The development of prescription medication for smoking cessation and the introduction of evidence-based guidelines for health professionals has increasingly medicalised smoking cessation. There are debates about whether medicalisation is a positive development, or whether it has devalued unassisted quitting. In this debate the views of smokers have been neglected. This study explored the attitu...

Defining chronic kidney disease (CKD) is the subject of intense debate in the current nephrology literature. The debate concerns the threshold value of estimated glomerular filtration rate (eGFR) used to make the diagnosis of CKD. Current recommendations argue that a universal threshold of 60 mL/min/1.73m(2) should be used. This threshold has been defended by epidemiological studies showing tha...

BACKGROUND Respiratory tract infections (RTIs) are a major primary care challenge in children because they are common and costly, there is uncertainty regarding their diagnosis, prognosis, and management, and the overuse of antibiotics leads to illness medicalisation and bacterial resistance. AIM To investigate healthcare professional (HCP) diagnostic and antibiotic prescribing decisions for ...

A 2005 report from the French Institute for Medical Research highlighted factors likely to prompt 'behavioural problems' in children and adolescents, and recommended early identification of at-risk families. A number of mental health professionals rose up against such medicalisation of social issues. This ethnographic study was conducted in this climate, in a psychiatric unit, located in a disa...

Inappropriate antibiotic use in normally self-limiting acute respiratory tract infections (RTIs), such as sore throat and the common cold, is a global problem and an important factor for increasing levels of antibiotic resistance. A new group of international experts—the Global Respiratory Infection Partnership (GRIP)—is committed to addressing OPEN ACCESS Antibiotics 2013, 2 317 this issue, wi...

The authors outline the major role played by Ohtsuki Kenji in the formation of the Japanese Psychoanalytic Society. Unlike the other pioneers of psychoanalysis in Japan, Ohtsuki never went abroad or met Freud. He was a literature graduate who taught himself the fundamentals of psychoanalysis. He organised the translation of Freud's complete works, formed a psychoanalytic training institute and ...

This qualitative study aimed to explore primary health care professionals' views on community development, and to identify the opportunities and barriers associated with using this approach in practice. Participants in community development training--mainly health visitors--took part in small group discussions before, after, and six months following the training course. Opportunities for using ...

The increasingly widespread adoption of the term sexual health reflects a move away from the medicalisation of this specialty. The focus has shifted from clinical practice to lifestyle and behaviour; from clinician to client, and from treatment to prevention. This article discusses these themes, identifying their implications for sexual health research. Recent times have seen, for example, a gr...

Abstract Social work—an anti-oppressive, practice-based profession focused on social justice—supports people’s access to and ability create healthy lives. Therefore, workers should not only understand value a service user’s sexuality, but also be able competently navigate this area of practice. This mixed method study explored the role work education in preparing for practice sexual health sett...

The Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (UNCRPD) is a landmark for international disabled people’s independent living movement (ILM). ILM has been platform and tool to resist traditional medicalisation disability by calling broader understanding where independence no longer seen as opposite needing assistance. field social pedagogy in Iceland evolved parallel paradigm shift gr...