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At least 973 records · Page 54Linked to original sources
PubMed2002

Caller satisfaction with after-hours telephone advice: nurse advice service versus on-call pediatricians.

OBJECTIVE: To compare caller satisfaction with after-hours medical advice provided by a for-profit nurse advice service with advice provided by on-call pediatricians. METHODS: The study setting was the general pediatrics faculty practice of an urban university medical center. Participants were parents or guardians of a population of approximately 6000 children calling for after-hours medical advice over a 10-month period from January 18 to November 20, 2000. After-hours medical advice calls were randomized to either a nurse advice service or the on-call pediatrician. Caller satisfaction and subsequent health care utilization were measured by a telephone survey of callers and review of all health care visits within 3 days of the initial telephone advice call. RESULTS: Five hundred sixty-six (48%) callers were enrolled in the on-call pediatrician group, and 616 (52%) were enrolled in the advice nurse group. Caller satisfaction was rated as very good or excellent significantly more often for the on-call pediatrician than for the nurse advice service as follows: telephone call overall (68.5% vs 55.0%; 95% confidence interval [CI] of difference: 8.0%-19.0%), thoroughness and competence of the person they spoke with (74.0% vs 59.1%; 95% CI of difference: 9.6%-20.2%), courtesy and friendliness of the person they spoke with (77.4% vs 73.9%; 95% CI of difference: -1.4%-8.4%), length of time spent waiting (70.8% vs 60.1%; 95% CI of difference: 5.4%-16.2%), time spent talking with the on-call pediatrician or advice nurse (68.2% vs 52.4%; 95% CI of difference: 10.2%-21.3%), and the medical advice given (68.6% vs 53.9%; 95% CI of difference: 9.2%-20.1%). Compliance with the advice given was significantly higher for office care in the on-call pediatrician group (51.5% vs 29.6%; 95% CI of difference: 8.9%-34.2%). Repeat calls for advice were significantly more frequent for the nurse advice service, both within 4 hours (13.0% vs 4.8%; 95% CI of difference: 5.0%-11.4%), and within 72 hours (23.4% vs 13.3%; 95% CI of difference: 5.8%-14.5%). CONCLUSION: Callers were less satisfied with medical advice provided by a nurse advice service compared with the traditional on-call pediatrician. The lower satisfaction was associated with somewhat poorer compliance with recommended triage dispositions and more frequent repeat calls for medical advice.

Child↗
PubMed2003

Use of a telephone nursing line in a pediatric neurology clinic: one approach to the shortage of subspecialists.

OBJECTIVE: There are not enough pediatric neurologists to meet the many needs of pediatric neurology patients. The Hospital for Sick Children has responded by expanding the nursing role in the pediatric neurology outpatient clinic. The objective of this study was to examine the use of a telephone nursing line in this hospital-based pediatric neurology clinic. METHODS: A cross-sectional study was performed on all telephone call records collected during a 2-week study period. Each initial incoming call concerning a patient was counted as an index call. Associations between clinic type or diagnosis and length of telephone calls were assessed using the chi(2) test. RESULTS: A total of 208 index calls were received, generating a total of 597 incoming and outgoing calls. The most common clinic types were Epilepsy clinic (35.6%) and General Neurology clinic (32.7%), and the most common patient diagnoses were epilepsy (63.5%) and developmental delay (45.2%). Most patients were between the ages of 1 and <7 years (33.9%) and 12 and <18 years (32.8%) and male (55.2%). Most calls were made by mothers (57.2%) to ask about medical administrative issues (28.4%) and/or symptoms (27.9%). Physicians were notified for 47.1% of calls; nurses were twice as likely to notify physicians for calls concerning new symptoms (relative risk: 2.1; 95% confidence interval: 1.6-2.7). Most calls required between 1 and 5 minutes (49.0%). Long telephone calls (>10 minutes) were strongly associated with a diagnosis of epilepsy. CONCLUSIONS: There is a high demand for the neurology nursing line in our clinic. Most telephone calls and most long telephone calls concerned patients with epilepsy. Nurses managed more than half of all telephone calls without physician assistance. Use of a nursing line can aid in the provision of care to complicated subspecialty patients. Additional strategies are needed to optimize delivery of care to high-need medical populations.

Adolescent↗
PubMed2003

Intervention with parental smokers in an outpatient pediatric clinic using counseling and nicotine replacement.

OBJECTIVE: To evaluate the feasibility of implementing a smoking cessation intervention for parents at the time of the pediatric visit. METHODS: A prospective cohort of smoking parents whose child was seen in an outpatient pediatric practice was offered the Stop Tobacco Outreach Program, which includes 3 brief counseling sessions, written materials, free nicotine replacement therapy (NRT), proactive referral to a free state telephone quitline, and fax referral to the parents' primary clinician. The primary outcome was completion of all three counseling sessions. Other outcomes were quit attempts, cessation, NRT use, state quitline use, and household smoking assessed at 2-month follow-up. RESULTS: One hundred fifty-eight smoking parents met eligibility criteria and 100 (63%) enrolled in the study. Of the 100 enrollees, 81% completed all three counseling sessions and 78% accepted free NRT at the time of enrollment. At 2-month follow-up, of the 100 enrollees, 56% reported making a quit attempt of >or=24 hours, 18% reported 7-day tobacco abstinence, 34% used NRT, and 42% received additional counseling from the state telephone quitline. The mean number of cigarettes smoked inside the home and car declined over 2 months (home, 5.1 vs 1.4; and car, 2.5 vs 1.4). CONCLUSIONS: This study demonstrates the feasibility of engaging parents in a smoking cessation intervention at the time of a child's clinic visit. This approach may be an effective way to reach smokers who otherwise are unlikely to access smoking cessation interventions. High rates of program enrollment, use of NRT, and completion of telephone counseling in this study support the hypothesis that a child's clinic visit is a teachable moment to address parental smoking cessation.

Adolescent↗
PubMed2006

A national survey of the acceptability of quitlines to help parents quit smoking.

OBJECTIVE: Provision of telephone smoking cessation counseling can increase the rate of quitting smoking. The US Public Health Service recently helped to establish a free national quitline enrollment service. No previous surveys have assessed the acceptability to parents of enrollment in quitline counseling in the context of their child's health care visits. Therefore, the objective of this study was to assess acceptability to parents of enrollment in quitline counseling and to compare that with the reported rate of actually being enrolled in any smoking cessation counseling outside the office in the context of the child's health care visit. METHODS: Data were collected by a national random-digit-dial telephone survey of households from September to November 2004. The sample is weighted by race and gender on the basis of the current US Census to be representative of the US population. RESULTS: Of 3615 eligible respondents contacted, 3011 (83.3%) completed surveys; 958 (31.8%) who completed the survey were parents with children under the age of 18 years. Of these parents, 187 (19.7%) were self-identified smokers. Of the parents who smoked, 113 (64.2%) said that they would accept enrollment in a telephone cessation program if the child's doctor offered it to them. In contrast, of the 122 smoking parents who accompanied their child to the doctor in the past year, only 11 (9%) had any counseling recommended to them, and only 1 (0.8%) was actually enrolled. These results did not vary by parent age, gender, race, or child age. CONCLUSIONS: When interacting with parents who smoke, child health care providers have low rates of referring and enrolling parents in any services related to smoking. Enrollment in quitlines would be acceptable to the majority of parents in the context of their child's health care visit. Tobacco control efforts in the child health care setting should include implementation of office systems that can facilitate enrollment of parental smokers in telephone quitlines.

Adult↗
PubMed2006

[Drug-related toxic events in the state of São Paulo, Brazil].

OBJECTIVE: To assess the epidemiological characteristics of drug-related toxic events in the State of São Paulo, Brazil. METHODS: A descriptive epidemiological case series study was conducted. Using the category "drug-related toxic event", 6,673 registered cases were analyzed in the Toxicology Centers in the State of São Paulo throughout 1998. The variables studied comprised the characteristics of the events and the affected patients, toxic agents and the circumstances involved. The analysis of toxic agents took into consideration three levels of disaggregation: therapeutical groups, active ingredients and commercial brand names. RESULTS: Drugs ranked first among all toxic agents registered in the Centers. Drug-related toxic events were mostly reported by phone (78.5%) and hospitals (86.6%); they were originated from acute oral exposure (90.2%) at home (85.7%) in the urban area (95%). Most people affected were females (59%) in their first decade of life (49.4%), mainly between two and three years of age. The most common active ingredients found were: phenobarbital, diazepam, haloperidol, carbamazepine and bromazepam. The main circumstances were accidental ingestion (38.8%) and suicidal attempts (36.5%) and among the related active ingredients, the most prevailing therapeutical group were psychiatric, analgesic/anesthetic and respiratory. CONCLUSIONS: Law-abiding practices regarding prescription drugs are needed, as well as toxicological surveillance according to the National Health System guidelines.

Adolescent↗
PubMed2002

Current approaches to the management of smoking cessation.

Smoking remains a widespread intractable behaviour and is a significant cause of morbidity and mortality worldwide. Effective approaches to smoking cessation include behavioural intervention and pharmacotherapy, in particular nicotine replacement therapy (NRT) and sustained-release bupropion (bupropion SR). Pharmacotherapy remains a popular choice of smoking cessation intervention for many smokers, and both NRT and bupropion SR, combined with behavioural interventions, achieve 1.5- to >2-fold increases in smoking cessation rates. Various national and international smoking cessation guidelines have been published recommending effective implementation of smoking cessation strategies. Recommendations include the systematic identification of smokers, assessment of their willingness to quit smoking, provision of advice promoting a cessation attempt, and administration of approved first-line therapies.

Bupropion↗
PubMed1993

Effect of third-party reimbursement on use of services and indexes of management among indigent diabetic patients.

OBJECTIVE: To determine the effect of third-party reimbursement on the use of services and indexes of diabetes-related health management among inner-city diabetic patients. RESEARCH DESIGN AND METHODS: Adult diabetic patients (n = 158; 67% women, 33% men) from an inner-city diabetes clinic were categorized by level of third-party medical coverage: complete reimbursement for all services (full); partial reimbursement (part); and no reimbursement (none). Patients were followed for 13 mo. Use of billable medical services, diabetes clinic visits, emergency room visits, and hospital admissions were recorded. Use of a free, day-time diabetes telephone hot line was also documented. Indexes of diabetes-related health management, HbA1, blood pressure, and weight were compared from the beginning and the end of the study. Diabetes complications were scored and tabulated. RESULTS: Univariate analysis showed that patients with full reimbursement were more likely to use services than patients without reimbursement. When the combined effects of reimbursement status, age, sex, type of diabetes, and diabetes complications on use of services were analyzed together in a multivariate analysis, complications was the best predictor of admissions to the hospital and whether a patient called the hot line. IDDM patients and patients with full reimbursement were most likely to have an emergency room visit. Age was the best predictor of diabetes clinic attendance. No difference was noted in blood pressure or weight among the reimbursement groups at the beginning and end of study. However, the trend was toward (P < 0.05) an increase in HbA1 in the none group. CONCLUSIONS: Among inner-city diabetic patients, multiple factors influence use of medical services. Indigent diabetic patients without third-party reimbursement were observed to have a rise in HbA1. These factors should be taken into consideration when planning strategies to prevent diabetes complications and the most effective allocation of health-care resources.

Adult↗
PubMed2005

Suicide by jumping from bridges.

The Sunshine Skyway Bridge in St. Petersburg, Florida, has crisis emergency telephones and a police presence. Although the number of suicides from the bridge has declined, it is too soon to test the statistical significance of the decline.

Cause of Death↗
PubMed2002

Examination of residuals to Vancouver crisis call data by using hidden Markov models.

Three years of daily crisis calls (N=2,513,478) were examined in a regression analysis with terms for effects for weekday, end and beginning of the month, holiday, seasonal trend, and long-term linear trend. This was followed by an analysis of residuals using hidden Markov models, with three states best fitting the residuals. These states may reflect economic or environmental variables which researchers should clarify in further work.

British Columbia↗
PubMed1992

Crisis calls and lunar cycles: a twenty-year review.

12 studies are reviewed that have examined the relationships among crisis calls to police stations, poison centers, and crisis intervention centers and the synodic lunar cycle. On the basis of the studies considered it is concluded that no good foundation exists for the belief that lunar phase is related to the frequency of crisis calls. In addition, there is no evidence whatsoever for the contention that calls of a more emotional or "out-of-control" nature occur more often at the full moon.

Crisis Intervention↗
PubMed2006

Volunteers serving victims of sexual assault.

Rape crisis volunteers who provide direct-care services to victims of sexual assault are a much-understudied group. Volunteers provide a crucial role in support of nonprofit rape crisis centers, and factors influencing their continued service are an important consideration for decision makers. In the present study, the authors examined--among volunteers providing hospital and crisis-line advocacy to victims of sexual assault--the training, service self-efficacy, social support, and experiences with victim blaming as correlates with overall satisfaction, affective commitment, and the intent to remain. Overall satisfaction and affective commitment were positively related to the intent to stay. Additionally, the perceived value of training was positively related to overall satisfaction and the intent to remain.

Cross-Sectional Studies↗
PubMedDate not supplied

Using nurse hot line calls for disease surveillance.

Nurse hot line calls are a potential source of public health surveillance data and may help identify epidemics of emerging infectious diseases. In this study, nurse hot line data from Milwaukee, Wisconsin, showed more than a 17-fold increase in calls for diarrhea during the 1993 Milwaukee cryptosporidiosis outbreak. Moreover, consistent patterns of seasonal variation in diarrhea- and vomiting-related calls were detected from the Baltimore, Maryland, and Albuquerque, New Mexico, hot lines. Analysis of nurse hot line calls may provide an inexpensive and timely method for improving disease surveillance.

Cryptosporidiosis↗
PubMed2002

Call-tracking data and the public health response to bioterrorism-related anthrax.

After public notification of confirmed cases of bioterrorism-related anthrax, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's Emergency Operations Center responded to 11,063 bioterrorism-related telephone calls from October 8 to November 11, 2001. Most calls were inquiries from the public about anthrax vaccines (58.4%), requests for general information on bioterrorism prevention (14.8%), and use of personal protective equipment (12.0%); 882 telephone calls (8.0%) were referred to the state liaison team for follow-up investigation. Of these, 226 (25.6%) included reports of either illness clinically confirmed to be compatible with anthrax or direct exposure to an environment known to be contaminated with Bacillus anthracis. The remaining 656 (74.4%) included no confirmed illness but reported exposures to "suspicious" packages or substances or the receipt of mail through a contaminated facility. Emergency response staff must handle high call volumes following suspected or actual bioterrorist attacks. Standardized health communication protocols that address contact with unknown substances, handling of suspicious mail, and clinical evaluation of suspected cases would allow more efficient follow-up investigations of clinically compatible cases in high-risk groups.

Anthrax↗
PubMed1999

Coping with panic disorder.

Have you ever had a spell when your heart suddenly began to pound and you felt light-headed and shaky? You may have had a panic attack. These episodes are very frightening. People often think they have some life-threatening problem, are going crazy, or are utterly losing control, but these calamities don't really happen. The attack usually lasts only a few minutes and then gradually fades and it completely gone within an hour. THe following information may help you understand and cope with dismaying episodes.

Adaptation, Psychological↗