PubMed HealthSearch

SEARCH · PubMed Health

Results for “Scotland”

Explore indexed PubMed citations for clinical trials, systematic reviews and public health research. Read source abstracts and follow each citation to its original PubMed record.

Quote a phrase for an exact phrase match. Source license links do not imply unrestricted reuse.

At least 19 recordsLinked to original sources

Blood groups antigens, plasma protein and red cell isoenzyme polymorphisms in south-west Scotland.

Blood donor specimens from South-west Scotland were analysed for the following polymorphisms: ABO, Rhesus (D), Haptoglobin, Transferrin, Immunoglobulin (GM), RBC acid phophatase, RBC phosphoglucomutase and RBC adenylate kinase. Genetic differences exist between the regions in S.W. Scotland and between S.W. Scotland and other Irish and Irish Sea regions. This variability is detailed and discussed. The results are mapped by converting the data into distance values and by using a nonmetrical scaling technique. Overall the present S.W. Scotland data are similar to Cumbrian and Manx results and dissimilar to the Irish data.

ABO Blood-Group System

A further investigation of differences in the suicide rates of England and Wales and of Scotland.

National samples of case records of suicidal-type deaths from England and Wales and from Scotland were reassessed by officials in the other country. It emerged that similar criteria for suicide existed in both countries, and that there was no age-related tendency to misclassify cases. The lower official suicide rate amongst the old in Scotland was therefore considered not to result from ascertainment differences. It was also concluded that Scottish records were not so briefly documented as to prevent the conclusive ascertainment of cause by England and Wales coroners. Cases which were designated 'undetermined' in Scotland tended to be classified 'accidental' by coroners. Reasons for the lower incidence of suicide in Scotland are discussed.

Adolescent

Emergence of novel methicillin resistant Staphylococcus pseudintermedius lineages revealed by whole genome sequencing of isolates from companion animals and humans in Scotland.

Staphylococcus pseudintermedius is an opportunistic pathogen in dogs, and infection in humans is increasingly found, often linked to contact with dogs. We conducted a retrospective genotyping and antimicrobial susceptibility testing study of 406 S. pseudintermedius isolates cultured from animals (dogs, cats and an otter) and humans across Scotland, from 2007 to 2020. Seventy-five sequence types (STs) were identified, among the 130 isolates genotyped, with 59 seen only once. We observed the emergence of two methicillin resistant Staphylococcus pseudintermedius (MRSP) clones in Scotland: ST726, a novel locally-evolving clone, and ST551, first reported in 2015 in Poland, possibly linked to animal importation to Scotland from Central Europe. While ST71 was the most frequent S. pseudintermedius strain detected, other lineages that have been replacing ST71 in other countries, in addition to ST551, were detected. Multidrug resistance (MDR) was detected in 96.4% of MRSP and 8.4% of MSSP. A single MRSP isolate was resistant to mupirocin. Continuous surveillance for the emergence and dissemination of novel MDR MRSP in animals and humans and changes in antimicrobial susceptibility in S. pseudintermedius is warranted to minimise the threat to animal and human health.

Animals

Fractures of the zygomatic complex in the south-east region of Scotland.

With the ever increasing of facial trauma, a study has been carried out on some aspects of zygomatic complex fractures in a part of Scotland. The results were different in some aspects from those reported in the literature, but they endorse the findings of a similar study which was carried out in the Eastern regions of Scotland (Hitchen & Shuker, 1973).

Adolescent

Biotyping and colicine typing of Salmonella typhimurium strains of phage type 141 isolated in Scotland.

Cultures of Salmonella typhimurium (551 strains) of phage type 141 isolated in Scotland from 1965 to 1977 were examined for biotype and colicine type. Three main biotype clones were recognised: If (30 strains), 9f (507 strains) and 31bd (11 strains) with subtype variants 9bf (1 strain), 9cf (1 strain) and 31b (1 strain). The contribution made by each biotype clone to outbreaks in Scotland was analysed. The findings confirmed the distinctness of the three biotype clones within the single phage type and indicated possible origins of strains of biotypes of 9f and 31bd.

Animals

The incidence of Duchenne muscular dystrophy in the South East of Scotland.

In a survey carried out to determine the incidence of Duchenne muscular dystrophy in the South East of Scotland, 47 cases were ascertained among 177,413 live male births for the years 1953 to 1968. The overall incidence is 1 case in 3,775 live male births (26.5 +/- 3.2 X 10(-5)). This incidence figure has been compared with those reported in nine other studies, and any differences appear likely to be due to varying degrees of ascertainment. So far there is no evidence of any decrease in incidence of the disease in S.E. Scotland as a result of genetic counselling and antenatal foetal sexing.

Child

Clinical features of multiple sclerosis in north-east Scotland.

The clinical features of multiple sclerosis (MS) in north-east Scotland have been examined along with an epidemiological study to determine the prevalence of the disease on 1st December, 1970. Patient information was collected from all available diagnostic indices, both retrospectively and prospectively from 1965. Every family doctor in the region contributed. The age and sex specific prevalence rates for MS in north-east Scotland on 1st December, 1970, are the highest ever recorded. Among the 80,000 women aged 40 to 69, one in every 340 had the disease. The mean incidence rate for a 12-year period was 5.0/100,000. A significantly better prognosis with regard to disability was found for onset with sensory symptoms, a relapsing/remitting type of course, men with long disease duration, and an initial remission period of 4 or more years. The occurrence of various abnormal neurological signs and symptoms has rarely been recorded in a large epidemiological study. The findings in this study, however, are similar to previous non-epidemiological studies.

Adolescent

Incidence of salivary gland tumours in Scotland: accuracy of national records.

Statistics on discharge diagnoses in Scotland during 1968-74 show the incidence of all tumours of major salivary glands to exceed 40/million population yearly. This is higher than in any other nationality except Canadian Eskimos. Studies in two hospitals showed that numerous errors occurred in reporting these tumours, but the figures were more likely to be too low than too high. Probably eastern Scotland at least has an unusually high incidence, although in other countries using different methods of analysis the reported figures are likely to be low. Statistics based on discharge diagnoses will continue to be neglected in research until the standard of completion of discharge diagnoses improves.

Diagnostic Errors

Prevalence of multiple sclerosis in north-east Scotland.

An epidemiological study of multiple sclerosis (MS) in north-east Scotland was carried out based on data correct on 1 December 1970. The prevalence of MS was 127 cases/100 000 population, which is greater than in any other surveyed area with a comparable population. The disease was not spread homogeneously within the region, and in one district one in 400 people was affected. The geographical distributions of MS and the presence of HLA antigens A3 and B7,which are associated with the disease, are remarkably similar, and the prevalence of B7 in north-east Scotland is higher than elsewhere. This may partly explain the high prevalence of MS in this area, but the essential additional environmental factor remains to be established.

Age Factors

Social factors and height of primary schoolchildren in England and Scotland.

In 1972 the height of 7601 children aged five to 11.5 years in England and of 2214 in Scotland was measured. Their parents were asked to complete a questionnaire to provide social and antrhopometric information. A sequence of linear models was fitted to the data to assess the associations between social and biological factors and height. At the time of the study it was found that sibship size, father's social class, and his employment status all had a significant relationship with child's height; however, parents' height and child's birthweight both accounted for relatively more of the variance in child's height than father's social class and employment status. In England, sibship size significantly influenced the height of children of manual workers, but not that of nonmanual workers' children. In Scotland, sibship size was associated with height in all social groups. Surveillance and possibly intervention in a wide range of activities should be directed at socially more deprived groups; for example, in Social Class V, in which there are more large families and unemployment is more common.

Birth Weight

Subarachnoid spinal analgesia. A comparative survey of current practice in Scotland and Sweden.

A postal inquiry into the current use of subarachnoid spinal analgesia obtained replies from approximately 70% of consultants in both Scotland and Sweden. Although medico-legal anxiety was still an important feature of Scottish practice, the publication of large series with a low incidence of complications had also exerted some influence, and 40% of consultants employed the technique. In contrast, 70% of Swedish replies indicated current use of spinal analgesia and the individual frequency of administration was considerably higher. The present popularity of epidural analgesia has contributed to some decline in the use of subarachnoid spinal analgesia in Sweden, particularly in the case of longer surgical procedures. Anaesthetists in both countries expressed dissatisfaction with the limited choice of available spinal agents and considered their duration of action to be inadequate. In Scotland, conditional indications, such as diabetes mellitus and respiratory disease, were of major importance, whereas Swedish users more often specified surgical procedures for which subarachnoid spinal analgesia was considered to be the anaesthetic of choice. Few anaesthetists had experience of complications and no major neurological sequelae were reported. More than 80% of replies indicated that subarachnoid spinal anaesthesia had a useful place in anaesthetic practice.

Anesthesia, Spinal

Seasonal and geographic variations in urinary composition in England, Scotland and Wales.

Aliquots of 24 hour urine samples were collected from a series of normal doctors in various areas of England, Scotland and Wales. The total volume was recorded and aliquots sent in for analysis for sodium, potassium, urea, creatinine, calcium, phosphate, urate, magnesium and oxalate. Geographical variations in urinary composition were small except for a raised oxalate content in Scotland. Likewise, seasonal variations were small and not systematic with the notable exception of a summer rise in oxalate content in all areas.

Calcium

Adult-onset hereditary ataxia in Scotland.

A systematic search for cases of adult-onset hereditary ataxia was conducted on location in Scotland. The investigation resulted in the discovery of eight pedigrees with 42 patients of whom 16 were alive in 1975. Nine patients were examined by the authors and recent hospital records were available on the remaining seven. The clinical features were quite variable. In declining order of frequency, findings were gait and limb ataxia, dysarthria, hyperreflexia, extrapyramidal motor disturbances, impaired vibratory sense, spasticity, defects of extraocular movements and nystagmus, reflex depression, Babinski signs, impaired joint position sense, muscle weakness, optic atrophy, and mental abnormalities. Foot deformity occurred only once. Inheritance was compatible with autosomal dominant transmission, but complicated by consanguinity in two families. The minimum prevalence was calculated as 0.31/100,000. Autopsy in two members in one family revealed olivopontocerebellar degeneration.

Adult

The occurrence of Hb E Saskatoon in Scotland.

The finding of several examples of Hb E Saskatoon in the Orkney Islands, in Edinburgh and in individuals of Scottish descent in Canada but nowhere else, suggests that the original mutation occurred in Scotland, perhaps in the Orkneys.

Genetics, Population

Pulmonary tuberculosis in Scotland: a national sample survey and follow-up (1968-70). 1. The characteristics of the cases notified in 1968.

A survey has been undertaken of a 50 per cent random sample of 865 patients notified as having pulmonary tuberculosis in 1968 in Scotland. The estimated notification rate for the total population was 33.3 per 100,000. The highest rate for males was 89.8 for those aged 55 or more and for females 29.5 for those aged 25 to 54. The rates for bacteriologically confirmed cases were 51.6 and 16.0, respectively, for these two groups. An independent radiological assessor reported the characteristic appearances of active tuberculosis in 50 per cent of the chest radiographs. Nearly half the patients were referred by general practitioners and 20 per cent were hospital inpatients when diagnosed. Contacts and mass radiography services produced many fewer cases and the proportion of infectious cases in these groups was low. The notification procedure is discussed and it is suggested that as progress towards eradication is made notification information is inadequate, and that standardised supplementary information on severity of disease and infectiousness should be collected, annually or periodically.

Adolescent

Tuberculosis in Scotland: a national sample survey (1968-70). 2. A two-year follow-up of newly-diagnosed respiratory tuberculosis notified in 1968.

The methods and results of therapy during a two-year period of follow-up have been studied in a 50% random sample of the newly notified cases of pulmonary tuberculosis in Scotland for the year 1968. Of the 770 patients, 1.9% died of active tuberculosis, 2.6% were bacteriological failures, the regimen was changed for initial drug resistance in 0.9% and for drug toxicity in 2.6%. Default from chemotherapy in the first year occurred in 8.1% of patients, 4.7% absconding permanently. The bacteriological failure rate in the 372 positive cases was 7.3%. A further 20 patients were diagnosed at necropsy, 16 having died of the disease. Eighty-seven per cent of 372 initially positive patients were in hospital for an average of 18.0 weeks and 65% of 309 initially negative patients for an average of 11.0 weeks. Eighty per cent of the positive patients received streptomycin plus PAS plus isoniazid and a further 10% PAS plus isoniazid, the porportions for the negative patients being 57% and 35%. Side effects occurred in 53% of the patients on the triple regimen and 43% of those on PAS plus isoniazid. The mean duration of chemotherapy for the bacteriologically positive patients was 22.2 months and for those negative 19.1 months, the duration of the initial streptomycin supplement being 4.4 months and 3.4 months, respectively. Corticosteroids were given to 58 (8%) of the 770 patients. Only 6 (0.8%) had surgery for their tuberculosis. Forty-one per cent of the positive patients were off work for more than 6 months and 19% of the negative patients, and 18% and 8% never returned to work. In the two-year period an average of 12.5 radiographs were taken per patient and 10.8 bacteriological specimens were examined for tubercle bacilli. The number of clinic attendances in a full out-patient year averaged 4.2. Urine tests for antituberculosis drugs (invariably PAS) were performed in only 6 of 25 Burghs and 5 of 14 Counties, and were done infrequently in them. A continuous evaluation procedure for tuberculosis therapy programmes is recommended.

Adrenal Cortex Hormones

Universal versus targeted chlorhexidine and mupirocin decolonisation and clinical and molecular epidemiology of Staphylococcus epidermidis bloodstream infections in patients in intensive care in Scotland, UK: a controlled time-series and longitudinal genotypic study.

BACKGROUND: There are concerns that biocide skin and mucous membrane decolonisation, which is widely used to prevent health-care-associated infections in intensive care units (ICUs), might select for multidrug-resistant pathogens. We aimed to evaluate the effects of de-escalating from universal to targeted skin and nasal decolonisation on Staphylococcus epidermidis bloodstream infections (SE-BSI). METHODS: We did a retrospective, before-after-control-impact time-series analysis and longitudinal genotypic study in two ICUs with divergent decolonisation practice in tertiary care hospitals of adjacent health boards in Scotland, UK. Participants were aged at least 16 years and admitted between July 1, 2009, and Feb 28, 2022. There were no exclusion criteria for the study. In ICU one (intervention site) universal decolonisation in all admissions was de-escalated to targeted decolonisation of meticillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) carriers on Feb 1, 2019, while in ICU two (control site) targeted decolonisation was applied throughout. We collected bloodstream infection data from all causes, including clinically significant SE-BSI. Antimicrobial susceptibility testing was used to define meticillin-resistant S epidermidis (MRSE) and chlorhexidine susceptibility. We used multilocus sequence typing to identify sequence types from archived SE-BSI isolates. Whole-genome sequencing was applied to a sample from ICU one. The primary outcomes were incidence densities of all bloodstream infections, SE-BSI, and meticillin-resistant S epidermidis bloodstream infections (MRSE-BSI), and the percentage probability that SE-BSI were MRSE-BSI. The effects of de-escalation on primary outcomes were estimated by differences between the intervention and control sites, before and after de-escalation, using a before-after-control-impact time-series design. Secondary outcomes included the proportion of multidrug resistant sequence types, carriage of mobile genetic elements and genes for multidrug resistance and biofilm production. FINDINGS: Between July 1, 2009, and Feb 28, 2022, S epidermidis was identified in 334 (45%) of 735 bloodstream infections in ICU one, of which 197 occurred before the de-escalation intervention in Feb 1, 2019, and S epidermidis was identified in 167 (60%) of 278 bloodstream infections in ICU two. There was no increase in all bloodstream infection incidence coinciding with de-escalation in ICU one, whereas MRSE-BSI incidence declined significantly from 10·4 cases per 1000 occupied bed days (OBDs; 95% credible interval [CrI] 7·2-15·4) to 4·3 cases per 1000 OBDs (2·5-6·7), as did the percentage probability of MRSE (from 89·2%, 95% CrI 77·8-96·5 to 56·7%, 34·3-77·5%). No significant changes in the primary outcomes were seen in ICU two. MRSE-BSI incidence density was positively associated with chlorhexidine use, but not mupirocin use. De-escalation was associated with a reduced proportion of SE-BSI due to multidrug-resistant sequence types and reduced carriage of mobile genetic elements and genes for multidrug resistance and biofilm production, as observed by multi-locus sequence typing and whole genome sequencing. INTERPRETATION: In ICU settings with low MRSA incidence, the benefits of universal decolonisation should be balanced against the risks of selecting MRSE sequence types adapted for invasive and device-associated infection. FUNDING: National Health Service Grampian Charity.

Humans

Social-services support for multiple sclerosis patients in West of Scotland.

A survey has been carries out of 104 patients with multiple sclerosis (m.s.) in West-Central-Scotland. All patients were living at home, and success of services to assist them in the community was examined. The partients were aged 16-65 years and had permanent disability, many being severely handicapped. Regular hospital follow-up was more common among the least disabled. 24 patients had never seen a social worker. Many patients had experienced problems with employment but 37 per cent of these had never registered with a disablement resettlement officer. After advice 10 additional patients applied successfully for an attendance allowance. Legislation requires local authorities to compile a register of the disabled and give information on services available to them. Only 19 patients were registered, however, and no one had received any information from a local authority. Many of these M.S. patients had failed to establish or maintain contact with available services. These results indicate a need for reorganisation of the support for the chronically disabled, possibly by setting up regular clinics for assessment and management, as recommended by the Tunbridge report (1972).

Adolescent