Medical care
-
Comparative Study
Use of health services by insurance status among children with asthma.
It is well known that asthmatic children receiving Medicaid use the emergency department (ED) more frequently than otherwise-insured asthmatic children. However, the extent to which this difference is attributable to provider characteristics, medication use, access to primary care, and symptomatology is poorly understood. These factors were explored as independent predictors of health care utilization. ⋯ The results suggest that enabling, structural, and need factors do not necessarily explain observed differences in pediatric asthma health care use by insurance status. Future investigation must explore other explanatory factors such as maternal attitudes and beliefs and patient-provider communication.
-
Patients' perceptions of treatment outcomes are important in the management of early prostate cancer, but few studies have offered reliable and responsive measures to assess the likely side effects of the most common treatments. ⋯ These indexes may be used in monitoring outcomes of treatment for early prostate cancer.