Clinical epidemiology
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Clinical epidemiology · Jan 2016
ReviewThe Danish quality database for prehospital emergency medical services.
The aim of the Danish quality database for prehospital emergency medical services (QEMS) is to assess, monitor, and improve the quality of prehospital emergency medical service care in the entire prehospital patient pathway. The aim of this review is to describe the design and the implementation of QEMS. ⋯ QEMS is a new database under establishment and is expected to provide the basis for quality improvement in the prehospital setting and in the entire patient care pathway, for example, by providing prehospital data for research and other quality databases.
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Clinical epidemiology · Jan 2016
Using existing questionnaires in latent class analysis: should we use summary scores or single items as input? A methodological study using a cohort of patients with low back pain.
Latent class analysis (LCA) is increasingly being used in health research, but optimal approaches to handling complex clinical data are unclear. One issue is that commonly used questionnaires are multidimensional, but expressed as summary scores. Using the example of low back pain (LBP), the aim of this study was to explore and descriptively compare the application of LCA when using questionnaire summary scores and when using single items to subgrouping of patients based on multidimensional data. ⋯ In these data, application of both the summary-score strategy and the single-item strategy in the LCA subgrouping resulted in clinically interpretable subgroups, but the single-item strategy generally revealed more distinguishing characteristics. These results 1) warrant further analyses in other data sets to determine the consistency of this finding, and 2) warrant investigation in longitudinal data to test whether the finer detail provided by the single-item strategy results in improved prediction of outcomes and treatment response.
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Clinical epidemiology · Jan 2016
Similar long-term survival of consecutive in-hospital and out-of-hospital cardiac arrest patients treated with targeted temperature management.
The long-term survival of in-hospital cardiac arrest (IHCA) patients treated with targeted temperature management (TTM) is poorly described. The aim of this study was to compare the outcomes of consecutive IHCA with out-of-hospital cardiac arrest (OHCA) patients treated with TTM. ⋯ There was no difference in short- and long-term survival and no difference in neurologic outcome to hospital discharge between IHCA and OHCA patients treated with TTM despite higher frequency of asystole in IHCA.
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Clinical epidemiology · Jan 2016
Nationwide trends in glucose-lowering drug use, Denmark, 1999-2014.
The objective of this study was to examine nationwide population-based time trends in the utilization of all glucose-lowering drugs in Denmark from 1999 to 2014. ⋯ The use of glucose-lowering drugs has doubled during 1999-2014. The pattern of glucose-lowering drug use has changed substantially reflecting the recommendations of metformin as first-line treatment. The newer glucose-lowering drug classes have been well received.
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The aim of the Danish Palliative Care Database (DPD) is to monitor, evaluate, and improve the clinical quality of specialized palliative care (SPC) (ie, the activity of hospital-based palliative care teams/departments and hospices) in Denmark. ⋯ DPD is a national clinical quality database for SPC having clinically relevant variables and high data and patient completeness.