Background - Most patients presenting with acute exacerbations of chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (AECOPD) in primary care are prescribed antibiotics, but these may not be beneficial, and they can cause side effects and increase the risk of subsequent resistant infections. Point-of-care tests (POCTs) could safely reduce inappropriate antibiotic prescribing and antimicrobial resistance.<p> ...

Introduction: Recruiting doctors in rural areas is challenging. Various educational interventions have been introduced in many countries. This study aimed to explore undergraduate medical education interventions introduced to recruit doctors to rural areas, and the results of these interventions. Methods: We undertook a systematic search using search words 'rural', 'remote', 'workforce', 'physicians', ...

Background - The atherosclerotic effect of an adverse lipid profile is assumed to accumulate throughout life, leading to increased risk of myocardial infarction (MI). Still, little is known about age at onset and duration of unfavorable lipid levels before MI.<p> <p>Methods and Results - Longitudinal data on serum lipid levels for 26 130 individuals (50.5% women, aged 20–89 years) were obtained ...

Positive associations between own educational attainment and own health have been extensively documented. Studies have also shown spousal educational attainment to be associated with own health. This paper investigates the extent to which spousal education contributes to the social gradient in health, net of own education; and whether parts of a seeming spousal education effect are attributable to ...

Tackling antibiotic resistance represents one of the major challenges in modern medicine, and limiting antibiotics’ overuse represents the first step in this fight. Most antibiotics are prescribed in primary care settings, and lower respiratory tract infections (LRTIs) are one of the most common indications for their prescription. An expert panel conducted an extensive report on C-reactive protein ...

Cardiovascular disease (CVD) causes a high disease burden. Physical activity (PA) reduces CVD morbidity and mortality. We aimed to determine the relationship between the composition of moderate-to-vigorous PA (MVPA), light PA (LPA), sedentary behavior (SB), and sleep during midlife to the incidence of major adverse cardiac events (MACE) and all-cause mortality at a 7-year follow-up. The study ...

OBJECTIVES: Aging is associated with changes in body composition. Excess adiposity among older adults has been linked with metabolic syndromes and aggravated age-associated decline in physical functioning. Few longitudinal studies have explored the association between dual-energy X-ray absorptiometry (DXA)-derived total as well as central adiposity measures and frailty. We examined the association ...

Background - The Sámi are an ethnic minority and the only Indigenous people in the European Union. Population-based health studies among Sámi in Sweden are scarce and outdated. The aim of this study was to analyse the ethnic, Sámi vs. non-Sámi, health differences among men and women living in Sweden.<p> <p>Methods - This study combined two data sources: the national Health on Equal Terms (HET) ...

Purpose - To investigate the association of commonly used systemic medications with glaucoma and intraocular pressure (IOP) in the European population.<p> <p>Design - Meta-analysis of 11 population-based cohort studies of the European Eye Epidemiology Consortium.<p> <p>Participants - The glaucoma analyses included 143 240 participants and the IOP analyses included 47 177 participants.<p> <p>Methods ...

Introduction: Chronic pain is a prevalent, yet underrecognized, condition in children and adolescents. A biopsychosocial framework has been widely adopted over the past decades and resulted in a new pain classification in the International Classification of Diseases, 11th revision (ICD-11). Nevertheless, little is known about pediatricians' pain concepts.<p> <p>Objectives: We explored pain ...