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Biomedical subjects

R Burrows

Publications and source records attributed to R Burrows.

At least 109 records · Page 6Linked to original sources
PubMedDate not supplied

Reliability of health information on the Internet: an examination of experts' ratings.

BACKGROUND: The use of medical experts in rating the content of health-related sites on the Internet has flourished in recent years. In this research, it has been common practice to use a single medical expert to rate the content of the Web sites. In many cases, the expert has rated the Internet health information as poor, and even potentially dangerous. However, one problem with this approach is that there is no guarantee that other medical experts will rate the sites in a similar manner. OBJECTIVES: The aim was to assess the reliability of medical experts' judgments of threads in an Internet newsgroup related to a common disease. A secondary aim was to show the limitations of commonly-used statistics for measuring reliability (eg, kappa). METHODS: The participants in this study were 5 medical doctors, who worked in a specialist unit dedicated to the treatment of the disease. They each rated the information contained in newsgroup threads using a 6-point scale designed by the experts themselves. Their ratings were analyzed for reliability using a number of statistics: Cohen's kappa, gamma, Kendall's W, and Cronbach's alpha. RESULTS: Reliability was absent for ratings of questions, and low for ratings of responses. The various measures of reliability used gave conflicting results. No measure produced high reliability. CONCLUSIONS: The medical experts showed a low agreement when rating the postings from the newsgroup. Hence, it is important to test inter-rater reliability in research assessing the accuracy and quality of health-related information on the Internet. A discussion of the different measures of agreement that could be used reveals that the choice of statistic can be problematic. It is therefore important to consider the assumptions underlying a measure of reliability before using it. Often, more than one measure will be needed for "triangulation" purposes.

Delivery of Health Care↗
PubMedDate not supplied

Captive care: changes in prison nursing.

Nursing in prisons is a new growth area. This article highlights how the major developments in mental health provision and changing health patterns in inmate populations have influenced the evolution of specialist nursing services for prisoners. Many issues concerning the role, training and salaries of nurses who work in prisons remain unresolved, however, and the complex ethical and legal conflicts remain ever-present in the prison environment.

Humans↗
PubMedDate not supplied

[Etiology of growth retardation in children of adolescent mothers].

The influence of some nutritional and hormonal factors in the growth failure detected in children of teenage mothers belonging to medium-low socioeconomic level (SEL) was studied. They were compared with children of mothers older than twenty years of the name SEL. Only growth retarded children of teenage mothers had significant delay in bone age, compared with chronological age (14.8 +/- 4.1 vs 18.2 +/- 2.2 months respectively). Children with growth failure had significantly lower plasma Zn (85.7 +/- 13.3 vs 94.6 +/- 17.9 micrograms/dl), Cu (106.2 +/- 32.5 vs 122.0 +/- 13.8 micrograms/dl) and hemoglobin (Hb) (11.7 +/- 2.1 vs 12.8 +/- 2.1 micrograms/dl) levels. No differences in plasmatic levels of thyrotropin, thyroid hormones and response of growth hormone to L-Dopa stimulation were detected in comparison with those of children with normal stature. We concluded that etiological factors of growth failure were similar in children of teenage and adult mothers according to the parameters analyzed. The increased prevalence of growth failure in children of teenage mothers may be due to a greater impact of the analyzed factors.

Adolescent↗
PubMedDate not supplied

[Hypogonadotrophic hypogonadism and anosmia: Kallman's syndrome].

Three male adolescents with hypogonadotropic hypogonadism and anosmia (Kallmann Syndrome) and treated with testosterone enantate are presented. The type of inheritance, the importance of others clinical signs and symptoms in an early diagnosis, variations in the response of gonadotropins and prolactin to LHRH and chlorpromazine. The optimal treatment schedule with testosterone for these patients seems to be intramuscular testosterone enantate 200 mg at two weeks intervals. Longer intervals produce less satisfactory responses.

Adolescent↗