Roberto Corradetti

Ingested foreign bodies causing complications and requiring hospitalization in European children: Results from the ESFBI study

Background:  In young children, particularly those aged 1–3 years, aerodigestive tract foreign bodies (FB) are a common pediatric problem. The aim of the present study was therefore to characterize the risk of complications and prolonged hospitalization due to FB in the upper digestive tract in terms of the characteristics of the injured patients (age, gender), typology and features of the FB, the circumstances of the accident and hospitalization details.

Use of the scale-up methods in injury prevention research: An empirical assessment to the case of choking in children

The scale-up method estimates the size of hard to count subpopulations. This method is based on the idea that the proportion of subjects in a subpopulation E known to each member of the general population T is the same as the proportion of members of E belonging to general population T. The aim of this study is to assess if this method is suitable for estimating the number of foreign body injuries and for setting up an algorithm in order to choose the most suitable subpopulations to use in estimates. The scale-up estimator is robust and precise and the selection of subpopulations of known size is improved by our algorithm.

Question Order and Interviewer Effects in CATI Scale-up Surveys

The scale-up estimator is a network-based estimator for the size of hidden or hard to count subpopulations. Several issues arise in the public health context when the aim is the estimation of injuries occurring in a certain population, where two common problems are present: (a) Small injuries are usually difficult to observe and rarely reported in the official data and (b) people are not always compliant in giving information about some specific injuries, in particular when children are involved. This study checked the methodological issues arising from using a computer-assisted telephone interview (CATI) survey using the scale-up methodology for detecting the number of injuries due to choking in children ages 0 to 14 in Italy. For this purpose, 1,000 CATI interviews were conducted during a week using a questionnaire based on 33 questions about populations of known size according to census data. Then, each respondent was asked about other questions related to the main target population (e.g., number of children known to suffer from a choking accident). A sensitivity analysis was conducted for estimating the effect of varying subpopulations, order of the questions, and interviewer effects on the resulting estimates. For the interviewer effect, no particular differences were observed in the overall estimates of injuries. The conclusion is the scale-up estimator in association with CATI methodology shows a high potential in the field of injury prevention, being accurate and robust, but particular attention should be given to the training of the interviewers to improve stability of the estimates.

An Alternative Approach to Analyze Customer or Employee Satisfaction Data Based on Kano Model

Abstract In recent years a companies’ need for information about customer requirements, which represent the key to retain actual customers and attract new ones, has steadily increased. Kano et al. [9] proposed an interesting model aiming at the classification of product or service characteristics as dissatisfiers, delighters, performance or indifferent attributes. Unfortunately, the required questionnaire structure is quite complex, consequently the rate of incomplete/inconsistent questionnaires is not negligible at all. In the present manuscript, the authors propose a model which allows allocation of a the customers’ requirements into Kano’s categories in a simple way. The underlying idea is to conduct two distinct analysis on the same attributes. Both analysis aim at investigating the attributes’ relationships with the overall variable (satisfaction, loyalty, etc), but one analysis focuses attention on the bottom part of the scale (low scores), while the other on the top part (high scores).

Reducing Conjoint Analysis Paired Comparisons Tasks by a Random Selection Procedure

Since the late 1970s conjoint analysis has been applied in estimating consumer preferences in marketing research. This article focuses on paired comparisons of profile design. In particular, it discusses how to reduce the number of pairs to be presented by incomplete comparisons of attributes. First, we present the reductions offered by cyclic designs and by group-divisible designs. Then, we show that the number of pairs to be presented can effectively be reduced by applying a random selection procedure. Copyright

Understanding the epidemiology of foreign body injuries in children using a data-driven Bayesian network

Bayesian networks (BNs) are probabilistic expert systems which have emerged over the last few decades as a powerful data mining technique. Also, BNs have become especially popular in biomedical applications where they have been used for diagnosing diseases and studying complex cellular networks, among many other applications. In this study, we built a BN in a fully automated way in order to analyse data regarding injuries due to the inhalation, ingestion and aspiration of foreign bodies (FBs) in children. Then, a sensitivity analysis was carried out to characterize the uncertainty associated with the model. While other studies focused on characteristics such as shape, consistency and dimensions of the FBs which caused injuries, we propose an integrated environment which makes the relationships among the factors underlying the problem clear. The advantage of this approach is that it gives a picture of the influence of critical factors on the injury severity and allows for the comparison of the effect of different FB characteristics (volume, FB type, shape and consistency) and childrens features (age and gender) on the risk of experiencing a hospitalization. The rates it consents to calculate provide a more rational basis for promoting care-givers’ education of the most influential risk factors regarding the adverse outcomes.

Editorial to the Special Issue on “Non Standard Analysis of Customer Satisfaction Survey Data”

ll over the world, organizations are increasingly interested in retaining existing customers while targeting non-customers. Measuring customer satisfaction provides critical information on how an organization is providing products or services to the marketplace. Customer Satisfaction is a complex concept that cannot be easily observed and, therefore, should be measured through variables connected to various aspects of the offer and to the level of satisfaction itself. A