BMJ : British medical journal
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Randomized Controlled Trial Multicenter Study
Paracetamol plus ibuprofen for the treatment of fever in children (PITCH): economic evaluation of a randomised controlled trial.
To estimate the cost to the NHS and to parents and carers of treating febrile preschool children with paracetamol, ibuprofen, or both, and to compare these costs with the benefits of each treatment regimen. ⋯ There is no strong evidence of a difference in cost between the treatments, but clinical and cost data together indicate that using both drugs together may be most cost effective over the course of the illness. This treatment option performs best and is no more expensive because of less use of healthcare resources, resulting in lower costs to the NHS and to parents.
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Multicenter Study Comparative Study
Patient safety indicators for England from hospital administrative data: case-control analysis and comparison with US data.
To assess the feasibility of deriving patient safety indicators for England from routine hospital data and whether they can indicate adverse outcomes for patients. ⋯ Hospital administrative data provide a potentially useful low burden, low cost source of information on safety events. Indicators can be derived with English data and show that cases have poorer outcomes than matched controls. These data therefore have potential for monitoring safety events. Further validation, for example, of individual cases, is needed and levels of event recording need to improve. Differences between England and the US might reflect differences in the depth of event coding and in health systems and patterns of healthcare provision.
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To evaluate whether the association between migraine with aura and increased risk of cardiovascular disease is modified by vascular risk groups as measured by the Framingham risk score for coronary heart disease. ⋯ The association between migraine with aura and cardiovascular disease varies by vascular risk status. Information on history of migraine and vascular risk status might help to identify women at increased risk for specific future cardiovascular disease events.
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To examine the long term effects of low birth weight on academic achievements in twins and singletons and to determine whether the academic achievement of twins in early adulthood is inferior to that of singletons. ⋯ These data support the proposition that twins perform less well academically than singletons. Low birth weight has a negative association with subsequent academic achievement in early adulthood, with the effect being stronger for twins than for singletons. The association between birth weight and academic performance might be partly attributable to genetic factors.