Assessing the appropriateness of parenteral nutrition use in hospitalized patients. A comparison on parenteral nutrition bag prescription in different wards and nutritional outcomes.

Purpose: Our aim is to assess parenteral nutrition (PN) bag prescription in hospitalized patients and evaluate clinical outcomes linked to PN therapy.

Methods: We performed an observational longitudinal retrospective study on PN prescription in a General Public Hospital in Turin, Italy, on ninety-five patients receiving PN prescribed by the Nutrition Support Team (NST). We described patients' demography and assessed nutritional outcomes, as well as PN bag prescription in different wards.

[The team approach].

Teamwork is emerging like a model of prevailing reference in many working fields: the interaction and, above all, integration between several persons can be an instrument to empower the individual skills, allowing to reach different and higher levels of creativity and efficiency than the sum of the single members' capacities. However, the capacity of interaction, tolerance, and focusing on the problem is required to the members who also need training for this way of working. After a brief historical summary of some ''creative groups'' experiences in the fields of literature, science and arts, a vast review of theoretical model references is presented.

Controlled release of vancomycin from freeze-dried chitosan salts coated with different fatty acids by spray-drying.

The aim of this study was to describe a controlled drug release system based on chitosan salts for vancomycin hydrochloride delivery. Chitosan aspartate (CH-Asp), chitosan glutamate (CH-Glu) and chitosan hydrochloride (CH-HCl) were prepared by freeze-drying and coated with stearic, palmitic, myristic and lauric acids by spray-drying technique. Vancomycin hydrochloride was used as a peptidic model drug whose sustained release should minimize its inactivation in the upper part of the gastrointestinal tract.

Interrater reliability and internal consistency of the structured clinical interview for DSM-IV axis II personality disorders (SCID-II), version 2.0.

Interrater reliability and internal consistency of the SCID-II 2.0 was assessed in a sample of 231 consecutively admitted in- and outpatients using a pairwise interview design, with randomized rater pairing and blind interview assessment. Interrater reliability coefficients ranged from .