<i>Background</i> - Evidence of health utility changes in patients who suffer from longstanding health complaints attributed to dental amalgam fillings are limited. The change in health utility outcomes enables calculating quality-adjusted life-year (QALY) and facilitates the comparison with other health conditions. The purpose of this study was to estimate the validity and responsiveness of the ...

<p><b> Objective</b> Many patients have medically unexplained physical symptoms (MUPS); some of them attribute their health complaints to dental amalgam fillings. The aim of this study was to assess the validity and responsiveness of General Health Complaints index (GHC-index) for measuring the symptom load in MUPS patients compared to the widely used symptom outcome measure, Giessen Subjective ...

Background: When people in Northern Norway get ill, they often use traditional medicine. The global aim of this study was to examine the extended family networks’ function and responsibility in cases of illness in the family, in two Northern Norwegian communities with a population of mixed ethnicity.<p> Methods: Semi-structured individual interviews with 13 participants and 4 focus group interviews ...

<i>Background</i>: Research in complementary and alternative medicine (CAM) encounters a variety of challenges, such as potentially synergistic, multimodal, and complex interventions which are often dependent on the relationship between practitioner and patient, on specific settings, and on patients’ individual preferences, expectations, beliefs, and motivations. Moreover, patients seeking CAM care ...

<p><i>Introduction:</i> The positive impact of familiar, individualized and patient-preferred music in dementia care is acknowledged in the literature. However, traditional indigenous music practices in care contexts are less studied. This study focuses on yoik, a traditional vocal music of the indigenous Sami people of Fennoscandia. The aims of this exploratory study were to investigate key ...