Strategic questions for consumer-based health communications

Using the consumer-oriented approach of social and commercial marketers, this article presents a process for crafting messages designed to improve people's health behaviors. The process, termed consumer-based health communications (CHC), transforms scientific recommendations into message strategies that are relevant to the consumer. The core of CHC is consumer research conducted to understand the consumer's reality, and thereby allowing six strategic questions to be answered. The immediate result of the CHC process is a strategy statement--a few pages that lay out who the target consumer is, what action should be taken, what to promise and how to make the promise credible, how and when to reach him or her, and what image to convey. The strategy statement then guides the execution of all communication efforts, be they public relations, mass media, direct marketing, media advocacy, or interpersonal influence. It identifies the most important "levers" for contact with the consumer. Everyone from creative specialists through management and program personnel can use the strategy statement as a touchstone to guide and judge the effectiveness of their efforts. The article provides a step by step illustration of the CHC process using the 5 A Day campaign as an example.     

Transthoracic defibrillation of swine with monophasic and biphasic waveforms

BACKGROUND: Biphasic waveforms have had a favorable impact on internal defibrillation but have seen minimal use in transthoracic defibrillation systems. The purpose of this study was to compare monophasic and biphasic waveforms for transthoracic defibrillation in swine. METHODS AND RESULTS: Three interrelated studies were performed in 19 swine to establish the relative transthoracic defibrillation efficacy of biphasic shock waveforms. In study 1, we measured voltage (V50) and energy (E50) strength-duration curves for monophasic and biphasic truncated exponential waveforms. We then independently examined the effects of phase duration and tilt on biphasic waveform defibrillation with a total waveform duration from study 1 that provided the minimum V50 (study 2) and the minimum E50 (study 3). At each pulse duration tested in study 1, biphasic waveforms defibrillated with significantly less voltage and energy than monophasic waveforms. At a duration of 12 ms, there was a voltage minimum for biphasic waveform defibrillation. At this duration, V50 was 1378 +/- 505 V for the biphasic waveform compared with 2185 +/- 361 V for the monophasic waveform, P = .01. For both monophasic and biphasic waveforms, E50 increased with pulse duration. With a total pulse duration of 12 ms, E50 was 169 +/- 101 J for the biphasic waveform compared with 414 +/- 114 J for the monophasic waveform, P = .003. In study 2, optimization of phase duration and total tilt reduced the defibrillation requirements of the 12-ms "minimum voltage" biphasic waveform to 1284 +/- 187 V and 129 +/- 36 J. In study 3, the 8-ms "minimum energy" biphasic waveform had an E50 of 115 +/- 35 J that was 11% less than the 12-ms biphasic waveform, P = .11; however, voltage requirements of 1476 +/- 239 V were 15% higher, P = .005. CONCLUSIONS: This study demonstrates the superiority of truncated biphasic waveforms over truncated monophasic waveforms for transthoracic defibrillation of swine. Biphasic waveforms should prove as advantageous at reducing voltage and energy requirements for transthoracic defibrillation as they have for internal defibrillation.     

Focus groups reveal perils and promises of managed care for nurse practitioners

Decades of practice and research suggest that nurse practitioners (NPs) provide cost-effective and high-quality care. Managed care's emphasis on prevention and cost savings led some policy makers to view NPs as a way to meet the need for primary care providers. However, access to and utilization of NPs has increasingly been controlled by managed care organizations (MCOs) through their selection of providers for primary care panels. This study employed qualitative methodology to examine NPs' experiences with MCOs. Three focus groups, comprising 27 NPs in New York and Connecticut, revealed NPs' mixed reactions to managed care and a range of sentiments regarding NPs' efforts to be listed as primary care providers. The results reflected NPs' concerns about their perceived "invisibility," as well as their sense of "invincibility" in the ways in which NPs are responding to the barriers posed by MCOs. They identified barriers to, as well as ways to facilitate, being listed by MCOs, and described the importance of NPs working individually and collectively in negotiating with MCOs.     

Juvenile myoclonic epilepsy

CONCLUSION: We conclude that despite inevitable variability the clinical picture of JME is characteristic. It is easy to diagnose JME if one thinks of it while the history should be thoroughly analyzed. An EEG recording during sleep confirms the diagnosis. An early diagnosis of JME permits adequate prognosis of the subsequent course of epilepsy, and adequate therapy brings remission in most of the patients. If treatment starts following the large number of severe GTC seizures, the response to therapy is incomplete. The persistency of the illness throughout the life, the need for continuous medication and therapeutic unresponsiveness in cases with late diagnosis, do not justify the increasing misconception that JME is of benign nature. Diagnosis of JME is rare because of insufficient familiarily of physicians with the illness. BACKGROUND: Juvenile myoclonic epilepsy (JME) is an idiopathic generalized epileptic syndrome characterized with the combination of myoclonic, generalized tonic-clonic (GTC) and absence seizures that are readily provoked by sleep deprivation. PATIENTS: Forty-three patients, aged from 14 to 51 years, participated in a 5-year follow-up study. Diagnosis was made according to the criteria (Table 1) for diagnosis of JME set by Panayiotopoulos et al. (1994). Nineteen patients made their first contact with a neurologist at the Institute of Neurology and were diagnosed as JME, while the remaining 24 were referred to from other medical institutions with a diagnosis of therapy resistant to focal epilepsy. All patients underwent a somatic and neurological examination, "mini mental test," EEG in waking and CT scan of the brain. Some patients had EEG performed during sleep and some had MRI of the head. RESULTS: JME began between 9 and 26 (average 17) years. All patients had myoclonic seizures, 98% had GTC and 23% absence seizures. The first myoclonic seizure occurred between 9 and 24 years while the frst GTC seizure occurred between 10 and 32 years. Myoclonic seizures (83% of patients) and GTC seizures (70% of patients) occurred most often immediately after awaking. The most frequent provocative factors were insufficient sleep, alcohol abuse and tiredness. Epilepsy in the family was present in 39%, focal neurological deficiency in 9% and pathological findings on of CT and MRI in 7% of patients. Waking EEG was pathological in 77% of patients; it included generalized spike-wave discharges in 73%, multiple spike-wave complexes in 33% and focal discharges in 12% of patients, respectively. In all 26 patients tested, sleep EEG was pathological most often with multiple spike-wave complexes in 85% and 3-4 Hz spike-wave complexes in 57% of patients. The correct diagnosis of JME following a comprehensive examination was made in 24 (56%) patients after a delay of 1 to 35 years. In 24 patients with delayed diagnosis of JME the replacement of earlier medication with valproic acid (VPA) induced remission in 18 patients (75%) while 1 patient (4%) experienced a reduction in the number of seizures. Five patients (21%) did not respond to VPA medication: 2 due to a weak compliance, another 2 due to inefficient medication and 1 because of the preexistent malabsorption syndrome. In 19 patients (44%) with initial diagnosis of JME, VPA was introduced immediately upon diagnosis. Of them, 15 (79%) had excellent response to VPA, 1 refused therapy and for 3 patients there is no information. In 2 patients VPA was substituted due to side effects (hepatotoxicity and alopetia) with lamotrigine (low doses), which brought about decrease in frequency and mitigation in myoclonic seizures.     

Low back exercises: evidence for improving exercise regimens

Despite the wide variety of exercises that are prescribed for the low back, the scientific foundation to justify their choice is not as complete as one may think, or expect. Thus, the clinician must often call upon "clinical opinion" when selecting exercise. Given that low back tissues may need stressing to enhance their health but too much loading can be detrimental, choosing the optimal exercise requires judgment based on clinical experience and scientific evidence. To assist in developing better exercise programs, this review documents some recent biomechanical evidence from my laboratory and from laboratories of other researchers that has been reported in various publications in an attempt to update clinicians on issues of low back exercise. Among the issues examined are mechanisms of injury; the relative importance of "strength" (ie, maximum force a muscle can produce during a single exertion to create joint torque), "flexibility," and "endurance"; and training to enhance stability. Finally, some specific exercises are described that have been shown to challenge muscle and enhance performance but that are performed in such a way as to minimize loading of the spine to reduce the risk of injury exacerbation. These exercises form a basic program for rehabilitation and maintenance of low back health.     

Congenital fibrosis of the extraocular muscles type 2, an inherited exotropic strabismus fixus, maps to distal 11q13

The extraocular fibrosis syndromes are congenital ocular-motility disorders that arise from dysfunction of the oculomotor, trochlear, and abducens nerves and/or the muscles that they innervate. Each is marked by a specific form of restrictive paralytic ophthalmoplegia with or without ptosis. Individuals with the classic form of congenital fibrosis of the extraocular muscles (CFEOM1) are born with bilateral ptosis and a restrictive infraductive external ophthalmoplegia. We previously demonstrated that CFEOM1 is caused by an autosomal dominant locus on chromosome 12 and results from a developmental absence of the superior division of the oculomotor nerve. We now have mapped a variant of CFEOM, exotropic strabismus fixus ("CFEOM2"). Affected individuals are born with bilateral ptosis and restrictive ophthalmoplegia with the globes "frozen" in extreme abduction. This autosomal recessive disorder is present in members of three consanguineous Saudi Arabian families. Genetic analysis of 70 individuals (20 affected individuals) reveals linkage to markers on chromosome 11q13, with a combined LOD score of 12.3 at the single nonrecombinant marker, D11S1314. The 2.5-cM CFEOM2 critical region is flanked by D11S4196/D11S4162 and D11S4184/1369. Two of the three families share a common disease-associated haplotype, suggesting a founder effect for CFEOM2. We hypothesize that CFEOM2 results from an analogous developmental defect to CFEOM1, one that affects both the superior and inferior divisions of the oculomotor nerve and their corresponding alpha motoneurons and extraocular muscles.     

Application of the scaling factor method to estimation of beta dose distributions for dissimilar media separated by a planar interface

Reliable methods of estimating doses are essential for the use of beta emitting radionuclides for radiotherapy. The passage of electrons through matter is a very complex phenomenon due to the large number of elastic and inelastic interactions resulting in scattering and energy losses. The analytical solution for the electron transport being intractable, the problem has been addressed by the Monte Carlo technique. Empirical or semiempirical less time consuming methods, such as the scaling factor method, may appear more preferable in practice when dealing with complicated source distributions. The method, proposed by Cross and co-workers [AECL Report Nos. AECL-1617 (1982), AECL 10521 (1992)] consists in the derivation of beta-ray dose distribution in other media from those in water by using a "scaling factor" or "relative attenuation factor" on distance and a closely related renormalization factor imposed by the energy conservation. This work investigates the accuracy of the scaling factor method using a statistical approach, a generalized chi 2 test, focusing on the particular case of potential interest, the scaling factor for water to bone. The direct comparison of the shapes of the depth dose deposition curves in the two media indicates discrepancies of less than 5% up to at least 60% of the range in bone, a depth within which 95% of the initial energy is deposited. The scaling factor derived by this method, 0.9720 +/- 0.0012, confirms the existing experimentally determined value of 0.973 +/- 1% [AECL Report No. AECL-10521 (1992)]. The accuracy of the determination is increased by almost a factor of 10. A way of improving the scaling method, especially for depth over the 60% continuous slowing down approximation range, by using a modulation function is also proposed.     

Processing of human intestinal prolactase to an intermediate form by furin or by a furin-like proprotein convertase

Human lactase-phlorizin hydrolase (human-LPH) is synthesized as a large precursor (prepro-LPH), then cleaved to a pro-LPH of 220 kDa which is further cut to a "mature-like LPH" of a size close to that of mature LPH, i.e. about 150 kDa (in the processing of rabbit pro-LPH the intermediate has a mass of approximately 180 kDa). By coexpression of human prepro-LPH with furin in COS-7 cells we show that furin generates a mature-like LPH. Radioactive amino acid sequence analysis reveals that furin recognizes the motif R-T-P-R832, a protein convertase consensus, to generate a NH2 terminus located 36 amino acids upstream of the NH2 terminal found in vivo at Ala869. This intermediate is ultimately cleaved to the mature LPH form by other proteases including the pancreatic ones. These data demonstrate that human pro-LPH, like the rabbit enzyme, is processed to the mature enzyme by furin or furin-like enzymes through at least an intermediate form that has, however, an apparent mass close to that of the mature enzyme.     

All that you can be: stereotyping of self and others in a military context

The authors tested the shifting standards model (M. Biernat, M. Manis, & T. E. Nelson, 1991) as it applies to sex- and race-based stereotyping of self and others in the military. U. S. Army officers attending a leadership training course made judgments of their own and their groupmates' leadership competence at 3 time points over a 9-week period. We examined the effects of officer sex and race on both subjective (rating) and objective/common-rule (ranking/Q-sort) evaluations. Stereotyping generally increased with time, and in accordance with the shifting standards model, pro-male judgment bias was more evident in rankings than in ratings, particularly for White targets. Self-judgments were also affected by sex-based shifting standards, particularly in workgroups containing a single ("solo") woman. Differential standard use on the basis of race was less apparent, a finding attributed to the Army's explicit invocation against the use of differential race-based standards.