Qualitative interviews on the beliefs and feelings of adults towards their ownership, but non-use of hearing aids.

Objective: Up to a quarter of the adults who own hearing aids never use them. To provide these 'non-users' with the best help, hearing care professionals need to have an in-depth understanding of the non-users' beliefs and feelings with regard to the non-use. This qualitative study explored these beliefs and feelings in order to increase our understanding of hearing aid non-users.

The value of nurse practitioners in Dutch general practices.

Background: Healthcare systems are faced with a changing and increasing demand for care. Against the background of the need to increase service capacity and to improve access to primary care, a project was initiated to introduce the nurse practitioner (NP) role into Dutch general practices.

Objective: To explore the value of the NP by describing NP roles and their concordance with the initial concepts of the NP training programme.

Childhood abdominal pain in primary care: design and patient selection of the HONEUR abdominal pain cohort.

Background: Abdominal pain in children is a common complaint presented to the GP. However, the prognosis and prognostic factors of childhood abdominal pain are almost exclusively studied in referred children. This cohort study aims at describing prognosis and prognostic factors of childhood abdominal pain in primary care.

Establishing a European research agenda on 'gut feelings' in general practice. A qualitative study using the nominal group technique.

Objective: Although 'gut feelings' are perceived as playing a substantial role in the diagnostic reasoning of the general practitioner (GP), there is little evidence about their diagnostic and prognostic value. Consensus on both types of 'gut feelings' (a 'sense of alarm', a 'sense of reassurance') has enabled us to operationalize the concept. As a next step we wanted to identify research questions that are considered relevant to validate the concept of 'gut feelings' and to estimate its usefulness for daily practice and medical education.

Association between helicobacter pylori and gastrointestinal symptoms in children.

Objective: Recurrent abdominal pain (RAP) and other gastrointestinal (GI) symptoms are common complaints among children. The role of Helicobacter pylori in the cause of these complaints remains controversial. Nevertheless, there is an increasing pressure on primary care clinicians to screen for H pylori infection in symptomatic children.

Teaching psychiatric diagnostics to general practitioners: Educational methods and their perceived efficacy.

Introduction: Psychiatric disorders are hard to detect in a primary care setting. The vocational training for general practitioners (GPs) of the University of Maastricht, the Netherlands, intends to create a new comprehensive programme on diagnosing psychiatric disorders.

Aim: We consulted the literature to obtain an answer to the question: is evidence available for the effectiveness of specific educational methods to teach GP trainees psychiatric diagnostic skills?

Methodology: We searched in four databases for studies on a variety of search terms (39) referring to primary care, psychiatry, diagnosis, education and quality.

No evidence for systemic platelet activation during or after orthotopic liver transplantation.

Platelet function is thought to deteriorate during liver transplantation as a result of platelet activation and proteolysis of platelet receptors by plasmin following reperfusion. However, this hypothesis has never been formally tested. Twenty patients undergoing a first or second liver transplant were included in the study.

Pectus excavatum, not always as harmless as it seems.

Pectus excavatum is usually considered meaningless and without clinical significance. The following case may put a different complexion on the matter. A healthy 59-year-old male patient complained of progressive heart palpitations, fatigue and postural dyspnoea; bending over caused a clear increase of dyspnoea.

Interlaboratory variability in assessment of the model of end-stage liver disease score.

Background: The model of end-stage liver disease (MELD) score is nowadays widely used to prioritize patients for liver transplantation.

Aims: To assess the contribution of the individual components of the MELD score in interlaboratory variability.

Methods: We sent 15 samples from patients listed for liver transplantation to seven different European laboratories who were asked to measure all three variables.

The relationship between maintenance dosages of three vitamin K antagonists: acenocoumarol, warfarin and phenprocoumon.

Introduction: Vitamin K antagonists of the coumarin type are widely used oral anticoagulants.

Objective: We developed a transition algorithm for the maintenance dosages of three frequently used coumarins: warfarin, phenprocoumon and acenocoumarol.

Methods: The study was conducted at the Leiden Anticoagulation Clinic.