BMJ : British medical journal
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To compare formal nurse triage with an informal prioritisation process for waiting times and patient satisfaction. ⋯ This study fails to show the benefits claimed for formal nurse triage. Nurse triage may impose additional delay for patient treatment, particularly among patients needing the most urgent attention.
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Respiratory symptoms and atopy in Aberdeen schoolchildren: evidence from two surveys 25 years apart.
To estimate changes in the prevalence of respiratory symptoms and the reported diagnoses of asthma, eczema, and hay fever in primary school children in Aberdeen between 1964 and 1989. ⋯ The higher diagnosis rate for asthma is due not simply to changes in diagnostic fashion but reflects an increase over the past 25 years in the prevalence of respiratory symptoms, which in turn may reflect a more general change in the prevalence of atopy, the increase in which was particularly noticeable in boys. This increase explains some of the increase in hospital admission rates for children with asthma.