Is an increase in skin temperature predictive of neuropathic foot ulceration in people with diabetes? A systematic review and meta-analysis.

Introduction: The aim of this systematic review was to evaluate the strength of the existing research to answer the question: Is an increase in skin temperature predictive of neuropathic foot ulceration in people with diabetes?

Methods: This study is a systematic review and meta-analysis of temperature-monitoring in the prediction and prevention of diabetic foot ulceration. Two investigators conducted a literature search for all relevant articles from 1960 until July 2011. During this process the following data bases were searched: MEDLINE, Science Direct, AMED, Australian Medical Index, APAIS-Health, ATSIhealth, EMBASE, Web of Science and OneSearch.

Financial incentives and psychiatric services in Australia: an empirical analysis of three policy changes.

Australia has a national, compulsory and universal health insurance scheme, called Medicare. In 1996 the Government changed the Medicare Benefit Schedule Book in such a way as to create different financial incentives for consumers or producers of out-of-hospital private psychiatric services, once an individual consumer had received 50 such services in a 12-month period. The Australian Government introduced a new Item (319) to cover some special cases that were affected by the policy change.

The prevalence of psychological distress in employees and associated occupational risk factors.

Objective: There is limited occupational health industry data pertaining to 1) the prevalence of psychological distress in various employee subtypes and 2) risk factors for employee psychological distress.

Method: The employees of 58 large public and private sector employers were invited to complete the Kessler 6 (K6) as part of the Health and Performance at Work Questionnaire. A K6 score of > or =13 was chosen to indicate high psychological distress.

Changes in private sector electroconvulsive treatment in Australia.

Objectives: This paper reports on changes, over time and between states, in the use of electroconvulsive therapy (ECT) in the private psychiatric sector in Australia between 1984 and 2004.

Method: Data for ECT services, and all specialist psychiatry services provided under the Medicare system, have been analysed in absolute numbers and as utilization rates.

Results: Changes in the use of ECT over time are different from other services provided by private psychiatrists.

Cell cycle alterations in biopsied olfactory neuroepithelium in schizophrenia and bipolar I disorder using cell culture and gene expression analyses.

We previously demonstrated that olfactory cultures from individuals with schizophrenia had increased cell proliferation compared to cultures from healthy controls. The aims of this study were to (a) replicate this observation in a new group of individuals with schizophrenia, (b) examine the specificity of these findings by including individuals with bipolar I disorder and (c) explore gene expression differences that may underlie cell cycle differences in these diseases. Compared to controls (n = 10), there was significantly more mitosis in schizophrenia patient cultures (n = 8) and significantly more cell death in the bipolar I disorder patient cultures (n = 8).

Australia's National Mental Health Strategy and deinstitutionalization: some empirical results.

Objective: To determine the role of the National Mental Health Strategy in the deinstitutionalization of patients in psychiatric hospitals in Queensland.

Method: Regression analysis (using the maximum likelihood method) has been applied to relevant time-series datasets on public psychiatric institutions in Queensland. In particular, data on both patients and admissions per 10 000 population are analysed in detail from 1953-54 to the present, although data are presented from 1883-84.

Seasonal fluctuations in birth weight and neonatal limb length; does prenatal vitamin D influence neonatal size and shape?

Background: Birth weight is known to fluctuate with season of birth, however, there is little information about seasonal variation in neonatal anthropometric measures.

Aims: The aim of this study was to examine seasonal fluctuations in birth weight and selected anthropometric measures.

Study Design And Subjects: The birth weight of singletons born after at least 37 weeks gestation was extracted from a perinatal register in south-east Queensland (n=350,171).

Employment restrictions among persons with ICD-10 anxiety disorders: characteristics from a population survey.

Disability, employment, and employment restrictions among persons with ICD-10 anxiety disorders were investigated at a population level in comparison to persons without disability or long-term health conditions. Data were provided by the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) collected in a 1998 national survey. Multistage sampling obtained a probability sample of 37,580 individuals in the household component of the survey.

Demographic and clinical correlates of comorbid substance use disorders in psychosis: multivariate analyses from an epidemiological sample.

Background: While there has been substantial research examining the correlates of comorbid substance abuse in psychotic disorders, it has been difficult to tease apart the relative importance of individual variables. Multivariate analyses are required, in which the relative contributions of risk factors to specific forms of substance misuse are examined, while taking into account the effects of other important correlates.

Methods: This study used multivariate correlates of several forms of comorbid substance misuse in a large epidemiological sample of 852 Australians with DSM-III-R-diagnosed psychoses.