Labial adhesion - diagnostics and treatment.

Background: Labial adhesion is relatively common, but the condition is little known among doctors and parents. The article assesses treatment in the specialist health service.

Material And Method: The treatment and course are assessed in 105 girls in the age group 0 – 15 years who were referred to St.

[How frequently is the WHO Surgical Safety Checklist used?].

BACKGROUND Through its patient safety programme «In safe hands,» the Norwegian Directorate of Health's objective is to ensure that the WHO Surgical Safety Checklist is used for all relevant surgical procedures. The purpose of this study was to investigate the recorded use of the WHO Surgical Safety Checklist, as well as to illuminate the factors that covary with its use, in order to be able to identify improvement measures.MATERIAL AND METHOD All surgical operations were reviewed at five surgical units at St Olavs Hospital Health Trust in three two-week periods in 2013.

Is childhood stress associated with shorter telomeres?

Background: It has been shown that severe stress in childhood is harmful to later health. New research aims to ascertain whether – and if so, how – the telomeres, the protective caps at the end of our chromosomes, may be one of the links between this type of experience and later morbidity. Here we present an overview of studies which have examined the association between stress in childhood and length of telomeres.

Health in adolescence and subsequent receipt of social insurance benefits – The HUNT Study.

Background: Long-term illness and work incapacity in young adulthood has consequences for both the individual and for society. The purpose of the study was to investigate the association between adolescent health and receipt of long-term sickness and disability benefits for young adults in their twenties.

Material And Method: An adolescent population of 8949 school students (aged 13-21 years) assessed their own health in the Young-HUNT1 Study (1995-1997).

Somatic health of patients at an outpatient clinic for substance abuse.

Background: Previous studies have detected a considerable degree of somatic illness among substance abusers. At our outpatient clinic for substance abuse we frequently find that referral documents provide scant information on somatic illnesses, and that patients complain of poor contact with their GP. We wished to investigate these issues.

[Pre-hospital observation as an alternative to emergency hospitalisation].

Background: Pre-hospital observation beds in community care centres have for many years served as an alternative to hospitalisation in rural districts of Norway. The article presents the use of observation beds associated with the Fosen A&E centre.

Material And Method: A retrospective review of records of patients who had contacted Fosen A&E centre during the period 21 August 2006-21 August 2009 was undertaken.

[Patient Activation Measure].

Background: Patient education is a mandatory activity for Norwegian hospitals, but its effects have not been possible to assess properly due to lack of suitable instruments in Norwegian. This article describes the work undertaken to find a suitable questionnaire, translate it to Norwegian and validate it.

Material And Methods: The heads of centres for patient education in the hospitals in Central Norway were presented with 15 different questionnaires measuring various areas - for example quality of life and coping.

[Use of hearing aid--coping and functional disability].

Background: Hearing loss is a common health problem and affects social life. We studied how adults' use of hearing aids was influenced by socio-demographic and audiological characteristics, use of coping strategies, and perceived functional disability.

Material And Methods: 162 adult patients (82 men) who had previously used hearing aids and were referred to St.

[Analytical epidemiology--case-control and cohort studies].

Background: "The study of the occurrence of disease" is a short but quite precise definition of epidemiology, as it includes both descriptive and analytic approaches. Whereas descriptive studies of the distribution of diseases and their potential causal factors may generate hypotheses about disease aetiology, causal inferences may most safely be drawn from analytical testing through properly designed observational studies.

Methods: The most commonly used observational designs are the retrospective case-control and the prospective cohort studies.