Acta Medica Port
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PFAPA syndrome (Periodic Fever, Aphthous stomatitis, Pharyngitis, Adenitis) is a benign sporadic syndrome of unknown cause and an important diagnosis to consider in the child with recurrent fever and tonsillitis. ⋯ In spite including a small number of patients, our case series is similar to others in the literature regarding most clinical aspects. PFAPA syndrome should be considered even in the absence of all clinical criteria. Correct and timely diagnosis does not require and obviates unnecessary diagnostic tests. The outcome after symptomatic therapy with corticosteroids and family reassurance was generally good and we do not recommend tonsillectomy as a first line treatment in this syndrome.
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To determine the impact of rurality in epidemiology, injury severity, health care facilities, length of stay, mortality, functional outcome and quality of life in severe trauma patients. ⋯ Living in rural areas does not seam to give more burden of disease to severe trauma patients. Rural patients are similar to those that live in urban areas concerning epidemiology, injury severity and outcome. Despite lack of medical pre-hospital care and higher previous admission in other hospital in rural patients, mortality between groups didn't differ in our trauma centre.
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Medication compliance is one of the foremost problems affecting neuroleptic efficacy in psychiatric patients. It is a crucial point to dispone of useful instruments that allow us a fiable assessment of patients' medication adherence in order to plan more appropriate therapeutical interventions. The aim of our study was to validade the Portuguese versión of the Medication Adherence Rating Scale (MARS), a concise instrument for assessment of medication compliance in psychosis. ⋯ These coefficients were similar to those found by the researchers who developed this scale. The MARS scale has proven to be easily applied and may be deemed a valid and reliable measure of compliancy for psychoactive medications.
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Evaluate costs and benefits of rituximab in combination with cyclophosphamide/vincristine/prednisolone chemotherapy regimen (R-CVP), in previously untreated patients with indolent non-Hodgkin lymphoma (NHL), compared to CVP alone from a Portuguese National Health System (NHS) perspective. ⋯ This study demonstrates that the combination R-CVP in previously untreated indolent NHL patients improves life expectancy and is a cost-effective alternative to CVP in Portugal.
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Patients and health staff frequently need to stay in health care facilities for quite a long time. Therefore, it's necessary to create the conditions that allow the ingestion of food during those periods, namely through the existence of automatic food dispensers. However, the available food and beverages might not always be compatible with a healthy diet. ⋯ The beverages in the recommended and sometimes recommended groups were the most frequently available and sold. The not recommended food items were reported as being the most available, while both the recommended and not recommended food items were equally reported as being the most sold. Results show that unhealthy food and beverages are widely available in public health care facilities of the Portugal North Health Region.