This is the 5th hypertension guideline published by the Southern African Hypertension Society (SAHS). It is an important step towards implementing a national standard to improve the quality of care for persons living with hypertension. The realistic objectives described can be applied widely and aim to diminish the impact of hypertension and related cardiovascular disease (CVD) risk in South Af...

Prediction equations for spirometry in South Africa To the Editor: The South African Guideline for Office Spirometry was recently published. [1] Its aim was to provide an updated guideline for office spirometry in South Africa (SA), thereby improving the quality, standardisation and usefulness of spirometry. The need for local prediction equations based on large, all­inclusive studies of the SA...

Ramadan fasting is specific intermittent fasting comprising significant changes in routine lifestyle pattern and may affect body homeostasis and metabolism. In spite of several studies conducted on the effects of Ramadan fasting on various aspects of health and disease, because of heterogeneity in methodology and procedures (sometimes inevitable), a comprehensive concluding for reliable results...

OBJECTIVE The quality of knowledge updates in evidence-based medical guidelines can be improved and the effort spent for updating can be reduced if the knowledge underlying the guideline text is explicitly modelled using the so-called linguistic guideline patterns, mappings between a text fragment and a formal representation of its corresponding medical knowledge. METHODS AND MATERIAL Ontolog...

The polycystic ovary syndrome is one of the most common endocrinopathies, affecting approximately 7% of women of reproductive age. Although it was described in 1935, only in 1990 was published the first Consensus regarding it its diagnosis. Today, the syndrome is also considered a cardiovascular risk factor, with a high prevalence of metabolic disorders. Reflecting this new vision of the syndro...

Clinical practice guidelines are used to disseminate best practice to clinicians. Successful guidelines depend on literature that is both relevant to the questions posed and based on high quality research in accordance with evidence-based medicine. Meeting these standards requires extensive manual review. We describe a system that combines symbolic semantic processing with a statistical method ...

0

Despite enormous energies invested in authoring clinical practice guidelines, the quality of individual guidelines varies considerably. The Conference on Guideline Standardization (COGS) was convened in April 2002 to define a standard for guideline reporting that would promote guideline quality and facilitate implementation. Twenty-three people with expertise and experience in guideline develop...

BACKGROUND Implementation of guidelines in clinical practice is difficult. In 2003, the German College of General Practitioners and Family Physicians (DEGAM) released an evidence-based guideline for the management of low back pain (LBP) in primary care. The objective of this study is to explore the acceptance of guideline content and perceived barriers to implementation. METHODS Seventy-two g...