Assessment of symptoms is important both in the diagnosis of gastro-oesophageal reflux disease (GORD), and in monitoring response to therapeutic interventions. Key quality aims in assessing symptoms are to gather data that are valid, reliable, unbiased, discriminating, and responsive to change. Important considerations include who should assess symptoms, method of data collection, timing of ass...

OBJECTIVE Baseline, preseason assessment of cognition, symptoms, and balance has been recommended as part of a comprehensive sport concussion management program. We examined the relationship between sleep and baseline test results. We hypothesized that adolescents who slept fewer hours the night before would report more symptoms and perform more poorly on cognitive testing than students who had...

PURPOSE/OBJECTIVES To assess patient and provider responses to a computerized symptom assessment system. DESIGN Descriptive, longitudinal study with retrospective, longitudinal medical records review. SETTING University-based National Cancer Institute-designated outpatient cancer center. SAMPLE 80 oncology outpatients receiving chemotherapy, 8 providers, and 30 medical records. METHODS ...

OBJECTIVE The high degree of heterogeneity in the development of depression under stress is unaccounted for in traditional statistical modeling. We employ growth mixture modeling to identify classes of individuals at highest risk of depression under stress. METHOD Medical internship was used as a prospective stress model. Interns from US residency programs completed demographic, psychological...

PURPOSE/OBJECTIVES To evaluate the level of agreement of symptom assessment among older adult palliative patients with cancer, nurses, and patients' proxies.
 DESIGN A cross-sectional study.
 SETTING Two general hospitals in Flanders, Belgium.
 SAMPLE 120 palliative patients with cancer, aged 65 years and older.
 METHODS A validated 36-item instrument developed to assess physical, psych...

Negative symptoms in schizophrenia are related to poor functional outcome, persistent over time, a source of burden for caregivers, and only minimally responsive to currently available medications. A major challenge to developing efficacious interventions concerns the valid and reliable assessment of negative symptoms. In a recent consensus statement on negative symptoms, a central recommendati...

Previous research has reported that the real estate market for retail space is slow to adjust, however, comparatively little research has investigated the supply of retail space for individual metropolitan markets. This study presents our findings by metropolitan statistical area (MSA) of the mean retail space supply lag, the shortand long-run retail space supply elasticities with respect to re...

Complex decision support software can require significant effort in maintenance and enhancement. A quality improvement tool, the prioritization matrix, was successfully used to guide software enhancement of algorithms in a symptom assessment call center.

Palliative care need is highest among low and middle-income countries and a significant gap exists between palliative care need and provision in India. Patients with life limiting illnesses such as cancer are discharged home prematurely with poorly controlled physical symptoms, unresolved psychological and social issues, and unprepared caregiver and with no plans for continuity of care. Respite...

BACKGROUND The Edmonton Symptom Assessment Scale (ESAS) is a nine-item patient-rated symptom visual analogue scale developed for use in assessing the symptoms of patients receiving palliative care. The purpose of this study was to validate the ESAS in a different population of patients. METHODS In this prospective study, 240 patients with a diagnosis of cancer completed the ESAS, the Memorial...