J Natl Med Assoc
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The unpredictable nature of sickle cell disease (SCD) and its social and environmental consequences can produce an unhealthy and almost exclusive focus on physical functioning. At the upper range of this focus on health concerns is somatization. ⋯ We further found somatization to be predictive of a range of negative psychological experiences to include depression, anxiety, and hostility (p < .0001). We interpret these data to suggest that patients with SCD who have a propensity to focus exclusively on their health or are more sensitive to minor changes in their health status (somatization) may also be more likely to report greater concerns about their health and higher ratings of pain.
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Guidelines for pain management in adult sickle cell patients with vaso-occlusive crises suggest prompt, frequent administration of parenteral opioids. Neither the ability to implement these guidelines in a busy urban emergency department nor opioid dose requirements in uncomplicated vaso-occlusive crisis have been previously documented. Thus, a retrospective review of vaso-occlusive crisis treated in an urban medical center emergency department in 2005 was performed to define opioid requirements and barriers to guideline implementation. ⋯ Hospitalization occurred on 25 occasions with 48% of patients admitted after 3 or fewer opioid doses and 50% of patients admitted after less than 3 hours of treatment. Moreover, return emergency department visits occurred within 3 days after 9 of 32 home discharges (28%) with treatment times uniformly less than 3 hours during the preceding visit. It is concluded that: (1) opioid dose requirements vary widely, often exceeding guideline recommendations; and (2) treatment time and timely opioid administration are often compromised, resulting in delayed pain control and premature decisions on disposition with early return visits and possibly avoidable hospital admissions.
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Health-related stigma is increasingly becoming a major public health issue that is receiving more attention. Young adults with sickle cell disease (SCD) are at risk for health-related stigmatization due to the many challenges of the disease. ⋯ Although others may be involved in the process of stigmatization, the purpose of this paper was to support the need to develop patient-oriented interventions to prevent and treat health-related stigma in young adults with SCD, as these individuals may face health-related stigma throughout their lives, but especially immediately after transitioning from pediatric to adult care. Additionally, the Revised Theory of Self-Care Management for Sickle Cell Disease is offered as a framework from which theory-based interventions can be derived.
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Historical Article
Tracking down the first recorded sickle cell patient in Western medicine.
In 1910, the first article describing a case of sickle cell anemia appeared in Archives of Internal Medicine. In 1987, a historian of African American medical history, Todd Savitt, took advantage of an opportunity to research the circumstances behind the publication of that first article and identify the people (patient and physicians) involved. Savitt recounts his "adventures" in tracing the story to its origins in the West Indies.