1,720,962 research outputs found
Correlates of major medication side effects interfering with daily performance: results from a cross-sectional cohort study of older psychiatric patients
No full textBackground: Polypharmacy is common among older persons who are also vulnerable to side effects. We aimed to characterize patients who on admission to a geriatric psychiatric hospital had major medication side effects interfering with daily performance.
Methods: Cross-sectional cohort study of patients consecutively admitted to a geriatric psychiatric hospital from 2006, 06 December to 2008, 24 October. The UKU side effect rating scale was performed, and patients were divided into those with no/minor side effects versus those with major side effects. Blood levels of 56 psychotropic drugs and 27 safety laboratory tests were measured upon admission.
Results: Of 206 patients included in the analysis, 70 (34%) had major side effects related to drug treatment. The most frequent side effects were asthenia (31%), reduced salivation (31%), concentration difficulties (28%), memory impairment (24%), and orthostatic dizziness (18%). The significant characteristics predicting major side effects were female gender (OR = 2.4, 95% confidence interval (CI) = 1.1–5.5), main diagnosis of affective disorder (OR = 4.3, 95% CI = 1.5–12.3), unreported use of psychotropic medications (OR = 2.0, 95% CI = 1.0–4.1), a higher number of reported psychotropic medications (OR = 1.7, 95% CI = 1.2–2.3), a higher number of reported medications for somatic disorders (OR = 1.2, 95% CI = 1.1–1.5), and a higher score on the Charlson comorbidity index (OR = 1.2, 95% CI = 1.0–1.4) (r2 = 0.238, p < 0.001).
Conclusions: Clinicians should be especially aware of side effects related to drug treatment in geriatric psychiatric female patients with a high use of psychotropic and other medications and somatic comorbidity. Unreported use of psychotropic medications was also related to the risk for side effects, and clinicians should make an effort to ascertain all medications taken by geriatric psychiatric patients
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
Psychotropic drugs: Use and side effects in older psychiatric patients
No full textBackground Use of psychotropic drugs is widespread for older patients in general, and more knowledge on the use and complications of use is needed for the population of geriatric psychiatric patients.
Aims We wanted to investigate the use and unreported use of psychotropic drugs on admission to a geriatric psychiatric hospital in relation to serum concentrations. We also evaluated drug side effects by a comprehensive side effect interview and performed cognitive tests on admission and after four weeks. We further wanted to investigate whether change in cognitive function was related to the cessation of benzodiazepines.
Methods This observational cross-sectional study was performed in the years 2006-2008, and 236 patients were included in the study. Blood samples were taken the day after admission, and in addition to routine biochemical tests, serum analyses for 56 psychotropic drugs were performed. The UKU side effect rating scale was performed on admission to hospital, as well as several cognitive tests, including the Mini Mental Status Examination, the Hopkins Verbal Learning Test, the Digit Vigilance Test and the Stroop test. Somatic comorbidity was measured using the Charlson Comorbidity Index. Severity of depression was examined with the Montgomery and Aasberg Depression Rating Scale. Psychiatric diagnoses were based on all available information, and registered on discharge.
Results We found that most patients used psychotropic drugs on admission to a geriatric psychiatric hospital, and almost half of the patients had unreported use of psychotropic drugs. Psychotropic polypharmacy (the use of tree or more concurrent drugs) was detected in half (47 %) of the patients. The dosages of the drugs were below 1 Defined Daily Dose (DDD) for all drug groups except for antidepressants, where the average dose was 1.2 (1.1-1.4) DDD. Supra therapeutic concentrations of all drugs were uncommon. The patients who were considered to have major side effects of psychotropic drugs were more often female patients with a diagnose of affective disorder, using a higher number of psychotropic drugs, a higher number of somatic drugs, unreported use of psychotropic drugs and having a higher score on the Charlson comorbidity index. On admission to hospital, several cognitive tests were performed. After four weeks of hospital treatment, cognitive function improved slightly, but only for one of the memory tests, improvement was related to the cessation of benzodiazepines.
Conclusions Most of the older patients used psychotropic drugs when admitted to a geriatric psychiatric hospital, and unreported use of these drugs was common. Few patients had serum levels above reference range, and the doses of drugs were moderate. As for side effects of these drugs, clinicians should be especially aware of female patients using a high number of drugs and suffering from somatic comorbidity. The results on cognitive tests improved slightly after four weeks of inpatient treatment, but relation to the cessation of benzodiazepines was found only for one memory test
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
Author-wise bibliometric analysis based on entropy.
No full textAuthor-wise bibliometric analysis based on entropy.</p
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