Journal of general internal medicine
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New policies regulating physician/pharmaceutical company relationships propose to eliminate access to free prescription drug samples. Little is known about the prevalence of patient activity in requesting or receiving free prescription drug samples, or the characteristics of patients who access drug samples. ⋯ Accessing free prescription drug samples is prevalent among many categories of beneficiaries, especially among individuals with cost-related medication nonadherence and poor health status. Policies restricting or prohibiting drug sample distribution may adversely impact access to medications among patients in high-risk groups.
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The effects of disclosing financial interests to potential research participants are not well understood. ⋯ Aside from a researcher holding an equity interest, the disclosure to potential research participants of financial interests in research, as recommended in recent policies, is unlikely to affect willingness to participate in research.
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Colonoscopy is a screening modality for the early detection of colonic polyps and cancers but is underutilized, particularly among minorities. ⋯ Understanding of the range of barriers to colorectal cancer screening can help develop multimodal interventions to increase colonoscopy rates for all patients including low-income Latinos. Interventions including systems improvements and navigator programs could address barriers by assisting patients with scheduling, insurance issues, and transportation and providing interpretation, education, emotional support, and motivational interviewing.
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Academic health care institutions have become interested in understanding and supporting current leaders and preparing leaders for the future. We designed this exploratory study to better understand specific perceived leadership needs of physicians from the perspective of "aspiring" and "established" leaders within our institution. ⋯ Our findings validate others' regarding leadership competencies while extending these findings to the specific context of health care and physicians. Important implications for curricular design include: inclusion of emotional intelligence competencies and reducing formal didactics in favor of programs that are both interactive and problem-based.
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Growing evidence suggests that most forms of distrust are multidimensional, including domains of technical competence and value congruence. Prior measures of health care system distrust have not reflected this multidimensional structure and may be limiting research into the role of health care system distrust in health and health care in the US. ⋯ A novel 9-item scale of Health Care System Distrust with high reliability allows the assessment of the 2 primary domains of distrust (values and competence) and may facilitate research in this area.