The New Zealand medical journal
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Two peer review groups of ten general practitioners each reviewed their management of two conditions, headache and fatigue. Each group used internal standards which they had set for the review of one condition and external standards set by the other group for the other condition. Data for the review were collected from the general practitioners' case notes and presented to them. ⋯ Group 2 improved their management of the condition where internal standards were used by 12% and the condition where external standards were used by 9%. This difference was not statistically significant. Although there was a significant improvement in the management of both conditions in each group, the use of internal versus external standards made no difference to the degree of improvement following peer review.
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Comparative Study
Bicycle road crashes during the fourteenth and fifteenth years of life.
From a sample of 848 teenagers 57 individuals reported a total of 62 bicycle road crashes, 40 (65%) of which involved injury to a cyclist. Thirty (48%) of the crashes occurred when the cyclist lost control of the bicycle (73% of which involved injury) and 17 crashes (27%) involved a moving motor vehicle (41% of which involved injury). The majority of the injuries were not serious and of those with multiple injuries no one had an injury severity score greater than five. ⋯ Environmental conditions were not a major contributing factor in these crashes. In only five cases the cyclist was wearing a safety helmet. Recommended measures to prevent, or minimise, bicycle related injuries include the wearing of safety helmets, bicycle maintenance checks, and road safety awareness instruction.