Biomedical subjects

S Redman

Publications and source records attributed to S Redman.

111 records · Page 7Linked to original sources

PubMedDate not supplied

Increasing women's compliance with opportunistic cervical cancer screening: a randomized trial.

Our objective was to evaluate the efficacy and acceptability of two interventions designed to increase opportunistic cervical cancer screening. We designed a randomized trial of two interventions additional to usual care. We recruited 17 male general practitioners selected at random from the inner metropolitan region of Sydney, Australia. The patients were 202 women, between 20 and 65 years of age, eligible for a Pap smear. We allocated minimal and maximal interactional interventions to obtain consent for a Pap smear. Our main outcome measure was women's having a Pap smear during the consultation or within one month. We also measured acceptability of interventions to practitioners and women. These were our results: minimal: 55% of women had a Pap smear; maximal: 67% of women had a Pap smear; total when both approaches are combined: 61%. We conclude that brief advice is as effective as maximal persuasion in increasing women's compliance with opportunistic screening in routine consultations. Both interventions were acceptable to women. Practitioners preferred the minimal intervention. We demonstrate opportunistic screening is an effective and acceptable way to encourage women at risk to have a Pap smear.

Adult↗

PubMedDate not supplied

Self-reported cognitive change during pregnancy.

Two groups of women were studied to elicit their perceptions of cognitive changes during pregnancy. In the first phase of the study, 236 primiparous women were surveyed using a structured questionnaire three to five days after delivering their baby. Sixty-four percent of women reported changes in cognition during pregnancy. More changes were reported by the women who were older, better educated, married or living as married, had private health insurance and had attended an obstetrician during pregnancy. Phase 2 was designed to survey and assess the content (type, range and salience) of the cognitive changes. Forty-eight multigravid and primigravid women and two postpartum women were surveyed using a semi-structured questionnaire; 82% reported experiencing cognitive changes during pregnancy and postpartum, including difficulty in concentration, absentmindedness and short-term memory loss. It is argued that while prior research has associated altered mental functioning during pregnancy with psychiatric disturbance, this is not a necessary relationship. Education about cognitive changes during pregnancy may assist women to understand a common experience and to develop effective coping strategies.

Adaptation, Psychological↗

PubMedDate not supplied

Community action for health promotion: a review of methods and outcomes 1990-1995.

OBJECTIVE: Our objective was to explore the effectiveness of community action as a strategy for health promotion, through a critical review of five years of community action evaluation literature. METHODS: Community action was defined as a health promotion, program that involved the community in implementation and control of the process of the program. Criteria for scientific evaluation of programs were proposed for sampling and control procedures, reliability and validity of instruments, analysis techniques, and specification of details of the intervention. A critical review of the literature, located by an on-line and related reference search, was undertaken for community action aimed at reducing cancer and cardiovascular disease, between January 1990 and May 1995. RESULTS: None of seven community action studies (17 articles) that examined cancer risk factors fulfilled all the criteria for rigorous scientific evaluation. The most methodologically adequate cancer study, the COMMIT intervention, had only a moderate degree of success in reducing community smoking rates. Similarly, none of the six studies (25 articles) on cardiovascular disease fulfilled all the criteria. The results for the most methodologically adequate study, the Minnesota Heart Health Program, were disappointing, with strong secular trends preventing adequate assessment of the intervention effect. CONCLUSIONS: The finding that none of the reviewed studies met all evaluation criteria was due to several factors, including political considerations, feasibility, and the continued evolution of the science of evaluation in health promotion. Some important questions are posed for researchers by the failure of methodologically superior projects, such as COMMIT, to show major gains in reducing health risk behaviors.

Cardiovascular Diseases↗