A four-country survey of public attitudes towards restricting healthcare costs by limiting the use of high-cost medical interventions.

Objective: To discern how the public in four countries, each with unique health systems and cultures, feels about efforts to restrain healthcare costs by limiting the use of high-cost prescription drugs and medical/surgical treatments.

Design: Cross-sectional survey.

Setting: Adult populations in Germany, Italy, the UK and the USA.

What is driving people's dissatisfaction with their own health care in 17 Latin American countries?

Background: A number of expert reports have pointed to serious problems with health care in many Latin American countries and argued the need to reform and improve health-care systems. In addition, the Ministers of Health of the Americas have stated that health systems should be accountable to citizens.

Objective: This paper examines, in each of 17 Latin American countries, public dissatisfaction with the health care to which people have access, the proportion of people reporting problems with access to and the cost of health care and the factors that are most important in driving public dissatisfaction.

Comparison of satisfaction with cancer screening at mobile van and static sites: National Cancer Screening Program in Korea.

Objectives: Our objectives were to evaluate participant satisfaction in the National Cancer Screening Program (NCSP) and to examine differences in satisfaction between mobile vans and static sites.

Methods: A total of 243 967 participants who were screened by NCSP between January and May 2007 were eligible for the study. Of these, 3416 samples were randomly chosen and stratified by the type of cancer screened and screening unit.

[Trend of socioeconomic inequality in participation in cervical cancer screening among Korean women].

Objectives: While cervical cancer is one of the leading cancers among women worldwide, there are a number of effective early detection tests available. However, the participation rates in cervical cancer screening among Korean women remain low. After the nationwide efforts in 1988 and thereafter to encourage participation in cervical cancer screening, few studies have investigated the effects of socioeconomic inequality on participation in cervical cancer screening.

Nurses' perception of error reporting and patient safety culture in Korea.

An exploratory study was conducted with 886 nurses at eight Korean teaching hospitals to describe nurses' perception of frequency of error reporting and patient safety culture in their hospitals and to identify relationships between the nurses' perception and work-related factors. The authors found that the majority of nurses were not comfortable reporting errors or communicating concerns about safety issues. A significant portion reported concerns about patient safety issues in their working unit.

Mixed messages: residents' experiences learning cross-cultural care.

Purpose: An Institute of Medicine report issued in 2002 cited cross-cultural training as a mechanism to address racial and ethnic disparities in health care, but little is known about residents' training and capabilities to provide quality care to diverse populations. This article explores a select group of residents' perceptions of their preparedness to deliver quality care to diverse populations.

Method: Seven focus groups and ten individual interviews were conducted with 68 residents in locations nationwide.