Spontaneous reporting by physicians and nurses revealed considerably fewer ADRs than patient interview by pharmacists. Physicians and nurses reported the more serious ADRs that occurred during hospital stay, whereas the interviews revealed more ADRs that caused hospital admission. Our data confirm that ADRs are an important cause of hospital admission of geriatric patients and occur frequently during their hospital stay.

No abstract

DRPs are an important cause for admission on the geriatric ward of our hospital. The drugs causing DRPs in this study were not those listed in the Beers list of inappropriate drugs in the elderly.

The aim of the study was to explore whether penicillin was superior to placebo in altering the clinical course of proven streptococcal pharyngitis. A randomised, parallel, double blind placebo controlled trial of 10 days duration was undertaken in 42 general practices in the Gent region (Flemish part of Belgium). Phenoxymethylpenicillin (adults 250 mg t.i.d. and children 125 mg t.i.d.) or placebo were administrated to 173 patients, aged 5 to 50 y, with acute sore throat and a positive culture for Group A beta-haemolytic streptococci. Penicillin and placebo tablets were identical. Patient compliance was monitored by assay of penicillin in urine (Sarcina lutea method). The primary outcome variable was sore throat as recorded by the physician on Day 3. The experiences of the patients themselves over the 10 day period were also assessed. Secondary outcome variables were other local and general symptoms and signs of streptococcal throat infection. In the penicillin group on Day 3, 23.2% of the patients still complained of sore throat versus 65.9% in the placebo group: difference 42.7% (C.I. 29.4%, 56.1%). This finding was confirmed by survival analysis of the symptom 'sore throat', as recorded by the patients. The physicians recorded on Day 3 a significant positive effect on another symptom (malaise: P < 0.04) and certain clinical signs (abnormal throat: P < 0.07; and redness of throat: P < 0.003). Penicillin had more adverse effects than placebo (P < 0.007). It also inhibited the rise in ASLO (P < 0.001). In this study in general practice, penicillin had a slight but definitive positive effect on the clinical evolution of streptococcal pharyngitis.(ABSTRACT TRUNCATED AT 250 WORDS)

Aim:To investigate the use of hypnosedatives (HSs)

The pilot study showed that academic detailing is feasible in the North-East-Flanders region of Belgium. Both the individual visits and the visits to the local quality groups were rated positively, and a majority of the general practitioners who returned the evaluation questionnaire wished to receive such visits in the future. The structure of the local quality groups implies limitations to the practical organisation of a visit, but requires less time investment than individual visits.

Pharmacokinetics of ciprofloxacin after single oral administration of 250 mg were studied in patients with and without renal failure. Ciprofloxacin concentrations were measured by HPLC. The elimination half-life was 8.7 +/- 0.9 h (mean +/- S.E.M.) in six renal failure patients not on haemodialysis, as compared to 4.4 +/- 0.2 h in six patients with normal renal function. The urinary recovery of unchanged ciprofloxacin was 5.3 +/- 1.7% of dose over 24 h in the renal failure patients, as compared to 37.0 +/- 3.7% in the patients with normal renal function. In haemodialysis patients, the half-life was 5.8 +/- 0.9 h on an interdialysis day, and 3.2 +/- 0.4 h during haemodialysis.

The purpose of this paper is to evaluate which communication types on social media are most indicative for romantic tie prediction. In contrast to analyzing communication as a composite measure, we take a disaggregated approach by modeling separate measures for commenting, liking and tagging focused on an alter's status updates, photos, videos, check-ins, locations and links. To ensure that we have the best possible model we benchmark 8 classifiers using different data sampling techniques. The results indicate that we can predict romantic ties with very high accuracy. The top performing classification algorithm is adaboost with an accuracy of up to 97.89%, an AUC of up to 97.56%, a G-mean of up to 81.81%, and a F-measure of up to 81.45%. The top drivers of romantic ties were related to socio-demographic similarity and the frequency and recency of commenting, liking and tagging on photos, albums, videos and statuses. Previous research has largely focused on aggregate measures whereas this study focuses on disaggregate measures. Therefore, to the best of our knowledge, this study is the first to provide such an extensive analysis of romantic tie prediction on social media.