BACKGROUND General practitioners (GPs) often lack time and resources to invest in health education; audiovisual messages broadcast in the waiting room may be a useful educational tool. This work was designed to assess the effect of a message inviting patients to ask for a tetanus booster vaccination. METHODS A quasi experimental study was conducted in a Belgian medical practice consisting of ...

The effects of caffeine consumption on delayed conception were evaluated in a European multicenter study on risk factors of infertility. Information was collected retrospectively on time of unprotected intercourse for the first pregnancy and the most recent waiting time episode in a randomly selected sample of 3,187 women aged 25-44 years from five European countries (Denmark, Germany, Italy, P...

Most pretransplant malignancies require a tumor-free waiting period before transplantation. End-stage renal disease (ESRD) patients have an increased risk of renal cell carcinoma (RCC), which is mostly detected from routine screening during pre-kidney transplant evaluation. RCC must be quiescent prior to kidney transplantation. However, the tumor-free waiting period for RCC varies depending on ...

OBJECTIVES The objectives of this study were to determine whether a signal-averaged electrocardiogram (SAECG) or measurement of interlead variability of QT intervals on an electrocardiogram (ECG) obtained at the time of wait-listing could provide prognostic value with respect to cardiac death during the waiting period. BACKGROUND Because heart transplantation is a life-saving but limited reso...

BACKGROUND Long waiting times for elective surgical treatment threaten timely care provision in several countries. The purpose of this study was to assess the impact of waiting for elective general surgery on the quality of life and psychosocial health of patients. METHODS A cross-sectional questionnaire study with postoperative follow-up was performed among patients on waiting lists for surg...

Within a dairy herd, total milk production is determined by the proportion of cows producing milk at any given time and the level of milk production of the individual cows within the herd. Improving reproductive efficiency helps to maintain the maximal number of cows producing milk at optimal levels. Reproductive efficiency in dairy cattle currently is suboptimal primarily due to four factors: ...

We study investment cycles and information flows in a model of social learning in which investment returns fluctuate according to a Markov process. In our Waiting Game, agents observe the investment history and a private signal correlated with the current period’s investment return. Agents then decide whether to invest in round 1 or to delay their decision to round 2 of the current period. Casc...