Physician assistants (PAs) were introduced in the Netherlands in 2002 and are now widely deployed. However, little is known about patient satisfaction with Dutch PAs. A comparative study of patient satisfaction was undertaken in the primary care setting. Patients seen by general practitioners (GPs) and PAs were surveyed using the Consumer Quality Index, a European quality survey instrument. Qua...

In Maputo city, immunization is available at government health facilities, all contacts being used to vaccinate children. Door-to-door mobilization is conducted to identify eligible children and refer them for immunization. Card-documented measles vaccine coverage, estimated by community surveys, rose from 48% in 1982 to 86% in 1986 and 92% in 1992. The median age at measles vaccination was 10....

OBJECTIVES To describe trends in age at first sex (AFS), age at first marriage (AFM) and time spent single between events and to compare age-specific trends in marital status in six cohort studies. METHODS Cohort data from Uganda, Tanzania, South Africa, Zimbabwe and Malawi and Demographic and Health Survey (DHS) data from Uganda, Tanzania and Zimbabwe were analysed. Life table methods were u...

Objective To find lower and upper bounds of HIV prevalence in Malawi under mild and intuitive assumptions to assess the importance of the refusal issue in the estimation of HIV prevalence. Methods We derive bounds based on the following two key assumptions: (i) Among those who have never taken an HIV test before, those who refuse to take an HIV test (hereafter “refusers”) have at least as much ...

BACKGROUND Identifying and employing appropriate learning styles could play an important role in selecting teaching styles in order to improve education. OBJECTIVES This study aimed to determine the relationship between learning styles preferences and gender, educational major and status in first year students at Isfahan University of Medical Sciences. PATIENTS AND METHODS A cross-sectional...

BACKGROUND Measures of household socio-economic position (SEP) are widely used in health research. There exist a number of approaches to their measurement, with Principal Components Analysis (PCA) applied to a basket of household assets being one of the most common. PCA, however, carries a number of assumptions about the distribution of the data which may be untenable, and alternative, non-para...

BACKGROUND Prelacteal feeding (PLF) is a barrier to exclusive breast feeding. OBJECTIVE To determine factors associated with PLF in rural and urban Nigeria. METHODS We utilized data from the 2013 Nigerian Demographic and Health Survey. Bivariate and multivariate analyses were used to test for association between PLF and related factors. RESULTS Prevalence of PLF in urban Nigeria was 49.8%...

Age of the couples is one of the most basic and important information collected in almost all demographic and health surveys. This particular study makes an attempt in exploring the extent of age difference and the change over time among the couples in India. It also analyses the impact of other socio-economic, demographic and cultural factors in explaining the variation in age difference among...