Although racial and ethnic minorities are more likely to be involved with the criminal justice system than whites in the USA, critical scientific gaps exist in our understanding of the relationship between the criminal justice system and the persistence of racial/ethnic health disparities. Individuals engaged with the criminal justice system are at risk for poor health outcomes. Furthermore, criminal justice involvement may have direct or indirect effects on health and health care. Racial/ethnic health disparities may be exacerbated or mitigated at several stages of the criminal justice system. Understanding and addressing the health of individuals involved in the criminal justice system is one component of a comprehensive strategy to reduce population health disparities and improve the health of our urban communities.

Disparities in health care are of great concern, with much attention focused on the potential for unconscious (implicit) bias to play a role in this problem. Some initial studies have been conducted, but the empirical research has lagged. This article provides a research roadmap that spans investigations of the presence of implicit bias in health care settings, identification of mechanisms through which implicit bias operates, and interventions that may prevent or ameliorate its effects. The goal of the roadmap is to expand and revitalize efforts to understand implicit bias and, ultimately, eliminate health disparities. Concrete suggestions are offered for individuals in different roles, including clinicians, researchers, policymakers, patients, and community members.

Introduction

Little is known about how the development of a new chronic health condition affects management of existing chronic conditions over time. New conditions might worsen management of existing conditions because of competing demands or improve management of existing conditions because of increased engagement with heath care. We assessed the effect of incident stage 0, 1, 2 or 3 breast, colon or prostate cancer; incident depression; or an exacerbation of chronic pulmonary disease on control of type 2 diabetes (DM2).

Methods

We conducted a longitudinal, historical cohort study within an integrated, not-for-profit HMO. Of a cohort of persons with diagnoses of DM2 between 1998 and 2008, 582, 2,959 and 2,332 developed incident cancer, depression or pulmonary disease exacerbation, respectively. We assessed change in hemoglobin A1c (A1c) as a function of the occurrence of the incident comorbidity in each subcohort for a period of 1 to 5 years after the occurrence of the incident comorbidity. Secondary outcomes were systolic blood pressure (SBP) and low density lipoprotein (LDL) levels. Multivariate linear regression was adjusted for demographics, morbidity level, BMI, numbers of primary and specialty visits, and continuity of primary care. Latent class analyses assessed post-comorbidity outcome trajectories. All time-varying covariates were calculated for a 24-month pre-diagnosis period and 0 to 24- and 24 to 60-month post-diagnosis periods.

Results

For each condition, A1c did not change significantly from before to after the incident comorbidity. This was confirmed by latent class growth curve analyses that grouped patients by their A1c trajectories. SBP and LDL were also not significantly changed pre- and post-diagnosis of the incident comorbidities.

Discussion

Although incident comorbidities inevitably will affect patients’ and clinicians’ care priorities, we did not observe changes in these particular outcomes. Additional investigation of interactions between diseases will inform changes in care that benefit complex patient populations.

Objective

A combination of quantitative data and illustrative narratives may allow cancer survivorship researchers to disseminate their research findings more broadly. We identified recent, methodologically rigorous quantitative studies on return to work after cancer, summarized the themes from these studies, and illustrated those themes with narratives of individual cancer survivors.

Methods

We reviewed English-language studies of return to work for adult cancer survivors through June, 2008, and identified 13 general themes from papers that met methodological criteria (population-based sampling, prospective and longitudinal assessment, detailed assessment of work, evaluation of economic impact, assessment of moderators of work return, and large sample size). We drew survivorship narratives from a prior qualitative research study to illustrate these themes.

Results

Nine quantitative studies met 4 or more of our 6 methodological criteria. These studies suggested that most cancer survivors could return to work without residual disabilities. Cancer site, clinical prognosis, treatment modalities, socioeconomic status, and attributes of the job itself influenced the likelihood of work return. Three narratives - a typical survivor who returned to work after treatment, an individual unable to return to work, and an inspiring survivor who returned to work despite substantial barriers - illustrated many of the themes from the quantitative literature while providing additional contextual details.

Conclusion

Illustrative narratives can complement the findings of cancer survivorship research if researchers are rigorous and transparent in the selection, analysis, and retelling of those stories.

Poor engagement in HIV care is common in the United States and worsens HIV treatment outcomes. In addition, poor engagement in care is likely to drastically reduce the effectiveness of “test and treat” HIV prevention strategies.

(See the editorial commentary by Lange, on pages 801–802.)

For individuals with human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) infection to fully benefit from potent combination antiretroviral therapy, they need to know that they are HIV infected, be engaged in regular HIV care, and receive and adhere to effective antiretroviral therapy. Test-and-treat strategies for HIV prevention posit that expanded testing and earlier treatment of HIV infection could markedly decrease ongoing HIV transmission, stemming the HIV epidemic. However, poor engagement in care for HIV-infected individuals will substantially limit the effectiveness of test-and-treat strategies. We review the spectrum of engagement in care for HIV-infected individuals in the United States and apply this information to help understand the magnitude of the challenges that poor engagement in care will pose to test-and-treat strategies for HIV prevention.

Purpose:

To describe patient/family and logistical barriers to participation in university-based, early-phase cancer clinical trials for adults age ≥ 65 years, and to identify influences on their decisions to participate.

Participants and Methods:

In-person surveys were administered to subjects age ≥ 65 years with advanced tumors who had received prior chemotherapy. Subjects were recruited from private medical oncology practices collaborating with the University of Colorado and Moffitt Cancer Center research networks.

Results:

Three hundred individuals (51% age 65 to 74 and 49% age 75 or older) responded. Overall, 60% reported one or more barriers to participation in an early-phase trial; logistical barriers such as driving or time demands (34%) or reluctance to be treated at a university center (21%) were most common. Seniors age 75 or older were more reluctant to be treated at a university center (27% v 14%; P = .005), or concerned about loss of continuity with their primary oncologist (24% v 15%, P = .05). Older seniors were also significantly more reluctant than younger seniors to consider treatments with substantial nausea, vomiting, or fatigue. Older and younger seniors differed little in their preferred sources of information; both age groups emphasized the importance of the primary oncologist (100%), a nurse who provides experimental treatment (93%), other patients (83%) or acquaintances who had received experimental treatment (83%).

Conclusion:

Potential strategies to overcome barriers to enrollment of seniors into early-phase trials include providing more information about trials to community oncologists and prospective enrollees and assisting these individuals in navigating logistical barriers to enrollment.

Potential strategies to overcome barriers to enrollment of seniors into early-phase trials.

Background

Risk factors for cardiovascular disease (CVD) derived from the Framingham study are widely used to guide preventive efforts. It remains unclear whether these risk factors predict CVD death in racial/ethnic minorities as well as they do in the predominately white Framingham cohorts.

Methods and Results

Using linked data from the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey III (1988-1994) and the National Death Index, we developed Cox proportional-hazard models that predicted time to cardiovascular death separately for non-Hispanic white (NHW), non-Hispanic black (NHB) and Mexican American (MA) participants aged 40-80 with no previous CVD. We compared calibration and discrimination for the three racial/ethnic models. We also plotted predicted 10-year CVD mortality by age for the three racial/ethnic groups while holding other risk factors constant. 3437 NHW, 1854 NHB and 1834 MA subjects met inclusion criteria. Goodness of fit chi-square tests demonstrated adequate calibration for the three models (NHW, p=0.49; NHB, p=0.47; MA, p=0.55 and areas under the receiver operating characteristic curves demonstrated similar discrimination (c-statistics-NHW=0.8126; NHB=0.7679; and MA=0.7854). Older age was more strongly associated with CVD mortality in NHWs (HR-3.37, 95%CI-2.80, 4.05) than NHBs (HR-2.29, 95%CI-1.91, 2.75) and was intermediate in MAs (HR-2.46, 95%CI-1.95, 3.11). Predicted 10-year mortality was highest for NHBs across all age ranges and was higher for MAs than NHWs until late in the seventh decade.

Conclusions

Framingham risk factors predict CVD mortality equally well in NHWs, NHBs and MAs, but the strength of the association between individual risk factors and CVD mortality differs by race and ethnicity. When other risk factors are held constant, minority individuals are at higher risk of CVD mortality at younger ages than NHWs.

Background

Although many studies have identified patient characteristics or chronic diseases associated with medication adherence, the clinical utility of such predictors has rarely been assessed. We attempted to develop clinical prediction rules for adherence with antihypertensive medications in two health care delivery systems.

Methods and Results

Retrospective cohort studies of hypertension registries in an inner-city health care delivery system (N = 17176) and a health maintenance organization (N = 94297) in Denver, Colorado. Adherence was defined by acquisition of 80% or more of antihypertensive medications.

A multivariable model in the inner-city system found that adherent patients (36.3% of the total) were more likely than non-adherent patients to be older, white, married, and acculturated in US society, to have diabetes or cerebrovascular disease, not to abuse alcohol or controlled substances, and to be prescribed less than three antihypertensive medications. Although statistically significant, all multivariate odds ratios were 1.7 or less, and the model did not accurately discriminate adherent from non-adherent patients (C-statistic = 0.606). In the health maintenance organization, where 72.1% of patients were adherent, significant but weak associations existed between adherence and older age, white race, the lack of alcohol abuse, and fewer antihypertensive medications. The multivariate model again failed to accurately discriminate adherent from non-adherent individuals (C-statistic = 0.576).

Conclusions

Although certain socio-demographic characteristics or clinical diagnoses are statistically associated with adherence to refills of antihypertensive medications, a combination of these characteristics is not sufficiently accurate to allow clinicians to predict whether their patients will be adherent with treatment.

Objective:

To assess the association between antiretroviral adherence and the development of class-specific antiretroviral medication resistance.

Design and methods:

Literature and conference abstract review of studies assessing the association between adherence to antiretroviral therapy and the development of antiretroviral medication resistance.

Results:

Factors that determine class-specific adherence–resistance relationships include antiretroviral regimen potency, viral fitness or more specifically the interplay between the fold-change in resistance and fold-change in fitness caused by drug resistance mutations, and the genetic barrier to antiretroviral resistance. During multidrug therapy, differential drug exposure increases the likelihood of developing resistance. In addition, antiretroviral medications with higher potency and higher genetic barriers to resistance decrease the incidence of resistance for companion antiretroviral medications at all adherence levels.

Conclusion:

Knowledge of class-specific adherence–resistance relationships may help clinicians and patients tailor therapy to match individual patterns of adherence in order to minimize the development of resistance at failure. In addition, this information may guide the selection of optimal drug combinations and regimen sequences to improve the durability of antiretroviral therapy.

BACKGROUND

Information comparing characteristics of patients who do and do not pick up their prescriptions is sparse, in part because adherence measured using pharmacy claims databases does not include information on patients who never pick up their first prescription, that is, patients with primary non-adherence. Electronic health record medication order entry enhances the potential to identify patients with primary non-adherence, and in organizations with medication order entry and pharmacy information systems, orders can be linked to dispensings to identify primarily non-adherent patients.

OBJECTIVE

This study aims to use database information from an integrated system to compare patient, prescriber, and payment characteristics of patients with primary non-adherence and patients with ongoing dispensings of newly initiated medications for hypertension, diabetes, and/or hyperlipidemia.

DESIGN

This is a retrospective observational cohort study.

PARTICIPANTS (OR PATIENTS OR SUBJECTS)

Participants of this study include patients with a newly initiated order for an antihypertensive, antidiabetic, and/or antihyperlipidemic within an 18-month period.

MAIN MEASURES

Proportion of patients with primary non-adherence overall and by therapeutic class subgroup. Multivariable logistic regression modeling was used to investigate characteristics associated with primary non-adherence relative to ongoing dispensings.

KEY RESULTS

The proportion of primarily non-adherent patients varied by therapeutic class, including 7% of patients ordered an antihypertensive, 11% ordered an antidiabetic, 13% ordered an antihyperlipidemic, and 5% ordered medications from more than one of these therapeutic classes within the study period. Characteristics of patients with primary non-adherence varied across therapeutic classes, but these characteristics had poor ability to explain or predict primary non-adherence (models c-statistics = 0.61–0.63).

CONCLUSIONS

Primary non-adherence varies by therapeutic class. Healthcare delivery systems should pursue linking medication orders with dispensings to identify primarily non-adherent patients. We encourage conduct of research to determine interventions successful at decreasing primary non-adherence, as characteristics available from databases provide little assistance in predicting primary non-adherence.

Background. Little is known about the decline of kidney function in patients with normal kidney function at baseline. Our objectives were to (i) identify predictors of incident chronic kidney disease (CKD) and (ii) to estimate rate of decline in kidney function.

Methods. The study used a retrospective cohort of adult patients in a hypertension registry in an inner-city health care delivery system in Denver, Colorado. The primary outcome was development of incident CKD, and the secondary outcome was rate of change of estimated glomerular filtration rate (eGFR) over time.

Results. After a mean follow-up of 45 months, 429 (4.1%) of 10 420 patients with hypertension developed CKD. In multivariate models, factors that independently predicted incident CKD were baseline age [odds ratio (OR) 1.13 per 10 years, 95% confidence interval (CI), 1.03–1.24], baseline eGFR (OR 0.69 per 10 units, 95% CI 0.65–0.73), diabetes (OR 3.66, 95% CI 2.97–4.51) and vascular disease (OR 1.67, 95% CI 1.32–2.10). We found no independent association between age, gender or race/ethnicity and eGFR slope. In patients who did not have diabetes or vascular disease, eGFR declined at 1.5 mL/min/1.73 m2 per year. Diabetes at baseline was associated with an additional decline of 1.38 mL/min/1.73 m2.

Conclusions. Diabetes was the strongest predictor of both incident CKD as well as eGFR slope. Rates of incident CKD or in decline of kidney function did not differ by race or ethnicity in this cohort.

Background

Left ventricular hypertrophy is a major independent risk factor for cardiovascular mortality. The contribution of left ventricular hypertrophy to racial and ethnic differences in cardiovascular mortality is poorly understood.

Methods

We used data from the Third National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey and from the National Death Index to compare mortality for those with an electrocardiographic (ECG) diagnosis of left ventricular hypertrophy to those without left ventricular hypertrophy separately for whites, African Americans, and Latinos. We used Cox proportional hazards regression to control for other known prognostic factors.

Results

ECG left ventricular hypertrophy was significantly associated with ten-year cardiovascular mortality in all three racial/ethnic groups, both unadjusted and adjusted for other known prognostic factors. The hazard ratio for this association was significantly greater for African Americans (2.31, 95% CI 1.55–3.42) than for whites and Latinos (1.32, 95% CI 1.14–1.76 and 2.11, 95% CI 1.35–3.30 respectively) independent of systolic blood pressure.

Conclusions

ECG left ventricular hypertrophy contributes more to the risk of cardiovascular mortality in African Americans than it does in Whites. Using regression of ECG left ventricular hypertrophy as a goal of therapy might be a means to reduce racial differences in cardiovascular mortality; prospective validation is required.

Background. Most recommended care for chronic diseases is based on the research of single conditions. There is limited information on ‘best’ processes of care for persons with multiple morbidities. Our objective was to explore processes of care desired by elderly patients who have multimorbidities that may present competing demands for patients and providers.

Methods. Qualitative investigation using one-on-one interviews of 26 community-dwelling HMO members aged 65–84 (50% male) who had, at a minimum, the combined conditions of diabetes, depression and osteoarthritis. Participants were chosen from a stratified random sample to have a range of 4–16 chronic medical conditions.

Results. Participants’ desired processes of care included: the need for convenient access to providers (telephone, internet or in person), clear communication of individualized care plans, support from a single coordinator of care who could help prioritize their competing demands and continuity of relationships. They also desired providers who would listen to and acknowledge their needs, appreciate that these’ needs were unique and fluctuating and have a caring attitude.

Conclusions. These respondents describe an ideal process of care that is patient centered and individualized and that supports their unique constellations of problems, shifting priorities and multidimensional decision making. Individual and ongoing care coordination managed by a primary contact person may meet some of these needs. Achieving these goals will require developing efficient methods of assessing patient care needs and flexible care management support systems that can respond to patients’ needs for different levels of support at different times.

Background

Electrocardiographic criteria for the diagnosis of left ventricular hypertrophy in current use were defined using autopsy results or echocardiography; criteria defined using mortality might be more clinically meaningful.

Methods

Using data from NHANES III, we selected electrocardiographic measures that best differentiated those surviving at five years from those who did not. We identified voltage thresholds using regression techniques, and then compared survival for subjects above and below the thresholds.

Results

Cornell voltage, Cornell product, and Novacode estimate of left ventricular mass index were discriminative for mortality and had identifiable thresholds present in their relationships with mortality. Independent of systolic blood pressure, there were significant associations with five-year mortality for Novacode index above threshold; hazard ratios were 1.58 for women and 1.27 for men, and for five-year cardiovascular mortality were 1.78 for women and 2.34 for men.

Conclusions

Electrocardiographic criteria for left ventricular hypertrophy validated against mortality might be clinically useful.

When researchers communicate their findings to patients, clinicians, policy-makers, or media, they may find it helpful to supplement quantitative data with stories about individuals who represent themes in their research. Whether such stories are gathered during the research itself or identified from other sources, researchers must develop strategies for assessing their representativeness. This paper proposes 5 attributes of representative stories: (1) expression of important themes in the research, (2) explicit location in the “distribution” of stories that exemplify the theme, (3) verifiability, (4) acknowledgment of uncertainty, and (5) compelling narration. This paper summarizes research on substance abuse among physicians, and uses these 5 attributes to assess the representativeness of a published case report and a fictional short story about addicted physicians. While neither story is fully representative of the research, the process of evaluating these stories illustrates an approach to identifying representative stories for use in disseminating research.

Electronic disease registries are a critical feature of the chronic disease management programs that are used to improve the care of individuals with chronic illnesses. These registries have been developed primarily in managed care settings; use in safety net institutions—organizations whose mission is to serve the uninsured and underserved—has not been described. We sought to assess the feasibility of developing disease registries from electronic data in a safety net institution, focusing on hypertension because of its importance in minority populations. We compared diagnoses obtained from algorithms utilizing electronic data, including laboratory and pharmacy records, against diagnoses derived from chart review. We found good concordance between diagnoses identified from electronic data and those identified by chart review, suggesting that registries of patients with chronic diseases can be developed outside the setting of closed panel managed care organizations.

Background

Therapy with 3-Hydroxy-3-methylglutaryl Co-enzyme A reductase inhibitors (statins) improve outcomes in a broad spectrum of patients with hyperlipidemia. However, effective therapy requires ongoing medication adherence; restrictive pharmacy policies may represent a barrier to successful adherence, particularly among vulnerable patients. In this study we sought to assess the relationship between the quantity of statin dispensed by the pharmacy with patient adherence and total cholesterol.

Methods

We analyzed a cohort of 3,386 patients receiving more than one fill of statin medications through an integrated, inner-city health care system between January 1, 2000 and December 31, 2002. Our measure of adherence was days of drug acquisition divided by days in the study for each patient, with adequate adherence defined as ≥ 80%. Log-binomial regression was used to determine the relative risk of various factors, including prescription size, on adherence. We also assessed the relationship between adherence and total cholesterol using multiple linear regression.

Results

After controlling for age, gender, race, co-payment, comorbidities, and insurance status, patients who obtained a majority of fills as 60-day supply compared with 30-day supply were more likely to be adherent to their statin medications (RR 1.41, 95% CI 1.28–1.55, P < 0.01). We found that statin non-adherence less than 80% was predictive of higher total serum cholesterol by 17.23 ± 1.64 mg/dL (0.45 ± 0.04 mmol/L).

Conclusion

In a healthcare system serving predominantly indigent patients, the provision of a greater quantity of statin medication at each prescription fill contributes to improved adherence and greater drug effectiveness.

OBJECTIVE

To study the educational contributions of attending physicians in an internal medicine house staff ambulatory clinic.

DESIGN

Cross-sectional, self-administered survey.

SETTING

University-affiliated general internal medicine practice.

PATIENTS/PARTICIPANTS

Internal medicine residents and attendings.

MEASUREMENTS AND MAIN RESULTS

Attending and resident perceptions of whether attendings made contributions to teaching points, diagnosis (DX), therapy (RX), and health care maintenance (HCM) were assessed in 428 patient encounters. Resident assessments significantly exceeded attending self-assessments of contributions to teaching points (82% vs 74%, P = .001), DX (44% vs 34%, P = .001), RX (61% vs 55%, P = .02), and HCM (19% vs 15%, P = .04). Both residents and attendings perceived that contributions declined progressively with increasing resident year (P<.05). Primary care and categorical residents assessed attending contributions comparably. However, attendings perceived contributing more to RX and HCM for categorical residents than primary care (P<.05). Male and female residents assessed attending contributions comparably. However, attendings perceived contributing generally more to DX in male residents than female (P = .003). In 8% of encounters, either residents or attendings felt that patient evaluation by the attending was needed. In these encounters with personal patient evaluation by attendings, both residents and attendings felt that attendings made more contributions to DX (P = .001) and teaching points than in other encounters.

CONCLUSIONS

Attending physicians consistently underestimate their perceived contributions to house officer ambulatory teaching. Their personal patient evaluation increases assistance with DX and teaching points. Given perceived declining contributions by training year, attendings may need to identify other teaching strategies for interactions with senior residents.

BACKGROUND

Timeliness of care is 1 of 6 dimensions of quality identified in Crossing the Quality Chasm. We compared patient and physician perceptions of appropriate timing of visits for common medical problems.

METHODS

This study was conducted at 2 internal medicine clinics at the University of Colorado Health Sciences Center. Adult patients and companions, and outpatient General Internists were surveyed. The survey contained 11 clinical scenarios of varying urgency. Respondents indicated how soon the patient in each scenario should be seen. Responses ranged from that day to 1 to 3 months. Responses were analyzed using the Mann-Whitney U test.

RESULTS

Two hundred and sixty-two patients and 46 of 61 physicians responded. For 8 of the 11 scenarios patients felt they should be seen significantly earlier than physicians. Scenarios involving chronic knee and stomach pain, routine diabetes care, and hyperlipidemia generated the greatest differences. Patients and physicians agreed on the urgency of scenarios concerning wheezing in an asthmatic, an ankle injury, and acute pharyngitis.

CONCLUSIONS

Patients expected to be seen sooner than physicians thought necessary for many common chronic medical conditions, but are in agreement about timeliness for some acute problems. Understanding patient expectations may help physicians respond to requests for urgent evaluation of chronic conditions.

BACKGROUND

Colonoscopy has become a preferred colorectal cancer (CRC) screening modality. Little is known about why patients who are referred for colonoscopy do not complete the recommended procedures. Prior adherence studies have evaluated colonoscopy only in combination with flexible sigmoidoscopy, failed to differentiate between screening and diagnostic procedures, and have examined cancellations/no-shows, but not nonscheduling, as mechanisms of nonadherence.

METHODS

Sociodemographic predictors of screening completion were assessed in a retrospective cohort of 647 patients referred for colonoscopy at a major university hospital. Then, using a qualitative study design, a convenience sample of patients who never completed screening after referral (n=52) was interviewed by telephone, and comparisons in reported reasons for nonadherence were made by gender.

RESULTS

Half of all patients referred for colonoscopy failed to complete the procedure, overwhelmingly because of nonscheduling. In multivariable analysis, female sex, younger age, and insurance type predicted poorer adherence. Patient-reported barriers to screening completion included cognitive-emotional factors (e.g., lack of perceived risk for CRC, fear of pain, and concerns about modesty and the bowel preparation), logistic obstacles (e.g., cost, other health problems, and competing demands), and health system barriers (e.g., scheduling challenges, long waiting times). Women reported more concerns about modesty and other aspects of the procedure than men. Only 40% of patients were aware of alternative screening options.

CONCLUSIONS

Adherence to screening colonoscopy referrals is sub-optimal and may be improved by better communication with patients, counseling to help resolve logistic barriers, and improvements in colonoscopy referral and scheduling mechanisms.

Background

Interventions to improve care for persons with chronic medical conditions often use quality of life (QOL) outcomes. These outcomes may be affected by coexisting (comorbid) chronic conditions as well as the index condition of interest. A subjective measure of comorbidity that incorporates an assessment of disease severity may be particularly useful for assessing comorbidity for these investigations.

Methods

A survey including a list of 25 common chronic conditions was administered to a population of HMO members age 65 or older. Disease burden (comorbidity) was defined as the number of self-identified comorbid conditions weighted by the degree (from 1 to 5) to which each interfered with their daily activities. We calculated sensitivities and specificities relative to chart review for each condition. We correlated self-reported disease burden, relative to two other well-known comorbidity measures (the Charlson Comorbidity Index and the RxRisk score) and chart review, with our primary and secondary QOL outcomes of interest: general health status, physical functioning, depression screen and self-efficacy.

Results

156 respondents reported an average of 5.9 chronic conditions. Median sensitivity and specificity relative to chart review were 75% and 92% respectively. QOL outcomes correlated most strongly with disease burden, followed by number of conditions by chart review, the Charlson Comorbidity Index and the RxRisk score.

Conclusion

Self-report appears to provide a reasonable estimate of comorbidity. For certain QOL assessments, self-reported disease burden may provide a more accurate estimate of comorbidity than existing measures that use different methodologies, and that were originally validated against other outcomes. Investigators adjusting for comorbidity in studies using QOL outcomes may wish to consider using subjective comorbidity measures that incorporate disease severity.

Background

Primary care physicians are caring for increasing numbers of persons with comorbid chronic illness. Longitudinal information on health outcomes associated with specific chronic conditions may be particularly relevant in caring for these populations. Our objective was to assess the effect of certain comorbid conditions on physical well being over time in a population of persons with chronic medical conditions; and to compare these effects to that of hypertension alone.

Methods

We conducted a secondary analysis of 4-year longitudinal data from the Medical Outcomes Study. A heterogeneous population of 1574 patients with either hypertension alone (referent) or one or more of the following conditions: diabetes, coronary artery disease, congestive heart failure, respiratory illness, musculoskeletal conditions and/or depression were recruited from primary and specialty (endocrinology, cardiology or mental health) practices within HMO and fee-for-service settings in three U.S. cities. We measured categorical change (worse vs. same/better) in the SF-36® Health Survey physical component summary score (PCS) over 4 years. We used logistic regression analysis to determine significant differences in longitudinal change in PCS between patients with hypertension alone and those with other comorbid conditions and linear regression analysis to assess the contribution of the explanatory variables.

Results

Specific diagnoses of CHF, diabetes and/or chronic respiratory disease; or 4 or more chronic conditions, were predictive of a clinically significant decline in PCS.

Conclusions

Clinical recognition of these specific chronic conditions or 4 or more of a list of chronic conditions may provide an opportunity for proactive clinical decision making to maximize physical functioning in these populations.

OBJECTIVE

Little is known about the impact of fellowship training in primary care on subsequent research productivity. Our goal was to identify characteristics of research fellows and their training associated with subsequent publications and research funding.

DESIGN

Mail survey in 1998.

SETTING AND PARTICIPANTS

1988–1997 graduates of 25 National Research Service Award primary care research fellowships in the United States.

OUTCOME MEASURES

1) Publishing 1 or more papers per year since the beginning of fellowship, or 2) serving as principal investigator (PI) on a federal or non-federal grant.

RESULTS

One hundred forty-six of two hundred fifteen program graduates (68%) completed the survey. The median age was 38 years, and 51% were male. Thirty-two percent had published 1 or more papers per year, and 44% were PIs. Male gender (odds ratio [OR], 3.6; 95% confidence interval [95% CI], 1.4 to 9.2), self-reported allocation of 40% or more of fellowship time to research (OR, 4.4; 95% CI, 1.8 to 11.2), and having an influential mentor during fellowship (OR, 5.0; 95% CI, 1.5 to 17.2) were independently associated with publishing 1 or more papers per year. Fellows with funding as a PI were also more likely to have an influential mentor (OR, 3.0; 95% CI, 1.3 to 7.2).

CONCLUSION

Primary care fellows who had influential mentors were more productive in research early after fellowship. Awareness of the indicators of early research success can inform the policies of agencies that fund research training and the curricula of training programs themselves.

OBJECTIVE

To describe the clinical features of patients diagnosed with upper respiratory tract infections (URIs), and determine which clinical features are associated with antibiotic use.

DESIGN

Prospective cohort study.

SETTING

Three ambulatory care practices at a group-model HMO in the Denver metropolitan area.

PATIENTS

Adults (aged 18 years or older) seeking care for acute respiratory illnesses.

MEASUREMENTS

Clinical features were documented on standardized encounter forms. Clinician type, secondary diagnoses, and antibiotic treatment were extracted from administrative databases. Results are presented as adjusted odds ratios (ORs) with 95% confidence intervals (CIs).

MAIN RESULTS

Antibiotics were prescribed to 33% (95% CI 28%, 38%) of patients diagnosed with URI, after excluding patients with coexisting antibiotic-responsive conditions (e.g., sinusitis, pharyngitis) or a history of cardiopulmonary disease. Multivariate logistic regression analysis identified tobacco use (OR 2.8; 95% CI 1.5, 5.1), history of purulent nasal discharge (OR 2.0; 95% CI 1.1, 3.6) or green phlegm (OR 4.8; 95% CI 2.1, 11.1), and examination findings of purulent nasal discharge (OR 5.2; 95% CI 2.4, 11.2) or tonsillar exudate (OR 3.7; 95% CI 1.1, 12.1) to be independently associated with antibiotic use. The majority of patients treated with antibiotics (82%) had at least one of these factors present.

CONCLUSIONS

Antibiotic treatment of URIs is most common when purulent manifestations are present. Efforts to reduce antibiotic treatment of URIs should educate clinicians about the limited value of purulent manifestations in predicting antibiotic-responsive disease.