1,720,971 research outputs found
The Management of TB Case Contacts at a Lung Clinic in Indonesia
Get PDFBackground: An estimated one million new cases of TB occur in children each year. Children are at a greater risk of becoming infected with TB and progressing from infection to active disease. Child contacts are a substantial population at risk for TB and a group that has great potential to benefit from screening and preventive treatment. However, there is little documentation on the management of case contacts in high burden TB settings.
Objectives: Our study sought to describe the characteristics of the child contact population eligible for screening. We determined the risk factors for child contacts attending TB screening using quantitative and qualitative methods and calculated the proportion of contacts that returned. We also wanted to estimate the risk of TB contacts becoming TB cases from routine records.
Methods: The study took place at an urban lung clinic in Indonesia. The clinic is a public, out-patient facility. Quantitative data were collected from sputum smear positive TB patients with child contacts <15 using a structured questionnaire. Clinic staff were also interviewed on perceived barriers to implementing a case contact screening program. Accounting records were reviewed to analyze costs of the screening program. In addition, contacts for TB cases diagnosed in 2007 were entered onto a database and medical records were analyzed from 2007-2009 to determine the proportion of contacts that progressed to TB cases and compared to the expected proportion from published studies.
Results: Between January and May 2011, data were collected from 100 interviews with TB cases, ten interviews with clinic staff, accounting records, and a review of 969 pulmonary TB cases and their contacts.
While 177 children were eligible for screening for either anti-TB or prophylactic treatment only 18 (10%) children returned for screening. Factors that were found to be significantly associated with screening adherence were female sex of the TB case (Adjusted OR 8.6, 95% CI 1.2-59), children who exhibited at least one TB symptom (Adjusted OR 6.7, 95%CI 1.9-24), and cases with lower travel expenses to clinic (Adjusted OR 8.9, 95%CI 1.2-64). The costs of screening for a family with two eligible children were found to be approximately 20% of the monthly income earned by these families.
1.1% of all contacts of TB cases registered at BBKPM at 2007 were found to be co-prevalent or secondary TB cases. The incidence rate of TB in sputum smear positive cases’ contacts was determined to be 303 per 100,000 person years.
Conclusions: The incidence rate of TB contacts found in this study was lower than expected. The low return rate of child contacts and the limited incidence rate of household contacts progression to active disease suggests that there are many missed opportunities to prevent and detect TB cases in the contact population. Initiating a less expensive screening method, symptom-based screening, could overcome several barriers to screening identified in this research. Contact investigation and preventive treatment are under-utilized tools in the effort to combat TB; however, barriers to their implementation in high burden settings warrant further exploration
The Management of TB Case Contacts at a Lung Clinic in Indonesia
No full textBackground: An estimated one million new cases of TB occur in children each year. Children are at a greater risk of becoming infected with TB and progressing from infection to active disease. Child contacts are a substantial population at risk for TB and a group that has great potential to benefit from screening and preventive treatment. However, there is little documentation on the management of case contacts in high burden TB settings.
Objectives: Our study sought to describe the characteristics of the child contact population eligible for screening. We determined the risk factors for child contacts attending TB screening using quantitative and qualitative methods and calculated the proportion of contacts that returned. We also wanted to estimate the risk of TB contacts becoming TB cases from routine records.
Methods: The study took place at an urban lung clinic in Indonesia. The clinic is a public, out-patient facility. Quantitative data were collected from sputum smear positive TB patients with child contacts <15 using a structured questionnaire. Clinic staff were also interviewed on perceived barriers to implementing a case contact screening program. Accounting records were reviewed to analyze costs of the screening program. In addition, contacts for TB cases diagnosed in 2007 were entered onto a database and medical records were analyzed from 2007-2009 to determine the proportion of contacts that progressed to TB cases and compared to the expected proportion from published studies.
Results: Between January and May 2011, data were collected from 100 interviews with TB cases, ten interviews with clinic staff, accounting records, and a review of 969 pulmonary TB cases and their contacts.
While 177 children were eligible for screening for either anti-TB or prophylactic treatment only 18 (10%) children returned for screening. Factors that were found to be significantly associated with screening adherence were female sex of the TB case (Adjusted OR 8.6, 95% CI 1.2-59), children who exhibited at least one TB symptom (Adjusted OR 6.7, 95%CI 1.9-24), and cases with lower travel expenses to clinic (Adjusted OR 8.9, 95%CI 1.2-64). The costs of screening for a family with two eligible children were found to be approximately 20% of the monthly income earned by these families.
1.1% of all contacts of TB cases registered at BBKPM at 2007 were found to be co-prevalent or secondary TB cases. The incidence rate of TB in sputum smear positive cases’ contacts was determined to be 303 per 100,000 person years.
Conclusions: The incidence rate of TB contacts found in this study was lower than expected. The low return rate of child contacts and the limited incidence rate of household contacts progression to active disease suggests that there are many missed opportunities to prevent and detect TB cases in the contact population. Initiating a less expensive screening method, symptom-based screening, could overcome several barriers to screening identified in this research. Contact investigation and preventive treatment are under-utilized tools in the effort to combat TB; however, barriers to their implementation in high burden settings warrant further exploration
Going Beyond Counting First Authors in Author Co-citation Analysis
Get PDFThe present study examines one of the fundamental aspects of author co-citation analysis (ACA) - the way co-citation
counts are defined. Co-citation counting provides the data on which all subsequent statistical analyses and mappings
are based, and we compare ACA results based on two different types of co-citation counting - the traditional type that
only counts the first one among a cited work's authors on the one hand and a non-traditional type that takes into
account the first 5 authors of a cited work on the other hand. Results indicate that the picture produced through this non-traditional author co-citation counting contains more coherent author groups and is therefore considerably clearer. However, this picture represents fewer specialties in the research field being studied than that produced through the traditional first-author co-citation counting when the same number of top-ranked authors is selected and analyzed. Reasons for these effects are discussed
Comparison of socio-economic and life satisfaction outcomes following a stroke or an injury in New Zealand
No full textBackground: In New Zealand, people unable to work due to an illness may be eligible for a means-tested government benefit whereas injured people are eligible for a wide range of support including earnings-related compensation through the no-fault Accident Compensation Corporation (ACC). The aim of the study was to compare the effect of this difference on socio-economic and life satisfaction outcomes of individuals who experienced a stroke with those who had an injury, and their main informal carer.
Methods: A comparative cohort study was undertaken of individuals aged 18-64 years, who had a first-stroke (n=109). Participants were matched by age, sex, and functional impairment to injured individuals (n=429) participating in the Prospective Outcomes of Injury Study. Demographic, health, socio-economic, and life satisfaction data were collected by interview 3.5 and 12 months after stroke or injury. Logistic regression adjusting for the matching variables, and functional impairment at 12 months, was undertaken.
A cross-sectional survey using a postal questionnaire was conducted with carers of individuals with a stroke (n=22) or an injury (n=65) who indicated that their independence was affected at 12 months and their main support person lived in the same household. Logistic regression, adjusting for age, sex, and the impairment level of the individual being cared for, was undertaken.
Results: At 12 months after the stroke or injury, the odds of being back at work were 3.1 times greater for the Injury Group compared to the Stroke Group (OR 3.1; 95% CI 1.7-5.6). The Stroke Group exhibited significantly greater decline in their income over 12 months and the mean personal (59,640) income in the Stroke Group was significantly lower than the Injury Group (48,156 & 87,295 respectively). The decline in income was greater for those in both groups who had a higher income initially, and for those who had not returned to work. The odds of reporting low standard of living (OR=0.64; 95% CI 0.39-1.0), and income insufficiency (OR=0.52; 95% CI 0.34-0.81), were less for the Injury Group. Greater out-of-pocket expenses were reported by the Stroke Group.
For both Groups, life satisfaction decreased at 3.5 months and increased again by 12 months, but not to the pre-event level, except for those in the Stroke Group with a ‘Low’ income pre-event whose life satisfaction declined and did not recover.
The informal carers of individuals with a stroke showed consistently poorer work, cost, economic, and well-being outcomes compared to Injury Carers, but the small sample size precluded statistically significant differences from being observed.
Conclusion: This is the first study to empirically measure outcomes that occur as a consequence of the different financial and social support systems for illness and injury in New Zealand. While it is possible that unknown confounders, or residual confounding, partly explain the difference between groups, the extra financial and rehabilitative support available through ACC are likely to be the main factors influencing these outcomes.
This study has implications for government policy to review the financial and rehabilitation support that is provided to people after an illness to protect them against greater decline in their socio-economic status
Variations on the Author
Get PDF“Variations on the Author” discusses two of Eduardo Coutinho’s recent films (Um Dia na Vida, from 2010, and Últimas Conversas, posthumously released in 2015) and their contribution to the general question of documentary authorship. The director’s filmography is characterized by a consistent yet self-effacing form of authorial self-inscription: Coutinho often features as an interviewer that rather than express opinions propels discourses; an interviewer that is good at listening. This mode of self-inscription characterizes him as an author who is not expressive but who is nonetheless markedly present on the screen. In Um Dia na Vida, however, Coutinho is completely absent form the image, while Últimas Conversas, on the contrary, includes a confessional prologue that moves the director from the margins to the center of his films. This article examines the ways in which these works stand out in the filmography of a director who offers new insights into the notion of cinematic authorship
Appropriate Similarity Measures for Author Cocitation Analysis
Get PDFWe provide a number of new insights into the methodological discussion about author cocitation analysis. We first argue that the use of the Pearson correlation for measuring the similarity between authors’ cocitation profiles is not very satisfactory. We then discuss what kind of similarity measures may be used as an alternative to the Pearson correlation. We consider three similarity measures in particular. One is the well-known cosine. The other two similarity measures have not been used before in the bibliometric literature. Finally, we show by means of an example that our findings have a high practical relevance.information science;Pearson correlation;cosine;similarity measure;author cocitation analysis
Dispelling the Myths Behind First-author Citation Counts
Get PDFWe conducted a full-scale evaluative citation analysis study of scholars in the XML research field to explore just how different from each other author rankings resulting from different citation counting methods actually are, and to demonstrate the capability of emerging data and tools on the Web in supporting more realistic citation counting methods. Our results contest some common arguments for the continued
use of first-author citation counts in the evaluation of scholars, such as high correlations between author rankings by first-author citation counts and other citation
counting methods, and high costs of using more realistic citation counting methods that are not well-supported by the ISI databases. It is argued that increasingly available digital full text research papers make it possible for citation analysis studies to go beyond what the ISI databases have directly supported and to employ more
sophisticated methods
koamabayili/VECTRON-author-checklist: VECTRON author checklist
No full textWe have done our best to complete the author checklist relating to the use of animals in the hut study. Note that the objective for the hut study was to evaluate the IRS treatment applications for residual efficacy against Anopheles mosquitoes, including the local An. coluzzii mosquito population. Cows were only used to attract mosquitoes into the huts and no tests were carried out directly on the cows. The author checklist is intended for use with studies where experiments are carried out on animals, which is why we have had such difficulty in completing this for the hut study, as many of the questions do not relate to how the cows were used
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