Research Activities

April 1997, No. 203

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Contents

About Research Activities

Feature Story

John Eisenberg takes the helm as AHCPR's new Administrator

Departments

Hospitalization
   Adverse drug events cost an average teaching hospital $5.6 million a year
   Slightly more than half of patients who want life-sustaining treatment receive it
   New classification system for rehabilitation patients provides basis for prospective payment

Patient Outcomes/Effectiveness Research
   Patients over 80 benefit most from stroke prevention drug but are least likely to get it
   Initial symptom severity predicts outcomes of most men with BPH
   Magnesium sulfate appears promising for preventing cerebral palsy in preterm infants
   Researchers examine diagnostic techniques and therapies for acute low back pain
   Pneumonia PORT publishes recent findings

Quality of Care/Access of Care
   Double-reading of mammograms does not necessarily improve diagnostic accuracy
   Public disclosure of hospital and physician CABG mortality rates has little effect on the types of patients they treat
   Quality of physician/patient interaction may suffer when patients are anxious or very sick
   Caring for depressed patients in a changing health care system challenges providers and policymakers

Elderly/Long-Term Care
   State programs for preadmission screening of nursing home applicants may not be cost-effective

Special Populations
   Minority research center publishes reports on prenatal care and reproductive health

Announcements
   New brochure helps consumers choose and use health plans
AHCPR publishes guide on the use of geographic methods in health services research
Final reports now available from NTIS

Research Briefs
   Stages of nursing's political development: Where we've been and where we ought to go
   An estimation strategy for the combined population represented by the NMES household and nursing home surveys
   Measuring chronic rheumatic pain in Mexican Americans: Cross-cultural adaptation of the McGill pain questionnaire
   Dental service use among adults with human immunodeficiency virus infection
   Assessing inner-city patients' hospital experiences: A controlled trial of telephone interviews versus mailed surveys
   Stroke prevention in a 75-year-old asymptomatic patient
   Physician vs. patient initiation of psychotropic prescribing in primary care settings: A content analysis of audiotapes
   Health status of well vs. ill adolescents

AHCPR Publication No. 97-0035
Current as of April 1997

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Internet Citation:

Research Activities newsletter. April 1997, No. 203. AHCPR Publication No. 97-0035. Agency for Health Care Policy and Research, Rockville, MD. http://www.ahrq.gov/research/apr97/

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