This review is based on a literature search made in January 2007 on request by the Danish National Board of Industrial Injuries. The search in PubMed, EMBASE, and PsycINFO resulted in more than 1,000 publications. This was reduced to 14 after the titles, abstracts, and papers were evaluated by using the following criteria: 1) a longitudinal study, 2) exposure to work-related psychosocial factors, 3) the outcome a measure of depression, 4) relevant statistical estimates, and 5) nonduplicated publication. Of the 14 studies, seven used standardized diagnostic instruments as measures of depression, whereas the other seven studies used self-administered questionnaires. The authors found moderate evidence for a relation between the psychological demands of the job and the development of depression, with relative risks of approximately 2.0. However, indication of publication bias weakens the evidence. Social support at work was associated with a decrease in risk for future depression, as all four studies dealing with this exposure showed associations with relative risks of about 0.6. Even if this literature study has identified work-related psychosocial factors that in high-quality epidemiologic studies predict depression, studies are still needed that assess in more detail the duration and intensity of exposure necessary for developing depression.
Abstract-We present a fully automatic method for articular cartilage segmentation from magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) which we use as the foundation of a quantitative cartilage assessment. We evaluate our method by comparisons to manual segmentations by a radiologist and by examining the interscan reproducibility of the volume and area estimates. Training and evaluation of the method is performed on a data set consisting of 139 scans of knees with a status ranging from healthy to severely osteoarthritic. This is, to our knowledge, the only fully automatic cartilage segmentation method that has good agreement with manual segmentations, an interscan reproducibility as good as that of a human expert, and enables the separation between healthy and osteoarthritic populations. While high-field scanners offer high-quality imaging from which the articular cartilage have been evaluated extensively using manual and automated image analysis techniques, low-field scanners on the other hand produce lower quality images but to a fraction of the cost of their high-field counterpart. For low-field MRI, there is no well-established accuracy validation for quantitative cartilage estimates, but we show that differences between healthy and osteoarthritic populations are statistically significant using our cartilage volume and surface area estimates, which suggests that low-field MRI analysis can become a useful, affordable tool in clinical studies.
Background: Data for health surveys are often collected using either mailed questionnaires, telephone interviews or a combination. Mode of data collection can affect the propensity to refuse to respond and result in different patterns of responses. The objective of this paper is to examine and quantify effects of mode of data collection in health surveys.
These findings suggest that types of work and gender ratio are risk factors in the onset of workplace bullying. Future studies should take into account the type of work and the gender ratio of the organization.
(HbA,C) concentrations. Using the demandcontrol model for measuring job strain suggested by Karasek, the employed people were classified according to those who had suffered job strain and those who had not in two different ways. The subjective classification was based on the participants' statements regarding demand and control in their jobs whereas the objective classification was based on job title and mode of payment. More women than men were classified as having high strain jobs. After adjusting for age and sex no significant association was found between coronary risk factors and subjective job strain. A tendency for an association between fibrinogen and job strain was found. Body mass index and HbA1C concentration were significantly associated with objective job strain independent of confounders.
Background
Observational studies of increasingly better quality and in different settings suggest that planned home birth in many places can be as safe as planned hospital birth and with less intervention and fewer complications. This is an update of a Cochrane review first published in 1998.
Objectives
To assess the effects of planned hospital birth compared with planned home birth in selected low-risk women, assisted by an experienced midwife with collaborative medical back up in case transfer should be necessary.
Search methods
We searched the Cochrane Pregnancy and Childbirth Group’s Trials Register (30 March 2012) and contacted editors and authors involved with possible trials.
Selection criteria
Randomised controlled trials comparing planned hospital birth with planned home birth in low-risk women as described in the objectives.
Data collection and analysis
The two review authors as independently as possible assessed trial quality and extracted data. We contacted study authors for additional information.
Main results
Two trials met the inclusion criteria but only one trial involving 11 women provided some outcome data and was included. The evidence from this trial was of moderate quality and too small to allow conclusions to be drawn.
Authors’ conclusions
There is no strong evidence from randomised trials to favour either planned hospital birth or planned home birth for low-risk pregnant women. However, the trials show that women living in areas where they are not well informed about home birth may welcome ethically well-designed trials that would ensure an informed choice. As the quality of evidence in favour of home birth from observational studies seems to be steadily increasing, it might be as important to prepare a regularly updated systematic review including observational studies as described in the Cochrane Handbook for Systematic Reviews of Interventions as to attempt to set up new randomised controlled trials.
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