Rationale, aims, and objective: There is limited information about the comparative effectiveness of the START/STOPP (Screening Tool of Older Person's Prescriptions/Screening Tool to Alert doctors to Right Treatment) criteria and the Ghent Older People's Prescriptions community Pharmacy Screening tool (GheOP 3 S tool) for the screening of potentially inappropriate prescribing (PIP) in the geriatric population. Considering this, the aim of this study was to compare the ability of the START/STOPP criteria and GheOP 3 S tool to identify the PIP and potential prescribing omissions (PPOs) among elderly patients visiting their primary care physician.Methods: This is a retrospective observational study where a total of 422 subjects were included. The Charlson Co-morbidity Index (CCI) and the Medicines Comorbidity Index (MCI) for older people were used to determine the co-morbidity status. The user's diagnosis and medications prescribed were analysed with the START/STOPP criteria and GheOP 3 S tool. The Wilcoxon signed rank test was used to compare these criteria. The statistical relationship between the occurrence of PIP and users' age, the number of medication prescribed, the number of diagnoses, CCI, and MCI was determined with one-tailed bivariate correlation. Results:The START/STOPP criteria detected 843 PIPs and 1067 PPOs, while the GheOP 3 S tool detected 936 PIPs and 202 PPOs. The GheOP 3 S tool detected significantly more PIPs than did the STOPP criteria (P = 0.003). A significantly higher number of PPOs were detected with the START criterion (P < 0.0001). The results obtained with the START/STOPP criteria positively correlated with mentioned variables. Oppositely, there is a negative correlation between the results obtained with the GheOP 3 S tool and age. Still, the positive correlation could be found with the rest of the variables. Conclusion:The results of this study indicate that both tested tools demonstrated efficiency to detect PIPs and PPOs. The GheOP 3 S tool detected significantly more PIPs than did the STOPP criteria. On the other hand, the START criteria performed much better for the screening of PPOs.

Sounding convincing in order to convince -this simple strategy seems to come in handy for politicians trying to win over the electorate. Strong epistemic modality, which allows politicians to express a great degree of commitment to the truth of the utterance, pervades political discourse in general and parliamentary discourse in particular. The aim of the paper is to examine the linguistic devices employed to express certainty and commitment, i.e. to study strong epistemic modality systematically in the UK parliamentary language. The examination is carried out on strong epistemic adverbs, verbs, nouns and adjectives both quantitatively and qualitatively, and some reflections regarding their use in the Labour and the opposition discourse are presented. The results point to a relatively strong presence of strong epistemic modality in parliamentary discourse and light is shed on the ways it is used in this type of discourse.

Background and Objectives: Smartphone use has been rapidly increasing worldwide, which has brought possible smartphone addiction into the focus of research. In order to identify potential smartphone addicts, several scales were developed to assess smartphone addiction. Among them, the Smartphone Addiction Scale was frequently used. The study aimed to test the reliability and validity of the Serbian version of the SAS-SV and estimate smartphone addiction prevalence among medical students. Materials and Methods: The study was conducted in December 2018 on a convenience sample of 323 third-year medical students. The cross-cultural adaptation was performed following the well-established guidelines for cross-cultural adaptation of self-reported measures. Exploratory factor analysis was used to examine the structure of the questionnaire. Factor extraction was performed by principal component analysis with Varimax rotation. For test–retest reliability, students completed the questionnaire twice within seven days. Results: The Serbian version of the SAS-SV showed good internal consistency (Cronbach’s alpha = 0.89) and excellent reliability for test–retest scores (ICC = 0.94, 95% CI = 0.92–0.96). Factor analysis supported the extraction of one factor, which explained 51.538% of the variance. To explore convergent validity furthermore, the SAS-SV was correlated with time indicators of smartphone use. According to cut-off values for the SAS-SV score, 19.5% of students could be regarded as “addicted”, and often spent more time on smartphones and social networks on working days and weekends than “not addicted” students. Conclusions: The Serbian version of the SAS-SV is a reliable and valid instrument for detecting smartphone addiction among university students. Further research on this issue is encouraged to enable a better understanding of this ever-increasing public health issue.

There is currently limited information on the comparative effectiveness of the European Union(7)-potentially inappropriate medication (EU(7)-PIM) list and the Beers criteria for screening PIMs, of which PIMs are a significant concern, in the geriatric population of nursing home residents. This study aims to determine and compare the rates of PIMs detected with the Beers criteria (five sections of which the first is a list of inappropriate medications in older adults) and the EU(7)-PIM list (based on the first section of the Beers criteria). The study, conducted in Gerontology Center Belgrade ( n = 427), is retrospective and observational. The EU(7)-PIM list detected 876 PIMs, while the first section of the Beers criteria detected 782 PIMs (1,803 with all five sections). The majority of PIMs belong to psychotropic drugs (benzodiazepines being the most common). The EU(7)-PIM list detected significantly more PIMs than the first section of the Beers criteria (2.03 ± 1.63 vs. 1.83 ± 1.27; p = .0005). The number of detected PIMs with both criteria correlates with age, the number of chronic illnesses, the number of medication prescribed, and the comorbidity status. Ultimately, the EU(7)-PIM list detected more PIMs compared to the first section of the Beers criterion.

Patients suffering from dyspnoea frequently report social rejection as a severe limitation of their lives [1]. While the effects of different social challenges on the respiratory system are already established in animal models [2, 3], little is known about potential consequences of social rejection on the perception and neural processing of dyspnoea in humans. Detrimental effects of social rejection are well documented for other aversive somatic symptoms [4, 5]. The current study examined whether social rejection would increase perceived dyspnoea and whether this would be paralleled by increased neural processing of respiratory sensations as measured with respiratory-related evoked potentials (RREPs) in the electroencephalogram (EEG).