Four audiovisual programs about cancer and cancer treatment were evaluated. Cancer patients, their families, and friends were asked to complete questionnaires before and after watching a program to determine the effects of the program on their knowledge of cancer, anxiety levels, and perceived ability to communicate with the staff. (Author/MLW)

Medical records of 150 patients (randomly assigned to groups in which screening for depression, physician sensitization about depression, and informational feedback to physicians) were reviewed for physician notations about depression and its treatment. Previsit screening devices, it is suggested, may increase physician attention to psychological…

Examines the patient agency concept from a rhetorical perspective in lay/professional medical discourse relating to diabetes care. Shows that patient agency is related to patient compliance in the language of biomedicine. Finds that, in managed care, tension is evident between the trend toward greater patient agency and the constraints of…

A total of 200 patients were interviewed at 2 out-patient settings to quantify the patients' perspectives on their illness by measuring their requests for help. Results showed specific requests were made by most patients that focused either on the problem and/or the treatment. (GLR)

Individuals who received genetic counseling for cancer (N=36) provided feedback on the quality of services and identified areas for improvement. Reasons for counseling and need for psychosocial support are also considered. Generally high levels of satisfaction with care provided were found. Four areas for improvement are identified and discussed.…

Suggests a research agenda that would provide a basis for proposing normative recommendations for information management in health contexts. Overviews information seeking and avoiding processes. Describes challenges and dilemmas faced by those who seek, avoid, and provide information. Offers research questions derived from a normative agenda for…

Purpose: We investigated whether patient-centered instructions for chronic heart failure medications increase comprehension and memory for medication information in older adults diagnosed with chronic heart failure. Design and Methods: Patient-centered instructions for familiar and unfamiliar medications were compared with instructions for the…

Assessments of clinical skills of medical students rely increasingly on standardized patients demonstrating medical cases with faculty rating performance. The common finding of inconsistency of scores across cases is often referred to as case specificity. A multivariate generalizability model reveals that overall case specificity cannot explain…

Much of the daily work of professional organizations is accomplished via interaction between representatives of those institutions and laypeople. Scholars of talk in institutional settings have argued that lay-professional interaction is often assumed mistakenly to operate as a neutral conduit for professionals to gain information relevant to…

Most studies in the area of doctor-patient communication focus on the talk that doctors perform during the consultation, leaving under-researched the discourse developed by patients. This article deconstructs and identifies the functions and forms of the voices (i.e. specific forms of talk) that Chilean patients employ in their interactions with…

Background: Adults with Down syndrome (DS) are predisposed to syndromic and environmental gastrointestinal conditions. Method: In a hospital-based clinic for adults with DS, a chart audit was conducted to assess the range and frequency of gastrointestinal conditions. Results: From January 2003 to March 2005, 57 patients attended the clinic,…

Background: Buccal midazolam is widely used in children for the emergency treatment of epilepsy, and these children are graduating into adult learning disability services. Aims: The aim of this paper was to appraise the evidence for buccal midazolam as a treatment for prolonged seizures in adults with learning disabilities. Method: A literature…

Background: Medication errors can result in harm, unless barriers to prevent them are present. Drug administration errors are less likely to be prevented, because they occur in the last stage of the drug distribution process. This is especially the case in non-alert patients, as patients often form the final barrier to prevention of errors.…

Context: Although critical access hospitals (CAHs) have limitations on number of acute care beds and average length of stay, some of them provide intensive care unit (ICU) services. Purpose: To describe the facilities, equipment, and staffing used by CAHs for intensive care, the types of patients receiving ICU care, and the perceived impact of…

The contribution of the left inferior prefrontal cortex in semantic processing has been widely investigated in the last decade. Converging evidence from functional imaging studies shows that this region is involved in the "executive" or "controlled" aspects of semantic processing. In this study, we report a single case study of a patient, PW, with…