMed

Guilcher, Sara J T; Craven, B Cathy; McColl, Mary Ann; Lemieux-Charles, Louise; Casciaro, Tiziana; Jaglal, Susan B

2012-01-01

The purpose of this scoping review was to identify research priority areas related to secondary complications and associated health care use for individuals with spinal cord injury (SCI). Peer-reviewed journals were identified using CINAHL, MEDLINE, PubMed, Embase, Social Sciences Abstracts, Social Works Abstract and PsycInfo search engines. Key references were hand searched. A total of 289 abstracts were identified from the initial search strategy. We removed studies that did not measure health care and those that did not involve analytical investigation. The selected 31 studies were reviewed in detail using a coding template based on the domains and sub-components of the Andersen model (i.e. environmental, population characteristics, health behavior and outcome). Most studies measured predisposing characteristics (e.g., age, gender) and need characteristics (e.g., level of injury). There was a notable absence of environmental characteristics (e.g., health system, neighborhood variables), enabling characteristics and health behaviors (beyond diet and nutrition). We identified a gap in the SCI literature. Future research should focus on longitudinal study designs with more representation of non-traumatic spinal cord injury, as well as utilizing more advanced statistical analyses (i.e., multivariate level) to adjust for confounding variables.

Anesthesia-related mortality in pediatric patients: a systematic review.

PubMed

Gonzalez, Leopoldo Palheta; Pignaton, Wangles; Kusano, Priscila Sayuri; Módolo, Norma Sueli Pinheiro; Braz, José Reinaldo Cerqueira; Braz, Leandro Gobbo

2012-01-01

This systematic review of the Brazilian and worldwide literature aimed to evaluate the incidence and causes of perioperative and anesthesia-related mortality in pediatric patients. Studies were identified by searching EMBASE (1951-2011), PubMed (1966-2011), LILACS (1986-2011), and SciElo (1995-2011). Each paper was revised to identify the author(s), the data source, the time period, the number of patients, the time of death, and the perioperative and anesthesia-related mortality rates. Twenty trials were assessed. Studies from Brazil and developed countries worldwide documented similar total anesthesia-related mortality rates (<1 death per 10,000 anesthetics) and declines in anesthesia-related mortality rates in the past decade. Higher anesthesia-related mortality rates (2.4-3.3 per 10,000 anesthetics) were found in studies from developing countries over the same time period. Interestingly, pediatric perioperative mortality rates have increased over the past decade, and the rates are higher in Brazil (9.8 per 10,000 anesthetics) and other developing countries (10.7-15.9 per 10,000 anesthetics) compared with developed countries (0.41-6.8 per 10,000 anesthetics), with the exception of Australia (13.4 per 10,000 anesthetics). The major risk factors are being newborn or less than 1 year old, ASA III or worse physical status, and undergoing emergency surgery, general anesthesia, or cardiac surgery. The main causes of mortality were problems with airway management and cardiocirculatory events. Our systematic review of the literature shows that the pediatric anesthesia-related mortality rates in Brazil and in developed countries are similar, whereas the pediatric perioperative mortality rates are higher in Brazil compared with developed countries. Most cases of anesthesia-related mortality are associated with airway and cardiocirculatory events. The data regarding anesthesia-related and perioperative mortality rates may be useful in developing prevention strategies.

Labor Dystocia: Uses of Related Nomenclature.

PubMed

Neal, Jeremy L; Ryan, Sharon L; Lowe, Nancy K; Schorn, Mavis N; Buxton, Margaret; Holley, Sharon L; Wilson-Liverman, Angela M

2015-01-01

Labor dystocia (slow or difficult labor or birth) is the most commonly diagnosed aberration of labor and the most frequently documented indication for primary cesarean birth. Yet, dystocia remains a poorly specified diagnostic category, with determinations often varying widely among clinicians. The primary aims of this review are to 1) summarize definitions of active labor and dystocia, as put forth by leading professional obstetric and midwifery organizations in world regions wherein English is the majority language and 2) describe the use of dystocia and related terms in contemporary research studies. Major national midwifery and obstetric organizations from qualifying United Nations-member sovereign nations and international organizations were searched to identify guidelines providing definitions of active labor and dystocia or related terms. Research studies (2000-2013) were systematically identified via PubMed, MEDLINE, and CINAHL searches to describe the use of dystocia and related terms in contemporary scientific publications. Only 6 organizational guidelines defined dystocia or related terms. Few research teams (n = 25 publications) defined dystocia-related terms with nonambiguous clinical parameters that can be applied prospectively. There is heterogeneity in the nomenclature used to describe dystocia, and when a similar term is shared between guidelines or research publications, the underlying definition of that term is sometimes inconsistent between documents. Failure to define dystocia in evidence-based, well-described, clinically meaningful terms that are widely acceptable to and reproducible among clinicians and researchers is concerning at both national and global levels. This failure is particularly problematic in light of the major contribution of this diagnosis to primary cesarean birth rates. © 2015 by the American College of Nurse-Midwives.

Crude Oil Spills and Health

MedlinePlus

... PubMed Health-Related Quality of Life in Older Coastal Residents After Multiple Disasters Modeling and evaluation of ... and TOXLINE references) Technical Product Bulletin - U.S. Environmental Protection Agency COREXIT® EC9527A (Formerly COREXIT 9527) ChemID - National ...

Genetics Home Reference: sensorineural deafness and male infertility

MedlinePlus

... 502. Citation on PubMed Hildebrand MS, Avenarius MR, Smith RJH. CATSPER-Related Male Infertility. 2009 Dec 3 [ ... Bean LJH, Bird TD, Ledbetter N, Mefford HC, Smith RJH, Stephens K, editors. GeneReviews® [Internet]. Seattle (WA): ...

Genetics Home Reference: X-linked infantile nystagmus

MedlinePlus

... Free article on PubMed Central Thomas MG, Thomas S, Kumar A, Proudlock FA, Gottlob I. FRMD7-Related Infantile ... Roberts EO, Awan M, McLean R, Surendran M, Kumar AS, Farooq SJ, Degg C, Gale RP, Reinecke ...

Drug-related visits to the emergency department: how big is the problem?

PubMed

Patel, Payal; Zed, Peter J

2002-07-01

To review the literature concerning drug-related problems that result in emergency department visits, estimate the frequency of these problems and the rates of hospital admissions, and identify patient risk factors and drugs that are associated with the greatest risk. A systematic search of MEDLINE (January 1966-December 2001), EMBASE (January 1980-December 2001), and PubMed (January 1966-December 2001) databases for full reports published in English was performed. The Ottawa Valley Regional Drug Information Service database of nonindexed pharmacy journals also was searched. Data from eight retrospective and four prospective trials retrieved indicated that as many as 28% of all emergency department visits were drug related. Of these, 70% were preventable, and as many as 24% resulted in hospital admission. Drug classes often implicated in drug-related visits to an emergency department were nonsteroidal antiinflammatory drugs, anticonvulsants, antidiabetic drugs, antibiotics, respiratory drugs, hormones, central nervous system drugs, and cardiovascular drugs. Common drug-related problems resulting in emergency department visits were adverse drug reactions, noncompliance, and inappropriate prescribing. Drug-related problems are a significant cause of emergency department visits and subsequent resource use. Primary caregivers, such as family physicians and pharmacists, should collaborate more closely to provide and reinforce care plans and monitor patients to prevent drug-related visits to the emergency department and subsequent morbidity and mortality.

What is covered by "cancer rehabilitation" in PubMed? A review of randomized controlled trials 1990-2011.

PubMed

Gudbergsson, Sævar Berg; Dahl, Alv A; Loge, Jon Håvard; Thorsen, Lene; Oldervoll, Line M; Grov, Ellen K

2015-02-01

This focused review examines randomized controlled studies included by the term "cancer rehabilitation" in PubMed. The research questions concern the type of interventions performed and their methodological quality. Using the Medical Subject Headings (MeSH) terms: neoplasm AND rehabilitation, all articles with randomized controlled studies that included adult cancer patients, written in English, were extracted from PubMed. Papers covering physical exercise, psychiatric/psychological treatment or social support only were excluded as they had been reviewed recently. Abstracts and papers were assessed by 3 pairs of reviewers, and descriptive information was extracted systematically. Methodological quality was rated on a 10-item index scale, and the cut-off for acceptable quality was set at ≥ 8. A total of 132 (19%) of the 683 identified papers met the eligibility criteria and were assessed in detail. The papers were grouped into 5 thematic categories: 44 physical; 15 art and expressive; 47 psycho-educative; 21 emotionally supportive; and 5 others. Good quality of design was observed in 32 studies, 18 of them uni-dimensional and 14 multi-dimensional. Published randomized controlled studies on cancer rehabilitation are heterogeneous in terms of content and samples, and are mostly characterized by suboptimal design quality. Future studies should be more specific and well-designed with sufficient statistical strength.

[Academic review of global health approaches: an analytical framework].

PubMed

Franco-Giraldo, Alvaro

2015-09-01

In order to identify perspectives on global health, this essay analyzes different trends from academia that have enriched global health and international health. A database was constructed with information from the world's leading global health centers. The search covered authors on global diplomacy and global health and was performed in PubMed, LILACS, and Google Scholar with the key words "global health" and "international health". Research and training centers in different countries have taken various academic approaches to global health; various interests and ideological orientations have emerged in relation to the global health concept. Based on the mosaic of global health centers and their positions, the review concludes that the new concept reflects the construction of a paradigm of renewal in international health and global health, the pre-paradigmatic stage of which has still not reached a final version.

Experiences of Family Relationships Among Donor-Conceived Families: A Meta-Ethnography.

PubMed

Wyverkens, Elia; Van Parys, Hanna; Buysse, Ann

2015-09-01

In this qualitative evidence synthesis, we explore how family relationships are experienced by parents who used gamete donation to conceive. We systematically searched four databases (PubMed, Web of Science, PsycINFO, and ProQuest) for literature related to this topic and retrieved 25 studies. Through the analysis of the qualitative studies, a comprehensive synthesis and framework was constructed. Following the meta-ethnography approach of Noblit and Hare, four main themes were identified: (a) balancing the importance of genetic and social ties, (b) normalizing and legitimizing the family, (c) building strong family ties, and (d) minimizing the role of the donor. Underlying these four main themes, a sense of being "different" and "similar" at the same time was apparent. Findings are discussed in terms of their implications for studying and counseling donor-conceived families. © The Author(s) 2014.

Low-dose ionizing radiation increases the mortality risk of solid cancers in nuclear industry workers: A meta-analysis.

PubMed

Qu, Shu-Gen; Gao, Jin; Tang, Bo; Yu, Bo; Shen, Yue-Ping; Tu, Yu

2018-05-01

Low-dose ionizing radiation (LDIR) may increase the mortality of solid cancers in nuclear industry workers, but only few individual cohort studies exist, and the available reports have low statistical power. The aim of the present study was to focus on solid cancer mortality risk from LDIR in the nuclear industry using standard mortality ratios (SMRs) and 95% confidence intervals. A systematic literature search through the PubMed and Embase databases identified 27 studies relevant to this meta-analysis. There was statistical significance for total, solid and lung cancers, with meta-SMR values of 0.88, 0.80, and 0.89, respectively. There was evidence of stochastic effects by IR, but more definitive conclusions require additional analyses using standardized protocols to determine whether LDIR increases the risk of solid cancer-related mortality.

Plantar pressure measurements and running-related injury: A systematic review of methods and possible associations.

PubMed

Mann, Robert; Malisoux, Laurent; Urhausen, Axel; Meijer, Kenneth; Theisen, Daniel

2016-06-01

Pressure-sensitive measuring devices have been identified as appropriate tools for measuring an array of parameters during running. It is unclear which biomechanical characteristics relate to running-related injury (RRI) and which data-processing techniques are most promising to detect this relationship. This systematic review aims to identify pertinent methodologies and characteristics measured using plantar pressure devices, and to summarise their associations with RRI. PubMed, Embase, CINAHL, ScienceDirect and Scopus were searched up until March 2015. Retrospective and prospective, biomechanical studies on running using any kind of pressure-sensitive device with RRI as an outcome were included. All studies involving regular or recreational runners were considered. The study quality was assessed and the measured parameters were summarised. One low quality, two moderate quality and five high quality studies were included. Five different subdivisions of plantar area were identified, as well as five instants and four phases of measurement during foot-ground contact. Overall many parameters were collated and subdivided as plantar pressure and force, plantar pressure and force location, contact area, timing and stride parameters. Differences between the injured and control group were found for mediolateral and anteroposterior displacement of force, contact area, velocity of force displacement, relative force-time integral, mediolateral force ratio, time to peak force and inter-stride correlative patterns. However, no consistent results were found between studies and no biomechanical risk patterns were apparent. Additionally, conflicting findings were reported for peak force in three studies. Based on these observations, we provide suggestions for improved methodology measurement of pertinent parameters for future studies. Copyright © 2016 The Authors. Published by Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

System Related Interventions to Reduce Diagnostic Error: A Narrative Review

PubMed Central

Singh, Hardeep; Graber, Mark L.; Kissam, Stephanie M.; Sorensen, Asta V.; Lenfestey, Nancy F.; Tant, Elizabeth M.; Henriksen, Kerm; LaBresh, Kenneth A.

2013-01-01

Background Diagnostic errors (missed, delayed, or wrong diagnosis) have gained recent attention and are associated with significant preventable morbidity and mortality. We reviewed the recent literature to identify interventions that have been, or could be, implemented to address systems-related factors that contribute directly to diagnostic error. Methods We conducted a comprehensive search using multiple search strategies. We first identified candidate articles in English between 2000 and 2009 from a PubMed search that exclusively evaluated for articles related to diagnostic error or delay. We then sought additional papers from references in the initial dataset, searches of additional databases, and subject matter experts. Articles were included if they formally evaluated an intervention to prevent or reduce diagnostic error; however, we also included papers if interventions were suggested and not tested in order to inform the state-of-the science on the topic. We categorized interventions according to the step in the diagnostic process they targeted: patient-provider encounter, performance and interpretation of diagnostic tests, follow-up and tracking of diagnostic information, subspecialty and referral-related; and patient-specific. Results We identified 43 articles for full review, of which 6 reported tested interventions and 37 contained suggestions for possible interventions. Empirical studies, though somewhat positive, were non-experimental or quasi-experimental and included a small number of clinicians or health care sites. Outcome measures in general were underdeveloped and varied markedly between studies, depending on the setting or step in the diagnostic process involved. Conclusions Despite a number of suggested interventions in the literature, few empirical studies have tested interventions to reduce diagnostic error in the last decade. Advancing the science of diagnostic error prevention will require more robust study designs and rigorous definitions of diagnostic processes and outcomes to measure intervention effects. PMID:22129930

Exploring the psychological health of emergency dispatch centre operatives: a systematic review and narrative synthesis

PubMed Central

Davies, Annette; Egan, Bernadette; Jones, Martyn; Raleigh, Mary; Schofield, Patricia; Squires, Allison; Start, Kath; Quinn, Tom

2017-01-01

Background The study objective was to investigate and synthesize available evidence relating to the psychological health of Emergency Dispatch Centre (EDC) operatives, and to identify key stressors experienced by EDC operatives. Methods Eight electronic databases (Embase, PubMed, Medline, CINAHL, PsycInfo, PsycArticles, The Psychology and Behavioural Sciences Collection, and Google Scholar) were searched. All study designs were included, and no date limits were set. Studies were included if they were published in English, and explored the psychological health of any EDC operatives, across fire, police, and emergency medical services. Studies were excluded if they related solely to other emergency workers, such as police officers or paramedics. Methodological quality of included studies was assessed using checklists adapted from the Critical Appraisal Skills Programme. A narrative synthesis was conducted, using thematic analysis. Results A total of 16 articles were included in the review. Two overarching themes were identified during the narrative synthesis: ‘Organisational and Operational Factors’ and ‘Interactions with Others’. Stressors identified included being exposed to traumatic calls, lacking control over high workload, and working in under-resourced and pressured environments. Lack of support from management and providing an emotionally demanding service were additional sources of stress. Peer support and social support from friends and family were helpful in managing work-related stress. Discussion EDC operatives experience stress as a result of their work, which appears to be related to negative psychological health outcomes. Future research should explore the long-term effects of this stress, and the potential for workplace interventions to alleviate the negative impacts on psychological health. PROSPERO Registration Number CRD42014010806. PMID:29062596

Smartphones and health promotion: a review of the evidence.

PubMed

Bert, Fabrizio; Giacometti, Marika; Gualano, Maria Rosaria; Siliquini, Roberta

2014-01-01

Communication via mobile phones has become an essential tool for health professionals. The latest generation of smartphones is comparable to computers, allowing the development of new applications in health field. This paper aims to describe the use of smartphones by health professionals and patients in the field of health promotion. We conducted a bibliographic search through Pubmed. Then, research results were analyzed critically in order to select the best experiences available. All searches were carried out on November 2012 and were not limited by date. Each item from the initial search was reviewed independently by members of the project team. Initial search returned 472 items with PubMed. After the removal of duplicates, 406 items were reviewed by all the members of the project team and 21 articles were identified as specifically centered on health promotion. In the nutrition field there are applications that allow to count calories and keep a food diary or more specific platforms for people with food allergies, while about physical activity many applications suggest exercises with measurement of sports statistics. Some applications deal with lifestyles suggestions and tips. Finally, some positive experiences are reported in the prevention of falls in elderly and of sexually-transmitted diseases. Smartphones are transforming the ways of communication but the lack of monitoring of contents, the digital divide, the confidentiality of data, the exclusion of the health professional from the management of patient, are the main risks related to their use.

Bibliometric and thematic analysis of articles in the field of infertility (2011-2015).

PubMed

Makkizadeh, Fatemeh; Sa'adat, Farzaneh

2017-11-01

Infertility is a disease that results in the abnormal functioning of the male or female reproductive system. Systematic research planning on any subject, including infertility is in need of solid data regarding previous efforts in this field and to identify the gaps in the research. The aim of this research is to study the thematic structure of articles related to infertility. In this descriptive-analytical study with a scientometric approach, the PubMed database was searched for research publications indexed under "Infertility" over the period 2011-2015. Specific parameters were retrieved from the PubMed. Articles about infertility were analyzed regarding the journal of publication, topics, and countries using Net draw, Ucinet and RavarPreMap software. Also, the most influential topics were analyzed by indicators in the analysis of the network: closeness centrality, and between centrality. The growth in scientific productions the area of infertility over the mentioned period shows an upward trend with the highest growths seen in countries like the United States, the UK, Netherlands, China, and Germany. Moreover, the contents such as fertilization in vitro, adverse effects, spermatozoa, pregnancy rate, and treatment outcome were among the most frequently-used topics in the sphere. Thematic analysis can provide us the research topics, important expressions, and the relationships between them. Users and policymakers can also have a better understanding of the research status in the sphere and consequently, they can plan to increase the quantity and quality of scientific productions in a more efficient way.

Role of the primary care provider in the diagnosis and management of heartburn.

PubMed

Kushner, Pamela R

2010-04-01

Heartburn affects an estimated 42% of the US population. Often, patients are able to recognize symptoms and self-treat heartburn; however, patients with more persistent and/or troublesome symptoms should be evaluated by a physician or other healthcare provider. This review focuses on the role of the primary care provider in the diagnosis and treatment of heartburn. A search was conducted on PubMed (to November 2009) and articles relevant to the management of heartburn by a primary care provider topic were selected. Diagnostic tools, such as endoscopy, and ambulatory pH monitoring, are recommended for advanced assessment of patients with frequent heartburn to avert misdiagnosis and to identify complications of reflux disease. Over-the-counter and prescription treatments for frequent heartburn symptoms include antacids, histamine(2)-receptor antagonists (H(2)RAs), antacid/H(2)RA combinations, and proton pump inhibitors (PPIs). Among these, PPIs represent the mainstay of acute and maintenance treatment regimens in reflux disorders and are more effective than H(2)RAs for long-term use due to the development of tolerance to the latter therapy. While once-daily PPI therapy may be sufficient in most patients, a few may require twice-daily PPI therapy to alleviate their symptoms. This review is limited by its relatively narrow focus on articles cited in PubMed. The primary care provider is ideally situated to advise patients on the best treatment option for their condition and to provide follow-up care if required.

Implementing the Community Health Worker Model within Diabetes Management: Challenges and Lessons Learned from Programs across the U.S.

PubMed Central

Cherrington, Andrea; Ayala, Guadalupe X.; Amick, Halle; Allison, Jeroan; Corbie-Smith, Giselle; Scarinci, Isabel

2018-01-01

Introduction/objectives The Community Health Worker (CHW) model has gained popularity as a method for reaching vulnerable populations with diabetes mellitus (DM), yet little is known about its actual role in program delivery. The purpose of this qualitative study was to examine methods of implementation as well as related challenges and lessons learned. Methods Semi-structured interviews were conducted with program managers. Four databases (PubMed, CINAHL, ISI Web of Knowledge, PsycInfo), the CDC’s 1998 directory of CHW programs and Google Search Engine and were used to identify CHW programs. Criteria for inclusion were: DM program; used CHW strategy; occurred in United States. Two independent reviewers performed content analyses to identify major themes and findings. Results Sixteen programs were assessed, all but three focused on minority populations. Most CHWs were recruited informally; six programs required CHWs to have diabetes. CHW roles and responsibilities varied across programs; educator was the most commonly identified role. Training also varied in terms of both content and intensity. All programs gave CHWs remuneration for their work. Common challenges included difficulties with CHW retention, intervention fidelity and issues related to sustainability. Cultural and gender issues also emerged. Examples of lessons learned included the need for community buy-in and the need to anticipate non-diabetes related issues. Conclusions Lessons learned from these programs may be useful to others as they apply the CHW model to diabetes management within their own communities. Further research is needed to elucidate the specific features of this model necessary to positively impact health outcomes. PMID:18832287

Coverage of genomic medicine: information gap between lay public and scientists.

PubMed

Sugawara, Yuya; Narimatsu, Hiroto; Fukao, Akira

2012-01-01

The sharing of information between the lay public and medical professionals is crucial to the conduct of personalized medicine using genomic information in the near future. Mass media, such as newspapers, can play an important role in disseminating scientific information. However, studies on the role of newspaper coverage of genome-related articles are highly limited. We investigated the coverage of genomic medicine in five major Japanese newspapers (Asahi, Mainichi, Yomiuri, Sankei, and Nikkei) using Nikkei Telecom and articles in scientific journals in PubMed from 1995 to 2009. The number of genome-related articles in all five newspapers temporarily increased in 2000, and began continuously decreasing thereafter from 2001 to 2009. Conversely, there was a continuous increasing trend in the number of genome-related articles in PubMed during this period. The numbers of genome-related articles among the five major newspapers from 1995 to 2009 were significantly different (P = 0.002). Commentaries, research articles, and articles about companies were the most frequent in 2001 and 2003, when the number of genome-related articles transiently increased in the five newspapers. This study highlights the significant gap between newspaper coverage and scientific articles in scientific journals.

Benefits and Harms of Sick Leave: Lack of Randomized, Controlled Trials

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Axelsson, Inge; Marnetoft, Sven-Uno

2010-01-01

The aim of this study was to try to identify those randomized controlled trials that compare sick leave with no sick leave or a different duration or degree of sick leave. A comprehensive, systematic, electronic search of Clinical Evidence, the Cochrane Library and PubMed, and a manual search of the Campbell Library and a journal supplement was…

Assessment of publication output in the field of general practice and family medicine and by general practitioners and general practice institutions.

PubMed

Jelercic, Stasa; Lingard, Heide; Spiegel, Wolfgang; Pichlhöfer, Otto; Maier, Manfred

2010-10-01

The discipline of family medicine (FM) lacks a comprehensive methodology, which can be applied as a standard for assessing overall research output in both the field of FM and by general practitioners (GPs)/general practice institutions. It was the aim of this study to develop a sensitive search strategy for assessing publication output in the field of FM independent of the author's profession or affiliation and by GPs/general practice institutions independent of their field of scientific interest. Literature searches limited to the year 2005 were conducted in PubMed and ISI Web of Sciences (ISI WoS). In PubMed, all relevant MeSH terms were used. Search terms possibly contained in the author's affiliations have been collected. In ISI WoS, the same entry terms including their abbreviations and plural forms were applied. The final queries were validated by manual review and matching results with selected FM journals. A comprehensive list of combined search terms could be defined. For the field of general practice/FM more publications could be retrieved in PubMed. Almost twice as many publications by GPs/general practice institutions could be retrieved in ISI WoS, where--in contrast to PubMed--the affiliation is documented for all authors. To quantitatively assess publication output in the field of FM, PubMed was identified as the preferable database. To assess publication output by GPs/general practice institutions, the ISI WoS is recommended as the preferable database. Apparently, the ISI WoS is more suitable to compare the research productivity of different countries, authors or institutions.

The Association between Databases for Indexing Studies Intended for an Exercise Meta-Analysis of Arthritis Randomized Controlled Trials

PubMed Central

Kelley, George A.; Kelley, Kristi S.

2012-01-01

Objective. The purpose of this study was to determine the database indexing of randomized controlled trials (RCTs) for a meta-analysis addressing the effects of exercise on pain and physical function in adults with arthritis and other rheumatic diseases (AORD). Methods. The number, percentage, and 95% confidence intervals (CIs) for included articles at initial and follow-up periods were calculated from PubMed, EMBASE, CENTRAL, CINAHL, SPORTDiscus, and DAO databases. The number needed to review (NNR) was also calculated along with the number of articles retrieved by expert review. Cross-referencing from reviews and included articles also occurred. Results. Thirty-four of 36 articles (94.4%, 95% CI, 81.3–99.3) were located by database searching. PubMed and CENTRAL yielded 32 of 36 articles (88.9%, 73.9–96.9). Two articles not identified in any of the other databases were found in either CINAHL or SPORTDicsus. Two other articles were located by scanning the reference lists of review articles. The NNR ranged from 2 (CINAHL) to 118 (SPORTDiscus). More articles were identified in EMBASE at follow-up (36%, 12.1–42.2 versus 86.1%, 70.5–95.3). Conclusions. Searching multiple databases and cross-referencing from reviews was important for identifying RCTs addressing the effects of exercise on pain and physical function in adults with AORD. PMID:22924128

The Association between Databases for Indexing Studies Intended for an Exercise Meta-Analysis of Arthritis Randomized Controlled Trials.

PubMed

Kelley, George A; Kelley, Kristi S

2012-01-01

Objective. The purpose of this study was to determine the database indexing of randomized controlled trials (RCTs) for a meta-analysis addressing the effects of exercise on pain and physical function in adults with arthritis and other rheumatic diseases (AORD). Methods. The number, percentage, and 95% confidence intervals (CIs) for included articles at initial and follow-up periods were calculated from PubMed, EMBASE, CENTRAL, CINAHL, SPORTDiscus, and DAO databases. The number needed to review (NNR) was also calculated along with the number of articles retrieved by expert review. Cross-referencing from reviews and included articles also occurred. Results. Thirty-four of 36 articles (94.4%, 95% CI, 81.3-99.3) were located by database searching. PubMed and CENTRAL yielded 32 of 36 articles (88.9%, 73.9-96.9). Two articles not identified in any of the other databases were found in either CINAHL or SPORTDicsus. Two other articles were located by scanning the reference lists of review articles. The NNR ranged from 2 (CINAHL) to 118 (SPORTDiscus). More articles were identified in EMBASE at follow-up (36%, 12.1-42.2 versus 86.1%, 70.5-95.3). Conclusions. Searching multiple databases and cross-referencing from reviews was important for identifying RCTs addressing the effects of exercise on pain and physical function in adults with AORD.

A survey of scientific production and collaboration rate among of medical library and information sciences in ISI, scopus and Pubmed databases during 2001-2010.

PubMed

Yousefy, Alireza; Malekahmadi, Parisa

2013-01-01

Research is essential for development. In other words, scientific development of each country can be evaluated by researchers' scientific production. Understanding and assessing the activities of researchers for planning and policy making is essential. The significance of collaboration in the production of scientific publications in today's complex world where technology is everything is very apparent. Scientists realized that in order to get their work wildly used and cited to by experts, they must collaborate. The collaboration among researchers results in the development of scientific knowledge and hence, attainment of wider information. The main objective of this research is to survey scientific production and collaboration rate in philosophy and theoretical bases of medical library and information sciences in ISI, SCOPUS, and Pubmed databases during 2001-2010. This is a descriptive survey and scientometrics methods were used for this research. Then data gathered via check list and analyzed by the SPSS software. Collaboration rate was calculated according to the formula. Among the 294 related abstracts about philosophy, and theoretical bases of medical library and information science in ISI, SCOPUS, and Pubmed databases during 2001-2010, the year 2007 with 45 articles has the most and the year 2003 with 16 articles has the least number of related collaborative articles in this scope. "B. Hjorland" with eight collaborative articles had the most one among Library and Information Sciences (LIS) professionals in ISI, SCOPUS, and Pubmed. Journal of Documentation with 29 articles and 12 collaborative articles had the most related articles. Medical library and information science challenges with 150 articles had first place in number of articles. Results also show that the most elaborative country in terms of collaboration point of view and number of articles was US. "University of Washington" and "University Western Ontario" are the most elaborative affiliation from a collaboration point. The average collaboration rate between researchers in this field during the years studied is 0.25. The most completive reviewed articles are single authors that included 60.54% of the whole articles. Only 30.46% of articles were provided with two or more than two authors.

Mass spectrometric analyses of organophosphate insecticide oxon protein adducts.

PubMed

Thompson, Charles M; Prins, John M; George, Kathleen M

2010-01-01

Organophosphate (OP) insecticides continue to be used to control insect pests. Acute and chronic exposures to OP insecticides have been documented to cause adverse health effects, but few OP-adducted proteins have been correlated with these illnesses at the molecular level. Our aim was to review the literature covering the current state of the art in mass spectrometry (MS) used to identify OP protein biomarkers. We identified general and specific research reports related to OP insecticides, OP toxicity, OP structure, and protein MS by searching PubMed and Chemical Abstracts for articles published before December 2008. A number of OP-based insecticides share common structural elements that result in predictable OP-protein adducts. The resultant OP-protein adducts show an increase in molecular mass that can be identified by MS and correlated with the OP agent. Customized OP-containing probes have also been used to tag and identify protein targets that can be identified by MS. MS is a useful and emerging tool for the identification of proteins that are modified by activated organophosphate insecticides. MS can characterize the structure of the OP adduct and also the specific amino acid residue that forms the key bond with the OP. Each protein that is modified in a unique way by an OP represents a unique molecular biomarker that with further research can lead to new correlations with exposure.

Mass Spectrometric Analyses of Organophosphate Insecticide Oxon Protein Adducts

PubMed Central

Thompson, Charles M.; Prins, John M.; George, Kathleen M.

2010-01-01

Objective Organophosphate (OP) insecticides continue to be used to control insect pests. Acute and chronic exposures to OP insecticides have been documented to cause adverse health effects, but few OP-adducted proteins have been correlated with these illnesses at the molecular level. Our aim was to review the literature covering the current state of the art in mass spectrometry (MS) used to identify OP protein biomarkers. Data sources and extraction We identified general and specific research reports related to OP insecticides, OP toxicity, OP structure, and protein MS by searching PubMed and Chemical Abstracts for articles published before December 2008. Data synthesis A number of OP-based insecticides share common structural elements that result in predictable OP–protein adducts. The resultant OP–protein adducts show an increase in molecular mass that can be identified by MS and correlated with the OP agent. Customized OP-containing probes have also been used to tag and identify protein targets that can be identified by MS. Conclusions MS is a useful and emerging tool for the identification of proteins that are modified by activated organophosphate insecticides. MS can characterize the structure of the OP adduct and also the specific amino acid residue that forms the key bond with the OP. Each protein that is modified in a unique way by an OP represents a unique molecular biomarker that with further research can lead to new correlations with exposure. PMID:20056576

Using Economic Evidence to Set Healthcare Priorities in Low‐Income and Lower‐Middle‐Income Countries: A Systematic Review of Methodological Frameworks

PubMed Central

Mitton, Craig; Doyle‐Waters, Mary M.; Drake, Tom; Conteh, Lesong; Newall, Anthony T.; Onwujekwe, Obinna; Jan, Stephen

2016-01-01

Abstract Policy makers in low‐income and lower‐middle‐income countries (LMICs) are increasingly looking to develop ‘evidence‐based’ frameworks for identifying priority health interventions. This paper synthesises and appraises the literature on methodological frameworks – which incorporate economic evaluation evidence – for the purpose of setting healthcare priorities in LMICs. A systematic search of Embase, MEDLINE, Econlit and PubMed identified 3968 articles with a further 21 articles identified through manual searching. A total of 36 papers were eligible for inclusion. These covered a wide range of health interventions with only two studies including health systems strengthening interventions related to financing, governance and human resources. A little under half of the studies (39%) included multiple criteria for priority setting, most commonly equity, feasibility and disease severity. Most studies (91%) specified a measure of ‘efficiency’ defined as cost per disability‐adjusted life year averted. Ranking of health interventions using multi‐criteria decision analysis and generalised cost‐effectiveness were the most common frameworks for identifying priority health interventions. Approximately a third of studies discussed the affordability of priority interventions. Only one study identified priority areas for the release or redeployment of resources. The paper concludes by highlighting the need for local capacity to conduct evaluations (including economic analysis) and empowerment of local decision‐makers to act on this evidence. PMID:26804361

Factors related to nursing students' readiness to enter working life - A scoping literature review.

PubMed

Järvinen, Tiina; Eklöf, Niina; Salminen, Leena

2018-03-01

The aim of this scoping literature review was to identify the factors related to nursing students' readiness to enter working life. The literature search was carried out in autumn 2017 in PubMed and CINAHL databases. The studies selected for this review (n = 17) were analyzed thematically with inductive content analysis. Four subthemes that were combined into two main factors related to nursing students' readiness to enter working life were found. The main factors found were 1) educational factors and 2) personal factors. Educational factors consisted of professional competence and clinical practice, while personal factors consisted of nursing students' background and feelings. Some nursing students tend to feel insecure about entering working life as a newly graduated nurse. This literature review also supports the importance of clinical practice periods in nursing education and for readiness for working life. Nurse education needs to ensure clinical practice periods which support nursing students' professional growth. Further research is needed on how the factors related to nursing students' readiness to enter working life correlate with each other. Particularly, the association between competence, readiness and positive feelings towards graduation needs further investigation. Copyright © 2018 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Rate-Related Left Bundle Branch Block and Cardiac Memory in a Patient with Bradycardia: Case Report and Literature Review.

PubMed

Seibolt, Luke; Maestas, Camila; Lazkani, Mohamad; Fatima, Umaima; Loli, Akil; Chesser, Michael

2018-06-19

Rate-related left bundle branch block (LBBB) is a well-studied phenomenon. Cardiac memory is another physiologic phenomenon in which T-wave abnormalities occur in the absence of ischemia. The association between these two phenomena has been described in several case reports. A literature review was performed through OVID and Pubmed, where at total of 93 cases of rate- related LBBB were identified. Cases were reviewed and data were collected on rates of appearance and disappearance as well as the presence or absence of cardiac memory. There is some overlap in the rate at which LBBB appear. Cardiac memory is associated with rate-related LBBB in several cases but its true prevalence is unknown. Cardiac memory is a phenomenon that is well described in the literature but is often under-recognized in clinical practice. As a consequence of overlooking this phenomenon and not including cardiac memory in the differential when T-wave abnormalities are observed, patients may be subjected to unnecessary invasive diagnostic testing. This article is protected by copyright. All rights reserved. This article is protected by copyright. All rights reserved.

Biological pathways and genetic mechanisms involved in social functioning.

PubMed

Ordoñana, Juan R; Bartels, Meike; Boomsma, Dorret I; Cella, David; Mosing, Miriam; Oliveira, Joao R; Patrick, Donald L; Veenhoven, Ruut; Wagner, Gert G; Sprangers, Mirjam A G

2013-08-01

To describe the major findings in the literature regarding associations between biological and genetic factors and social functioning, paying special attention to: (1) heritability studies on social functioning and related concepts; (2) hypothesized biological pathways and genetic variants that could be involved in social functioning, and (3) the implications of these results for quality-of-life research. A search of Web of Science and PubMed databases was conducted using combinations of the following keywords: genetics, twins, heritability, social functioning, social adjustment, social interaction, and social dysfunction. Variability in the definitions and measures of social functioning was extensive. Moderate to high heritability was reported for social functioning and related concepts, including prosocial behavior, loneliness, and extraversion. Disorders characterized by impairments in social functioning also show substantial heritability. Genetic variants hypothesized to be involved in social functioning are related to the network of brain structures and processes that are known to affect social cognition and behavior. Better knowledge and understanding about the impact of genetic factors on social functioning is needed to help us to attain a more comprehensive view of health-related quality-of-life (HRQOL) and will ultimately enhance our ability to identify those patients who are vulnerable to poor social functioning.

A Case Study on Sepsis Using PubMed and Deep Learning for Ontology Learning.

PubMed

Arguello Casteleiro, Mercedes; Maseda Fernandez, Diego; Demetriou, George; Read, Warren; Fernandez Prieto, Maria Jesus; Des Diz, Julio; Nenadic, Goran; Keane, John; Stevens, Robert

2017-01-01

We investigate the application of distributional semantics models for facilitating unsupervised extraction of biomedical terms from unannotated corpora. Term extraction is used as the first step of an ontology learning process that aims to (semi-)automatic annotation of biomedical concepts and relations from more than 300K PubMed titles and abstracts. We experimented with both traditional distributional semantics methods such as Latent Semantic Analysis (LSA) and Latent Dirichlet Allocation (LDA) as well as the neural language models CBOW and Skip-gram from Deep Learning. The evaluation conducted concentrates on sepsis, a major life-threatening condition, and shows that Deep Learning models outperform LSA and LDA with much higher precision.

Break the bonds of emotional eating

MedlinePlus

... evidence for a new perspective on weight-related shame. Appetite . 2012;59(2):570-575. PMID: 22810015 www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/22810015 . Cornil Y, Chandon P. From fan to fat? Vicarious losing increases unhealthy eating, but self-affirmation ...

A systematic review of health effects of electronic cigarettes.

PubMed

Pisinger, Charlotta; Døssing, Martin

2014-12-01

To provide a systematic review of the existing literature on health consequences of vaporing of electronic cigarettes (ECs). Search in: PubMed, EMBASE and CINAHL. Original publications describing a health-related topic, published before 14 August 2014. PRISMA recommendations were followed. We identified 1101 studies; 271 relevant after screening; 94 eligible. We included 76 studies investigating content of fluid/vapor of ECs, reports on adverse events and human and animal experimental studies. Serious methodological problems were identified. In 34% of the articles the authors had a conflict of interest. Studies found fine/ultrafine particles, harmful metals, carcinogenic tobacco-specific nitrosamines, volatile organic compounds, carcinogenic carbonyls (some in high but most in low/trace concentrations), cytotoxicity and changed gene expression. Of special concern are compounds not found in conventional cigarettes, e.g. propylene glycol. Experimental studies found increased airway resistance after short-term exposure. Reports on short-term adverse events were often flawed by selection bias. Due to many methodological problems, severe conflicts of interest, the relatively few and often small studies, the inconsistencies and contradictions in results, and the lack of long-term follow-up no firm conclusions can be drawn on the safety of ECs. However, they can hardly be considered harmless. Copyright © 2014. Published by Elsevier Inc.

Big data and clinicians: a review on the state of the science.

PubMed

Wang, Weiqi; Krishnan, Eswar

2014-01-17

In the past few decades, medically related data collection saw a huge increase, referred to as big data. These huge datasets bring challenges in storage, processing, and analysis. In clinical medicine, big data is expected to play an important role in identifying causality of patient symptoms, in predicting hazards of disease incidence or reoccurrence, and in improving primary-care quality. The objective of this review was to provide an overview of the features of clinical big data, describe a few commonly employed computational algorithms, statistical methods, and software toolkits for data manipulation and analysis, and discuss the challenges and limitations in this realm. We conducted a literature review to identify studies on big data in medicine, especially clinical medicine. We used different combinations of keywords to search PubMed, Science Direct, Web of Knowledge, and Google Scholar for literature of interest from the past 10 years. This paper reviewed studies that analyzed clinical big data and discussed issues related to storage and analysis of this type of data. Big data is becoming a common feature of biological and clinical studies. Researchers who use clinical big data face multiple challenges, and the data itself has limitations. It is imperative that methodologies for data analysis keep pace with our ability to collect and store data.

Assessing the methods needed for improved dengue mapping: a SWOT analysis

PubMed Central

Attaway, David Frost; Jacobsen, Kathryn H; Falconer, Allan; Manca, Germana; Waters, Nigel M

2014-01-01

Introduction Dengue fever, a mosquito-borne viral infection, is a growing threat to human health in tropical and subtropical areas worldwide. There is a demand from public officials for maps that capture the current distribution of dengue and maps that analyze risk factors to predict the future burden of disease. Methods To identify relevant articles, we searched Google Scholar, PubMed, BioMed Central, and WHOLIS (World Health Organization Library Database) for published articles with a specific set of dengue criteria between January 2002 and July 2013. Results After evaluating the currently available dengue models, we identified four key barriers to the creation of high-quality dengue maps: (1) data limitations related to the expense of diagnosing and reporting dengue cases in places where health information systems are underdeveloped; (2) issues related to the use of socioeconomic proxies in places with limited dengue incidence data; (3) mosquito ranges which may be changing as a result of climate changes; and (4) the challenges of mapping dengue events at a variety of scales. Conclusion An ideal dengue map will present endemic and epidemic dengue information from both rural and urban areas. Overcoming the current barriers requires expanded collaboration and data sharing by geographers, epidemiologists, and entomologists. Enhanced mapping techniques would allow for improved visualizations of dengue rates and risks. PMID:25328585

Instruments to measure the quality of life in patients with oral mucositis undergoing oncological treatment: a systematic review of the literature.

PubMed

Gutiérrez-Vargas, Rosaura; Díaz-García, María Luisa; Villasís-Keever, Miguel Ángel; Portilla-Robertson, Javier; Zapata-Tárres, Marta

Oral mucositis (OM) is an inflammatory reaction of the oropharyngeal mucosa to cumulative chemotherapy (CT) and radiation therapy (RT), affecting one or more parts of the digestive tract along with the quality of life (QoL) of the patient. The goal of this study was to identify valid and reliable tools to evaluate QoL related to OM. A systematic review of the literature was conducted up to May 2016. Articles were selected by peers using the PubMed database through a search following the inclusion and exclusion criteria and STAndards for the Reporting of Diagnostic accuracy studies (STARD) checklist with a cut-off point ≥ 70%. We identified four relevant articles that described instruments to assess the QoL related to OM in patients undergoing cancer treatment. The evaluation of the QoL in patients with OM is a difficult scenario because of its multiple variables. The knowledge of this relationship is limited because general instruments of oral health or cancer therapy are commonly used for evaluation. However, valid instruments are already available for estimating the impact of OM on the QoL from the patient's perspective. Copyright © 2016 Hospital Infantil de México Federico Gómez. Publicado por Masson Doyma México S.A. All rights reserved.

A systematic review of standing and treadmill desks in the workplace.

PubMed

MacEwen, Brittany T; MacDonald, Dany J; Burr, Jamie F

2015-01-01

Standing and treadmill desks are intended to reduce the amount of time spent sitting in today's otherwise sedentary office. Proponents of these desks suggest that health benefits may be acquired as standing desk use discourages long periods of sitting, which has been identified as an independent health risk factor. Our objectives were thus to analyze the evidence for standing and treadmill desk use in relation to physiological (chronic disease prevention and management) and psychological (worker productivity, well-being) outcomes. A computer-assisted systematic search of Medline, PubMed, PsycINFO, SPORTDiscus, CINAHL, CENTRAL, and EMBASE databases was employed to identify all relevant articles related to standing and treadmill desk use. Treadmill desks led to the greatest improvement in physiological outcomes including postprandial glucose, HDL cholesterol, and anthropometrics, while standing desk use was associated with few physiological changes. Standing and treadmill desks both showed mixed results for improving psychological well-being with little impact on work performance. Standing and treadmill desks show some utility for breaking up sitting time and potentially improving select components of health. At present; however, there exist substantial evidence gaps to comprehensively evaluate the utility of each type of desk to enhance health benefits by reducing sedentary time. Copyright © 2014 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

A systematic review of the heritability of specific psychopathic traits using Hare's two-factor model of psychopathy.

PubMed

Dhanani, Sapna; Kumari, Veena; Puri, Basant K; Treasaden, Ian; Young, Susan; Sen, Piyal

2018-02-01

There have been no systematic reviews that investigated the heritability of the two-factor model of psychopathy: interpersonal-affective and behavioral. Our review aimed, first, to examine the heritability of general psychopathic traits and, second, if genetic influences were suggested, to determine the heritability of various traits related to the interpersonal-affective and behavioral factors of psychopathy. A systematic literature search was conducted using articles from the PsycINFO, Embase, Global Health, Medline, PubMed, Web of Science, and Scopus databases (January of 1980 to December of 2015) in order to identify eligible literature that reported on the heritability of psychopathy-related traits. Papers were also found via manual examination and reference tracking. Papers were subjected to exclusion criteria and quality appraisal. We identified a total of 24 studies. Our results were grouped into three categories: general, interpersonal-affective, and behavioral. All these areas demonstrated modest to high heritability. The highest heritability values were found in studies investigating callous-unemotional behaviors. Heritability was found for all the psychopathic traits. Future research should include endophenotypic approaches that explore gene-environment correlations, which could aid in identification of the behavioral phenotype that is most amenable to early intervention by way of moderation of genetic risk.

A Meta-Analysis of the Relationship between Testicular Microlithiasis and Incidence of Testicular Cancer.

PubMed

Wang, Tao; Liu, LuHao; Luo, JinTai; Liu, TaiSheng; Wei, AnYang

2015-04-29

There are many recent observational studies on testicular microlithiasis (TM) and risk of testicular cancer. Whether TM increases the risk of testicular cancer is still inconclusive. The objective of this updated meta-analysis was to synthesize evidence from clinical observational studies that evaluated the association between TM and testicular cancer. We identified eligible studies by searching the PubMed, Embase and Cochrane Library before March 2014. Adjusted relative risks (RR) with 95% confidence interval (CI) were calculated using random-or fixed-model. A total of 14 studies involving 35,578 participants were included in the meta-analysis. On the basis of the Newcastle Ottawa Scale systematic review, eleven studies were identified as relatively high-quality. TM was strong association with an increased incidence of testicular cancer (RR = 12.70, 95% CI: 8.18-19.71, P < .001), with significant evidence of heterogeneity among these studies (P for heterogeneity < .001, I2 = 82.1%). The subgroup and sensitivity analysis confirmed the stability of the results and no publication bias was detected. The present meta-analysis suggests that TM is significantly associated with risk of testicular cancer. More researches are warranted to clarify an understanding of the association between TM and risk of testicular cancer.

Climate change and children's health--a call for research on what works to protect children.

PubMed

Xu, Zhiwei; Sheffield, Perry E; Hu, Wenbiao; Su, Hong; Yu, Weiwei; Qi, Xin; Tong, Shilu

2012-09-10

Climate change is affecting and will increasingly influence human health and wellbeing. Children are particularly vulnerable to the impact of climate change. An extensive literature review regarding the impact of climate change on children's health was conducted in April 2012 by searching electronic databases PubMed, Scopus, ProQuest, ScienceDirect, and Web of Science, as well as relevant websites, such as IPCC and WHO. Climate change affects children's health through increased air pollution, more weather-related disasters, more frequent and intense heat waves, decreased water quality and quantity, food shortage and greater exposure to toxicants. As a result, children experience greater risk of mental disorders, malnutrition, infectious diseases, allergic diseases and respiratory diseases. Mitigation measures like reducing carbon pollution emissions, and adaptation measures such as early warning systems and post-disaster counseling are strongly needed. Future health research directions should focus on: (1) identifying whether climate change impacts on children will be modified by gender, age and socioeconomic status; (2) refining outcome measures of children's vulnerability to climate change; (3) projecting children's disease burden under climate change scenarios; (4) exploring children's disease burden related to climate change in low-income countries; and (5) identifying the most cost-effective mitigation and adaptation actions from a children's health perspective.

Assessing the methods needed for improved dengue mapping: a SWOT analysis.

PubMed

Attaway, David Frost; Jacobsen, Kathryn H; Falconer, Allan; Manca, Germana; Waters, Nigel M

2014-01-01

Dengue fever, a mosquito-borne viral infection, is a growing threat to human health in tropical and subtropical areas worldwide. There is a demand from public officials for maps that capture the current distribution of dengue and maps that analyze risk factors to predict the future burden of disease. To identify relevant articles, we searched Google Scholar, PubMed, BioMed Central, and WHOLIS (World Health Organization Library Database) for published articles with a specific set of dengue criteria between January 2002 and July 2013. After evaluating the currently available dengue models, we identified four key barriers to the creation of high-quality dengue maps: (1) data limitations related to the expense of diagnosing and reporting dengue cases in places where health information systems are underdeveloped; (2) issues related to the use of socioeconomic proxies in places with limited dengue incidence data; (3) mosquito ranges which may be changing as a result of climate changes; and (4) the challenges of mapping dengue events at a variety of scales. An ideal dengue map will present endemic and epidemic dengue information from both rural and urban areas. Overcoming the current barriers requires expanded collaboration and data sharing by geographers, epidemiologists, and entomologists. Enhanced mapping techniques would allow for improved visualizations of dengue rates and risks.

Sports-related injuries in athletes with disabilities.

PubMed

Fagher, K; Lexell, J

2014-10-01

The number of athletes with disabilities participating in organized sports and the popularity of the Paralympic Games is steadily increasing around the world. Despite this growing interest and the fact that participation in sports places the athlete at risk for injury, there are few studies concerning injury patterns, risk factors, and prevention strategies of injuries in disabled athletes. In this systematic literature search and critical review, we summarize current knowledge of the epidemiology of sports-related injuries in disabled athletes and describe their characteristics, incidence, prevalence, and prevention strategies. The outcomes of interest were any injury, either an acute trauma or an overuse event. PubMed, EMBASE, CINAHL, and Google Scholar were systematically searched and 25 of 605 identified studies met the inclusion criteria. Lower extremity injuries were more common in walking athletes, whereas upper extremity injuries were more prevalent in wheelchair athletes. The methodologies and populations varied widely between the studies. Few studies were sports or disability specific, which makes it difficult to determine specific risk factors, and few studies reported injury severity and prevention of injuries. Further longitudinal, systematic sports and disability specific studies are needed in order to identify and prevent injuries in athletes with disabilities. © 2014 John Wiley & Sons A/S. Published by John Wiley & Sons Ltd.

Thimerosal-containing vaccines and autistic spectrum disorder: a critical review of published original data.

PubMed

Parker, Sarah K; Schwartz, Benjamin; Todd, James; Pickering, Larry K

2004-09-01

The issue of thimerosal-containing vaccines as a possible cause of autistic spectrum disorders (ASD) and neurodevelopmental disorders (NDDs) has been a controversial topic since 1999. Although most practitioners are familiar with the controversy, many are not familiar with the type or quality of evidence in published articles that have addressed this issue. To assess the quality of evidence assessing a potential association between thimerosal-containing vaccines and autism and evaluate whether that evidence suggests accepting or rejecting the hypothesis, we systematically reviewed published articles that report original data pertinent to the potential association between thimerosal-containing vaccines and ASD/NDDs. Articles for analysis were identified in the National Library of Medicine's Medline database using a PubMed search of the English-language literature for articles published between 1966 and 2004, using keywords thimerosal, thiomersal, mercury, methylmercury, or ethylmercury alone and combined with keywords autistic disorder, autistic spectrum disorder, and neurodevelopment. In addition, we used the "related links" option in PubMed and reviewed the reference sections in the identified articles. All original articles that evaluated an association between thimerosal-containing vaccines and ASD/NDDs or pharmacokinetics of ethylmercury in vaccines were included. Twelve publications that met the selection criteria were identified by the literature search: 10 epidemiologic studies and 2 pharmacokinetic studies of ethylmercury. The design and quality of the studies showed significant variation. The preponderance of epidemiologic evidence does not support an association between thimerosal-containing vaccines and ASD. Epidemiologic studies that support an association are of poor quality and cannot be interpreted. Pharmacokinetic studies suggest that the half-life of ethylmercury is significantly shorter when compared with methylmercury. Studies do not demonstrate a link between thimerosal-containing vaccines and ASD, and the pharmacokinetics of ethylmercury make such an association less likely. Epidemiologic studies that support a link demonstrated significant design flaws that invalidate their conclusions. Evidence does not support a change in the standard of practice with regard to administration of thimerosal-containing vaccines in areas of the world where they are used.

Efficient bibliographic searches on allergology using PubMed.

PubMed

Sáez Gómez, J M; Aguinaga Ontoso, E; Negro Alvarez, J M; Guillén-Grima, F; Ivancevich, J C; Bozzola, C M

2007-01-01

PubMed is the most important of the non-specialized databases on biomedical literature. International and quickly updated is elaborated by the American Government and contains only information about papers published in scientific journal/s. Although it can be used as an unique Data Base, as a matter of fact is the addition of several subgroups (among them MEDLINE) that can be searched simultaneously. To present the main characteristics of PubMed, as well as the most important procedures of search, for obtaining efficient results in searches on allergology. PubMed is elaborated by the American Administration, that condition the character of the registered papers, 90 % of them are written in English in American (50 %) or British (20 %) Journals. Because of this, the information for certain specialties or countries must be obtained from other sources. This paper shows how PubMed allows to search in natural language due to the Automatic Term Mapping that links terms from the natural language with the descriptors producing searches with a higher sensitivity although with a low specificity. Nevertheless the MeSH (Medical Subject Headings) thesaurus allows to translate those terms from the natural language to the equivalent descriptor, as well as to make queries in the PubMed's documental language with a high specificity but with lower sensitivity than the natural language. The use of union (OR), intersection (AND) and exclusion (NOT) operators, as well as tags, such as delimiters of the search fields, allows to increase the specificity of the results. Similar results may be obtained with the use of Limits. Searches done using Clinical Queries are very interesting due to their direct clinical application and because allow to find systematic reviews, metaanalysis or clinically oriented papers (treatment, diagnostic, etiology, prognosis or clinical prediction guides) on the area of interest. Other procedures such as the Index, History of searches, and the widening of the selection using Related Articles and the storing of separate results in the Clipboard to be kept by the user, are presented in this paper.

Surgical margins in head and neck squamous cell carcinoma: what is 'close'?

PubMed

Alicandri-Ciufelli, Matteo; Bonali, Marco; Piccinini, Alessia; Marra, Laura; Ghidini, Angelo; Cunsolo, Elio Maria; Maiorana, Antonino; Presutti, Livio; Conte, Pier Franco

2013-09-01

The aim of this systematic review is to evaluate the definition of close margin in head and neck squamous cell carcinoma (HNSCC), and its possible prognostic significance. An appropriate string was run on PubMed to retrieve articles discussing the 'close' surgical margin issue in HNSCC. A double cross-check was performed on citations and full-text articles retrieved. In total, 348 articles were identified. Further references were included by using the option "Titles in your search terms" option in PubMed. 15 papers were finally included for qualitative synthesis. In vocal cord surgery of HNSCC, a close margin could be considered to be ≤1 mm, in the larynx ≤5 mm, in the oral cavity ≤4 mm, and in the oropharynx ≤5 mm. In each patient, the choice of extent of close margin should be balanced against general condition, tumor stage, and functional issues to indicate appropriate adjuvant therapy.

Effect of biomaterials on angiogenesis during vital pulp therapy

PubMed Central

SAGHIRI, Mohammad Ali; ASATOURIAN, Armen; GARCIA-GODOY, Franklin; SHEIBANI, Nader

2016-01-01

This review intended to provide an overview of the effects of dental materials, used in dentin-pulp complex and dental pulp regeneration, on angiogenesis processes during regenerative endodontic procedures. An electronic search was performed in PubMed and MEDLINE databases via OVID using the keywords mentioned in the PubMed and MeSH headings for English language published articles from January 2005–April 2014 that evaluated the angiogenic properties of different dental materials used in regenerative endodontic procedures. Of the articles identified in an initial search, only 40 articles met the inclusion criteria set for this review. Vital pulp therapy materials might have positive effects on angiogenesis events, while most of the canal irrigating solutions and antibiotic pastes have anti-angiogenic activity except for EDTA. Future clinical studies will be helpful in defining the mechanisms of action for dental materials that promote or inhibit angiogenesis events at applied areas. PMID:27546854

Minimally Invasive Techniques to Accelerate the Orthodontic Tooth Movement: A Systematic Review of Animal Studies

PubMed Central

Qamruddin, Irfan; Alam, Mohammad Khursheed; Khamis, Mohd Fadhli; Husein, Adam

2015-01-01

Objective. To evaluate various noninvasive and minimally invasive procedures for the enhancement of orthodontic tooth movement in animals. Materials and Methods. Literature was searched using NCBI (PubMed, PubMed Central, and PubMed Health), MedPilot (Medline, Catalogue ZB MED, Catalogue Medicine Health, and Excerpta Medica Database (EMBASE)), and Google Scholar from January 2009 till 31 December 2014. We included original articles related to noninvasive and minimally invasive procedures to enhance orthodontic tooth movement in animals. Extraction of data and quality assessments were carried out by two observers independently. Results. The total number of hits was 9195 out of which just 11 fulfilled the inclusion criteria. Nine articles were good and 5 articles were moderate in quality. Low level laser therapy (LLLT) was among the most common noninvasive techniques whereas flapless corticision using various instruments was among the commonest minimally invasive procedures to enhance velocity of tooth movement. Conclusions. LLLT, low intensity pulsed ultrasound (LIPUS), mechanical vibration, and flapless corticision are emerging noninvasive and minimally invasive techniques which need further researches to establish protocols to use them clinically with conviction. PMID:26881201

A literature search tool for intelligent extraction of disease-associated genes.

PubMed

Jung, Jae-Yoon; DeLuca, Todd F; Nelson, Tristan H; Wall, Dennis P

2014-01-01

To extract disorder-associated genes from the scientific literature in PubMed with greater sensitivity for literature-based support than existing methods. We developed a PubMed query to retrieve disorder-related, original research articles. Then we applied a rule-based text-mining algorithm with keyword matching to extract target disorders, genes with significant results, and the type of study described by the article. We compared our resulting candidate disorder genes and supporting references with existing databases. We demonstrated that our candidate gene set covers nearly all genes in manually curated databases, and that the references supporting the disorder-gene link are more extensive and accurate than other general purpose gene-to-disorder association databases. We implemented a novel publication search tool to find target articles, specifically focused on links between disorders and genotypes. Through comparison against gold-standard manually updated gene-disorder databases and comparison with automated databases of similar functionality we show that our tool can search through the entirety of PubMed to extract the main gene findings for human diseases rapidly and accurately.

miRTex: A Text Mining System for miRNA-Gene Relation Extraction

PubMed Central

Li, Gang; Ross, Karen E.; Arighi, Cecilia N.; Peng, Yifan; Wu, Cathy H.; Vijay-Shanker, K.

2015-01-01

MicroRNAs (miRNAs) regulate a wide range of cellular and developmental processes through gene expression suppression or mRNA degradation. Experimentally validated miRNA gene targets are often reported in the literature. In this paper, we describe miRTex, a text mining system that extracts miRNA-target relations, as well as miRNA-gene and gene-miRNA regulation relations. The system achieves good precision and recall when evaluated on a literature corpus of 150 abstracts with F-scores close to 0.90 on the three different types of relations. We conducted full-scale text mining using miRTex to process all the Medline abstracts and all the full-length articles in the PubMed Central Open Access Subset. The results for all the Medline abstracts are stored in a database for interactive query and file download via the website at http://proteininformationresource.org/mirtex. Using miRTex, we identified genes potentially regulated by miRNAs in Triple Negative Breast Cancer, as well as miRNA-gene relations that, in conjunction with kinase-substrate relations, regulate the response to abiotic stress in Arabidopsis thaliana. These two use cases demonstrate the usefulness of miRTex text mining in the analysis of miRNA-regulated biological processes. PMID:26407127

Extreme water-related weather events and waterborne disease.

PubMed

Cann, K F; Thomas, D Rh; Salmon, R L; Wyn-Jones, A P; Kay, D

2013-04-01

Global climate change is expected to affect the frequency, intensity and duration of extreme water-related weather events such as excessive precipitation, floods, and drought. We conducted a systematic review to examine waterborne outbreaks following such events and explored their distribution between the different types of extreme water-related weather events. Four medical and meteorological databases (Medline, Embase, GeoRef, PubMed) and a global electronic reporting system (ProMED) were searched, from 1910 to 2010. Eighty-seven waterborne outbreaks involving extreme water-related weather events were identified and included, alongside 235 ProMED reports. Heavy rainfall and flooding were the most common events preceding outbreaks associated with extreme weather and were reported in 55·2% and 52·9% of accounts, respectively. The most common pathogens reported in these outbreaks were Vibrio spp. (21·6%) and Leptospira spp. (12·7%). Outbreaks following extreme water-related weather events were often the result of contamination of the drinking-water supply (53·7%). Differences in reporting of outbreaks were seen between the scientific literature and ProMED. Extreme water-related weather events represent a risk to public health in both developed and developing countries, but impact will be disproportionate and likely to compound existing health disparities.

Pub-Med-dot-com, here we come!

PubMed

Pulst, Stefan M

2016-08-01

As of April 8, 2016, articles in Neurology® Genetics can be searched using PubMed. Launched in 1996, PubMed is a search engine that accesses citations and abstracts of more than 26 million articles. Its primary sources include the MEDLINE database, which was started in the 1960s, and biomedical and life sciences journal articles that date back to 1946. In addition, PubMed accesses other sources, for example, citations to those life sciences journals that submit full-text articles to PubMed Central (PMC). PubMed Central was launched in 2000 as a free archive of biomedical and life science journals.

A systematic review of methods for studying consumer health YouTube videos, with implications for systematic reviews.

PubMed

Sampson, Margaret; Cumber, Jordi; Li, Claudia; Pound, Catherine M; Fuller, Ann; Harrison, Denise

2013-01-01

Background. YouTube is an increasingly important medium for consumer health information - with content provided by healthcare professionals, government and non-government organizations, industry, and consumers themselves. It is a rapidly developing area of study for healthcare researchers. We examine the methods used in reviews of YouTube consumer health videos to identify trends and best practices. Methods and Materials. Published reviews of consumer-oriented health-related YouTube videos were identified through PubMed. Data extracted from these studies included type of journal, topic, characteristics of the search, methods of review including number of reviewers and method to achieve consensus between reviewers, inclusion and exclusion criteria, characteristics of the videos reported, ethical oversight, and follow-up. Results. Thirty-three studies were identified. Most were recent and published in specialty journals. Typically, these included more than 100 videos, and were examined by multiple reviewers. Most studies described characteristics of the videos, number of views, and sometime characteristics of the viewers. Accuracy of portrayal of the health issue under consideration was a common focus. Conclusion. Optimal transparency and reproducibility of studies of YouTube health-related videos can be achieved by following guidance designed for systematic review reporting, with attention to several elements specific to the video medium. Particularly when seeking to replicate consumer viewing behavior, investigators should consider the method used to select search terms, and use a snowballing rather than a sequential screening approach. Discontinuation protocols for online screening of relevance ranked search results is an area identified for further development.

Prediction of placebo responses: a systematic review of the literature

PubMed Central

Horing, Bjoern; Weimer, Katja; Muth, Eric R.; Enck, Paul

2014-01-01

Objective: Predicting who responds to placebo treatment—and under which circumstances—has been a question of interest and investigation for generations. However, the literature is disparate and inconclusive. This review aims to identify publications that provide high quality data on the topic of placebo response (PR) prediction. Methods: To identify studies concerned with PR prediction, independent searches were performed in an expert database (for all symptom modalities) and in PubMed (for pain only). Articles were selected when (a) they assessed putative predictors prior to placebo treatment and (b) an adequate control group was included when the associations of predictors and PRs were analyzed. Results: Twenty studies were identified, most with pain as dependent variable. Most predictors of PRs were psychological constructs related to actions, expected outcomes and the emotional valence attached to these events (goal-seeking, self-efficacy/-esteem, locus of control, optimism). Other predictors involved behavioral control (desire for control, eating restraint), personality variables (fun seeking, sensation seeking, neuroticism), or biological markers (sex, a single nucleotide polymorphism related to dopamine metabolism). Finally, suggestibility and beliefs in expectation biases, body consciousness, and baseline symptom severity were found to be predictive. Conclusions: While results are heterogeneous, some congruence of predictors can be identified. PRs mainly appear to be moderated by expectations of how the symptom might change after treatment, or expectations of how symptom repetition can be coped with. It is suggested to include the listed constructs in future research. Furthermore, a closer look at variables moderating symptom change in control groups seems warranted. PMID:25324797

A systematic review of methods for studying consumer health YouTube videos, with implications for systematic reviews

PubMed Central

Cumber, Jordi; Li, Claudia; Pound, Catherine M.; Fuller, Ann; Harrison, Denise

2013-01-01

Background. YouTube is an increasingly important medium for consumer health information – with content provided by healthcare professionals, government and non-government organizations, industry, and consumers themselves. It is a rapidly developing area of study for healthcare researchers. We examine the methods used in reviews of YouTube consumer health videos to identify trends and best practices. Methods and Materials. Published reviews of consumer-oriented health-related YouTube videos were identified through PubMed. Data extracted from these studies included type of journal, topic, characteristics of the search, methods of review including number of reviewers and method to achieve consensus between reviewers, inclusion and exclusion criteria, characteristics of the videos reported, ethical oversight, and follow-up. Results. Thirty-three studies were identified. Most were recent and published in specialty journals. Typically, these included more than 100 videos, and were examined by multiple reviewers. Most studies described characteristics of the videos, number of views, and sometime characteristics of the viewers. Accuracy of portrayal of the health issue under consideration was a common focus. Conclusion. Optimal transparency and reproducibility of studies of YouTube health-related videos can be achieved by following guidance designed for systematic review reporting, with attention to several elements specific to the video medium. Particularly when seeking to replicate consumer viewing behavior, investigators should consider the method used to select search terms, and use a snowballing rather than a sequential screening approach. Discontinuation protocols for online screening of relevance ranked search results is an area identified for further development. PMID:24058879

Tobacco control approaches and inequity--how far have we come and where are we going?

PubMed

Purcell, Kate R; O'Rourke, Kerryn; Rivis, Maya

2015-09-01

Despite Australia's success in reducing smoking rates, substantial inequities persist--with high smoking prevalence among disadvantaged groups. This article uses Fair Foundations: The VicHealth framework for health equity to identify promising strategies for promoting equity within tobacco control policies and programmes. A rapid review of the Australian and international literature was conducted in March 2014 using Pubmed, ISI web of Science and Scopus, Cochrane library and Google Scholar. A search of the grey literature was conducted to identify promising policy interventions. Population health surveys suggest that tobacco-related inequities in Victoria are beginning to decline. Data from the Victorian Smoking Survey shows that the inequity gap is narrowing, and in recent years, the prevalence of regular smoking declined fastest among disadvantaged smokers. Future approaches to accelerate reductions in tobacco-related inequities include: (i) continue proven population-based tobacco control policies--especially increasing the price of tobacco (while remaining cognisant of the increased economic burden for those smokers who do not quit), and continuing mass media campaigns; (ii) strengthening social policies to promote equity in early child development; educational experiences; quality of local environments; employment and working conditions; (iii) identifying and investing in targeted approaches to influence social norms and more effectively identify and support disadvantaged smokers to quit; (iv) within tobacco control programmes, give greatest priority to interventions focused on adult smokers (including pregnant women and their partners). © The Author 2015. Published by Oxford University Press. All rights reserved. For Permissions, please email: journals.permissions@oup.com.

Mind the Gap. A systematic review to identify usability and safety challenges and practices during electronic health record implementation.

PubMed

Ratwani, Raj; Fairbanks, Terry; Savage, Erica; Adams, Katie; Wittie, Michael; Boone, Edna; Hayden, Andrew; Barnes, Janey; Hettinger, Zach; Gettinger, Andrew

2016-11-16

Decisions made during electronic health record (EHR) implementations profoundly affect usability and safety. This study aims to identify gaps between the current literature and key stakeholders' perceptions of usability and safety practices and the challenges encountered during the implementation of EHRs. Two approaches were used: a literature review and interviews with key stakeholders. We performed a systematic review of the literature to identify usability and safety challenges and best practices during implementation. A total of 55 articles were reviewed through searches of PubMed, Web of Science and Scopus. We used a qualitative approach to identify key stakeholders' perceptions; semi-structured interviews were conducted with a diverse set of health IT stakeholders to understand their current practices and challenges related to usability during implementation. We used a grounded theory approach: data were coded, sorted, and emerging themes were identified. Conclusions from both sources of data were compared to identify areas of misalignment. We identified six emerging themes from the literature and stakeholder interviews: cost and resources, risk assessment, governance and consensus building, customization, clinical workflow and usability testing, and training. Across these themes, there were misalignments between the literature and stakeholder perspectives, indicating major gaps. Major gaps identified from each of six emerging themes are discussed as critical areas for future research, opportunities for new stakeholder initiatives, and opportunities to better disseminate resources to improve the implementation of EHRs. Our analysis identified practices and challenges across six different emerging themes, illustrated important gaps, and results suggest critical areas for future research and dissemination to improve EHR implementation.

Mutations in the ADAR1 gene in Chinese families with dyschromatosis symmetrica hereditaria.

PubMed

Zhang, G L; Shi, H J; Shao, M H; Li, M; Mu, H J; Gu, Y; Du, X F; Xie, P

2013-01-04

We investigated 2 Chinese families with dyschromatosis symmetrica hereditaria (DSH) and search for mutations in the adenosine deaminase acting on RNA1 (ADAR1) gene in these 2 pedigrees. We performed a mutation analysis of the ADAR1 gene in 2 Chinese families with DSH and reviewed all articles published regarding ADAR1 mutations reported since 2003 by using PubMed. By direct sequencing, a 2-nucleotide AG deletion, 2099-2100delAG, was found in family 1, and a C→T mutation was identified at nucleotide 1420 that changed codon 474 from arginine to a translational termination codon in family 2. Two different pathogenic mutations were identified, c.2099-2100delAG and c.1420C>T, the former being a novel mutation, and the latter previously reported in 3 other families with DSH. To date, a total of 110 mutations in the ADAR1 gene have been reported, and 10 of them were recurrent; the mutations R474X, R1083C, R1096X, and R1155W might be the DSH-related hotspots.

Pheochromocytoma/Paraganglioma: A Poster Child for Cancer Metabolism.

PubMed

Tevosian, Sergei G; Ghayee, Hans K

2018-05-01

Pheochromocytomas (PCCs) are tumors that are derived from the chromaffin cells of the adrenal medulla. Extra-adrenal PCCs called paragangliomas (PGLs) are derived from the sympathetic and parasympathetic chain ganglia. PCCs secrete catecholamines, which cause hypertension and have adverse cardiovascular consequences as a result of catecholamine excess. PGLs may or may not produce catecholamines depending on their genetic type and anatomical location. The most worrisome aspect of these tumors is their ability to become aggressive and metastasize; there are no known cures for metastasized PGLs. Original articles and reviews indexed in PubMed were identified by querying with specific PCC/PGL- and Krebs cycle pathway-related terms. Additional references were selected through the in-depth analysis of the relevant publications. We primarily discuss Krebs cycle mutations that can be instrumental in helping investigators identify key biological pathways and molecules that may serve as biomarkers of or treatment targets for PCC/PGL. The mainstay of treatment of patients with PCC/PGLs is surgical. However, the tide may be turning with the discovery of new genes associated with PCC/PGLs that may shed light on oncometabolites used by these tumors.

[Public health policies for the intellectually disabled in Brazil: an integrative review].

PubMed

Tomaz, Rodrigo Victor Viana; Rosa, Thiago Lusivo; Van, David Bui; Melo, Débora Gusmão

2016-01-01

This study presents an integrative review of the scientific literature and federal legislation on public health policies for intellectually disabled in Brazil. Nine articles, published in the PubMed, Scopus, Virtual Health Library and Web of Science databases between 2002 and 2012, were selected. Based on the references of these studies, 6 other articles were identified, totaling 15 studies in the review. Forty-one federal laws produced between 2002 and 2012 were identified. The documents were analyzed and categorized according to the main themes of socioeconomic conditions, violence, mental health, ethics, health needs, health promotion and prevention. From the scientific standpoint, non-specific discussions were observed where intellectual disability was examined with other types of handicaps or concomitantly with other Latin American countries. From the legal standpoint, although laws related to health have been located, there is a lack of studies that address the effectiveness and level of implementation of the proposed policies. The increase in research in this area is a demand of the disabled population itself, and will reveal their specific health needs, and will also support issues such as prevention, promotion, diagnosis and treatment.

A systematic review of factors influencing knowledge management and the nurse leaders' role.

PubMed

Lunden, Anne; Teräs, Marianne; Kvist, Tarja; Häggman-Laitila, Arja

2017-09-01

To describe factors facilitating or inhibiting the development of registered nurses' competency and nurse leader's role in knowledge management. Nurses' competency directly influences patient safety and the quality and effectiveness of patient care. Challenges of nurse leaders in knowledge management include acquiring, assessing and utilising current knowledge and assessing and enhancing competency. A systematic search was conducted in PubMed, CINAHL, SCOPUS and ERIC databases in April 2015. The search identified 18 relevant research articles published between 2009 and 2015. The quality of the studies was appraised in accordance with study designs. Knowledge management is facilitated by an organisation culture that supports learning, sharing of information and learning together. Leader commitment and competency were factors related to leadership facilitating knowledge management. Nurse leaders need evidence-based interventions to support shared learning and to create infrastructures that facilitate competence development. Future research is especially needed to evaluate connections between knowledge management and patient outcomes. The results of this review can be utilised in enhancing factors to facilitate knowledge management in clinical practice and identifying nurse leaders' role in strengthening nurses' competency. © 2017 John Wiley & Sons Ltd.

Antidepressant Use and Incident Urinary Incontinence: A Literature Review.

PubMed

Dane, Kathryn E; Gatewood, Sharon B S; Peron, Emily P

2016-03-01

To review available data examining antidepressant use and incident urinary incontinence (UI). PubMed was used to conduct the literature search for this review. In the primary search, the term "antidepressive agents" was searched as a medical subject heading, a pharmacological action, and a keyword phrase. This choice was made so that any relevant articles would include complete results for antidepressive agents. "Antidepressive agents" was combined with the key phrase "drug-induced urinary incontinence" to complete this primary search. Relevant articles published in English and examining human subjects were included. The study authors determined appropriateness of articles for inclusion, focusing on those examining antidepressant-associated UI. This literature review identified three cohort studies and 11 case reports examining various associations between antidepressant use and incident UI. All 11 case reports and 1 cohort study reviewed suggest an association between antidepressant use and incident UI. It remains unclear which drugs are most problematic and which patients are at greatest risk, and more data are needed to confirm an association, especially in older adults. Comprehensive medication reviews should be employed by pharmacists to identify potential medication-related causes of UI.

Yoga and quality-of-life improvement in patients with breast cancer: a literature review.

PubMed

Levine, Alison Spatz; Balk, Judith L

2012-01-01

Women undergoing treatment for breast cancer often turn to complementary and alternative medicine (CAM), including yoga, for improvement of mood, quality of life (QOL), sleep, and treatment-related side effects. The extant literature was reviewed to examine the clinical effects of yoga practice on QOL for patients with breast cancer. QOL was defined as physical well-being, social functioning, emotional health, and function-al adaptation. Seven databases, including PubMed, Ovid MEDLINE, CINAHL, Embase, PsycINFO, Cochrane Library, and Web of Science were used to search for studies of patients with breast cancer that included a yoga intervention and QOL assessment. Attention was paid to assessing study population, outcome variables, the type of yoga intervention used, and methodological strengths and limitations. Seventy-one articles were identified that fit the search criteria. Although the literature provided evidence of QOL benefits of yoga for patients with breast cancer, no specific aspect of yoga was identified as being most advantageous. Although participation in yoga programs appeared to benefit patients with breast cancer, greater methodological rigor is required to understand the mechanisms that contribute to their effectiveness.

Review of the use of botanicals for epilepsy in complementary medical systems--Traditional Chinese Medicine.

PubMed

Xiao, Fenglai; Yan, Bo; Chen, Lei; Zhou, Dong

2015-11-01

In traditional Chinese medicine, botanical remedies have been used for centuries to treat seizures. This review aimed to summarize the botanicals that have been used in traditional Chinese medicine to treat epilepsy. We searched Chinese online databases to determine the botanicals used for epilepsy in traditional Chinese medicine and identified articles using a preset search syntax and inclusion criteria of each botanical in the PubMed database to explore their potential mechanisms. Twenty-three botanicals were identified to treat epilepsy in traditional Chinese medicine. The pharmacological mechanisms of each botanical related to antiepileptic activity, which were mainly examined in animal models, were reviewed. We discuss the use and current trends of botanical treatments in China and highlight the limitations of botanical epilepsy treatments. A substantial number of these types of botanicals would be good candidates for the development of novel AEDs. More rigorous clinical trials of botanicals in traditional Chinese medicine for epilepsy treatment are encouraged in the future. This article is part of a Special Issue entitled "Botanicals for Epilepsy". Copyright © 2015 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Data-Mining Technologies for Diabetes: A Systematic Review

PubMed Central

Marinov, Miroslav; Mosa, Abu Saleh Mohammad; Yoo, Illhoi; Boren, Suzanne Austin

2011-01-01

Background The objective of this study is to conduct a systematic review of applications of data-mining techniques in the field of diabetes research. Method We searched the MEDLINE database through PubMed. We initially identified 31 articles by the search, and selected 17 articles representing various data-mining methods used for diabetes research. Our main interest was to identify research goals, diabetes types, data sets, data-mining methods, data-mining software and technologies, and outcomes. Results The applications of data-mining techniques in the selected articles were useful for extracting valuable knowledge and generating new hypothesis for further scientific research/experimentation and improving health care for diabetes patients. The results could be used for both scientific research and real-life practice to improve the quality of health care diabetes patients. Conclusions Data mining has played an important role in diabetes research. Data mining would be a valuable asset for diabetes researchers because it can unearth hidden knowledge from a huge amount of diabetes-related data. We believe that data mining can significantly help diabetes research and ultimately improve the quality of health care for diabetes patients. PMID:22226277

Systematic review of depression, anxiety, and other indicators of psychological distress among U.S. and Canadian medical students.

PubMed

Dyrbye, Liselotte N; Thomas, Matthew R; Shanafelt, Tait D

2006-04-01

To systematically review articles reporting on depression, anxiety, and burnout among U.S. and Canadian medical students. Medline and PubMed were searched to identify peer-reviewed English-language studies published between January 1980 and May 2005 reporting on depression, anxiety, and burnout among U.S. and Canadian medical students. Searches used combinations of the Medical Subject Heading terms medical student and depression, depressive disorder major, depressive disorder, professional burnout, mental health, depersonalization, distress, anxiety, or emotional exhaustion. Reference lists of retrieved articles were inspected to identify relevant additional articles. Demographic information, instruments used, prevalence data on student distress, and statistically significant associations were abstracted. The search identified 40 articles on medical student psychological distress (i.e., depression, anxiety, burnout, and related mental health problems) that met the authors' criteria. No studies of burnout among medical students were identified. The studies suggest a high prevalence of depression and anxiety among medical students, with levels of overall psychological distress consistently higher than in the general population and age-matched peers by the later years of training. Overall, the studies suggest psychological distress may be higher among female students. Limited data were available regarding the causes of student distress and its impact on academic performance, dropout rates, and professional development. Medical school is a time of significant psychological distress for physicians-in-training. Currently available information is insufficient to draw firm conclusions on the causes and consequences of student distress. Large, prospective, multicenter studies are needed to identify personal and training-related features that influence depression, anxiety, and burnout among students and explore relationships between distress and competency.

Hearing difficulties, ear-related diagnoses and sickness absence or disability pension--a systematic literature review.

PubMed

Friberg, Emilie; Gustafsson, Klas; Alexanderson, Kristina

2012-09-12

Hearing difficulties is a large public health problem, prognosticated to be the ninth leading burden of disease in 2030, and may also involve large consequences for work capacity. However, research regarding sickness absence and disability pension in relation to hearing difficulties is scarce. The aim was to gain knowledge about hearing difficulties or other ear-related diagnoses and sickness absence and disability pension through conducting a systematic literature review of published studies. Studies presenting empirical data on hearing difficulties or ear-related diagnoses and sick leave or disability pension, published in scientific peer-reviewed journals, were included. Studies were sought for in three ways: in literature databases (Pub-Med, Embase, PsycInfo, SSCI, and Cochrane) through March 2011, through scrutinising lists of references, and through contacts. Identified publications were assessed for relevance and data was extracted from the studies deemed relevant. A total of 18 studies were assessed as relevant and included in this review, regardless of scientific quality. Fourteen studies presented empirical data on hearing difficulties/ear diagnoses and sick leave and six on these conditions and disability pension. Only two studies presented rate ratios or odds ratios regarding associations between hearing difficulties and sick leave, and only two on hearing difficulties and risk of disability pension. Both measures of hearing difficulties and of sick leave varied considerable between the studies. Remarkably few studies on hearing difficulties in relation to sickness absence or disability pension were identified. The results presented in them cannot provide evidence for direction or magnitude of potential associations.

Hearing difficulties, ear-related diagnoses and sickness absence or disability pension - a systematic literature review

PubMed Central

2012-01-01

Background Hearing difficulties is a large public health problem, prognosticated to be the ninth leading burden of disease in 2030, and may also involve large consequences for work capacity. However, research regarding sickness absence and disability pension in relation to hearing difficulties is scarce. The aim was to gain knowledge about hearing difficulties or other ear-related diagnoses and sickness absence and disability pension through conducting a systematic literature review of published studies. Methods Studies presenting empirical data on hearing difficulties or ear-related diagnoses and sick leave or disability pension, published in scientific peer-reviewed journals, were included. Studies were sought for in three ways: in literature databases (Pub-Med, Embase, PsycInfo, SSCI, and Cochrane) through March 2011, through scrutinising lists of references, and through contacts. Identified publications were assessed for relevance and data was extracted from the studies deemed relevant. Results A total of 18 studies were assessed as relevant and included in this review, regardless of scientific quality. Fourteen studies presented empirical data on hearing difficulties/ear diagnoses and sick leave and six on these conditions and disability pension. Only two studies presented rate ratios or odds ratios regarding associations between hearing difficulties and sick leave, and only two on hearing difficulties and risk of disability pension. Both measures of hearing difficulties and of sick leave varied considerable between the studies. Conclusions Remarkably few studies on hearing difficulties in relation to sickness absence or disability pension were identified. The results presented in them cannot provide evidence for direction or magnitude of potential associations. PMID:22966953

Relevant patient characteristics for guiding tailored integrated diabetes primary care: a systematic review.

PubMed

Hertroijs, Dorijn F L; Elissen, Arianne M J; Brouwers, Martijn C G J; Schaper, Nicolaas C; Ruwaard, Dirk

2018-02-06

Aim To identify which patient-related effect modifiers influence the outcomes of integrated care programs for type 2 diabetes in primary care. Integrated care is a widespread management strategy for the treatment of type 2 diabetes. However, most integrated care programs are not tailored to patients' needs, preferences and abilities. There is increasing consensus that such a patient-centered approach could improve the management of type 2 diabetes. Thus far, it remains unclear which patient-related effect modifiers should guide such an approach. PubMed, CINAHL and EMBASE were searched for empirical studies published after 1998. A systematic literature review was conducted according to the PRISMA guidelines. Findings In total, 23 out of 1015 studies were included. A total of 21 studies measured the effects of integrated diabetes care programs on hemoglobin A1c (HbA1c) and three on low-density lipoprotein cholesterol, systolic blood pressure and health-care utilization. In total, 49 patient characteristics were assessed as potential effect modifiers with HbA1c as an outcome, of which 46 were person or health-related and only three were context-related. Younger age, insulin therapy and longer disease duration were associated with higher HbA1c levels in cross-sectional and longitudinal studies. Higher baseline HbA1c was associated with higher HbA1c at follow-up in longitudinal studies. Information on context- and person-related characteristics was limited, but is necessary to help identify the care needs of individual patients and implement an effective integrated type 2 diabetes tailored care program.

Adverse effects of analgesics commonly used by older adults with osteoarthritis: focus on non-opioid and opioid analgesics.

PubMed

O'Neil, Christine K; Hanlon, Joseph T; Marcum, Zachary A

2012-12-01

Osteoarthritis (OA) is the most common cause of disability in older adults, and although analgesic use can be helpful, it can also result in adverse drug events. To review the recent literature to describe potential adverse drug events associated with analgesics commonly used by older adults with OA. To identify articles for this review, a systematic search of the English-language literature from January 2001 to June 2012 was conducted using PubMed, MEDLINE, EBSCO, and the Cochrane Database of Systematic Reviews for publications related to the medical management of OA. Search terms used were "analgesics," "acetaminophen," "nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drugs" (NSAIDs), "opioids," "pharmacokinetics," "pharmacodynamics," and "adverse drug events." The search was restricted to those articles that concerned humans aged ≥65 years. A manual search of the reference lists from identified articles and the authors' article files, book chapters, and recent reviews was conducted to identify additional articles. From these, the authors identified those studies that examined analgesic use in older adults. There are limited data to suggest that non-frail elders are more likely than their younger counterparts to develop acetaminophen-induced hepatotoxicity. However, decreased hepatic phase II metabolism in frail elders may result in increased risk of hepatotoxicity. It is now well established that older adults are at higher risk of NSAID-induced gastrointestinal toxicity and renal insufficiency. Insofar as opioids, the data that suggest an increased risk of falls, fractures, or delirium need to be tempered by the potential risk of inadequately treating severe chronic OA-related pain. Acetaminophen is the mainstay frontline analgesic for treating OA-related pain in older adults. NSAIDs should be limited to short-term use only, and for moderate to severe OA-related pain, opioids may be preferable in individuals without substance abuse or dependence issues. Copyright © 2012 Elsevier HS Journals, Inc. All rights reserved.

Towards PubMed 2.0.

PubMed

Fiorini, Nicolas; Lipman, David J; Lu, Zhiyong

2017-10-30

Staff from the National Center for Biotechnology Information in the US describe recent improvements to the PubMed search engine and outline plans for the future, including a new experimental site called PubMed Labs.

Nursing identity and patient-centredness in scholarly health services research: a computational text analysis of PubMed abstracts 1986-2013.

PubMed

Bell, Erica; Campbell, Steve; Goldberg, Lynette R

2015-01-22

The most important and contested element of nursing identity may be the patient-centredness of nursing, though this concept is not well-treated in the nursing identity literature. More conceptually-based mapping of nursing identity constructs are needed to help nurses shape their identity. The field of computational text analytics offers new opportunities to scrutinise how growing disciplines such as health services research construct nursing identity. This paper maps the conceptual content of scholarly health services research in PubMed as it relates to the patient-centeredness of nursing. Computational text analytics software was used to analyse all health services abstracts in the database PubMed since 1986. Abstracts were treated as indicative of the content of health services research. The database PubMed was searched for all research papers using the term "service" or "services" in the abstract or keywords for the period 01/01/1986 to 30/06/2013. A total of 234,926 abstracts were obtained. Leximancer software was used in 1) mapping of 4,144,458 instances of 107 concepts; 2) analysis of 106 paired concept co-occurrences for the nursing concept; and 3) sentiment analysis of the nursing concept versus patient, family and community concepts, and clinical concepts. Nursing is constructed within quality assurance or service implementation or workforce development concepts. It is relatively disconnected from patient, family or community care concepts. For those who agree that patient-centredness should be a part of nursing identity in practice, this study suggests that there is a need for development of health services research into both the nature of the caring construct in nursing identity and its expression in practice. More fundamentally, the study raises questions about whether health services research cultures even value the politically popular idea of nurses as patient-centred caregivers and whether they should.

A Review of the Perceptions of Healthcare Providers and Family Members Toward Family Involvement in Active Adult Patient Care in the ICU.

PubMed

Liput, Shea A; Kane-Gill, Sandra L; Seybert, Amy L; Smithburger, Pamela L

2016-06-01

The objective of this article is to provide a summary of the perceptions of healthcare providers and family members toward their role in active patient care in the ICU and compare the views of healthcare providers with those of relatives of critically ill patients. The search was conducted using PubMed as the primary search engine and EMBASE as a secondary search engine. Studies were included if they were conducted in the ICU, had an adult patient population, and contained a discussion of active patient care, including perspective or actions of family members or healthcare providers about the active participation. Titles and abstracts of articles identified through PubMed and EMBASE were assessed for relevancy of family involvement. The full article was reviewed of titles and abstracts involving family involvement of care in the ICU to assess if the topic was active care and if the article involved perceptions of healthcare providers or family members. The references of all selected articles were then evaluated for the inclusion of additional studies. Articles including perceptions of healthcare providers were grouped separately from articles including attitudes of family members. Articles that contained the perceptions of both healthcare providers and family members were considered in both groups but were evaluated with each perspective separately. Examples of specific patient care tasks that were mentioned in each article were identified. A positive attitude exists among both family members and providers toward the involvement of family members in active care tasks. Providers and family members share the attitude that a partnership is necessary and that encouragement for family members to participate is essential. The findings in this review support the need for more objective research regarding how families are caring for their loved ones and how family involvement in care is affecting patient and family outcomes.

Engaging with culturally and linguistically diverse communities to reduce the impact of depression and anxiety: a narrative review.

PubMed

Baker, Amy E Z; Procter, Nicholas G; Ferguson, Monika S

2016-07-01

Culturally and linguistically diverse (CALD) communities in Australia face significant challenges in terms of reducing barriers to information and support for depression and anxiety. Increased stigma surrounding mental ill-health in some cultures and related concerns about trust and confidentiality all impact upon timely access to information, services and support for consumers and carers from CALD backgrounds. For health services, there is a need to understand how to better engage CALD communities in mental healthcare. The objective of this narrative review was to identify examples of evidence-based, best practice for what works effectively for engaging with CALD communities to reduce the impact of depression and anxiety. In January 2014, we searched Academic Search Premier, CINAHL, Health-Source Consumer Edition, PsycARTICLES, PsycINFO (all databases within the EbscoHost platform) and PubMed for peer-reviewed articles published between 1994 and 2014. The search revealed a total of 706 records contained within the EbscoHost platform and 689 records in PubMed; 15 matched the inclusion criteria. Six key themes were identified: (i) setting the scene for engagement; (ii) cultural values and preferences; (iii) language considerations; (iv) 'engagers' in the therapeutic process; (v) opening out engagement to include others; and (vi) engaging through the use of technology and alternative mediums. The literature obtained provides a small body of evidence regarding approaches to engaging CALD communities, with findings highlighting the importance of processes which are tailored to the CALD community of interest and which take into account different cultural explanatory models of mental ill-health. Review findings are also discussed within the framework of intersectionality, in which broader structural inequalities and power imbalances - in areas such as gender and social class - collectively impact on help-seeking and mental health outcomes. This review supports further enquiry into how such societal issues influence engagement - and disengagement - in mental health services for CALD communities. © 2015 John Wiley & Sons Ltd.

Biopsychosocial-Spiritual Factors Impacting Referral to and Participation in Cardiac Rehabilitation for African American Patients: A SYSTEMATIC REVIEW.

PubMed

Koehler Hildebrandt, Aubry N; Hodgson, Jennifer L; Dodor, Bernice A; Knight, Sharon M; Rappleyea, Damon L

2016-01-01

The purposes of this systematic review were to (1) review the literature related to the demographic and biopsychosocial-spiritual factors impacting cardiac rehabilitation (CR) referral and participation of African American patients with cardiovascular disease (CVD); (2) identify barriers and facilitators to CR referral and participation for this population; (3) identify gaps in the literature; and (4) make recommendations for future research studies and interventions. The Cooper 7-step protocol for research synthesis was followed to formulate a research question and search MEDLINE via PubMed, PsycINFO via EBSCO, and CINAHL via EBSCO. A second reviewer repeated the searches performed by the first author in the initial review. A total of 1640 articles identified using the search strategy yielded 7 articles that fit the search criteria. Most studies measured demographic or social factors. Two studies measured biological factors, 1 study measured psychological factors, and no study measured spiritual factors. According to the studies reviewed, African American patients with CVD were less likely to receive a CR referral, more likely to enroll in CR with more cardiovascular risk factors, and less likely to participate in and complete CR due to factors related to low socioeconomic status (eg, lack of insurance, work conflicts, lower level of education) than non-Hispanic white patients. Further research is needed on the interaction between demographic/biopsychosocial-spiritual factors and referral to and participation of African Americans in CR in order to ensure that interventions fit the needs of this particular population.

Measuring Childhood Adversity in Life Course Cardiovascular Research: A Systematic Review.

PubMed

Appleton, Allison A; Holdsworth, Elizabeth; Ryan, Margaret; Tracy, Melissa

2017-05-01

Identifying the life course health effects of childhood adversity is a burgeoning area of research, particularly in relation to cardiovascular disease (CVD). However, adversity measurement varies widely across studies, which may hamper our ability to make comparisons across studies and identify mechanisms linking adversity to CVD. The purposes of this review are to summarize adversity measurement approaches in the context of CVD, identify gaps, and make recommendations for future research. PubMed and PsycINFO searches were conducted through June 2016. Studies were selected if CVD end point or predisease risk markers were investigated in association with a measure of childhood adversity. Forty-three studies were reviewed. A meta-analysis was not conducted because of the variation in exposures and outcomes assessed. Adversity measurement was heterogeneous across studies. Metrics included different sets of adverse events, relational factors, and socioeconomic indicators. Thirty-seven percent measured childhood adversity prospectively, 23% examined a CVD end point, and 77% treated adversity as an unweighted summary score. Despite the heterogeneity in measurement, most studies found a positive association between childhood adversity and CVD risk, and the association seems to be dose-response. The literature on childhood adversity and CVD would benefit from improving consistency of measurement, using weighted adversity composites, modeling adversity trajectories over time, and considering socioeconomic status as an antecedent factor instead of a component part of an adversity score. We suggest conceptual and analytic strategies to enhance, refine, and replicate the observed association between childhood adversity and CVD risk.

Potential risks associated with traditional herbal medicine use in cancer care: A study of Middle Eastern oncology health care professionals.

PubMed

Ben-Arye, Eran; Samuels, Noah; Goldstein, Lee Hilary; Mutafoglu, Kamer; Omran, Suha; Schiff, Elad; Charalambous, Haris; Dweikat, Tahani; Ghrayeb, Ibtisam; Bar-Sela, Gil; Turker, Ibrahim; Hassan, Azza; Hassan, Esmat; Saad, Bashar; Nimri, Omar; Kebudi, Rejin; Silbermann, Michael

2016-02-15

The authors assessed the use of herbal medicine by Middle Eastern patients with cancer, as reported by their oncology health care professionals (HCPs). Herbal products identified by the study HCPs were evaluated for potential negative effects. Oncology HCPs from 16 Middle Eastern countries received a 17-item questionnaire asking them to list 5 herbal products in use by their patients with cancer. A literature search (PubMed, Micromedex, AltMedDex, and the Natural Medicine Comprehensive Database) was conducted to identify safety-related concerns associated with the products listed. A total of 339 HCPs completed the study questionnaire (response rate of 80.3%), identifying 44 herbal and 3 nonherbal nutritional supplements. Safety-related concerns were associated with 29 products, including herb-drug interactions with altered pharmacodynamics (15 herbs), direct toxic effects (18 herbs), and increased in vitro response of cancer cells to chemotherapy (7 herbs). Herbal medicine use, which is prevalent in Middle Eastern countries, has several potentially negative effects that include direct toxic effects, negative interactions with anticancer drugs, and increased chemosensitivity of cancer cells, requiring a reduction in dose-density. Oncology HCPs working in countries in which herbal medicine use is prevalent need to better understand the implications of this practice. The presence of integrative physicians with training in complementary and traditional medicine can help patients and their HCPs reach an informed decision regarding the safety and effective use of these products. © 2015 American Cancer Society.

The Big Five personality factors and psychological well-being following stroke: a systematic review.

PubMed

Dwan, Toni; Ownsworth, Tamara

2017-12-22

To identify and appraise studies investigating the relationship between the Big Five personality factors and psychological well-being following stroke and evidence for personality change. Systematic searches of six databases (PsychINFO, CINAHL, Ovid Medline, Cochrane, PubMed, and Web of Science) were conducted from inception to June 2017. Studies involving adult stroke samples that employed a validated measure of at least one of the Big Five personality factors were included. Two reviewers independently assessed the eligibility and methodological quality of studies. Eleven studies were identified that assessed associations between personality and psychological well-being after stroke (nine studies) or post-stroke personality change (two studies). A consistent finding was that higher neuroticism was significantly related to poorer psychological well-being. The evidence for the other Big Five factors was mixed. In terms of personality change, two cross-sectional studies reported high rates of elevated neuroticism (38-48%) and low extraversion (33-40%) relative to normative data. Different questionnaires and approaches to measuring personality (i.e., self vs. informant ratings, premorbid personality vs. current personality) complicated comparisons between studies. People high on neuroticism are at increased risk of poor psychological well-being after stroke. Prospective longitudinal studies are needed to address the limited research on post-stroke personality change. Implications for rehabilitation High neuroticism is associated with poorer psychological well-being after stroke. Assessing personality characteristics early after stroke may help to identify those at risk of poor psychological outcomes.

Ethical issues with colorectal cancer screening-a systematic review.

PubMed

Hofmann, Bjørn

2017-06-01

Colorectal cancer (CRC) screening is widely recommended and implemented. However, sometimes CRC screening is not implemented despite good evidence, and some types of CRC screening are implemented despite lack of evidence. The objective of this article is to expose and elucidate relevant ethical issues in the literature on CRC screening that are important for open and transparent deliberation on CRC screening. An axiological question-based method is used for exposing and elucidating ethical issues relevant in HTA. A literature search in MEDLINE, Embase, PsycINFO, PubMed Bioethics subset, ISI Web of Knowledge, Bioethics Literature Database (BELIT), Ethics in Medicine (ETHMED), SIBIL Base dati di bioetica, LEWI Bibliographic Database on Ethics in the Sciences and Humanities, and EUROETHICS identified 870 references of which 114 were found relevant according to title and abstract. The content of the included papers were subject to ethical analysis to highlight the ethical issues, concerns, and arguments. A wide range of important ethical issues were identified. The main benefits are reduced relative CRC mortality rate, and potentially incidence rate, but there is no evidence of reduced absolute mortality rate. Potential harms are bleeding, perforation, false test results, overdetection, overdiagnosis, overtreatment (including unnecessary removal of polyps), and (rarely) death. Other important issues are related to autonomy and informed choice equity, justice, medicalization, and expanding disease. A series of important ethical issues have been identified and need to be addressed in open and transparent deliberation on CRC screening. © 2016 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

PubMed and beyond: a survey of web tools for searching biomedical literature

PubMed Central

Lu, Zhiyong

2011-01-01

The past decade has witnessed the modern advances of high-throughput technology and rapid growth of research capacity in producing large-scale biological data, both of which were concomitant with an exponential growth of biomedical literature. This wealth of scholarly knowledge is of significant importance for researchers in making scientific discoveries and healthcare professionals in managing health-related matters. However, the acquisition of such information is becoming increasingly difficult due to its large volume and rapid growth. In response, the National Center for Biotechnology Information (NCBI) is continuously making changes to its PubMed Web service for improvement. Meanwhile, different entities have devoted themselves to developing Web tools for helping users quickly and efficiently search and retrieve relevant publications. These practices, together with maturity in the field of text mining, have led to an increase in the number and quality of various Web tools that provide comparable literature search service to PubMed. In this study, we review 28 such tools, highlight their respective innovations, compare them to the PubMed system and one another, and discuss directions for future development. Furthermore, we have built a website dedicated to tracking existing systems and future advances in the field of biomedical literature search. Taken together, our work serves information seekers in choosing tools for their needs and service providers and developers in keeping current in the field. Database URL: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/CBBresearch/Lu/search PMID:21245076

Review of the health effects of wildland fire smoke on wildland firefighters and the public

Treesearch

Olorunfemi Adetona; Timothy E. Reinhardt; Joe Domitrovich; George Broyles; Anna M. Adetona; Michael T. Kleinman; Roger D. Ottmar; Luke P. Naeher

2016-01-01

Each year, the general public and wildland firefighters in the US are exposed to smoke from wildland fires. As part of an effort to characterize health risks of breathing this smoke, a review of the literature was conducted using five major databases, including PubMed and MEDLINE Web of Knowledge, to identify smoke components that present the highest hazard potential,...

Meta-Analysis of Attention-Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder or Attention-Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder Symptoms, Restriction Diet, and Synthetic Food Color Additives

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Nigg, Joel T.; Lewis, Kara; Edinger, Tracy; Falk, Michael

2012-01-01

Objective: The role of diet and of food colors in attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) or its symptoms warrants updated quantitative meta-analysis, in light of recent divergent policy in Europe and the United States. Method: Studies were identified through a literature search using the PubMed, Cochrane Library, and PsycNET databases…

Genetics Home Reference: lymphedema-distichiasis syndrome

MedlinePlus

... on PubMed or Free article on PubMed Central Erickson RP, Dagenais SL, Caulder MS, Downs CA, Herman ... article on PubMed Central Fang J, Dagenais SL, Erickson RP, Arlt MF, Glynn MW, Gorski JL, Seaver ...

Genetics Home Reference: VACTERL association

MedlinePlus

... PubMed Raam MS, Pineda-Alvarez DE, Hadley DW, Solomon BD. Long-term outcomes of adults with features ... on PubMed or Free article on PubMed Central Solomon BD, Pineda-Alvarez DE, Raam MS, Bous SM, ...

Towards PubMed 2.0

PubMed Central

Fiorini, Nicolas; Lipman, David J; Lu, Zhiyong

2017-01-01

Staff from the National Center for Biotechnology Information in the US describe recent improvements to the PubMed search engine and outline plans for the future, including a new experimental site called PubMed Labs. PMID:29083299

Genetics Home Reference: congenital myasthenic syndrome

MedlinePlus

... 1196/annals.1405.049. Citation on PubMed Engel AG, Shen XM, Selcen D, Sine SM. What have ... PubMed or Free article on PubMed Central Engel AG. Current status of the congenital myasthenic syndromes. Neuromuscul ...

Genetics Home Reference: Robinow syndrome

MedlinePlus

... PubMed or Free article on PubMed Central White JJ, Mazzeu JF, Coban-Akdemir Z, Bayram Y, Bahrambeigi ... Epub ahead of print] Citation on PubMed White JJ, Mazzeu JF, Hoischen A, Bayram Y, Withers M, ...

PubMed related articles: a probabilistic topic-based model for content similarity

PubMed Central

Lin, Jimmy; Wilbur, W John

2007-01-01

Background We present a probabilistic topic-based model for content similarity called pmra that underlies the related article search feature in PubMed. Whether or not a document is about a particular topic is computed from term frequencies, modeled as Poisson distributions. Unlike previous probabilistic retrieval models, we do not attempt to estimate relevance–but rather our focus is "relatedness", the probability that a user would want to examine a particular document given known interest in another. We also describe a novel technique for estimating parameters that does not require human relevance judgments; instead, the process is based on the existence of MeSH ® in MEDLINE ®. Results The pmra retrieval model was compared against bm25, a competitive probabilistic model that shares theoretical similarities. Experiments using the test collection from the TREC 2005 genomics track shows a small but statistically significant improvement of pmra over bm25 in terms of precision. Conclusion Our experiments suggest that the pmra model provides an effective ranking algorithm for related article search. PMID:17971238

There comes a baby! What should I do? Smartphones' pregnancy-related applications: A web-based overview.

PubMed

Bert, Fabrizio; Passi, Stefano; Scaioli, Giacomo; Gualano, Maria R; Siliquini, Roberta

2016-09-01

Our article aims to give an overview of the most mentioned smartphones' pregnancy-related applications (Apps). A keywords string with selected keywords was entered both in a general search engine (Google(®)) and PubMed. While PubMed returned no pertinent results, a total of 370 web pages were found on Google(®), and 146 of them were selected. All the pregnancy-related Apps cited at least eight times were included. Information about App's producer, price, contents, privacy policy, and presence of a scientific board was collected. Finally, nine apps were considered. The majority of them were free and available in the two main online markets (Apple(®) App Store and Android(®) Google Play). Five apps presented a privacy policy statement, while a scientific board was mentioned in only three. Further studies are needed in order to deepen the knowledge regarding the main risks of these devices, such as privacy loss, contents control concerns, the digital divide and a potential humanization reduction. © The Author(s) 2015.

pubmed.mineR: an R package with text-mining algorithms to analyse PubMed abstracts.

PubMed

Rani, Jyoti; Shah, A B Rauf; Ramachandran, Srinivasan

2015-10-01

The PubMed literature database is a valuable source of information for scientific research. It is rich in biomedical literature with more than 24 million citations. Data-mining of voluminous literature is a challenging task. Although several text-mining algorithms have been developed in recent years with focus on data visualization, they have limitations such as speed, are rigid and are not available in the open source. We have developed an R package, pubmed.mineR, wherein we have combined the advantages of existing algorithms, overcome their limitations, and offer user flexibility and link with other packages in Bioconductor and the Comprehensive R Network (CRAN) in order to expand the user capabilities for executing multifaceted approaches. Three case studies are presented, namely, 'Evolving role of diabetes educators', 'Cancer risk assessment' and 'Dynamic concepts on disease and comorbidity' to illustrate the use of pubmed.mineR. The package generally runs fast with small elapsed times in regular workstations even on large corpus sizes and with compute intensive functions. The pubmed.mineR is available at http://cran.rproject. org/web/packages/pubmed.mineR.

PubMed searches: overview and strategies for clinicians.

PubMed

Lindsey, Wesley T; Olin, Bernie R

2013-04-01

PubMed is a biomedical and life sciences database maintained by a division of the National Library of Medicine known as the National Center for Biotechnology Information (NCBI). It is a large resource with more than 5600 journals indexed and greater than 22 million total citations. Searches conducted in PubMed provide references that are more specific for the intended topic compared with other popular search engines. Effective PubMed searches allow the clinician to remain current on the latest clinical trials, systematic reviews, and practice guidelines. PubMed continues to evolve by allowing users to create a customized experience through the My NCBI portal, new arrangements and options in search filters, and supporting scholarly projects through exportation of citations to reference managing software. Prepackaged search options available in the Clinical Queries feature also allow users to efficiently search for clinical literature. PubMed also provides information regarding the source journals themselves through the Journals in NCBI Databases link. This article provides an overview of the PubMed database's structure and features as well as strategies for conducting an effective search.

Systematic Review of the Human Milk Microbiota.

PubMed

Fitzstevens, John L; Smith, Kelsey C; Hagadorn, James I; Caimano, Melissa J; Matson, Adam P; Brownell, Elizabeth A

2017-06-01

Human milk-associated microbes are among the first to colonize the infant gut and may help to shape both short- and long-term infant health outcomes. We performed a systematic review to characterize the microbiota of human milk. Relevant primary studies were identified through a comprehensive search of PubMed (January 1, 1964, to June 31, 2015). Included studies were conducted among healthy mothers, were written in English, identified bacteria in human milk, used culture-independent methods, and reported primary results at the genus level. Twelve studies satisfied inclusion criteria. All varied in geographic location and human milk collection/storage/analytic methods. Streptococcus was identified in human milk samples in 11 studies (91.6%) and Staphylococcus in 10 (83.3%); both were predominant genera in 6 (50%). Eight of the 12 studies used conventional ribosomal RNA (rRNA) polymerase chain reaction (PCR), of which 7 (87.5%) identified Streptococcus and 6 (80%) identified Staphylococcus as present. Of these 8 studies, 2 (25%) identified Streptococcus and Staphylococcus as predominant genera. Four of the 12 studies used next-generation sequencing (NGS), all of which identified Streptococcus and Staphylococcus as present and predominant genera. Relative to conventional rRNA PCR, NGS is a more sensitive method to identify/quantify bacterial genera in human milk, suggesting the predominance of Streptococcus and Staphylococcus may be underestimated in studies using older methods. These genera, Streptococcus and Staphylococcus, may be universally predominant in human milk, regardless of differences in geographic location or analytic methods. Primary studies designed to evaluate the effect of these 2 genera on short- and long-term infant outcomes are warranted.

Mind the Gap

PubMed Central

Fairbanks, Terry; Savage, Erica; Adams, Katie; Wittie, Michael; Boone, Edna; Hayden, Andrew; Barnes, Janey; Hettinger, Zach; Gettinger, Andrew

2016-01-01

Summary Objective Decisions made during electronic health record (EHR) implementations profoundly affect usability and safety. This study aims to identify gaps between the current literature and key stakeholders’ perceptions of usability and safety practices and the challenges encountered during the implementation of EHRs. Materials and Methods Two approaches were used: a literature review and interviews with key stakeholders. We performed a systematic review of the literature to identify usability and safety challenges and best practices during implementation. A total of 55 articles were reviewed through searches of PubMed, Web of Science and Scopus. We used a qualitative approach to identify key stakeholders’ perceptions; semi-structured interviews were conducted with a diverse set of health IT stakeholders to understand their current practices and challenges related to usability during implementation. We used a grounded theory approach: data were coded, sorted, and emerging themes were identified. Conclusions from both sources of data were compared to identify areas of misalignment. Results We identified six emerging themes from the literature and stakeholder interviews: cost and resources, risk assessment, governance and consensus building, customization, clinical work-flow and usability testing, and training. Across these themes, there were misalignments between the literature and stakeholder perspectives, indicating major gaps. Discussion Major gaps identified from each of six emerging themes are discussed as critical areas for future research, opportunities for new stakeholder initiatives, and opportunities to better disseminate resources to improve the implementation of EHRs. Conclusion Our analysis identified practices and challenges across six different emerging themes, illustrated important gaps, and results suggest critical areas for future research and dissemination to improve EHR implementation. PMID:27847961

ZK DrugResist 2.0: A TextMiner to extract semantic relations of drug resistance from PubMed.

PubMed

Khalid, Zoya; Sezerman, Osman Ugur

2017-05-01

Extracting useful knowledge from an unstructured textual data is a challenging task for biologists, since biomedical literature is growing exponentially on a daily basis. Building an automated method for such tasks is gaining much attention of researchers. ZK DrugResist is an online tool that automatically extracts mutations and expression changes associated with drug resistance from PubMed. In this study we have extended our tool to include semantic relations extracted from biomedical text covering drug resistance and established a server including both of these features. Our system was tested for three relations, Resistance (R), Intermediate (I) and Susceptible (S) by applying hybrid feature set. From the last few decades the focus has changed to hybrid approaches as it provides better results. In our case this approach combines rule-based methods with machine learning techniques. The results showed 97.67% accuracy with 96% precision, recall and F-measure. The results have outperformed the previously existing relation extraction systems thus can facilitate computational analysis of drug resistance against complex diseases and further can be implemented on other areas of biomedicine. Copyright © 2017 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Genetics Home Reference: nonsyndromic holoprosencephaly

MedlinePlus

... on PubMed or Free article on PubMed Central Solomon BD, Gropman A, Muenke M. Holoprosencephaly Overview. 2000 ... nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK1530/ Citation on PubMed Solomon BD, Mercier S, Vélez JI, Pineda-Alvarez DE, Wyllie ...

Genetics Home Reference: giant axonal neuropathy

MedlinePlus

... 002. Epub 2014 Dec 19. Citation on PubMed Johnson-Kerner BL, Garcia Diaz A, Ekins S, Wichterle H. ... on PubMed or Free article on PubMed Central Johnson-Kerner BL, Roth L, Greene JP, Wichterle H, ...

Genetics Home Reference: dentinogenesis imperfecta

MedlinePlus

... Epub 2004 Feb 3. Citation on PubMed McKnight DA, Simmer JP, Hart PS, Hart TC, Fisher LW. ... PubMed or Free article on PubMed Central McKnight DA, Suzanne Hart P, Hart TC, Hartsfield JK, Wilson ...

Correction to: The minimally invasive flexor carpi radialis approach: a new perspective for distal radius fractures.

PubMed

Igeta, Yuka; Vernet, Paul; Facca, Sybille; Naroura, Ismaël; Hidalgo Diaz, Juan José; Liverneaux, Philippe A

2018-03-03

With regards to Juan José Hidalgo Diaz, fifth author. The author's name is incorrectly listed on Pub-Med. The first and last name has been mixed up.Correct first name is: JJ (on PubMed: JJH.).Correct last name is: Hidalgo Diaz (on PubMed: Diaz).On SpringerLink the name is listed correctly, but on PubMed he is listed as Diaz JJH.

Genetics Home Reference: 6q24-related transient neonatal diabetes mellitus

MedlinePlus

... Citation on PubMed Mackay DJ, Boonen SE, Clayton-Smith J, Goodship J, Hahnemann JM, Kant SG, Njølstad ... Bean LJH, Bird TD, Ledbetter N, Mefford HC, Smith RJH, Stephens K, editors. GeneReviews® [Internet]. Seattle (WA): ...

Toolbox for Evaluating Residents as Teachers

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Coverdale, John H.; Ismail, Nadia; Mian, Ayesha; Dewey, Charlene

2010-01-01

Objective: The authors review existing assessment tools related to evaluating residents' teaching skills and teaching effectiveness. Methods: PubMed and PsycInfo databases were searched using combinations of keywords including "residents," "residents as teachers," "teaching skills," and "assessments" or "rating scales." Results: Eleven evaluation…

Enhancing adult therapeutic interpersonal relationships in the acute health care setting: an integrative review

PubMed Central

Kornhaber, Rachel; Walsh, Kenneth; Duff, Jed; Walker, Kim

2016-01-01

Therapeutic interpersonal relationships are the primary component of all health care interactions that facilitate the development of positive clinician–patient experiences. Therapeutic interpersonal relationships have the capacity to transform and enrich the patients’ experiences. Consequently, with an increasing necessity to focus on patient-centered care, it is imperative for health care professionals to therapeutically engage with patients to improve health-related outcomes. Studies were identified through an electronic search, using the PubMed, Cumulative Index to Nursing and Allied Health Literature, and PsycINFO databases of peer-reviewed research, limited to the English language with search terms developed to reflect therapeutic interpersonal relationships between health care professionals and patients in the acute care setting. This study found that therapeutic listening, responding to patient emotions and unmet needs, and patient centeredness were key characteristics of strategies for improving therapeutic interpersonal relationships. PMID:27789958

Enhancing adult therapeutic interpersonal relationships in the acute health care setting: an integrative review.

PubMed

Kornhaber, Rachel; Walsh, Kenneth; Duff, Jed; Walker, Kim

2016-01-01

Therapeutic interpersonal relationships are the primary component of all health care interactions that facilitate the development of positive clinician-patient experiences. Therapeutic interpersonal relationships have the capacity to transform and enrich the patients' experiences. Consequently, with an increasing necessity to focus on patient-centered care, it is imperative for health care professionals to therapeutically engage with patients to improve health-related outcomes. Studies were identified through an electronic search, using the PubMed, Cumulative Index to Nursing and Allied Health Literature, and PsycINFO databases of peer-reviewed research, limited to the English language with search terms developed to reflect therapeutic interpersonal relationships between health care professionals and patients in the acute care setting. This study found that therapeutic listening, responding to patient emotions and unmet needs, and patient centeredness were key characteristics of strategies for improving therapeutic interpersonal relationships.

A systematic review of tibialis anterior tendon rupture treatments and outcomes.

PubMed

Christman-Skieller, Claudia; Merz, Michael K; Tansey, Joseph P

2015-04-01

Tibialis anterior (TA) tendon rupture is a relatively rare injury that has been documented primarily in case reports. This article is the first large systematic review of the literature on treatment techniques for subcutaneous rupture of TA tendons. Studies for review were identified through a PubMed search. Eligible studies involved cases of closed tendon rupture. Of the 87 cases in the study, 72 were treated with surgery, 15 with conservative measures. Mean age was 63.9 years (surgery group) and 72.4 years (conservative treatment group). Primary repair was used most often for newer injuries, autograft most often for older injuries. Operative repair of subcutaneous TA tendon rupture leads to successful outcomes in many patients. A surgeon who is deciding which operative technique to use for a patient should consider the age of the injury and the findings of intraoperative assessment for tendon necrosis.

A meta-analysis of the variables related to job satisfaction among Korean nurses.

PubMed

Choi, So Eun; Kim, Sang Dol

2016-08-01

The shortage of nursing workforce has been a critical and global issue and associated with job satisfaction. To evaluate the strength of the relationships between job satisfaction and organizational commitment, job stress, and turnover intention among Korean nurses. Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses; Korean Education & Research Information Service, KISS, DB pia, PubMed, and CINAHL databases were searched. The meta-analysis software package, R program (version 3.0.1), was used. Thirty-eight of 1245 screened studies had appropriate data. The overall relationships were high and significant, and increased organizational commitment (WES = .62), decreased turnover intention (WES = -.47), and decreased job stress (WES = -.37) were associated with job satisfaction. The strongest relationship was identified between organizational commitment and job satisfaction. These findings have important implications for improving organizational commitment to increase job satisfaction among nurses.

Risk factors for leptospirosis infection in humans and implications for public health intervention in Indonesia and the Asia-Pacific region.

PubMed

Sakundarno, Mateus; Bertolatti, Dean; Maycock, Bruce; Spickett, Jeffery; Dhaliwal, Satvinder

2014-01-01

Prevention and control of leptospirosis require an understanding of risk factors. This review identifies risk factors associated with leptospirosis infection from countries in the Asia-Pacific region, and compares and contrasts these data with those available from Indonesia. MEDLINE, PubMed, and Scopus databases were used to search for relevant articles. Indonesian gray literature was searched for leptospirosis risk factor studies in Indonesia. A total of 34 articles were included in this review. The contrast between peer-reviewed publications and Indonesian gray literature revealed that the variety of risk factors associated with leptospirosis infection is region or area specific. The presence of skin wounds, the existence of rodents, especially rats, and activities related to contact with contaminated surface water are factors frequently reported to have significant association with leptospirosis infection in human in Indonesia and in other Asia-Pacific countries.

Evaluation of Primary/Preferred Language Data Collection

PubMed Central

Duong, Linh M.; Singh, Simple D.; Buchanan, Natasha; Phillips, Joan L; Cerlach, Ken

2015-01-01

A literature review was conducted to identify peer-reviewed articles related to primary/preferred language and interpreter-use data collection practices in hospitals, clinics, and outpatient settings to assess its completeness and quality. In January 2011, Embase (Ovid), MEDLINE (Ovid), PubMed, and Web of Science databases were searched for eligible studies. Primary and secondary inclusion criteria were applied to selected eligible articles. This extensive literature search yielded 768 articles after duplicates were removed. After primary and secondary inclusion criteria were applied, 28 eligible articles remained for data abstraction. All 28 articles in this review reported collecting primary/preferred language data, but only 18% (5/28) collected information on interpreter use. This review revealed that there remains variability in the way that primary/preferred language and interpreter use data are collected; all studies used various methodologies for evaluating and abstracting these data. Likewise, the sources from which the data were abstracted differed. PMID:23443456

Emerging Common Molecular Pathways for Primary Dystonia

PubMed Central

LeDoux, Mark S; Dauer, William T; Warner, Thomas T

2013-01-01

Background The dystonias are a group of hyperkinetic movement disorders whose principal cause is neuron dysfunction at one or more interconnected nodes of the motor system. The study of genes and proteins which cause familial dystonia provides critical information about the cellular pathways involved in this dysfunction which disrupts the motor pathways at systems level. In recent years study of the increasing number of DYT genes has implicated a number of cell functions which appear to be involved in the pathogenesis of dystonia. Methods Review of literature published in English language publications available on Pubmed relating to the genetics and cellular pathology of dystonia Results and Conclusions Numerous potential pathogenetic mechanisms have been identified. We describe those which fall into three emerging thematic groups: cell cycle and transcriptional regulation in the nucleus, endoplasmic reticulum and nuclear envelope function, and control of synaptic function. PMID:23893453

Economics of childbirth.

PubMed

Fahy, Michael; Doyle, Orla; Denny, Kevin; McAuliffe, Fionnuala M; Robson, Michael

2013-05-01

Increasing birth rates have raised questions for policy makers and hospital management about the economic costs of childbirth. The purpose of this article is to identify and review all existing scientific studies in relation to the economic costs of alternative modes of childbirth delivery and to highlight deficiencies in the existing scientific research. We searched Cochrane, Centre for Reviews and Dissemination, EconLit, the Excerpta Medica Database, the Health Economic Evaluations Database, MEDLINE and PubMed. Thirty articles are included in this review. The main findings suggest that there is no internationally acceptable childbirth cost and clinical outcome classification system that allows for comparisons across different delivery modes. This review demonstrates that a better understanding and classification of the costs and associated clinical outcomes of childbirth is required to allow for valid comparisons between maternity units, and to inform policy makers and hospital management. © 2013 The Authors Acta Obstetricia et Gynecologica Scandinavica © 2013 Nordic Federation of Societies of Obstetrics and Gynecology.

What evidence is available on end-of-life (EOL) care and Latino elders? A literature review.

PubMed

Cruz-Oliver, Dulce M; Talamantes, Melissa; Sanchez-Reilly, Sandra

2014-02-01

Low-income and minority persons, such as Latinos, encounter substantial barriers in accessing effective end-of-life (EOL) care. This study intends to review current evidence on how to deliver EOL care to Latino elders. Literature search in PubMed and Ovid Web sites of articles indexed in Medline (1948-2011), Cochrane (2005-2011), Embase, and PsychInfo (1967-2011) databases. Articles were included if they contained (1) study participants' race/ethnicity, (2) adults or population older than 60 years, and (3) information related to EOL care. A total of 64 abstracts were reviewed, and 38 articles met the inclusion criteria. After reviewing the quality of evidence, 4 themes were identified and summarized: EOL preferences, hospice, Latino culture, and caregiving. Latino elders have traditional acculturation practices, face EOL decisions with family support, and, if educated, are receptive toward hospice and caregiver support.

Low-dose ionizing radiation increases the mortality risk of solid cancers in nuclear industry workers: A meta-analysis

PubMed Central

Qu, Shu-Gen; Gao, Jin; Tang, Bo; Yu, Bo; Shen, Yue-Ping; Tu, Yu

2018-01-01

Low-dose ionizing radiation (LDIR) may increase the mortality of solid cancers in nuclear industry workers, but only few individual cohort studies exist, and the available reports have low statistical power. The aim of the present study was to focus on solid cancer mortality risk from LDIR in the nuclear industry using standard mortality ratios (SMRs) and 95% confidence intervals. A systematic literature search through the PubMed and Embase databases identified 27 studies relevant to this meta-analysis. There was statistical significance for total, solid and lung cancers, with meta-SMR values of 0.88, 0.80, and 0.89, respectively. There was evidence of stochastic effects by IR, but more definitive conclusions require additional analyses using standardized protocols to determine whether LDIR increases the risk of solid cancer-related mortality. PMID:29725540

Some Reflections on Intracytoplasmic Morphologically Selected Sperm Injection

PubMed Central

Ebner, Thomas; Shebl, Omar; Oppelt, Peter; Mayer, Richard Bernhard

2014-01-01

Although intracytoplasmic sperm injection (ICSI) allows proper fertilization in most cases of male sub fertility, it is one of the most unphysiological techniques in assisted reproductive technologies (ART). Thus, over the last decade, researchers have tried to improve sperm observation with higher-resolution microscopy techniques such as the intracytoplasmic morphologically selected sperm injection (IMSI) technique. In order to identify literatures for this review, the PubMed database was searched from 2000 onwards using the terms IMSI, motile sperm organelle morphology examination (MSOME) and sperm vacuole. Approximately 10 years after the introduction of the MSOME and IMSI procedures, several questions related to the prevalence, origin, location, and clinical consequences of sperm vacuoles have not yet been clarified. It seems that IMSI as a routine application is not state of the art and the only confirmed indications for IMSI are recurrent implantation failure following ICSI and severe male factor. PMID:25083173

Some reflections on intracytoplasmic morphologically selected sperm injection.

PubMed

Ebner, Thomas; Shebl, Omar; Oppelt, Peter; Mayer, Richard Bernhard

2014-07-01

Although intracytoplasmic sperm injection (ICSI) allows proper fertilization in most cases of male sub fertility, it is one of the most unphysiological techniques in assisted reproductive technologies (ART). Thus, over the last decade, researchers have tried to improve sperm observation with higher-resolution microscopy techniques such as the intracytoplasmic morphologically selected sperm injection (IMSI) technique. In order to identify literatures for this review, the PubMed database was searched from 2000 onwards using the terms IMSI, motile sperm organelle morphology examination (MSOME) and sperm vacuole. Approximately 10 years after the introduction of the MSOME and IMSI procedures, several questions related to the prevalence, origin, location, and clinical consequences of sperm vacuoles have not yet been clarified. It seems that IMSI as a routine application is not state of the art and the only confirmed indications for IMSI are recurrent implantation failure following ICSI and severe male factor.

Evaluation of primary/preferred language data collection.

PubMed

Duong, Linh M; Singh, Simple D; Buchanan, Natasha; Phillips, Joan L; Gerlach, Ken

2012-01-01

A literature review was conducted to identify peer-reviewed articles related to primary/preferred language and interpreter-use data collection practices in hospitals, clinics, and outpatient settings to assess its completeness and quality. In January 2011, Embase (Ovid), MEDLINE (Ovid), PubMed, and Web of Science databases were searched for eligible studies. Primary and secondary inclusion criteria were applied to selected eligible articles. This extensive literature search yielded 768 articles after duplicates were removed. After primary and secondary inclusion criteria were applied, 28 eligible articles remained for data abstraction. All 28 articles in this review reported collecting primary/preferred language data, but only 18% (5/28) collected information on interpreter use. This review revealed that there remains variability in the way that primary/preferred language and interpreter use data are collected; all studies used various methodologies for evaluating and abstracting these data. Likewise, the sources from which the data were abstracted differed.

An application of an ecological framework to understand risk factors of PTSD due to prolonged conflict exposure: Israeli and Palestinian adolescents in the Line of Fire

PubMed Central

Rosshandler, Yasmin; Hall, Brian J.; Canetti, Daphna

2016-01-01

Objective Adolescents living in Israel and the Palestinian authority are exposed to political violence. This review examines psychosocial risk factors for posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) organized within an ecological framework. Method Relevant articles were identified through PubMed and PsycINFO. Studies measuring risk and/or protective factors for PTSD in the Palestinian and/or Israeli adolescent populations due to conflict exposure from 1990 to present were included. Results A total of 20 studies met inclusion criteria. Greater violence exposure, poor economic resources, living in rural compared to urban areas, poor family and peer relations and poor coping skills were associated with PTSD symptoms. Conclusions The ecological framework is a useful approach to understanding factors affecting adolescent PTSD. Future research should focus on socio-ecological levels that have received limited attention. PMID:26950012

An application of an ecological framework to understand risk factors of PTSD due to prolonged conflict exposure: Israeli and Palestinian adolescents in the line of fire.

PubMed

Rosshandler, Yasmin; Hall, Brian J; Canetti, Daphna

2016-09-01

Adolescents living in Israel and the Palestinian authority are exposed to political violence. This review examines psychosocial risk factors for posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) organized within an ecological framework. Relevant articles were identified through PubMed and PsycINFO. Studies measuring risk and/or protective factors for PTSD in the Palestinian and/or Israeli adolescent populations because of conflict exposure from 1990 to present were included. A total of 20 studies met inclusion criteria. Greater violence exposure, poor economic resources, living in rural compared with urban areas, poor family and peer relations, and poor coping skills were associated with PTSD symptoms. The ecological framework is a useful approach to understanding factors affecting adolescent PTSD. Future research should focus on socioecological levels that have received limited attention. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2016 APA, all rights reserved).

Measurement Scales of Suicidal Ideation and Attitudes: A Systematic Review Article

PubMed Central

Ghasemi, Parvin; Shaghaghi, Abdolreza; Allahverdipour, Hamid

2015-01-01

Background: The main aim of this study was to accumulate research evidence that introduce validated scales to measure suicidal attitudes and ideation and provide an empirical framework for adopting a relevant assessment tool in studies on suicide and suicidal behaviors. Methods: Medical Subject Headings’ (MeSH) terms were used to search Ovid Medline, PROQUEST, Wiley online library, Science Direct and PubMed for the published articles in English that reported application of an scale to measure suicidal attitudes and ideation from January 1974 onward. Results: Fourteen suicidal attitude scale and 15 scales for assessing suicidal ideation were identified in this systematic review. No gold standard approach was recognized to study suicide related attitudes and ideations. Conclusion: Special focus on generally agreed dimensions of suicidal ideation and attitudes and cross-cultural validation of the introduced scales to be applicable in different ethnic and socially diverse populations could be a promising area of research for scholars. PMID:26634193

Genetics Home Reference: Carpenter syndrome

MedlinePlus

... doi: 10.1097/SCS.0b013e318184357a. Citation on PubMed Jenkins D, Baynam G, De Catte L, Elcioglu N, ... on PubMed or Free article on PubMed Central Jenkins D, Seelow D, Jehee FS, Perlyn CA, Alonso ...

PubMed vs. HighWire Press: a head-to-head comparison of two medical literature search engines.

PubMed

Vanhecke, Thomas E; Barnes, Michael A; Zimmerman, Janet; Shoichet, Sandor

2007-09-01

PubMed and HighWire Press are both useful medical literature search engines available for free to anyone on the internet. We measured retrieval accuracy, number of results generated, retrieval speed, features and search tools on HighWire Press and PubMed using the quick search features of each. We found that using HighWire Press resulted in a higher likelihood of retrieving the desired article and higher number of search results than the same search on PubMed. PubMed was faster than HighWire Press in delivering search results regardless of search settings. There are considerable differences in search features between these two search engines.

[Use of PubMed to improve evidence-based medicine in routine urological practice].

PubMed

Rink, M; Kluth, L A; Shariat, S F; Chun, F K; Fisch, M; Dahm, P

2013-03-01

Applying evidence-based medicine in daily clinical practice is the basis of patient-centered medicine and knowledge of accurate literature acquisition skills is necessary for informed clinical decision-making. PubMed is an easy accessible, free bibliographic database comprising over 21 million citations from the medical field, life-science journals and online books. The article summarizes the effective use of PubMed in routine urological clinical practice based on a common case scenario. This article explains the simple use of PubMed to obtain the best search results with the highest evidence. Accurate knowledge about the use of PubMed in routine clinical practice can improve evidence-based medicine and also patient treatment.

Acta Informatica Medica Is Indexed In Pubmed And Archived In Pubmed Central

PubMed Central

Masic, Izet

2013-01-01

Acta Informatica Medica journal has been accepted for archiving in PubMed Central from 2011 onward. The journal started in 1993 as the official journal of the Society for Medical Informatics of Bosnia and Herzegovina. During the last 3 years, Acta Informatica Medica has een included in almost all prestigious online databases, including PubMed, Scopus and EMBASE. The 20th volume of the journal is fully international, with papers from 18 countries. PMID:23572852

Acta informatica medica is indexed in pubmed and archived in pubmed central.

PubMed

Masic, Izet

2013-03-01

Acta Informatica Medica journal has been accepted for archiving in PubMed Central from 2011 onward. The journal started in 1993 as the official journal of the Society for Medical Informatics of Bosnia and Herzegovina. During the last 3 years, Acta Informatica Medica has een included in almost all prestigious online databases, including PubMed, Scopus and EMBASE. The 20th volume of the journal is fully international, with papers from 18 countries.

Quantity and quality assessment of randomized controlled trials on orthodontic practice in PubMed.

PubMed

Shimada, Tatsuo; Takayama, Hisako; Nakamura, Yoshiki

2010-07-01

To find current high-quality evidence for orthodontic practice within a reasonable time, we tested the performance of a PubMed search. PubMed was searched using publication type randomized controlled trial and medical subject heading term "orthodontics" for articles published between 2003 and 2007. The PubMed search results were compared with those from a hand search of four orthodontic journals to determine the sensitivity of PubMed search. We evaluated the precision of the PubMed search result and assessed the quality of individual randomized controlled trials using the Jadad scale. Sensitivity and precision were 97.46% and 58.12%, respectively. In PubMed, of the 277 articles retrieved, 161 (58.12%) were randomized controlled trials on orthodontic practice, and 115 of the 161 articles (71.42%) were published in four orthodontic journals: American Journal of Orthodontics and Dentofacial Orthopedics, The Angle Orthodontist, the European Journal of Orthodontics, and the Journal of Orthodontics. Assessment by the Jadad scale revealed 60 high-quality randomized controlled trials on orthodontic practice, of which 45 (75%) were published in these four journals. PubMed is a highly desirable search engine for evidence-based orthodontic practice. To stay current and get high-quality evidence, it is reasonable to look through four orthodontic journals: American Journal of Orthodontics and Dentofacial Orthopedics, The Angle Orthodontist, the European Journal of Orthodontics, and the Journal of Orthodontics.

Death related to dental treatment: a systematic review.

PubMed

Reuter, Nathan G; Westgate, Philip M; Ingram, Mark; Miller, Craig S

2017-02-01

The aim of this study was to identify factors associated with death in relation to dental care. A systematic review was performed according to the Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses guidelines. PubMed, Dental and Oral Sciences Source, Web of Science, and the Cochrane database were searched, and the references of all retrieved articles were analyzed. Studies were included if death had occurred within 90 days of the dental appointment, and if the patient's age, procedure, and information regarding cause or time of death were provided. Factors associated with death were assessed by multivariate analyses and logistic regression. Fifty-six publications, including retrospective studies and case reports/series that reported 148 fatalities, were analyzed. On average, 2.6 deaths were reported per year. The leading cause of deaths was anesthesia/sedation/medication-related complications (n = 70). Other causes were cardiovascular events (n = 31), infection (n = 19), airway-respiratory complications (n = 18), bleeding (n = 5), and others (n = 5). Age (P < .0001), disease severity (P < .02), disease stability (P < .006), dental provider characteristics (P < .05), level of consciousness/sedation (P < .02), and drug effects (P < .03) had significant associations with death. Reports of death were rare; however, specific risk factors associated with dentistry were identified. A better understanding of these factors is important for the development of guidelines that help prevent fatalities in dentistry. Copyright © 2016 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Contribution of NIH funding to new drug approvals 2010–2016

PubMed Central

Beierlein, Jennifer M.; Khanuja, Navleen Surjit; McNamee, Laura M.; Ledley, Fred D.

2018-01-01

This work examines the contribution of NIH funding to published research associated with 210 new molecular entities (NMEs) approved by the Food and Drug Administration from 2010–2016. We identified >2 million publications in PubMed related to the 210 NMEs (n = 131,092) or their 151 known biological targets (n = 1,966,281). Of these, >600,000 (29%) were associated with NIH-funded projects in RePORTER. This funding included >200,000 fiscal years of NIH project support (1985–2016) and project costs >$100 billion (2000–2016), representing ∼20% of the NIH budget over this period. NIH funding contributed to every one of the NMEs approved from 2010–2016 and was focused primarily on the drug targets rather than on the NMEs themselves. There were 84 first-in-class products approved in this interval, associated with >$64 billion of NIH-funded projects. The percentage of fiscal years of project funding identified through target searches, but not drug searches, was greater for NMEs discovered through targeted screening than through phenotypic methods (95% versus 82%). For targeted NMEs, funding related to targets preceded funding related to the NMEs, consistent with the expectation that basic research provides validated targets for targeted screening. This analysis, which captures basic research on biological targets as well as applied research on NMEs, suggests that the NIH contribution to research associated with new drug approvals is greater than previously appreciated and highlights the risk of reducing federal funding for basic biomedical research. PMID:29440428

Predictors of quality of life for chronic stroke survivors in relation to cultural differences: a literature review.

PubMed

Wang, Rongrong; Langhammer, Birgitta

2017-09-26

Stroke survivors might perceive their quality of life (QoL) as being affected even years after onset. The purpose of this review was to go through the literature to identify factors related to QoL for persons with stroke in China and Western countries for possible similarities and differences in their respective cultural views. A narrative literature review was conducted on the papers identified by searching PubMed, EBSCO/CINAHL, EMBASE, PsycINFO, China National Knowledge Infrastructure and Wanfang Data that published up to November 2016. Factors predicting QoL after stroke were extracted, and comparisons were made between Chinese and Western studies respecting cultural aspects. A total of 43 articles were included in this review, with 31 conducted in Western countries and 12 in China. Predictors of QoL included Demographic factors: age, gender, marital status, education level, socioeconomic status; Clinically related factors: severity of stroke, physical function, depression/anxiety, cognitive impairment, incontinence and other comorbidities; Environmental factors: residential status, social support, social participation; and Individual factors: coping strategies and self-perception. Being married and resident at home might be associated with the perception of QoL differently between Chinese and Western survivors. Most predictors of QoL in stroke survivors were the same in China and the Western countries. However, their QoL might be predicted differently regarding to the individualistic and collectivistic cultural differences. © 2017 Nordic College of Caring Science.

A new proposal for a clinical-oriented subclassification of baboon syndrome and a review of baboon syndrome.

PubMed

Miyahara, Atsushi; Kawashima, Hisashi; Okubo, Yukari; Hoshika, Akinori

2011-06-01

To review baboon syndrome (BS). Date sources were obtained from PubMed and Google Scholar: Photographs of baboon syndrome were obtained from our patient. PubMed and Google Scholar were searched up to June 30, 2010. The search terms were "baboon syndrome", "SDRIFE" and "thimerosal allergy". Reverse references from relevant articles and Google Scholar were also used. As BS is a classical disease and cases of offending agents were relatively old, some references were more than five years old. In order to gather as many cases of offending agents as possible, more than 50 references were collected. We divided BS into as 4 groups; classical baboon syndrome, topical drug-induced baboon syndrome, systemic drug-induced baboon syndrome and symmetrical drug-related intertriginous and flexural exanthema (SDRIFE). The pathomechanism of BS is still unknown. A delayed type of hypersensitivity reaction, a recall phenomenon, pharmacologic interaction with immune-receptors and anatomical factors may be involved in the causation of BS.

Patient-Reported Outcome Measures for Hand and Wrist Trauma

PubMed Central

Dacombe, Peter Jonathan; Amirfeyz, Rouin; Davis, Tim

2016-01-01

Background: Patient-reported outcome measures (PROMs) are important tools for assessing outcomes following injuries to the hand and wrist. Many commonly used PROMs have no evidence of reliability, validity, and responsiveness in a hand and wrist trauma population. This systematic review examines the PROMs used in the assessment of hand and wrist trauma patients, and the evidence for reliability, validity, and responsiveness of each measure in this population. Methods: A systematic review of Pubmed, Medline, and CINAHL searching for randomized controlled trials of patients with traumatic injuries to the hand and wrist was carried out to identify the PROMs. For each identified PROM, evidence of reliability, validity, and responsiveness was identified using a further systematic review of the Pubmed, Medline, CINAHL, and reverse citation trail audit procedure. Results: The PROM used most often was the Disabilities of the Arm, Shoulder and Hand (DASH) questionnaire; the Patient-Rated Wrist Evaluation (PRWE), Gartland and Werley score, Michigan Hand Outcomes score, Mayo Wrist Score, and Short Form 36 were also commonly used. Only the DASH and PRWE have evidence of reliability, validity, and responsiveness in patients with traumatic injuries to the hand and wrist; other measures either have incomplete evidence or evidence gathered in a nontraumatic population. Conclusions: The DASH and PRWE both have evidence of reliability, validity, and responsiveness in a hand and wrist trauma population. Other PROMs used to assess hand and wrist trauma patients do not. This should be considered when selecting a PROM for patients with traumatic hand and wrist pathology. PMID:27418884

Measuring Stress Before and During Pregnancy: A Review of Population-Based Studies of Obstetric Outcomes

PubMed Central

Witt, Whitney; Litzelman, Kristin; Cheng, Erika R; Wakeel, Fathima; Barker, Emily S.

2013-01-01

Objectives Mounting evidence from clinic and convenience samples suggests that stress is an important predictor of adverse obstetric outcomes. Using a proposed theoretical framework, this review identified and synthesized the population-based literature on the measurement of stress prior to and during pregnancy in relation to obstetric outcomes. Methods Population-based, peer-reviewed empirical articles that examined stress prior to or during pregnancy in relation to obstetric outcomes were identified in the PubMed and PsycInfo databases. Articles were evaluated to determine the domain(s) of stress (environmental, psychological, and/or biological), period(s) of stress (preconception and/or pregnancy), and strength of the association between stress and obstetric outcomes. Results Thirteen studies were evaluated. The identified studies were all conducted in developed countries. The majority of studies examined stress only during pregnancy (n=10); three examined stress during both the preconception and pregnancy periods (n=3). Most studies examined the environmental domain (e.g., life events) only (n=9), two studies examined the psychological domain only, and two studies examined both. No study incorporated a biological measure of stress. Environmental stressors before and during pregnancy were associated with worse obstetric outcomes, although some conflicting findings exist. Conclusions Few population-based studies have examined stress before or during pregnancy in relation to obstetric outcomes. Although considerable variation exists in the measurement of stress across studies, environmental stress increased the risk for poor obstetric outcomes. Additional work using a lifecourse approach is needed to fill the existing gaps in the literature and to develop a more comprehensive understanding of the mechanisms by which stress impacts obstetric outcomes. PMID:23447085

Systematic review: Factors associated with return to work in burnout.

PubMed

Kärkkäinen, R; Saaranen, T; Hiltunen, S; Ryynänen, O P; Räsänen, K

2017-08-01

Professional burnout predicts sick leave and even permanent withdrawal from the labour force. However, knowledge of the barriers to and facilitators of return to work (RTW) in such burnout is limited. To identify factors associated with RTW of burned-out individuals to inform occupational health care (OHC) RTW policy. A systematic search of peer-reviewed quantitative and mixed-method studies published from January 2005 to July 2016 in English and Finnish in ARTO, CINAHL (EBSCO), Medic, PsycINFO (ProQuest), PubMed, Scopus and Web of Science databases, followed by a manual search. We included studies that identify burnout with valid burnout measures and measure the degree of RTW or sick leave as outcomes. We excluded studies with heterogeneous samples without subgroup analyses of RTW in burnout cases. We included 10 studies (three experimental and seven observational) of the initial 1345 identified. The studies reported work-related factors; enhanced communication (positive association) and low control at work (negative association) and individual-related factors; male gender (positive association), covert coping (negative association), high over-commitment to work (positive association) and burnout-related factors; unimpaired sleep (positive association), duration of sick leave over 6 months (negative association) and part-time sick leave (positive association) associated with RTW in burnout. Associations between burnout rehabilitation and RTW, and the level of symptoms and cognitive impairment and RTW remained unclear. Few quantitative studies, of varied methodological quality, explore factors associated with RTW in burnout. Further research is needed to build an evidence base and develop guidelines for supportive OHC actions. © The Author 2017. Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of the Society of Occupational Medicine. All rights reserved. For Permissions, please email: journals.permissions@oup.com

Knowledge, attitudes and practices on Schistosomiasis in sub-Saharan Africa: a systematic review.

PubMed

Sacolo, Hlengiwe; Chimbari, Moses; Kalinda, Chester

2018-01-18

Schistosomiasis remains a global health problem with an estimated 250 million people in 78 countries infected, of whom 85% live in Sub-Saharan Africa. Preventive chemotherapy remains the key public health strategy to combat schistosomiasis worldwide. Recently the WHO emphasized on the use of integrative approaches in the control and elimination of schistosomiasis. However, a detailed understanding of sociocultural factors that may influence the uptake of the intended health activities and services is vital. Thus, our study sought to understand the knowledge, attitudes, perceptions, beliefs and practices about schistosomiasis in various communities in Sub-Saharan Africa. A systematic search of literature for the period 2006-2016 was done on Medline, PubMed, CINAHL, Psych info and Google Scholar using the following key words "Schistosomiasis, S. mansoni, S. haematobium, knowledge, attitudes, perceptions, beliefs and practices in Sub-Saharan Africa" in combination with Bolean operators (OR, AND). In this context, we reviewed studies conducted among school children, community members and caregivers of preschool children. Thematic analysis was utilised for the overall synthesis of the selected studies. This was done after reading the articles in depth. Themes were identified and examined for similarities, differences and contradictions. Gaps in schistosomiasis related knowledge and sociocultural barriers towards the uptake of preventive and treatment services among communities in Sub-Saharan Africa were identified. In addition to limited knowledge and negative attitudes, risky water related practices among community members, school children and caregivers of preschool children were identified as key factors promoting transmission of the disease. The study concluded that a comprehensive health education programme using contextual and standardised training tools may improve peoples' knowledge, attitudes and practices in relation to schistosomiasis prevention and control. Findings also highlight the significance of including caregivers in the planning and implementation schistosomiasis control programs targeting pre-school children.

Wound-Related Allergic/Irritant Contact Dermatitis.

PubMed

Alavi, Afsaneh; Sibbald, R Gary; Ladizinski, Barry; Saraiya, Ami; Lee, Kachiu C; Skotnicki-Grant, Sandy; Maibach, Howard

2016-06-01

To provide information from a literature review about the prevention, recognition, and treatment for contact dermatitis. This continuing education activity is intended for physicians and nurses with an interest in skin and wound care. After participating in this educational activity, the participant should be better able to:1. Identify signs and symptoms of and diagnostic measures for contact dermatitis.2. Identify causes and risks for contact dermatitis.3. Select appropriate treatment for contact dermatitis and its prevention. Contact dermatitis to wound care products is a common, often neglected problem. A review was conducted to identify articles relevant to contact dermatitis.A PubMed English-language literature review was conducted for appropriate articles published between January 2000 and December 2015.Contact dermatitis is both irritant (80% of cases) or allergic (20% of cases). Frequent use of potential contact allergens and impaired barrier function of the skin can lead to rising sensitization in patients with chronic wounds. Common known allergens to avoid in wound care patients include fragrances, colophony, lanolin, and topical antibiotics.Clinicians should be cognizant of the allergens in wound care products and the potential for sensitization. All medical devices, including wound dressings, adhesives, and bandages, should be labeled with their complete ingredients, and manufacturers should be encouraged to remove common allergens from wound care products, including topical creams, ointments, and dressings.

Narrative review of frameworks for translating research evidence into policy and practice.

PubMed

Milat, Andrew J; Li, Ben

2017-02-15

A significant challenge in research translation is that interested parties interpret and apply the associated terms and conceptual frameworks in different ways. The purpose of this review was to: a) examine different research translation frameworks; b) examine the similarities and differences between the frameworks; and c) identify key strengths and weaknesses of the models when they are applied in practice. The review involved a keyword search of PubMed. The search string was (translational research OR knowledge translation OR evidence to practice) AND (framework OR model OR theory) AND (public health OR health promotion OR medicine). Included studies were published in English between January 1990 and December 2014, and described frameworks, models or theories associated with research translation. The final review included 98 papers, and 41 different frameworks and models were identified. The most frequently applied knowledge translation framework in the literature was RE-AIM, followed by the knowledge translation continuum or 'T' models, the Knowledge to Action framework, the PARiHS framework, evidence based public health models, and the stages of research and evaluation model. The models identified in this review stem from different fields, including implementation science, basic and medical sciences, health services research and public health, and propose different but related pathways to closing the research-practice gap.

Frailty in Older Adults Using Pre-hospital Care and the Emergency Department: A Narrative Review.

PubMed

Goldstein, Judah P; Andrew, Melissa K; Travers, Andrew

2012-03-01

Older adults use more health-care services per capita than younger age groups and the older adult population varies greatly in its needs. Evidence suggests that there is a critical distinction between relative frailty and fitness in older adults. Here, we review how frailty is described in the pre-hospital literature and in the broader emergency medicine literature. PubMed was used as the primary database, but was augmented by searches of CINAHL and EMBASE. Articles were included if they focused on patients 60 years and older and implemented a definition of frailty or risk screening tool in the Emergency Medical Services (EMS) or Emergency Department setting. IN THE BROAD CLINICAL LITERATURE, THREE TYPES OF MEASURES CAN BE IDENTIFIED: frailty index measures, frailty scales, and a phenotypic definition. Each offers advantages and disadvantages for the EMS stakeholder. We identified no EMS literature on frailty conceptualization or management, although some risk measures from emergency medicine use terms that overlap with the frailty literature. There is a paucity of research on frailty in the Emergency Medical Services literature. No research was identified that specifically addressed frailty conceptualization or management in EMS patients. There is a compelling need for further research in this area.

Prognostic role of extracellular matrix metalloproteinase inducer/CD147 in gastrointestinal cancer: a meta-analysis of related studies.

PubMed

Huang, Xiaohui; Shen, Weisong; Xi, Hongqing; Zhang, Kecheng; Cui, Jianxin; Wei, Bo; Chen, Lin

2016-12-06

The prognostic role of Extracellular matrix metalloproteinase inducer (EMMPRIN/ CD147) in gastrointestinal cancer remains controversial. We systematically reviewed the evidence of assessment of CD147 expression in gastrointestinal cancer to help clarify this issue. Pubmed, Embase, Cochrane Library and Web of Science databases were searched to identify eligible studies to evaluate the association of CD147 expression and disease-free and overall survival of gastrointestinal cancer. Hazard ratios (HRs) were pooled to estimate the effect. CD147 overexpression was significantly correlated with poor disease-free survival (HR 2.38, 95% CI 1.43-3.97) and overall survival (HR 1.64, 95% CI 1.25-2.14) of cancer patients. Furthermore, CD147 overexpression was significantly association with TNM stage (TIII/TIV vs TI/TII: OR 3.60, 95% CI 1.85-7.01), the depth of invasion (T3/T4 vs T1/T2: OR 2.04, 95% CI 1.25-3.33), lymph node metastasis (positive vs negative: 2.35, 95% CI 1.14-4.86), distant metastasis (positive vs negative: OR 4.78, 95% CI 1.43-16.00). Our analyses demonstrate that CD147 was effectively predictive of worse prognosis in gastrointestinal cancer. Moreover, Identifying CD147 may help identify new drug targets for cancer therapy.

Association Between Substance Use and Gun-Related Behaviors.

PubMed

Chen, Danhong; Wu, Li-Tzy

2016-01-01

Gun-related violence is a public health concern. This study synthesizes findings on associations between substance use and gun-related behaviors. Searches through PubMed, Embase, and PsycINFO located 66 studies published in English between 1992 and 2014. Most studies found a significant bivariate association between substance use and increased odds of gun-related behaviors. However, their association after adjustment was mixed, which could be attributed to a number of factors such as variations in definitions of substance use and gun activity, study design, sample demographics, and the specific covariates considered. Fewer studies identified a significant association between substance use and gun access/possession than other gun activities. The significant association between nonsubstance covariates (e.g., demographic covariates and other behavioral risk factors) and gun-related behaviors might have moderated the association between substance use and gun activities. Particularly, the strength of association between substance use and gun activities tended to reduce appreciably or to become nonsignificant after adjustment for mental disorders. Some studies indicated a positive association between the frequency of substance use and the odds of engaging in gun-related behaviors. Overall, the results suggest a need to consider substance use in research and prevention programs for gun-related violence. © The Author 2016. Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health. All rights reserved. For permissions, please e-mail: journals.permissions@oup.com.

Blood pressure, prevalence of hypertension and hypertension related complications in Nigerian Africans: A review

PubMed Central

Ogah, Okechukwu S; Okpechi, Ikechi; Chukwuonye, Innocent I; Akinyemi, Joshua O; Onwubere, Basden JC; Falase, Ayodele O; Stewart, Simon; Sliwa, Karen

2012-01-01

To review studies on hypertension in Nigeria over the past five decades in terms of prevalence, awareness and treatment and complications. Following our search on Pubmed, African Journals Online and the World Health Organization Global cardiovascular infobase, 1060 related references were identified out of which 43 were found to be relevant for this review. The overall prevalence of hypertension in Nigeria ranges from 8%-46.4% depending on the study target population, type of measurement and cut-off value used for defining hypertension. The prevalence is similar in men and women (7.9%-50.2% vs 3.5%-68.8%, respectively) and in the urban (8.1%-42.0%) and rural setting (13.5%-46.4%).The pooled prevalence increased from 8.6% from the only study during the period from 1970-1979 to 22.5% (2000-2011). Awareness, treatment and control of hypertension were generally low with attendant high burden of hypertension related complications. In order to improve outcomes of cardiovascular disease in Africans, public health education to improve awareness of hypertension is required. Further epidemiological studies on hypertension are required to adequately understand and characterize the impact of hypertension in society. PMID:23272273