Articles: disease.
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Neonatal tetanus is an important cause of avoidable morbidity and mortality. In the past this disease was overlooked by the health services of many developing countries, but recently the extent and magnitude of neonatal tetanus has become clearer and shown that it is a very serious health problem in the developing countries. The results of community-based surveys show that neonatal tetanus mortality rates range from less than 5 to more than 60 per 1000 live births; these deaths represent between 23% and 72% of all neonatal deaths. ⋯ Neonatal tetanus mortality should serve as an index of the quality and the extent of utilization of the maternal health services, of the impact of immunization programmes, and of the progress being made in achieving the WHO goal of "Health for All by the Year 2000". The elimination of neonatal tetanus calls for a full commitment by governments and by other bodies, public and private, with a responsibility for the care of women and children. The occurrence of even a single case of neonatal tetanus is witness to failures in the health system, for prevention is possible through the actions of trained health staff in contact with the mother.
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Social science & medicine · Jan 1984
Comparative StudyGender differences in mental and physical illness: the effects of fixed roles and nurturant roles.
A decade ago it was widely assumed that there were no gender differences in mental illness/mental health and that any evidence that suggested that women experienced more psychological distress than men was due to women being more willing to admit to psychological distress, being more willing to seek treatment and/or sex bias on the part of clinicians. Furthermore, although it was widely recognized that on most indicators of physical illness women appeared to have higher rates of morbidity, it was generally assumed that the apparent higher rates of women did not reflect real differences in morbidity, but gender differences in illness behavior. A survey of the recent literature, however, shows that there is now a general consensus among social scientists that women experience more psychological distress than men and that this is largely due to aspects of their societal roles. ⋯ It is argued that highly structured or 'fixed' roles tend to be causally related to good mental health and low rates of morbidity. In contrast nurturant roles tend to impose a strain and to impair one's ability to effectively adopt a sick role and as a consequence nurturant roles are linked to poor mental health and the higher rates of morbidity. In short, it is suggested that the fixed role-hypothesis and the nurturant role hypothesis complement each other and together partially explain the higher rates of physical illness and psychological distress among women.
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Acta Obstet Gynecol Scand · Jan 1984
Comparative StudyInduced abortion by the suction method. An analysis of complication rates.
3036 induced abortions from the years 1977, 1978, 1979 and 1980 were analysed. They included all abortions performed with the suction method at Akershus Central Hospital, except for those done in combination with a sterilization procedure. The main determinants of complication rates were parity, period of gestation and, for minor complications, whether the patient was treated as an in-patient or an out-patient. ⋯ Complication rates were lowest during weeks 7-10. Out-patients had fewer readmissions, repeat curettages, and infections, than in-patients. There was a tendency to cause a larger dilatation of the cervical canal than was technically necessary.
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The Journal of pediatrics · Jan 1984
Chlamydia trachomatis: important relationships to race, contraception, lower genital tract infection, and Papanicolaou smear.
Chlamydia trachomatis is a common cause of sexually transmitted disease in adolescent girls. Of 366 adolescent patients screened, 15.3% were found to have chlamydial endocervical infections, with an infection rate of 23.3% in blacks, 14.3% in Hispanics, and 10.3% in whites (P = 0.01, excess for blacks). Of Chlamydia-positive patients, 63.6% had a diagnosis of lower genital tract infection, compared with 35.4% of Chlamydia-negative patients (P = 0.004). ⋯ Inflammatory changes on Papanicolaou smears were associated with chlamydial infection (P = 0.0001). Other variables identified as risk factors for chlamydial infection included both a younger age at first intercourse (P = 0.02) and more years of sexual activity (P = 0.02). Chronologic, menarchal, and gynecologic age, biologic age of the cervix, the number of sexual partners in the last month and during a lifetime, and parity were not found to be associated with recovery of Chlamydia.