Poor adherence to treatment is a major factor limiting treatment outcomes in patients with atopic dermatitis. The purpose of our systematic review is to identify techniques that have been tested to increase treatment adherence in atopic dermatitis. A MEDLINE search was performed for clinical trials focusing on interventions used to increase adherence in atopic dermatitis. Four articles were ret...

Variation in medicine and surgery is a critical contemporary health policy issue. Recent research demonstrates that variation in Medicare payments to otolaryngologists in a single metropolitan area was attributable to differences in health care resource utilization among physicians and that the hospital with the highest Medicare payments per physician had a higher proportion of office endoscopy...

BACKGROUND Patients with asthma who visit the emergency department (ED) may benefit from education that optimizes self-management and treatment. OBJECTIVE To conduct a randomized trial of asthma education (AE) after an ED visit. METHODS Patients who present with acute asthma and history consistent with moderate to severe persistent asthma or recent ED visits were stratified by age (adult, c...

BACKGROUND To ascertain the prevalence of gun ownership, gun safety education, and parental attitudes on gun counseling in a Midwestern sample. METHODS Parents seeking care at participating practices in the Southwestern Ohio Ambulatory Research Network were recruited to complete a survey about gun ownership, gun safety education, and gun counseling attitudes. Attitudes and beliefs were compar...

Would physicians override a do-not-resuscitate order when a cardiac arrest is iatrogenic? A sthma is a chronic, possibly life-threatening disease for which effective treatments are continually studied and made available. It is difficult to imagine a chest physician seeing a patient for some other ailment, and knowing that person also has asthma, offering nothing beyond the admonition, " You nee...

BACKGROUND Pediatric well-care visits provide a clinical opportunity to counsel new mothers about their smoking and the deleterious effects of environmental tobacco smoke (ETS) on infant health. METHODS Forty-nine Oregon pediatric offices enrolled 2,901 women who were currently smoking or had quit for pregnancy, using a brief survey at the newborn's first office visit. Randomly assigned offic...

A large, widening gap exists between the incomes of primary care physicians and those of many specialists. This disparity is important because noncompetitive primary care incomes discourage medical school graduates from choosing primary care careers. The Resource-Based Relative Value Scale, designed to reduce the inequality between fees for office visits and payment for procedures, failed to pr...

BACKGROUND This study describes the relation between patient satisfaction with physician performance and seeing one's "own doctor" for a recent office visit. METHODS A cross-sectional, randomized, computer-assisted telephone interview survey was performed at an urban health maintenance organization; 1146 responses were analyzed. RESULTS Patients seeing their own physicians were significantl...

OBJECTIVE To describe how pediatricians refer patients to specialists, including frequency of referral decisions, reasons for referral, and types of referrals. DESIGN We conducted a prospective study of visits (N = 58 771) made to 142 pediatricians in a national primary care practice-based research network. During 20 consecutive practice days, physicians and parents completed questionnaires f...

OBJECTIVE To determine whether an asthma coaching program can improve parent and child asthma-related quality of life (QOL) and reduce urgent care events. DESIGN Randomized controlled trial of usual care vs usual care with coaching. Comparisons were made between groups using mixed models. SETTING A Midwest city. PARTICIPANTS A community-based sample of 362 families with a child aged 5 to ...