Annals of emergency medicine
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Randomized Controlled Trial
Brief intervention for hazardous and harmful drinkers in the emergency department.
To determine the efficacy of emergency practitioner-performed brief intervention for hazardous/harmful drinkers in reducing alcohol consumption and negative consequences in an emergency department (ED) setting. ⋯ Among ED patients with hazardous/harmful drinking, we did not detect a difference in efficacy between emergency practitioner-performed Brief Negotiation Interview and Discharge Instructions. Further studies to test the efficacy of brief intervention in the ED are needed.
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Multicenter Study
Challenges in enrollment of minority, pediatric, and geriatric patients in emergency and acute care clinical research.
Emergency department (ED) -based clinical research has the potential to include patient populations that are typically underrepresented in clinical research. The objective of this study is to assess how emergency clinical care and research processes, informed consent, and patient demographic factors (age, sex, and ethnicity/race) affect enrollment and consent in clinical research in the ED. ⋯ In a large academic ED, minority, pediatric, and geriatric patients were less likely to be enrolled in acute care clinical research studies than middle-aged whites. Enrollment and consent strategies designed to enhance research participation in these important patient populations may be necessary to address disparities in the development and application of evidence-based emergency and acute care.
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The primary objective of this study is to measure career satisfaction among emergency physicians participating in the 1994, 1999, and 2004 American Board of Emergency Medicine Longitudinal Study of Emergency Physicians. The secondary objectives are to determine factors associated with high and low career satisfaction and burnout. ⋯ Overall, more than half of emergency physicians reported high levels of career satisfaction. Although career satisfaction has remained high among emergency physicians, concern about burnout is substantial.
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Multicenter Study
Is the combination of negative computed tomography result and negative lumbar puncture result sufficient to rule out subarachnoid hemorrhage?
Current clinical practice assumes a negative computed tomography (CT) head scan result and a negative lumbar puncture result together are adequate to rule out subarachnoid hemorrhage in patients with acute headache. Our objective is to determine the sensitivity of a negative CT result combined with a negative lumbar puncture result to exclude subarachnoid hemorrhage. ⋯ To our knowledge, this is the largest prospective study evaluating the accuracy of a strategy of CT and lumbar puncture to rule out subarachnoid hemorrhage in alert ED patients with an acute headache. This study validates clinical practice that a negative CT with a negative lumbar puncture is sufficient to rule out subarachnoid hemorrhage.