A longitudinal observation study assessing changes in indicators of serious injury and violence with alcohol controls in four remote indigenous Australian communities in far north Queensland (2000-2015).

Background: Legal restrictions on alcohol availability have been used to address violence and injury in the world's remote Indigenous communities. In Australia, alcohol management plans (AMPs) were implemented by the Queensland Government in 2002. This study reports changes in indicators of alcohol-related violence and injury in selected communities.

'Sly grog' and 'homebrew': a qualitative examination of illicit alcohol and some of its impacts on Indigenous communities with alcohol restrictions in regional and remote Queensland (Australia).

Background: Indigenous communities in Queensland (Australia) have been subject to Alcohol Management Plans since 2002/03, with significant penalties for breaching restrictions. 'Sly grog' and 'homebrew' provide access to alcohol despite restrictions. This paper describes how this alcohol is made available and the risks and impacts involved.

Alcohol management plans in Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander (Indigenous) Australian communities in Queensland: community residents have experienced favourable impacts but also suffered unfavourable ones.

Background: In Australia, 'Alcohol Management Plans' (AMPs) provide the policy infrastructure for State and Commonwealth Governments to address problematic alcohol use among Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders. We report community residents' experiences of AMPs in 10 of Queensland's 15 remote Indigenous communities.

Methods: This cross-sectional study used a two-stage sampling strategy: N = 1211; 588 (48%) males, 623 (52%) females aged ≥18 years in 10 communities.

Changing paediatric emergency department model of care is associated with improvements in the National Emergency Access Target and a decrease in inpatient admissions.

Objective: To assess the impact on patient flow as noted by the National Emergency Access Target (NEAT), with the introduction of a new Paediatric ED (PEM ED) model of care.

Methods: This longitudinal observational study was conducted at the Logan Hospital, a 344 bed public hospital in metropolitan Brisbane, which opened a physically separate, dedicated PEM ED on 14 October 2014, incorporating approximately 30% more staff, limited changes in processes and no changes in governance. De-identified data of the entire clientele from the ED Information System were compared 365 days before and after the opening of the PEM ED.

Alcohol control policies in Indigenous communities: A qualitative study of the perceptions of their effectiveness among service providers, stakeholders and community leaders in Queensland (Australia).

Background: Favourable impacts are reported from complex alcohol control strategies, known as 'Alcohol Management Plans' (AMPs) implemented 14 years ago in 19 Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander (Indigenous) communities in Queensland (Australia). However, it is not clear that all communities benefited and that positive impacts were sustained. Service providers, key stakeholders and community leaders provided insights about issues and impacts.

Coming to an ethics of research practice in a remote Aboriginal Australian community.

Background: This paper identifies the latent opportunities and challenges inherent in the formative stages of a project that was resumed after partial completion by other on-the-ground research teams.

Methods: Grounded theory methods were used to analyse project documentation from previous research teams and to generate new process-oriented data.

Results: The intention of all research teams was moving towards Engaging in Community-Based Participatory Research; this was conceptually identified as the core category.

Study Protocol--Alcohol Management Plans (AMPs) in remote indigenous communities in Queensland: their impacts on injury, violence, health and social indicators and their cost-effectiveness.

Background: In 2002/03 the Queensland Government responded to high rates of alcohol-related harm in discrete Indigenous communities by implementing alcohol management plans (AMPs), designed to include supply and harm reduction and treatment measures. Tighter alcohol supply and carriage restrictions followed in 2008 following indications of reductions in violence and injury. Despite the plans being in place for over a decade, no comprehensive independent review has assessed to what level the designed aims were achieved and what effect the plans have had on Indigenous community residents and service providers.

Increasing alcohol restrictions and rates of serious injury in four remote Australian Indigenous communities.

Objective: To document rates of serious injuries in relation to government alcohol restrictions in remote Australian Indigenous communities.

Design And Setting: An ecological study using Royal Flying Doctor Service injury retrieval data, before and after changes in legal access to alcohol in four remote Australian Indigenous communities, Queensland, 1 January 1996-31 July 2010.

Main Outcome Measures: Changes in rates of aeromedical retrievals for serious injury, and proportion of retrievals for serious injury, before and after alcohol restrictions.

What has changed in the evidence for early experience? Update of a BEME systematic review.

Background: We previously reviewed evidence published from 1992 to 2001 concerning early experience for healthcare undergraduates (Dornan T, Littlewood S, Margolis S, Scherpbier A, Spencer J, Ypinazar V. 2006. How can experience in clinical and community settings contribute to early medical education? A BEME systematic review.

Listening, sharing understanding and facilitating consumer, family and community empowerment through a priority driven partnership in Far North Queensland.

Objectives: This paper provides an example of a mental health research partnership underpinned by empowerment principles that seeks to foster strength among community organizations to support better outcomes for consumers, families and communities. It aims to raise awareness among researchers and service providers that empowerment approaches to assist communities to address mental health problems are not too difficult to be practical but require long-term commitment and appropriate support.

Methods: A collaborative research strategy that has become known as the Priority Driven Research (PDR) Partnership emerged through literature review, consultations, Family Wellbeing Program delivery with community groups and activities in two discrete Indigenous communities.

Aeromedical retrieval for critical clinical conditions: 12 years of experience with the Royal Flying Doctor Service, Queensland, Australia.

Background: The Royal Flying Doctor Service (RFDS) has been providing emergency aeromedical retrieval services in Queensland, Australia since 1928.

Study Objectives: This article details service and delivery structure plus a description of 12 years of experience managing patients with critical clinical conditions.

Methods: This study is a retrospective longitudinal analysis of the demographics and diagnostic classification of all cases of critical clinical severity conducted March 1, 1994 through February 28, 2006.

The impact of supply reduction through alcohol management plans on serious injury in remote indigenous communities in remote Australia: a ten-year analysis using data from the Royal Flying Doctor Service.

Aims: To assess the impact of supply reduction through Alcohol Management Plans (AMP) on the rate of serious injuries in four indigenous communities in remote Australia.

Methods: An ecological study used the database of the Royal Flying Doctor Service (RFDS) to calculate trauma retrieval rates for 8 years pre- and 2 years post-AMP in four remote communities covering a period from 1 January 1995 to 24 November 2005. All serious injuries in these communities required aero-medical retrieval.

Identification of best evidence in medical education. Case study.

Aim: Compare how different researchers performed in screening for informative evidence about medical education.

Method: Six researchers with three different levels of involvement in a systematic literature review screened articles by title and (where available) abstract, and then by reading articles they had selected in full text. The reference standard was a consensus decision to include or exclude the article in the final analysis, whose results are published elsewhere.

Indigenous Australians' understandings regarding mental health and disorders.

The purpose of the present paper was to determine what is currently documented about Indigenous Australians' understandings of mental health and mental disorders through a meta-synthesis of peer-reviewed qualitative empirical research. The following databases were electronically searched (1995-April 2006): AOA-FT and AIATSIS, Blackwell Synergy, CINAHL and Pre CINHAL, Health source: nursing/academic edition, Medline, Proquest health and medical complete, PsycInfo, Science Direct, Synergy and HealthInfoNet. Eligible studies were those written in English and published in peer-reviewed journals, empirical studies that considered Indigenous people's understandings of mental health and provided details on methodology.

Awareness of risks of overweight among rural Australians.

Introduction: Overweight and obesity are highly prevalent in rural areas and pose significant risks to health. The aim of this study was to investigate whether the rural public in central Queensland are aware of the health risks of overweight and to determine whether their perceptions of weight status and methods used to assess weight status correspond with those of health professionals.

Methods: Adults were randomly selected from shoppers in shopping centres in Central Queensland, Australia, to self-complete a questionnaire that assessed participants' understanding of the health risks of overweight, perception of current weight, methods used to assess current weight and understanding of the concepts of body mass index (BMI) and waist-to-hip ratio (WHR).

Delivering culturally sensitive care: the perceptions of older Arabian gulf Arabs concerning religion, health, and disease.

Health professionals need to be cognizant of the varying perceptions of health shared by people from different religious, sociocultural, and linguistic backgrounds to deliver culturally sensitive health care. In this qualitative study, the authors used semistructured interviews to provide insight into how 10 older Arabian Gulf Muslim persons understand and perceive health and illness with emphasis on the role of Islam in formulating health behaviors. Participants' views were strongly influenced by their religious convictions.

Early practical experience and the social responsiveness of clinical education: systematic review.

Objectives: To find how early experience in clinical and community settings ("early experience") affects medical education, and identify strengths and limitations of the available evidence.

Design: A systematic review rating, by consensus, the strength and importance of outcomes reported in the decade 1992-2001.

Data Sources: Bibliographical databases and journals were searched for publications on the topic, reviewed under the auspices of the recently formed Best Evidence Medical Education (BEME) collaboration.

Isolated rural general practice as the focus for teaching core clinical rotations to pre-registration medical students.

Background: Earlier studies have successfully demonstrated that medical students can achieve success in core clinical rotations with long term attachments in small groups to rural general / family practices.

Methods: In this study, three students from a class of 226 volunteered for this 1-year pilot program, conducted by the University of Queensland in 2004, for medical students in the 3rd year of a 4-year graduate entry medical course. Each student was based with a private solo general practitioner in a different rural town between 170 and 270 km from the nearest teaching hospital.

Western medical ethics taught to junior medical students can cross cultural and linguistic boundaries.

Background: Little is known about teaching medical ethics across cultural and linguistic boundaries. This study examined two successive cohorts of first year medical students in a six year undergraduate MBBS program.

Methods: The objective was to investigate whether Arabic speaking students studying medicine in an Arabic country would be able to correctly identify some of the principles of Western medical ethical reasoning.