Cause-specific inequalities in mortality in Scotland: two decades of change. A population-based study.

Background: Socioeconomic inequalities in mortality have increased in recent years in many countries. We examined age-, sex-, and cause-specific mortality rates for social groups in and regions of Scotland to understand the patterning of inequalities and the causes contributing to these inequalities.

Methods: We used death records for 1980-82, 1991-92 and 2000-02 together with mid-year population estimates for 1981, 1991 and 2001 covering the whole of Scotland to calculate directly standardised mortality rates.

Subjectively reported sleep quality and excessive daytime somnolence in Parkinson's disease with and without dementia, dementia with Lewy bodies and Alzheimer's disease.

Objective: We compared subjective sleep quality and excessive daytime somnolence (EDS) in controls, Parkinson's disease with (PDD) and without dementia (PD), dementia with Lewy bodies (DLB) and Alzheimer's disease (AD). We investigated whether sleep dysfunction and EDS associate with motor phenotype in PD, PDD and DLB.

Method: Assessments included the Epworth Sleepiness Scale (ESS) and Pittsburgh Sleep Quality Index (PSQI).

Using routine data to complement and enhance the results of randomised controlled trials.

Background: Randomised controlled trials (RCTs) are widely accepted as the best way to assess the outcomes and safety of medical interventions, but are sometimes not ethical, not feasible, or limited in the generalisability of their results. In such circumstances, routinely available data could help in several ways. Routine data could be used, for example, to conduct 'pseudo-trials', to estimate likely outcomes and required sample size to help design and conduct trials, or to examine whether the expected outcomes observed in an RCT will be realised in the general population.

Seasonal variation in mortality in Scotland.

Background: Seasonal patterns in mortality have been recognized for many years. This study assesses seasonal variation in mortality in Scotland between 1981 and 1993 and considers its association with socioeconomic status and outdoor temperature.

Methods: Lagged Poisson regression analysis of numbers of deaths and average weekly temperature with adjustment for serial autocorrelation and influenza epidemics.

Comparing outcomes of percutaneous transluminal coronary angioplasty with coronary artery bypass grafting; can routine health service data complement and enhance randomized controlled trials?

Aim: To compare outcomes of percutaneous transluminal coronary angioplasty (PTCA) with coronary artery bypass graft surgery (CABG) for a population stemming from routinely collected data, in order to assess the merits of such data sources as a complement, and possible enhancement, to randomized controlled trial results.

Methods And Results: A population of Scottish patients were taken from a routine discharge summary and from this data source patients comparable to those from randomized controlled trial settings were identified. Between 1989 and 1995, 12 238 pseudo randomized controlled trial patients were identified from the routine data set, of which 3714 (30.