A Systematic Review and Meta-Synthesis of Patients' Experiences and Perceptions of Seeking and Using Benzodiazepines and Z-Drugs: Towards Safer Prescribing.

Background: Benzodiazepines and Z-drugs are used to treat complaints like insomnia, anxiety and pain. These drugs are recommended for short-term use only, but many studies report long-term use, particularly in older people.

Objective: The aim of this study was to identify and synthesise qualitative studies exploring patients' experiences and perceptions of receiving benzodiazepines and Z-drugs, and through this identify factors which perpetuate use of these drugs, and strategies for achieving safer prescribing.

General practitioners' experiences and perceptions of benzodiazepine prescribing: systematic review and meta-synthesis.

Background: Benzodiazepines are often prescribed long-term inappropriately. We aimed to systematically review and meta-synthesise qualitative studies exploring clinicians' experiences and perceptions of benzodiazepine prescribing to build an explanatory model of processes underlying current prescribing practices.

Methods: We searched seven electronic databases for qualitative studies in Western primary care settings published in a European language between January 1990 and August 2011 analysing GP or practice nurse experiences of benzodiazepine prescribing.

Trade-offs in visual attention and the enhancement of memory specificity for positive and negative emotional stimuli.

Emotional influences on memory can lead to trade-offs in memory for gist or detail and trade-offs in memory for central or peripheral aspects of an event. Attentional narrowing has often been proposed as a theoretical explanation for this pattern of findings with negative emotion. These trade-offs have been less extensively investigated with positive emotion.

Temporal association between the incidence of foot ulceration and the start of dialysis in diabetes mellitus.

Background: The aim of this study was to seek a temporal association between the start of renal replacement therapy (RRT) and the first recorded foot ulcer in diabetes.

Methods: Details of all patients with diabetes who had received RRT were extracted from the renal database and were cross-checked with the database held in the specialist foot clinic. The date of onset of first registered foot ulcer was taken and compared with the date of onset of RRT.

Assessing the outcome of the management of diabetic foot ulcers using ulcer-related and person-related measures.

Objective: The purpose of this study was to compare different outcome measures in the audit of management of diabetic foot ulcers

Research Design And Methods: Data collected prospectively in a consecutive cohort of patients referred to a specialist multidisciplinary foot care clinic between 1 January 2000 and 31 December 2003 were analyzed. A single index ulcer was selected for each patient and classified according to both the Size (Area and Depth), Sepsis, Arteriopathy, and Denervation [S(AD)SAD] and University of Texas (UT) systems. Ulcer-related outcomes (healing, resolution by ipsilateral amputation or by death, and persisting unhealed) were determined at 6 and 12 months and compared with patient-related outcomes (survival, any amputation, and being free from any ulcer) at 12 months.