OBJECTIVES To determine the impact on breastfeeding sustained beyond two months of the "Seventeen Steps" breastfeeding maintenance program consisting of seventeen strategies used to promote, support and protect breastfeeding and implemented for ten months at a medical center. METHODS Nonrandomized clinical trial, involving 147 children born between 01/01/99 and 31/12/2001, who had attended th...

OBJECTIVE To determine the efficacy of an automated, interactive, telephone-based health communication intervention for improving glaucoma treatment adherence among patients in 2 hospital-based eye clinics. METHOD A total of 312 patients with glaucoma (18-80 years of age) were enrolled in a randomized controlled trial at 2 eye clinics located in hospitals in the southeastern United States. Th...

Patients in a semirural dispensing practice were asked to determine how much time they required when booking an appointment. A comparison was made between their estimates and the actual time taken. Patients' estimates proved sufficiently accurate to produce a system that worked well.

BACKGROUND The NHS Health Check Programme presents the opportunity to reduce death and ill health caused by cardiovascular diseases (CVDs). Owing to the current restructuring of health care in the UK, financial resources will in future be limited. It is important to develop cost-effective ways of delivering this programme. There are practical alternatives to strategies that advocate using exist...

Breast cancer mortality disparities continue, particularly for uninsured and minority women. A number of effective evidence-based interventions (EBIs) exist for addressing barriers to mammography screening; however, their uptake and use in community has been limited. Few cancer-specific studies have evaluated adapted EBIs in new contexts, and fewer still have considered implementation. This stu...

OBJECTIVES The purpose of this study was to appraise referrals of homeless patients to physiotherapy services and explore perceptions of barriers to access. DESIGN This exploratory mixed-method study used a follow-up qualitative extension to core quantitative research design. Over 9 months, quantitative data were gathered from the healthcare records of homeless patients referred to physiother...

BACKGROUND Despite invaluable national data, reasons for the relentless rise in England's emergency department (ED) attendances remain elusive. SETTING All EDs and general practices in England. QUESTION Are rising ED attendances related to general practice patient satisfaction, i.e. if patients are unable to get a convenient appointment with their general practitioner (GP), then do they att...