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Biomedical subjects

N A Campbell

Publications and source records attributed to N A Campbell.

15 recordsLinked to original sources

Ethical issues in a drug information center.

The frequency and nature of ethical issues faced by pharmacists have not been well documented. To address these issues a retrospective study of the potential ethical problems encountered by pharmacists in a drug information center was conducted. Of the 744 calls received over a 13-month period, 50 raised ethical issues. Consumer calls were more likely to raise ethical issues than were health-provider calls. The calls mainly fell into five categories: drug identification, assessment of a physician's recommendations for consumers, conflict between callers' needs and legal or public-health considerations, therapeutic issues in the pharmacist-patient relationship, and paternalistic treatment of "difficult" callers. These questions raised ethical issues related to confidentiality, truth telling, and pharmacists' societal obligations. Pharmacists may confront an increased number of ethical issues as more drug information centers provide consumer services. Although there is no empirical evidence regarding pharmacists' ability to deal with ethical issues, there are reasons to believe that training in medical ethics will better equip pharmacists to recognize, analyze, and resolve ethical dilemmas.

Disclosure

Maternal grieving response after perinatal death.

The nature and incidence of psychological and related physical disturbances were investigated in 110 mothers who had lost a child in the perinatal period. The mothers were interviewed six to 36 months after their loss. The demographic characteristics, hospital experiences, effects of bereavement and perceived social support system of the women were assessed. A pathological bereavement outcome, which was defined as a marked deterioration in health and evidence of increased social adjustment problems, was identified in 21% of the women. A pathological bereavement outcome was found to be related to two main factors--a reported crisis during pregnancy and the perceived support of the husband and/or family. Whether the mother saw but did not hold her baby was also a factor. These results suggest that the loss of a baby may have at least as severe an effect on a woman as the death of her husband. The implication of these findings is that women who are at risk of a pathological outcome of bereavement may be identified soon after their loss.

Adult

Summarizing dietary patterns using multivariate analysis.

Data on the frequency of consumption of 76 foods were collected from 142 native-born Australians of Australian or British parentage, 26 of Italian parentage and 140 Italian migrants to Australia. Clear separation of the three groups was achieved, using a few as 27 food items in a discriminant function analysis. Potatoes, cauliflower, pumpkin and salt were consumed more by Australians, while salad dressings and grapes were eaten more by Italians. Australian-Italians fell between the two groups, although they tended to be more like Italians. The discriminant score derived for each person was used as an overall food score and this was then related to the serum cholesterol level. There was no consistent relationship between food score and serum cholesterol level.

Australia

Community-hospital pharmacist detection of drug-related problems upon patient admission to small hospitals.

A method was developed to increase community-hospital pharmacist consultation on patient drug use in order to detect drug-related problems upon patient admission to the hospital. A medication history was takenon criteria-selected patients admitted to two hospitals in distant, but similar, geographically small and isolated areas. Tho total number of patients selected was 392. Information about prior drug use was obtained from participating community pharmacists and their patient prescription records and medication profiles. It was found by pharmacist-acquired drug histories that one of five criteria-selected patients had a preexisting drug-related problem that the admitting physician acknowledged probably contributed to the admission and necessitated professional and patient communication. These problems included: adverse response to prescribed therapy, misuse of medication or noncompliance, effect of diet on therapy, patient treatment by more than one prescriber, and therapeutic ineffectiveness or inappropriateness of prescribed therapy. Drug histories were not obtainable in 25.6% of the patients.

Aged

Water sodium and blood pressure in rural school children.

Blood pressures were measured in 326 boys and 309 girls, 12 to 14 yr of age, who attended schools in six rural towns with water sodium levels ranging from 1.46 to 9.69 mmol/L. Although there were significant differences between mean blood pressure levels in children living in the six towns, they did not appear to result from differences in water sodium levels. Children who lived on farms and who drank low-sodium rain water did not have lower blood pressures than children who lived in the towns. The estimated intake of sodium from drinking water in the towns varied between 1.5 and 11.6 mmol/day and represented between 1.2% and 10.4% of the estimated daily sodium intake. No effect of water sodium level on urinary sodium excretion was found. Blood pressure levels showed significant positive relationships with pulse rate, body height and weight, Quetelet's index, mid-upperarm circumference, and triceps skinfold thickness. Diastolic blood pressures in girls were inversely related to the measure of physical activity. Control of these variables, where relevant, by covariance analysis did not uncover any relationship between water sodium level and blood pressure.

Adolescent