The 1990s witnessed a wave of hospital consolidation, dramatically increasing the number of people living in highly concentrated hospital markets. The balance of evidence shows that consolidation: > Raised hospital prices by at least fi ve percent and perhaps much more. > Produced modest cost savings for merging hospitals. Hospitals merging operations (and not just ownership) experienced the mo...

Schizophrenia (SZ) is one of the most cryptic and costly mental disorders in terms of human suffering and societal expenditure (van Os and Kapur, 2009). Though strong evidence for functional, structural, and genetic abnormalities associated with this disease exists, there is yet no replicable finding which has proven accurate enough to be useful in clinical decision making (Fornito et al., 2009...

BACKGROUND The Global Assessment of Functioning (GAF) is a widely used measure of psychiatric symptoms and functioning, yet numerous concerns persist about its reliability and validity. The objective of this study was to determine the extent to which GAF scores reflect physician-related differences in addition to information about patients. METHODS This is a secondary analysis of clinical dat...

The purpose of this study was to examine the SCL-90 profiles of adult outpatients with and without dissociative disorders. A total of 194 participants were administered the Structured Clinical Interview for DSM-IV Dissociative Disorders-Revised (SCID-D-R) and the Symptom Checklist-90 (SCL-90). Patients with dissociative identity disorder (DID) reported significantly higher SCL-90 Global Severit...

OBJECTIVE To (a) identify post-concussion symptom scales appropriate for children and adolescents in sports; (b) review evidence for reliability and validity; and (c) recommend future directions for scale development. DESIGN Quantitative and qualitative literature review of symptom rating scales appropriate for children and adolescents aged 5 to 22 years. INTERVENTION Literature identified ...

Background To decrease the readmission rate of heart failure (HF) patients, patients and their caregivers (CGs) should participate in symptoms assessment. This study aimed to assess the agreement between HF patients and their CGs on symptoms assessment. Methods Using a correlational design, 100 HF patients with their CGs (100 dyads) were recruited from Department of Cardiology, Iranshahr, dur...

Several studies suggest facial affect perception (FAP) deficits in schizophrenia are linked to poorer social functioning. However, whether reduced functioning is associated with inaccurate perception of specific emotional valence or a global FAP impairment remains unclear. The present study examined whether impairment in the perception of specific emotional valences (positive, negative) and neu...

OBJECTIVES Advance directives have been implemented for years in western countries, but the concept is new to Asian cultures. According to traditional Chinese culture, family members usually play a decisive role in a patient's treatment plan. Thus it may be hard to implement an advance directive despite its importance to the treatment of patients. The objectives of this study were to assess the...

This study was aimed at clarifying the effect of exposure to N-methyl-2-pyrrolidone (NMP) on workers' health. Fifteen male NMP-exposed workers and 15 referent male workers were recruited for this study. Exposure concentrations were assessed by determining NMP in the breathing zones and urinary NMP. Clinical examinations, motor and sensory nerve conduction velocities in the dominant arm, and neu...

CONTEXT Suffering is a complex experience. Identifying its predictors is useful to signal at-risk patients. OBJECTIVE To identify suffering predictors in patients with advanced cancer in palliative care. METHODS A total of 98 patients participated in the study. A semistructured interview examining suffering levels and physical, psychological, social, and spiritual aspects was used. Instrume...