Results for “Family Planning, Traditional Methods” — Page 22

PubMed2004

A multisite randomized trial of the effects of physician education and organizational change in chronic-asthma care: health outcomes of the Pediatric Asthma Care Patient Outcomes Research Team II Study.

BACKGROUND: Traditional primary care practice change approaches have not led to full implementation of national asthma guidelines. OBJECTIVE: To evaluate the effectiveness of 2 asthma care improvement strategies in primary care. DESIGN: Two-year randomized controlled clinical trial. SETTING: Forty-two primary care pediatric practices affiliated with 4 managed care organizations. PARTICIPANTS: Children aged 3 to 17 years with mild to moderate persistent asthma enrolled in primary care practices affiliated with managed care organizations. INTERVENTIONS: Peer leader education consisted of training 1 physician per practice in asthma guidelines and peer teaching methods. Planned care combined the peer leader program with nurse-mediated organizational change through planned visits with assessments, care planning, and self-management support, in collaboration with physicians. Analyses compared each intervention with usual care. MAIN OUTCOME MEASURES: Annualized asthma symptom days, asthma-specific functional health status (Children's Health Survey for Asthma), and frequency of brief oral steroid courses (bursts). RESULTS: Six hundred thirty-eight children completed baseline evaluations, representing 64% of those screened and eligible. Mean +/- SD age was 9.4 +/- 3.5 years; 60% were boys. Three hundred fifty (55%) were taking controller medication. Mean +/- SD annualized asthma symptom days was 107.4 +/- 122 days. Children in the peer leader arm had 6.5 fewer symptom days per year (95% confidence interval [CI], - 16.9 to 3.6), a nonsignificant difference, but had a 36% (95% CI, 11% to 54%) lower oral steroid burst rate per year compared with children receiving usual care. Children in the planned care arm had 13.3 (95% CI, - 24.7 to -2.1) fewer symptom days annually (-12% from baseline; P =.02) and a 39% (95% CI, 11% to 58%) lower oral steroid burst rate per year relative to usual care. Both interventions showed small, statistically significant effects for 2 of 5 Children's Health Survey for Asthma scales. Planned care subjects had greater controller adherence (parent report) compared with usual care subjects (rate ratio, 1.05 [95% CI, 1.00 to 1.09]). CONCLUSIONS: Planned care (nurse-mediated organizational change plus peer leader education) is an effective model for improving asthma care in the primary care setting. Peer leader education on its own may also serve as a useful model for improving asthma care, although it is less comprehensive and the treatment effect less pronounced.

Administration, Oral↗

PubMed1993

Lactational infertility in family planning.

The contraceptive effect of breast-feeding is the single most important determinant of human population growth rates in traditional societies without access to modern forms of contraception; lactational amenorrhoea is Nature's contraceptive. Even today, breast-feeding still prevents more pregnancies than all modern forms of contraception in many developing countries. Afferent neural inputs from the nipple pass via the spinal cord to the hypothalamus, where they cause a local release of beta endorphin. This acts to depress GnRH secretion, thereby inhibiting pituitary gonadotrophin secretion, ovarian follicular development, ovulation and menstruation. The hypothalamic beta endorphin release also inhibits dopamine production, resulting in increased pituitary prolactin secretion. The higher the suckling frequency, the more beta endorphin that is released and hence the longer the duration of lactational amenorrhoea. Lactational amenorrhoea can be relied up to give over 98% contraceptive protection to breast-feeding women in the first 6 months postpartum, regardless of their nutritional status or the time of first supplement introduction to the baby. This is because the first postpartum menstruation usually precedes the first ovulation during these early months. Once menstruation has resumed, lactation's contraceptive effect can no longer be relied upon, even though the woman continues to breast-feed. In breast-feeding women whose amenorrhoea extends beyond 6 months, there is an increasing tendency for the first ovulation to precede the first menstruation, thereby decreasing the reliability of lactational amenorrhoea as a contraceptive. Nevertheless, many women who continue to breast-feed may still have up to 1-2 years of good contraceptive protection from prolonged lactational amenorrhoea.(ABSTRACT TRUNCATED AT 250 WORDS)

Amenorrhea↗