Education on the efficacy and safety of vaccines should be one of the priority public health measures taken to improve knowledge and eliminate misconceptions and attitudinal barriers regarding immunization in physicians and dentists.

AimStudy's objective was to identify risk factors associated with bronchiolitis severity.MethodsA retrospective chart review of all children <2 years old diagnosed with bronchiolitis at the University Medical Centre Ljubljana between May 2014 and April 2015, who were treated as outpatients (paediatric emergency department, PED group) or as inpatients in the standard hospital setting (WARD group) or in the paediatric intensive care unit (PICU group). Detection of respiratory viruses in nasopharyngeal swab was accomplished by RT‐PCR. Severity was assessed by Wang Respiratory Score and hospitalization longer than 24 hours.ResultsThe study included 761 children. The three most frequently detected viruses were respiratory syncytial virus (RSV), human rhinovirus (hRV) and human bocavirus (hBoV) (57.5%, 272/473; 25.6%, 121/473; 18.4%, 87/473). Patient groups differed in Wang Respiratory Score for the severity of bronchiolitis (P < 0.001). No differences regarding the causative viruses were found. There was a lower proportion of children with the presence of more than one virus in PICU group compared to other two groups (P = 0.017). The three groups significantly differed in age, birthweight, comorbidities, bronchodilator treatment and antibiotic usage. However, multiple regression analysis revealed that younger age and the use of antibiotics were associated with bronchiolitis severity defined as hospitalization for >24 hours.ConclusionsRespiratory syncytial virus, hRV and hBoV were the most frequently detected viruses. The majority of patients admitted to the PICU had only one virus detected. Younger age and the use of antibiotics were associated with bronchiolitis severity.

Employers are increasingly including volunteer activities in their social responsibility programs. At companies at which this is done in a planned manner, we can speak of the development of a corporate volunteering, which correlates with numerous positive psychological outcomes at both the individual and the organizational level. The aim of the study was to investigate the relationship between the corporate volunteering programs and job characteristics, connected with work engagement. In our study we were interested in identifying the role of the corporate volunteering in the evaluation of job resources and work engagement. The study included 274 employees from 15 Slovenian companies, of whom 62% participate in their organizations’ volunteer activities. They filled out the Job demands and resources questionnaire, the Utrecht Work Engagement Scale (UWES-17) and a scale for measuring the corporate volunteering climate. The results indicate that the carrying out of volunteer activities correlates with the perception of the corporate volunteering climate. Employees whose employers implement volunteering programs are more engaged and report higher levels of both autonomy and support from their co-workers and supervisors. Theoretical and practical implications are discussed.

Monitoring sales of medications is a potential candidate for an early signal of a seasonal influenza epidemic. To test this theory, the data from a traditional, consultation-oriented influenza surveillance system were compared to medication sales and a predictive model was developed. Weekly influenza-like incidence rates from the National Influenza Sentinel Surveillance System were compared to sales of seven groups of medications (nasal decongestants, medicines for sore throat (MST), antitussives, mucolytics, analgo-antipyretics, non-steroidal anti-inflamatory drugs (NSAIDs), betalactam antibiotics, and macrolide antibiotics) to determine the correlation of medication sales with the sentinel surveillance system -and therefore their predictive power. Poisson regression and regression tree approaches were used in the statistical analyses. The fact that NSAIDs do not exhibit any seasonality and that prescription of antibiotics requires a visit to the doctor's office makes the two medication groups inappropriate for predictive purposes. The influenza-like illness (ILI) curve is the best matched by the mucolytics and antitussives sales curves. Distinct seasonality is also observed with MST and decongestants. The model including these four medication groups performed best in prediction of ILI incidence rate using the Poisson regression model. Sales of antitussives proved to be the best single predictive variable for regression tree model. Sales of medication groups included in the model were demonstrated to have a predictive potential for early detection of influenza season. The quantitative information on medication sales proves to be a useful supplementary system, complementing the traditional consultation-oriented surveillance system.

Background Robotic resections represent a novel approach to treatment of colorectal cancer. The aim of our study was to critically assess the implementation of robotic colorectal surgical program at our institution and to compare it to the established laparoscopically assisted surgery. Patients and methods A retrospective case-control study was designed to compare outcomes of consecutively operated patients who underwent elective laparoscopic or robotic colorectal resections at a tertiary academic centre from 2019 to 2020. The associations between patient characteristics, type of operation, operation duration, conversions, duration of hospitalization, complications and number of harvested lymph nodes were assessed by using univariate logistic regression analysis. Results A total of 83 operations met inclusion criteria, 46 robotic and 37 laparoscopic resections, respectively. The groups were comparable regarding the patient and operative characteristics. The operative time was longer in the robotic group (p < 0.001), with fewer conversions to open surgery (p = 0.004), with less patients in need of transfusions (p = 0.004) and lower reoperation rate (p = 0.026). There was no significant difference between the length of stay (p = 0.17), the number of harvested lymph nodes (p = 0.24) and the overall complications (p = 0.58). Conclusions The short-term results of robotic colorectal resections were comparable to the laparoscopically assisted operations with fewer conversions to open surgery, fewer blood transfusions and lower reoperation rate in the robotic group.