Articles: ninos.
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The majority of primary care patients referred for bowel endoscopy do not have significant colorectal disease (SCD), and are - in hindsight - unnecessarily exposed to a small but realistic risk of severe endoscopy-associated complications. We developed a diagnostic strategy to better exclude SCD in these patients and evaluated the value of adding a faecal calprotectin point-of-care (POC) and/or a POC faecal immunochemical test for haemoglobin (FIT) to routine clinical information. ⋯ FIT - and to a much lesser extent calprotectin - POC testing showed incremental value for SCD diagnosis beyond standard clinical information. A diagnostic strategy with routine clinical data and a POC FIT test may safely rule out SCD and prevent unnecessary endoscopy referral in approximately one third of SCD-suspected primary care patients. Please see related article: http://bmcmedicine.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s12916-016-0694-3 .
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Ankylosing spondylitis (AS) generates inflammation and pain in entheses, peripheral joints and the spine. Education regarding AS can improve patients' disability. Thus, it is important to assess patients' knowledge. There is no instrument in the literature for assessing knowledge of AS in Portuguese. The aim here was to translate to the Brazilian Portuguese language, culturally adapt and test the reliability of the questionnaire "Ankylosing Spondylitis: What do you know?" and to correlate the findings with other factors. ⋯ The Brazilian version of the questionnaire "Ankylosing Spondylitis: What do you know?" was created. It is reproducible and correlates with education level, ethnicity and the SF-36 domains "social aspects" and "emotional aspects".
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The aim of this study was to use secondary analysis to interrogate a qualitative data set to explore the experiences of patients living with heart failure. ⋯ Living with heart failure causes disruption to the lives of sufferers. Facilitation of access to healthcare, through good communication between services and having a strong support network of both family and clinicians can reduce the impact of heart failure on the lives of the patient and those around them.