PubMed Health⌕ Search

Biomedical subjects

E J Calvert

Publications and source records attributed to E J Calvert.

9 recordsLinked to original sources
PubMed1984

Information, compliance and side-effects: a study of patients on antidepressant medication.

A study was carried out to elucidate whether the improved compliance associated with the provision of verbal and written information about a prescribed drug is due to the specific information or to a non-specific attention-placebo effect. 120 depressed outpatients were prescribed dothiepin and randomly allocated to one of three groups: Group A were given verbal and written information about side-effects; Group B were given verbal and written information about beneficial effects; Group C were told only that the drug was being given to treat their depression and received no written information. Compliance with medication was assessed at 3 weeks and 6 weeks by interrogation and by pill count. At the same time, side-effects were enquired for and their occurrence or non-occurrence noted. No significant differences were found between the groups in the rates of compliance at either 3 weeks or 6 weeks. When Groups A and B were combined to give a total 'information' group and compared with Group C--the 'no-information' group--the rate of compliance at 3 weeks was significantly higher (P less than 0.05) in the 'information' group. No significant differences were found between the groups in the rates of reported side-effects at either 3 weeks or 6 weeks. When Groups A and C were combined and compared with Group B (information about beneficial effects), side-effects were found to be reported significantly less frequently (P less than 0.05) in the latter at 6 weeks. Of 175 compliance estimates, 97.7% gave concordant results for estimation by interrogation and by pill count.(ABSTRACT TRUNCATED AT 250 WORDS)

Adult↗
PubMed1983

Patterns of attendance at developmental assessment clinics.

A random sample of 489 children was collected at birth. There were clinic records for only 356 (73 per cent) of these children, and from this number 30 left the district or died. The parents of those with record cards were invited to bring their children to clinic when they reached the age of four years. Only 152 children (47 per cent) attended. Of the non-attenders, 129 were traced to schools in the borough when they reached the age of five years, as were 67 (51 per cent) of the 133 children without record cards. The children seen only at school were compared with the children seen at a Local Authority developmental assessment clinic. The clinic group were judged to come from the higher social classes and to have higher IQs than the school group, which suggests that clinics may be catering for those whose need is least.

Child Development↗
PubMed1978

An analysis of verbal-performance intelligence quotient discrepancies in the Wechsler Adult Intelligence Scale results of mentally subnormal hospital patients.

Verbal-Performance IQ discrepancies on the WAIS have been of much interest to clinical psychologists. They have been related, amongst other things, to different types of brain damage and in studies of the mentally subnormal, to successful adjustment to the outside world. This paper looks more closely at such discrepancies obtained by patients in a hospital for the mentally subnormal. These discrepancies are found to be both frequent related to Full Scale IQ. The pattern that emerges remains constant if scaled scores are considered or if the subtests are re-arranged according to Cohen's A and B factors. It is argued that these findings imply caution in the use of the discrepancy measure as a diagnostic or predictive indicator in this population.

Adult↗
PubMed1976

The effect of forewarning on the occurrence of side-effects and discontinuance of medication in patients on dothiepin.

Dothiepin was prescribed for 100 depressed out-patients alternately allocated to one of two groups. Patients in Group A were forewarned about side-effects and patients in Group B were not forewarned. None of the patients had previously received dothiepin. After two weeks the patients were questioned regarding side-effects and continuance with medication. Eighty-nine patients were included in the final analysis. The results failed to confirm the hypotheses that forewarning patients of side-effects causes a greater number of patients to complain of such effects, or that where patients experience side-effects, forewarning is associated with any less frequent discontinuance of therapy. Compared with a previous study with amitriptyline, the results of this study are much closer to statistical significance. This may be due to the lower overall incidence of side-effects with dothiepin and calls for further work with a larger sample of patients.

Adult↗