Quality of Life Outcomes in a Community Cohort of Adults With an Intellectual Disability Using the Personal Outcome Scale.

Objectives: Quality of life (QoL) is a multi-dimensional phenomenon composed of core domains that are influenced by personal characteristics, values, and environmental contributions. There are eight core domains of QoL aligned with both the United Nations and the International Association for the Scientific Study of Intellectual and Developmental Disabilities (IASSIDD). The Personal Outcome Scale (POS), is a semi-structured self and proxy instrument that specifically measures these aspects of QoL for people with an intellectual disability.

A secondary analysis to develop a scale for measuring unemployed workers' experiences of Australian employment services.

Background: Research consistently shows that Australian employment services are failing those they are intended to serve. Based on findings in other human service areas, a valid and reliable instrument to measure unemployed workers' experiences may provide an opportunity for improvement in this sector.

Objective: To establish a basis for developing a suitable rating scale.

Poor Sleep Associated with Clinically Severe Obesity Is Independent of OSA Status.

Purpose: Obesity has been reported to be associated with short sleep duration. It follows that patients with a BMI >35kg/m could be expected to have the poorest sleep. This poor sleep could be explained by the presence of obstructive sleep apnoea (OSA), although treatment with positive airway pressure (PAP) may modify this.

Imaging skills for transthoracic echocardiography in cardiology fellows: The value of motion metrics.

Background: Proficiency in transthoracic echocardiography (TTE) requires an integration of cognitive knowledge and psychomotor skills. Whereas cognitive knowledge can be quantified, psychomotor skills are implied after repetitive task performance. We applied motion analyses to evaluate psychomotor skill acquisition during simulator-based TTE training.

Manual Skill Acquisition During Transesophageal Echocardiography Simulator Training of Cardiology Fellows: A Kinematic Assessment.

Objective: To investigate whether a transesophageal echocardiography (TEE) simulator with motion analysis can be used to impart proficiency in TEE in an integrated curriculum-based model.

Design: A prospective cohort study.

Setting: A tertiary-care university hospital.

Exploring Client and Therapist Experiences of Sexual Offender Intervention: Developing a Model of "Significant Events".

This research explored the therapeutic events both clients and therapists from community-based treatment interventions for perpetrators of sexual abuse identify as significant in their experience of psychological therapy. A qualitative design was utilized to address this research objective. The sample for the present research is comprised of three different treatment programs for sexual offending.

Accuracy of electrocardiographic criteria for atrial enlargement: validation with cardiovascular magnetic resonance.

Background: Anatomic atrial enlargement is associated with significant morbidity and mortality. However, atrial enlargement may not correlate with clinical measures such as electrocardiographic (ECG) criteria. Past studies correlating ECG criteria with anatomic measures mainly used inferior M-mode or two-dimensional echocardiographic data.

Usefulness of the TIMI Risk Index in predicting short- and long-term mortality in patients with acute coronary syndromes.

In a cohort of 710 patients with acute coronary syndromes (ACSs), we demonstrated that the Thrombolysis In Myocardial Infarction Risk Index--a predictor of 30-day mortality in clinical trial patients with ST-elevation myocardial infarction (STEMI)--is a strong predictor of short- and long-term mortality with good discrimination ability (c statistics 0.77 to 0.79) among all subtypes of ACSs (STEMI, non-STEMI, and unstable angina pectoris).

An historical overview of Australia's largest and oldest provider of vocational rehabilitation--CRS Australia.

CRS Australia, the largest and oldest vocational rehabilitation provider in Australia, is examined over its 60-year history. The Australian government located CRS initially in the Department of Social Security, and subsequently in the Department of Community Services however, its establishment required a complexity of policy and range of skills that were not found in one arm of government alone and required cooperation from many government departments. A disagreement between the government and the medical profession about the purpose and control of rehabilitation features in the early history of CRS Australia.