Articles: mortality.
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Bmc Health Serv Res · Jan 2011
Mortality associated with timing of admission to and discharge from ICU: a retrospective cohort study.
Although the association between mortality and admission to intensive care units (ICU) in the "after hours" (weekends and nights) has been the topic of extensive investigation, the timing of discharge from ICU and outcome has been less well investigated. The objective of this study was to assess effect of timing of admission to and discharge from ICUs and subsequent risk for death. ⋯ In this study, ICU discharge at night but not admission was associated with a significant increased risk for death. Further studies are needed to examine whether minimizing night time discharges from ICU may improve outcome.
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Int J Qual Stud Health Well-being · Jan 2011
Hope in action-facing cardiac death: A qualitative study of patients with life-threatening disease.
Coping with existential challenges is important when struck by serious disease, but apart from cancer and palliative care little is known about how patients deal with such issues and maintain hope. To explore how patients with life-threatening heart disease experience hope when coping with mortality and other existential challenges, we conducted a qualitative study with semi-structured interviews. We made a purposive sample of 11 participants (26-88 years) who had experienced life-threatening disease: eight participants with serious heart disease, two with cancer, and one with severe chronic obstructive pulmonary disease. ⋯ The work of hoping could be supported or disturbed by relationships with family, friends, and health care professionals. Hope can be regarded as an active, dynamic state of existential coping among patients with life-threatening disease. Physicians may support this coping and thereby provide personal growth and alleviation of existential distress by skillfully identifying, acknowledging, and participating in the work of hoping performed by the patient.
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Morbidity and mortality conferences have been used to educate healthcare providers, to critique staff performance, and to improve patient outcomes since the early 1900s. Historically well documented in physician-focused journals, the use of morbidity and mortality conferences is less predominant in the nursing literature. This article highlights one hospital's experience with planning, implementing, and evaluating a nursing morbidity and mortality conference and identifies implications for use in professional nursing development.
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Environ Health Glob · Jan 2011
Impact of two recent extreme heat episodes on morbidity and mortality in Adelaide, South Australia: a case-series analysis.
Extreme heatwaves occurred in Adelaide, South Australia, in the summers of 2008 and 2009. Both heatwaves were unique in terms of their duration (15 days and 13 days respectively), and the 2009 heatwave was also remarkable in its intensity with a maximum temperature reaching 45.7 °C. It is of interest to compare the health impacts of these two unprecedented heatwaves with those of previous heatwaves in Adelaide. ⋯ While only incremental increases in morbidity and mortality above previous findings occurred in 2008, health impacts of the 2009 heatwave stand out. These findings send a signal that the intense and long 2009 heatwave may have exceeded the capacity of the population to cope. It is important that risk factors contributing to the adverse health outcomes are investigated to further improve preventive strategies.
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Ned Tijdschr Geneeskd · Jan 2011
[Population-based breast cancer screening is not worthwhile. Screening has little effect on mortality].
Comparison of breast cancer mortality between pairs of similar countries (Sweden and Norway, Northern Ireland and the Irish Republic, the Netherlands and Belgium or Flanders), each of which had implemented its population-wide breast cancer screening programme at a different point in time, demonstrated little effect of screening on mortality. In the Netherlands, a well-organised population-wide screening programme was started in the early nineties, ten years before such a programme was introduced in Flanders. We used the 1989-1992 period as a baseline and compared breast cancer mortality in the Netherlands with that in Flanders during the 2005-2008 period. ⋯ A total of 5000 screening mammograms were needed to prevent one death from breast cancer. Breast cancer screening is not a public health priority. Impartial and transparent information on the disadvantages and benefits of breast cancer screening is urgently needed.