Smoking and health-related quality of life in English general population: Implications for economic evaluations

Copyright @ 2012 Vogl et al; licensee BioMed Central Ltd. This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.This article has been made available through the Brunel Open Access Publishing Fund.Background: Little is known as to how health-related quality of life (HRQoL) when measured by generic instruments such as EQ-5D differ across smokers, ex-smokers and never-smokers in the general population; whether the overall pattern of this difference remain consistent in each domain of HRQoL; and what implications this variation, if any, would have for economic evaluations of tobacco control interventions. Methods: Using the 2006 round of Health Survey for England data (n = 13,241), this paper aims to examine the impact of smoking status on health-related quality of life in English population. Depending upon the nature of the EQ-5D data (i.e. tariff or domains), linear or logistic regression models were fitted to control for biology, clinical conditions, socio-economic background and lifestyle factors that an individual may have regardless of their smoking status. Age- and gender-specific predicted values according to smoking status are offered as the potential 'utility' values to be used in future economic evaluation models. Results: The observed difference of 0.1100 in EQ-5D scores between never-smokers (0.8839) and heavy-smokers (0.7739) reduced to 0.0516 after adjusting for biological, clinical, lifestyle and socioeconomic conditions. Heavy-smokers, when compared with never-smokers, were significantly more likely to report some/severe problems in all five domains - mobility (67%), self-care (70%), usual activity (42%), pain/discomfort (46%) and anxiety/depression (86%) -. 'Utility' values by age and gender for each category of smoking are provided to be used in the future economic evaluations. Conclusion: Smoking is significantly and negatively associated with health-related quality of life in English general population and the magnitude of this association is determined by the number of cigarettes smoked. The varying degree of this association, captured through instruments such as EQ-5D, may need to be fed into the design of future economic evaluations where the intervention being evaluated affects (e.g. tobacco control) or is affected (e.g. treatment for lung cancer) by individual's (or patients') smoking status

Modification of rhodium catalyst with stibines for hydroformylation of 1-pentene

Homogeneous hydroformylation of I -pentene under synthesis gas experimental conditions was studied using RhClCO(PPh3)2 complex with different triarylstibines. Three different stibine ligands SbR3 [where R = 2,4,6-mesityl (TMS), 2-furyl (TFS), 2-N,N-dimethylbenzylamine (TDMBAS)], have been tested. It is interesting to note that 2: 1 addition of these stibine ligands to the RhCICO(PPh3)2 complex catalyst increases the aldehydes yields with an appreciable n:iso ratio. The catalytic activity of the system shows a TDMBAS > TMS > TFS pattern which indicates that not only basicity of the ligand alone is playing a role in the activity but the steric effect is also very important, and it is combination of these two factors that contributes to the resulting catalytical activity. The maximum yield of aldehydes obtained were 98.7% with n/iso = 1.4 when RhCICO(PPh3)2 + TFS system was used and 93.7% with n/iso = 2.43 when TDMBAS ligand was studied

Almeda et al. BMC Psychiatry (2022) 22:621 https://doi.org/10.1186/s12888-022-04257-8 RESEARCH A systematic review of the international evolution of online mental health strategies and recommendations during the COVID-19 pandemic

Introduction: The global health crisis caused by the COVID‑19 pandemic has had a negative impact on mental health (MH). As a response to the pandemic, international agencies and governmental institutions provided an initial response to the population’s needs. As the pandemic evolved, the population circumstances changed, and some of these international agencies updated their strategies, recommendations, and guidelines for the populations. However, there is currently a lack of information on the attention given to response strategies by the different countries throughout the beginning of the pandemic. Objectives: 1) To evaluate the evolution of online MH strategies and recommendations of selected countries to cope with the MH impact of COVID‑19 from the early stages of the pandemic (15 April 2020) to the vaccination period (9 June 2021) and 2) to review and analyse the current structures of these online MH strategies and recommendations. Methodology: An adaptation of the PRISMA guidelines to review online documents was developed with a questionnaire for MH strategies and recommendations assessment. The search was conducted on Google, including documents from April 2020 to June 2021. Basic statistics and Student’s t test were used to assess the evolution of the documents, while a two‑step cluster analysis was performed to assess the organisation and characteristics of the most recent documents. Results: Statistically significant differences were found both in the number of symptoms and mental disorders and MH strategies and recommendations included in the initial documents and the updated versions generated after vaccines became available. The most recent versions are more complete in all cases. Regarding the forty‑six total documents included in the review, the cluster analysis showed a broad distribution from wide‑spectrum documents to documents focusing on a specific topic. Conclusions: Selected governments and related institutions have worked actively on updating their MH online documents, highlighting actions related to bereavement, telehealth and domestic violence. The study supports the use of the adaptation, including the tailor‑made questionnaire, of the PRISMA protocol as a potential standard to conduct longitudinal assessments of online documents used to support MH strategies and recommendations

Estimation of genetic parameters for productive traits in llamas chaccu of INIA Perú using REML method

La llama Chaccu es importante como animal de carga, produce carne y fibra principalmente. Los parámetros genéticos son utilizados en las evaluaciones genéticas, en la predicción del progreso genético y en la elección de las estrategias de mejora genética y dependen de la frecuencia génica y de la variabilidad abiental (Falconer y Mackay, 1996). El objetivo del estudio fue estimar la heredabilidad, correlacionales genéticas y fenotípicas de caracteres productivos de llamas Chaccu

Estimation of genetic parameters for productive traits in llamas Q’ara of INIA Perú using REML method

La llama Q'ara es importante como animal de carga y produce carne principalmente. Los parámetros genéticos son utilizados en las evaluaciones genéticas, en la predicción del progreso genético y en la elección de las estrategias de mejora genética y dependen de la frecuencia génica y de la variabilidad ambiental (Falconer y Mackay, 1996) El objetivo fue estimar la heredabilidad, correlaciones genéticas y fenotípicas de caracteres productivos de llama Q'ara

Additional file 1 of A systematic review of the international evolution of online mental health strategies and recommendations during the COVID-19 pandemic

Additional file 1: Table S1. Documents included in the review. Table S2. Number of positive (YES) answers in percentage (%) per document and indicator group (IG). TableS3. Mental symptoms (indicator group 1, IG1). TableS4. Mental disorders (indicator group 2, IG2). TableS5. COVID-19 information (indicator group 3, IG3). TableS6. MH strategies & MH topics (indicator group 4, IG4). TableS7. MH strategies & MH-related topics (indicator group 5, IG5). TableS8. MH recommendations & MH topics (indicator group 6, IG6). TableS9. MH recommendations & MH-related topics (indicator group 7, IG7)

Initial multicenter experience with nitrous oxide cryoballoon for treatment of flat duodenal adenomas (with video)

© 2020 American Society for Gastrointestinal Endoscopy Background and Aims: EMR is the preferred endoscopic therapy for duodenal adenomas (DAs) but is associated with an overall adverse event rate of 26%. Cryotherapy using a Cryoballoon Focal Ablation System (CbFAS) can safely and effectively eradicate esophageal intestinal metaplasia. We report our first experience with cryoballoon ablation for treatment of flat DAs. Methods: This was an American, multicenter, retrospective study involving 5 centers. DAs (Paris 0-IIa and 0-IIb) were treated with nitrous oxide for 5 to 12 seconds using CbFAS. Follow-up EGD was performed at 3 to 12 months. Results: Seventeen DAs (mean size, 22.7 ± 14.3 mm; 12 tubular, 5 tubulovillous) from 13 patients (mean age, 66.5 ± 9.99 years; 61.5% males) were included in the study. Thirteen of 17 DAs (76.5%) had failed previous treatment, and 4 of 17 (23.5%) were treatment naÏve. All procedures were technically successful and achieved a \u3e50% decrease in size after cryoballoon ablation There was no increase in size or progression of disease for any lesions. Overall, treatment was completed in 15 of 17 patients, and recurrence-free survival was achieved in 12 of 17 (71%) after a median follow-up of 15.5 months (interquartile range [IQR], 6.8-19.4). The median cryoablation time per polyp was 4 minutes (IQR, 1-7.5 minutes), and the median total procedure time was 25 minutes (IQR, 22-30.5 minutes). There were no intra- or postprocedural adverse events. Conclusions: Nitrous oxide cryoballoon ablation of nonpolypoid DAs is feasible, with promising safety and efficacy