Long-term effectiveness evaluation of an action-research intervention to improve hand hygiene in an intensive care unit.

Objectives: To evaluate the long-term effectiveness of an action research intervention aimed at improving hand hygiene in an intensive care unit of a public hospital in Italy.

Methods: An observational, prospective before-after study was carried out.Compliance with hand hygiene was estimated by measuring the utilization of hand hygiene products before the intervention and four years after the end of the project.

Avoidable hospitalization among migrants and ethnic minority groups: a systematic review.

Background: The numbers of migrants living in Europe are growing rapidly, and has become essential to assess their access to primary health care (PHC). Avoidable Hospitalization (AH) rates can reflect differences across migrant and ethnic minority groups in the performance of PHC. We aimed to conduct a systematic review of all published studies on AH comparing separately migrants with natives or different racial/ethnic groups, in Europe and elsewhere.

LATEX sensitization in elderly: allergological study and diagnostic protocol.

Background: The prevalence of latex allergy varies according to the population studied from 3% to 64%. No data exist in the present literature about elderly people because they were not considered among populations at risk. We report a retrospective observational study of 88 elderly patients of our centre of Dermatology and Allergology at Policlinico Umberto I, University of Rome, Sapienza.