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Biomedical subjects

A Keane

Publications and source records attributed to A Keane.

15 recordsLinked to original sources
PubMed1991

Prescribed fenoterol and death from asthma in New Zealand, 1981-7: a further case-control study.

The association between inhaled fenoterol and death from asthma has been investigated further by studying 112 asthma deaths (cases) during 1981-7 in patients aged 5-45 years who had been admitted to a major hospital for asthma during the 12 months before death. Two age matched control groups were chosen. Control group A comprised 427 patients who had been admitted to hospital for asthma during the calendar year that the corresponding death occurred and who had also had a previous admission for asthma in the previous 12 months. Control group B comprised 448 patients admitted to hospital for asthma during the calendar year in which the admission of the corresponding case occurred. The inhaled fenoterol odds ratio was 2.11 (95% confidence interval (CI) 1.37-3.23, p less than 0.01) when group A was used as the control (the approach used in previous studies), and 2.66 (95% CI 1.74-4.06, p less than 0.01) with group B as the control (the approach recommended by critics of previous studies). Markers of chronic asthma severity were associated with asthma death when control group B was used, but not when control group A was used (which indicates that these markers were indirectly matched for when control group A was used). Information was also collected on various markers of acute asthma severity and prescription of psychotropic drugs, but it was found that these were not important confounders. These findings address the major criticisms of previous case-control studies of this issue, and add support to the hypothesis that inhaled fenoterol increases the risk of death in patients with severe asthma.

Administration, Inhalation↗
PubMed1989

A serial study of anticardiolipin antibody and antimitochondrial antibody type M5 in a patient with polyarthritis and polymyositis.

A 22-year-old female presented with polyarthritis and subsequent polymyositis. Initially, she had moderately high levels of anticardiolipin (aCl) and antimitochondrial antibody (AMA) type M5. Following corticosteroid therapy, the anticardiolipin antibody rapidly fell to background levels but reappeared with the onset of two significant clinical events.

Adult↗
PubMed1987

Anticardiolipin antibodies in rheumatoid arthritis.

Anticardiolipin antibody (ACA) was present in the sera of 49% of 90 consecutive patients with rheumatoid arthritis (RA). The ACA was absent in 30 control patients with osteoarthritis. C-reactive protein levels equal to or exceeding 7 mg/dl were found in 10 patients all of whom were ACA positive. ACA was present in a larger proportion of rheumatoid factor (RF) positive than of RF negative patients. Male sex and extra-articular manifestations of RA were both more common in ACA positive than ACA negative patients. In the ACA positive group the lupus anticoagulant and VDRL tests were negative. However, a small number of patients had evidence of vascular events.

Adult↗
PubMed1985

Quality assurance. Evaluate thyself.

Quality assurance (qa) programs must be documented carefully, systematically, and completely to be of continued value. A literature review revealed that no tools had been developed to evaluate the effectiveness of qa programs. A tool was designed and tested to assess the reports of qa studies, as an initial step in establishing the benefits of qa. The tool was found to yield reproducible results and its use is recommended to others.

Hospital Bed Capacity, 500 and over↗
PubMed1984

"Why me?": an attributional analysis of a major illness.

The applicability of attribution theory in general, and Weiner's model in particular, to a medical setting was investigated. Patients undergoing thoracic surgery were interviewed before and after surgery to ascertain why they thought they had the disease and why they were recovering at an adequate or inadequate rate from the surgery. These data were analyzed to answer two primary questions. First, to what extent can Weiner's academically-based attribution model be applied to a medical setting? Secondly, do the attributions that patients make about the cause of their disease affect their ability to recover from it? The results indicated that Weiner's theory can be applied to this situation, although a modification in one major dimension of the theory (the Locus dimension) seems warranted. In addition, the causal attributions that patients made about their disease correlated with recovery, although the pattern of attributions for successful patients was complex and theoretically ambiguous. Suggestions for modifying Weiner's model to make the theory more applicable to a medical setting are presented.

Adult↗
PubMed1978

The momentum of population growth with time dependent net maternity function.

The momentum of population growth problem of Keyfitz is generalized to contain a gradual change of the age-specific birth rate ro the level of bare replacement. Assuming a time dependence for the net maternity function of the form (formula: see text) R being the net reproductive rate, we show that for the Malthusian model the asymptotic birth rate is increased by exp (r/lambda), where r is the rate of increase of the population before t = 0. A numerical method for obtaining the asymptotic birth rate for a general net maternity function with the same time dependence is outlined.

Age Factors↗
PubMedDate not supplied

Stress in ICU and non-ICU nurses.

This study focused on the degree of burnout experienced by nurses in intensive care units and nonintensive care units. Nurses in both the surgical and medical ICUs, as well as nurses in the intermediate surgical and medical units and general surgical and medical units of a large, university hospital were the subjects. The data indicated that nurses in the ICUs did not differ in level of burnout from nurses in the other units. Across units, however, nurses who were characterized as more "hardy" experienced lower levels of burnout than nurses lower in this construct.

Adult↗