Does Direct Helicopter Retrieval Improve Survival of Severely Injured Trauma Patients From Rural Western Australia?

Objective: In remote Western Australia, mortality from major trauma is more than 4 times higher than mortality rates from major trauma in the capital city of Perth. The objective of this study was to determine whether direct helicopter emergency medical service (HEMS) retrieval from an incident scene within the zone 50 to 250 km of Perth to a tertiary hospital improves survival in severely injured trauma patients. Direct HEMS retrieval was compared with indirect retrieval whereby patients were transferred by ambulance to a nearby rural hospital before retrieval to a tertiary hospital in Perth.

Parents' concerns about Leavers celebrations: A cross-sectional study.

Issue Addressed: "Schoolies' or "Leavers' is a mass celebration of the end of compulsory schooling where excessive drinking is considered integral to the experience. Leavers are at risk of alcohol-related harms. This paper reports the concerns of parents for their Year 12 students (age 17 years) when attending Leavers celebrations.

Fat talk: Influences on body image in childcare.

Issue Addressed: This research explored the use of "fat talk" by early childhood educators and their awareness of their potential influence on the developing body image of young children.

Methods: Mixed methods comprising focus groups, telephone interviews and demographic surveys with 44 early childhood educators Australia-wide.

Results: Findings showed many educators in this research recognised that they had a role to play in the development of children's body image, though some were unsure when body image began to develop.

The Highs and Lows of Making a Bucket List-Quantifying Potential Mosquito Breeding Habitats in Metropolitan Backyards.

While the development of land for residential housing along the Swan and Canning Rivers in Perth, WA, Australia has reduced natural mosquito breeding sites, the role of backyard container breeding remains a relatively unknown factor. Local Governments responsible for these areas focus management and control efforts on low lying, tidally driven mosquito habitats to control (Skuse) and (Thomson) mosquitoes in an effort to reduce both the nuisance and disease risk to residents. In spite of their efforts, Local Governments continue to receive complaints regarding mosquito nuisance, even when environmental conditions do not favor hatching and development of the two species in the Swan River tidal flats.

Designing programmes of assessment: A participatory approach.

Programmatic approaches to assessment provide purposeful and meaningful assessment yet few examples of their development exist. The aim of this study was to describe the development of a programme of assessment using a participatory action research (PAR) approach. Nine work-based assessors together with three academics met on six occasions to explore the current approach to competency-based assessment in the placement component of a dietetics university course, the findings of which were used to design a programme of assessment.

"Looking over the Backyard Fence": Householders and Mosquito Control.

(1) Background: Vector-borne diseases are a significant public health problem in Western Australia. Mosquitoes are responsible for the transmission of a number of pathogens and may pose a serious nuisance problem. Prevention efforts in the State are multi-faceted and include physical, chemical, and cultural control methods for restricting mosquito breeding.

Maternity-care: measuring women's perceptions.

Purpose: Achieving maternity-care outcomes that align with women's needs, preferences and expectations is important but theoretically driven measures of women's satisfaction with their entire maternity-care experience do not appear to exist. The purpose of this paper is to outline the development of an instrument to assess women's perception of their entire maternity-care experience.

Design/methodology/approach: A questionnaire was developed on the basis of previous research and informed by a framework of standard service quality categories covering the spectrum of typical consumer concerns.

'What women want': Using image theory to develop expectations of maternity care framework.

Objectives: to develop, in consultation with women, a theoretically-grounded framework to guide the assessment of women's maternity-care experiences.

Design: qualitative research was undertaken with women to examine the appropriateness of Image Theory as a heuristic for understanding how women plan and evaluate their maternity-care experiences.

Setting: maternity-care services in metropolitan and regional communities in Western Australia.

Maternity care: a narrative overview of what women expect across their care continuum.

Objectives: to provide a narrative overview of the values schema underpinning women׳s expectations of public maternity-care services using an episodes-of-care framework.

Design: focus-group discussions and in-depth interviews were undertaken with Western Australian women who had opted for public maternity care to determine the values schema apparent in their expectations of their care.

Setting: public maternity-care services in metropolitan (i.

Effect of joint iron and zinc supplementation on malarial infection and anaemia.

Objective: In spite of interventions being put in place to reduce the burden of maternal anaemia and malaria in Ghana, they continue to impact negatively on pregnancy outcomes. It is unclear whether there are some other factors that limit the effectiveness of these interventions. The aim of this study was to explore whether there are benefits associated with the addition of zinc to the routine malaria chemoprophylaxis, iron and folic acid intervention package for pregnant women in Ghana.

Effect of prenatal zinc supplementation on birthweight.

Although iron and zinc deficiencies are known to occur together and also appear to be high in Ghana, a few supplementation studies addressed this concurrently in pregnancy. In a double-blind, randomized controlled trial, 600 pregnant women in Ghana were randomly assigned to receive either a combined supplement of 40 mg of zinc as zinc gluconate and 40 mg of iron as ferrous sulphate or 40 mg of elemental iron as ferrous sulphate. Overall, there was no detectable difference in the mean birthweight between the study groups, although the effect of iron-zinc supplementation on the mean birthweight was masked by a strong interaction between the type of supplement and the iron status of participants [F (1,179) = 5.

The impact of a parent-directed intervention on parent-child communication about tobacco and alcohol.

Introduction And Aim: Given the likelihood of engaging in the hazardous use of tobacco and alcohol increases during teenage years, pre-adolescence is a critical time to implement prevention programmes. While social factors other than those associated with parenting play a role in determining a child's risk for initiation of tobacco and alcohol use, parents can have a significant influence on their children's decisions about these issues. The aim of this study was to assess the impact of an in-home parent-directed drug education intervention on parent-child communication about tobacco and alcohol.

Investigating parental preferences regarding the development and implementation of a parent-directed drug-related educational intervention: an exploratory study.

Strengthening parents' capacity to reduce children's risk of alcohol, tobacco and other drug-related harm is recognised as an important public health strategy in Australia, but engaging parents' involvement in these training programs is known to be challenging. This study utilised a self-complete questionnaire and structured small group discussions with parents in order to identify their needs in terms of communicating with their children about drinking alcohol and smoking cigarettes. It also investigated their preferences regarding the nature of a parent drug education intervention as well as strategies to recruit and actively engage them in parent-directed interventions.