Is the Scottish population living dangerously? Prevalence of multiple risk factors: the Scottish Health Survey 2003.

Background: Risk factors are often considered individually, we aimed to investigate the prevalence of combinations of multiple behavioural risk factors and their association with socioeconomic determinants.

Methods: Multinomial logistic regression was used to model the associations between socioeconomic factors and multiple risk factors from data in the Scottish Health Survey 2003. Prevalence of five key risk - smoking, alcohol, diet, overweight/obesity, and physical inactivity, and their risk in relation to demographic, individual and area socioeconomic factors were assessed.

Identifying priorities in methodological research using ICD-9-CM and ICD-10 administrative data: report from an international consortium.

Background: Health administrative data are frequently used for health services and population health research. Comparative research using these data has been facilitated by the use of a standard system for coding diagnoses, the International Classification of Diseases (ICD). Research using the data must deal with data quality and validity limitations which arise because the data are not created for research purposes.

Oral polio vaccine and intussusception: a data linkage study using records for vaccination and hospitalization.

The authors investigated the possibility of an association between oral polio vaccine (OPV) and intussusception by linking Scottish vaccination and hospitalization data sets and performing self-controlled case series analysis. The issue was important because rotavirus vaccine, another live oral virus vaccine, was withdrawn from the market in 1999 after studies showed a strong association with intussusception. OPV was recommended for all infants in the United Kingdom at ages 2, 3, and 4 months until 2004, when new combination vaccines containing inactivated poliovirus were introduced.

Thyroid disease and increased cardiovascular risk.

The effects of thyroid dysfunction are thought to be reversible on restoration of euthyroidism, but postmortem and epidemiologic data suggest that subclinical or treated thyroid disease is associated with increased vascular risk. In order to determine the extent of this risk, and to explore whether the nature and/or treatment of thyroid disease are critical in this relationship, we used medical record linkage to match patients with treated thyroid disease of various etiologies with routinely collected national inpatient and daycase hospital discharge records and death records, and assessed the number of hospitalizations from cardiovascular or cerebrovascular disease or death in patients with thyroid disease and control patients. Patients treated for Graves' disease had more hospitalizations from cardiovascular disease than controls (relative risk, 1.

Carotid endarterectomy in Scotland: 1981-1996.

Background: Our aim was to assess the geographical, social and hospital variation in carotid endarterectomy (CEA) over time in Scotland using routinely generated data, and to assess the outcome of CEA in terms of the 7 day case-fatality.

Methods: A descriptive, retrospective study was carried out using computerized medical records at national level of all patients in Scotland who had a CEA during 1981-1996. Medical record linkage was used to identify the study population with the index event specified as CEA.

Ovulation induction/intrauterine insemination in infertile couples is associated with low-birth-weight infants.

Objective: The study was undertaken to determine the outcome of singleton pregnancies conceived through ovulation induction and intrauterine insemination using a partner's (OI/IUI) or donor sperm (OI/IUID) by comparison with naturally conceived singletons within a national cohort.

Study Design: Retrospective cohort study in primigravid women who were treated with OI/IUI (n = 97) or OI/IUID (n = 35) at Glasgow Royal Infirmary between March 1993 and March 1997 and identified within the Scottish national cohort (n = 109,443) delivering during the same period. Univariate and multivariate logistic regression models were used to examine outcomes and to determine the factors associated with infertility treatment and low birth weight.

The MMPI and closed-head injury.

This study examined Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory profile configuration in matched samples of males (n = 77) and females (n = 25) suffering from closed-head injury. For the males, the mean group high-point was the 5c scale; the mean group high-point for the females was the D scale. For the males, the mean group two-point code was the 8-2 configuration; the mean group two-point code for the females was the 2-3 configuration.

The MMPI and neurologic dysfunction: Profile configuration and analysis.

This study examined the application of the Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory (MMPI) to the assessment of personality and emotional status in neurologic patients. Eighteen specialists in the clinical neurosciences examined the standard MMPI and indicated those items they felt were potentially tapping valid manifestations of neurologic damage or dysfunction. Forty-four items, loading primarily on the Hs, Hy, and Sc scales, were identified.