Ioannis Dimoliatis

Relation of rainfall pattern and epidemic leptospirosis in the Indian state of Kerala

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Continuing low incidence of Crohn’s disease in Northwest Greece

AIM OF STUDY The largest population-based study for inflammatory bowel disease in Northwest Greece. MATERIALS AND METHODS A retrospective survey for the years 1982-1997. RESULTS Of 400 patients, 334 had ulcerative colitis, 43 Crohns disease and 23 indeterminate colitis. CONCLUSIONS Crohns disease still remains rare in Northwest Greece.

Disclosure of researcher allegiance in meta-analyses and randomised controlled trials of psychotherapy: a systematic appraisal.

Objective Psychotherapy research may suffer from factors such as a researcher’s own therapy allegiance. The aim of this study was to evaluate if researcher allegiance (RA) was reported in meta-analyses and randomised controlled trials (RCTs) of psychotherapeutic treatments. Design Systematic approach using meta-analyses of different types of psychotherapies. Data sources Medline, PsycINFO and Cochrane Database of Systematic Reviews. Methods We evaluated meta-analyses of RCTs regarding various types of psychotherapies. Meta-analyses were eligible if they included at least one RCT with RA and they were published in journals in Medline, PsycINFO and Cochrane Database of Systematic Reviews with an impact factor larger than 5. Results We identified 146 eligible meta-analyses that synthesised data from a total of 1198 unique RCTs. Only 25 of the meta-analyses (17.2%) reported allegiance and only 6 (4.1%) used a proper method to control its effect. Of the 1198 eligible primary RCTs, 793 (66.3%) were allegiant. Authors in 25 of these 793 RCTs (3.2%) reported their allegiance while only one study (0.2%) controlled for its effect. Conclusions The vast majority among a group of published meta-analyses and RCTs of psychotherapeutic treatments seldom reported and evaluated the allegiance effect. The results of the present study highlight a major lack of this information in meta-analyses and their included studies, though meta-analyses perform slightly better than RCTs. Stringent guidelines should be adopted by journals in order to improve reporting and attenuate possible effects of RA in future research.

Self-reported health in high and very high incomes.

The objective of the present study was to investigate whether self-reported health (SRH), an overall health indicator, continues to improve as individual income increases to very high levels or whether there is a threshold above which this relationship changes direction. We used data from the 2003 US Current Population Survey, focusing on the upper income decile. We modelled the relationship between income and SRH before and after adjustment for other socio-demographic parameters that are known to influence SRH. In the unadjusted model, SRH increased with increasing income up to the threshold of

The quality of drinking water supplies in North-Western Greece: a three-year follow-up

326,000, above which SRH declined. After adjustment for all major socio-demographic parameters (age, gender, race, education, and marital status), the adjusted curve showed monotonically increasing SRH with increasing income. Adjustment for each of these parameters separately revealed that the threshold effect was lost only after adjusting for education. There were more people with low levels of educational attainment among those receiving more than

EPA-0834 – Documentation of therapeutic investigator allegiance in meta-analyses of randomised controlled trials

500,000 per year, compared to other people in the upper income decile. Increasing income does not always improve SRH. People in the very high income bracket tend to report slightly worse health, which may be explained by their lower education.

Six Mantoux tuberculin skin tests with 1, 2, 5, 10, 20, and 50 units in a healthy male without side-effects - is skin reaction a linear function of tuberculin dose?

The study was undertaken to assess the microbiological and physicochemical quality of potable water of Arta, Preveza and Lefkada prefectures in North-Western Greece, during a 36-month survey (1996–1999). Drinking-water samples were collected from twelve points along the distribution networks located at the three cities of Arta, Preveza and Lefkada. The drinking-water quality standards were analyzed with respect to the presence of total coliforms (TC), fecal (thermotolerant) coliforms (FC) and fecal streptococci (FS). Some physicochemical parameters such as temperature, pH and total dissolved solids (TDS) were also determined. Standard techniques for water sample collection and analysis set by the American Public Health Association were used. Microbiological analyses indicate that of the 456 samples analyzed along the distribution network from the springs to the consumer potable tap, the individual failure rates were 35.1, 27.4 and 12.3% for TC, FC and FS, respectively. The combined failure rate according to the limit set by the 80/778 directive of the European Union was 37.9% for the analyzed samples. Failure rates on microbiological indicators displayed a seasonal trend being greater during the autumn–winter period. Although this observation is likely due to a combination of local and regional scale factors, a part of the variability in the failure rate was explained by a significant positive relationship with the rainfall amount. The results showed that there are considerable variations among the examined samples with respect to their physicochemical properties, which lie below the maximum permissible levels of the European drinking water standards. A higher failure rate for the samples collected directly from the springs compared with those taken from the potable tap suggests that the groundwater itself contributes much of the microbiological contamination and physicochemical alterations rather than the storage or a supply line contamination mechanism.

Standardised QALYs and DALYs are more understandable, avoid misleading units of measurement, and permit comparisons

Introduction Investigators allegiance is widely discussed as a risk of bias in psychotherapy research. Objective To sum up the best available data concerning allegiance effect. Aim We systematically investigated whether meta-analyses and their included randomised controlled trials (RCTs) of psychotherapeutic treatments were reported and assessed allegiance effect. Method We searched meta-analyses of RCTs of various types of psychotherapies in Medline from 1977 to 2012 and the Cochrane Database of Systematic Reviews (Last update on December 2012). We considered only meta-analyses of RCTs with at least 1 study with allegiance of the experimenter published in journals with impact factor higher than 5 and in Cochrane Database. Results Of 146 meta-analyses reviewed which included 2727 RCTs, only 15 meta-analyses (10.3%) reported RCTs allegiance. Of 1198 metaanalyzed RCTs only 1 (0.1%) was controlled for allegiance and 25 of 1198 (2.8%) were reported allegiance. In all meta-analyses reviewed, 66.2% of primary included RCTs were allegiant studies. Even we found a median of 10 [interquantile range (IQR) 7–15] allegiance RCTs per metaanalysis, only 6 (4.3%) of them used a method to controlling its effects. Conclusions The majority of meta-analyses of psychological interventions published in high-impact specialty psychiatric/psychological, general medical journals as well as Cochrane Database was rarely reported and evaluated allegiance effect. The results of the present study highlight a major gap in this information in meta-analyses of psychotherapeutic interventions.

Translation, adaptation and initial validation of Food Allergy Quality of Life Questionnaire: child form in Greek

BackgroundTuberculosis remains a serious disease worldwide. Anti-tuberculosis campaigners many times face negative tuberculin skin tests after Bacille Calmette Guérin vaccination. Increasing tuberculin units might be a solution. However, is skin reaction a linear function of tuberculin dose? Are there any side-effects when higher tuberculin doses are administered?Case presentationSix simultaneous Mantoux tuberculin skin tests, using 1, 2, 5, 10, 20, and 50 tuberculin units (88 altogether) of purified protein derivative RT23 per 0.1 mL were applied in a healthy male Greek 35-years-old, with known natural Mycobacterium tuberculosis primary infection since five years. Skin indurations 72 hours later were 15, 22, 23, 19, 23, and 27 mm respectively.ConclusionNo linear relation between tuberculin dose and skin reaction observed; skin reaction increased as tuberculin dose increased but with a decreasing rate, especially after 2 TUs, which seem correctly defined for detection of natural infection. No side-effects occurred.

Alleviation and prevention of severe allergic rhinitis and conjunctivitis following long-term lemon juice use: a case report.

QALYs and DALYs combine years of life and quality of life in a single measure.1–3 In Arnesen and Nord’s words: “DALYs and QALYs are complementary concepts. QALYs are years of healthy life lived; DALYs are years of healthy life lost. Both approaches multiply the number of years (x axis) by the quality of those years (y axis). QALYs use “utility weights” of health states; DALYs use “disability weights” to reflect the burden of the same states. For …