Background Postal questionnaires are often used to assess the results of nasal septoplasty, but response rates vary widely. This study assesses strategies designed to increase the response rate. ...

Background The prevalence of psychotropic drug (PTD) use in NH residents is high, but few have explored prevalence and persistency in PTD in NH residents and factors associated with persistency. This at the ...

Background Various indicators of childhood socioeconomic position have been related to cardiovascular disease (CVD) risk in adulthood. We investigated the impact of shared family factors on the educational ...

Background To study whether thyroid function was associated with risk of hip or knee replacement due to primary osteoarthritis. Methods In a ...

Background This paper studies the effect of mosquito abundance and malaria incidence in the last 3 weeks, and their interaction, on the hazard of time to malaria in a previously studied cohort of children ...

Background Evidence is lacking on whether fat infiltration in the multifidus muscles affects outcomes after total disc replacement (TDR) surgery and if it develops after surgery. The aims of this study were ...

Background People with multiple sclerosis have high risk of osteoporosis and fractures. A poor vitamin D status is a risk factor for MS, and vitamin D supplementation has been recommended both to prevent ...

Background There are several posterior decompression techniques for lumbar spinal stenosis (LSS). There is a trend towards performing less invasive surgical procedures, but no multicentre randomized ...

Background Patients with type 1 diabetes (T1D) are at increased risk of cardiovascular disease (CVD). Measures of high-density lipoprotein (HDL) function provide a better risk estimate for future CVD events ...

Background A common task for scientists relies on comparing lists of genes or genomic regions derived from high-throughput sequencing experiments. While several tools exist to intersect and visualize sets ...

Background Low back pain (LBP) is the most common reported musculoskeletal disorder, with large prevalence numbers and high costs. Focus on early identification of patients at risk of developing chronic LBP ...

Background People with deliberate self-poisoning and personality disorders are in increased risk for suicide. Intention and psychiatric features are important factors in a psychiatric evaluation and for ...

We kindly thank the journal for the opportunity to respond to the recent comments made regarding our manuscript entitled “Acute mountain sickness among tourists visiting the high-altitude city of Lhasa, Tibet, China at ...

Background The growth of tumor cells is accompanied by mutations in nuclear and mitochondrial genomes creating marked genetic heterogeneity. Tumors also contain non-tumor cells of various origins. An observed ...

Background Municipal drinking water contaminated with the parasite Giardia lamblia in Bergen, Norway, in 2004 caused an outbreak of gastrointestinal infection in 2500 people, according to the Norwegian ...

Background Gender differences in short-term mortality in acute myocardial infarction (AMI) have been studied extensively, whereas gender differences in long-term mortality and cause of death largely remain ...

Background Traditionally, drug prescription and follow up have been the sole responsibility of physicians. However, interprofessional medication reviews (IMRs) have been developed to prevent drug discrepancies ...

Background There is a lack of comprehensive patient-datasets regarding prevalence of severe hypertriglyceridemia (sHTG; triglycerides ≥10 mmol/L), frequency of co-morbidities, gene mutations, and gene ...

Background Knowledge translation (KT) is a buzzword in modern medical science. However, there has been little theoretical reflection on translation as a process of meaning production in KT. In this paper, ...

Background Epigenetic information can be used to identify clinically relevant genomic variants single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) of functional importance in cancer development. Super-enhancers are ...

Background For an individual participant data (IPD) meta-analysis, multiple datasets must be transformed in a consistent format, e.g. using uniform variable names. When large numbers of datasets have to be ...

Background Reducing LDL cholesterol (LDL-C) with statin-based therapy reduces the risk of major atherosclerotic events among patients with chronic kidney disease (CKD), with no evidence of an excess risk ...

Background Peri-conceptional use of folic acid supplements is recommended to prevent neural tube defects. Correct supplement use seems to be less common among ethnic minorities. We examined ethnic differences ...

Background Primary infection with Toxoplasma gondii during pregnancy may pose a threat to the fetus. Women infected prior to conception are unlikely to transmit the parasite to the fetus. If maternal serology ...

Background Natural transformation enables acquisition of adaptive traits and drives genome evolution in prokaryotes. Yet, the selective forces responsible for the evolution and maintenance of natural ...

Background New targeted therapies and improved treatment strategies have dramatically improved the outcomes of patients with rheumatoid arthritis (RA). However, it is unknown whether different early aggressive ...

Background The mortality of septicaemia, meningitis and encephalitis caused by Listeria monocytogenes is 20–40%. Twenty-one cases of invasive listeriosis associated with alemtuzumab, including at least 16 ...

Background Though nausea and vomiting is very common during pregnancy, no studies have investigated the impact of this condition on the women’s daily lives in a Scandinavian population. The aim of this study ...

Background Treatment-limiting decisions (TLD) for severe traumatic brain injury (sTBI) have been sparsely studied. This study determine prevalence, main reason for, categories and timing of TLDs in a ...

Background The use of restraints in adolescent psychiatric settings requires particular professional, ethical, and legal considerations. The purpose of this study was to investigate whether the number of ...

Background Treatment services to patients with substance use disorders (SUDs), including those mandated to treatment, needs to be evaluated and evidence based. The Norwegian Municipal Health Care Act (NMHCA) ...

Background Medical certificates influence the distribution of economic benefits in welfare states; however, the qualitative aspects of these texts remain largely unexplored. The present study is the first ...

Background It has been discussed whether the relationship between a patient on sick leave and his/her general practitioner (GP) is too close, as this may hinder the GP’s objective evaluation of need for ...

Background Exercise is an important component of a healthy lifestyle, the development of which is a relapse prevention strategy for those with alcohol use disorder. However, it is a challenge to create ...

In 2000, the Chinese government initiated a campaign to develop Western China and reduce local and regional inequality. Privatisation has been a central component of the campaign. This article studies the relationship ...

Background Outcomes from studies on season of birth bias in eating disorders have been inconsistent. This inconsistency has been explained by differences in methodologies resulting in different types of ...

Background An increasing number of patients are treated with direct-acting oral anticoagulants (DOACs), but the optimal way to reverse the anticoagulant effect is not known. Specific antidotes are not ...

Background Innovations in technology have contributed to rapid changes in the way that modern biomedical research is carried out. Researchers are increasingly required to endorse adaptive and flexible ...

Background Comprehensive and psychometrically tested measures of availability and accessibility of food are needed in order to explore availability and accessibility as determinants and predictors of dietary ...

Background Breast cancer is a heterogeneous disease at the clinical and molecular level. In this study we integrate classifications extracted from five different molecular levels in order to identify ...

Background Polypharmacy and inappropriate drug use is associated with negative health outcomes among older people. Various interventions for improving drug treatment have been evaluated, but the majority ...

Background Several reports have shown that postoperative monitoring of general safety and quality issues, including pain treatment, after discharge from recovery is often non-systematic and inadequate. We ...

Background Strenuous exercise may trigger myocardial infarction through increased pro-coagulant activity. We aimed to investigate whether patients referred for exercise testing, who were found to have ...

Background Colorectal cancer survivors are not only at risk for recurrent disease but also at increased risk of comorbidities such as other cancers, cardiovascular disease, diabetes, hypertension and ...

Background Knowledge on infant feeding among pregnant women is essential when promoting optimal breastfeeding practices. This study aimed to assess the knowledge of women on optimal breastfeeding during ...

Background Persons with dementia have described life in nursing home as difficult and lonely. Persons with dementia often reside in nursing homes for several years; therefore, knowledge is needed about how ...

Background Individuals with bipolar disorder present with moderate impairments in social cognition during the euthymic state. The impairment extends to theory of mind and to the perception of emotion in ...

Background The first Atlantic cod (Gadus morhua) genome assembly published in 2011 was one of the early genome assemblies exclusively based on high-throughput 454 pyrosequencing. Since then, rapid advances ...

Background Air travel may imply a health hazard for patients with cystic fibrosis (CF) due to hypobaric environment in the aircraft cabin. The objective was to identify pre-flight variables, which might ...

Aim To evaluate the patterns of loco-regional recurrences in head and neck cancer patients Methods Twenty-six out of 112 patients treated ...

Background Risk factor control after a coronary event in a recent European multi-centre study was inadequate. Patient selection from academic centres and low participation rate, however, may underscore ...

Background The literature suggests that person-centred care can contribute to quality of life and wellbeing of nursing home residents, relatives and staff. However, there is sparse research evidence on how ...

Background This study examined the outcomes of a vocational rehabilitation program (The Job Management Program, JUMP) for persons with psychotic disorders based on close collaboration between health and ...

Background There is a long-lasting need for non-invasive, more accurate diagnostic techniques when evaluating primary Sjögren’s syndrome (pSS) patients. Incorporation of additional diagnostics involving ...

Background Research has suggested that patient expectations are associated with treatment outcome and evolve along with patient communication within the musculoskeletal field. However, few studies have ...

Current three-dimensional (3D) genome modeling platforms are limited by their inability to account for radial placement of loci in the nucleus. We present Chrom3D, a user-friendly whole-genome 3D computational modeling ...

Background Several tools have been developed to measure safety attitudes of health care providers, out of which the Safety Attitudes Questionnaire (SAQ) is regarded as one of the most appropriate ones. In ...

Background Huntington’s disease (HD) is a rare neurodegenerative disorder with a prevalence of 6 per 100.000. Despite increasing research activity on HD, evidence on healthcare utilization, patients’ needs ...

Background A subgroup of patients continue to report pain with walking 12 months after total knee arthroplasty (TKA). The association between walking pain and self-rated health (SRH) after TKA is not known. ...

Background In high-income countries, the incidence of severe postpartum hemorrhage (PPH) has increased. This has important public health relevance because severe PPH is a leading cause of major maternal ...

Background Gestational diabetes mellitus (GDM) is a significant risk factor for cardiovascular disease (CVD) in later life, but the mechanism remains unclear. Adipokine imbalance in the presence of metabolic ...

Background Fulminant meningococcal sepsis, characterized by overwhelming innate immune activation, mostly affects young people and causes high mortality. This study aimed to investigate the effect of ...

Background Overweight and atopic dermatitis (AD) are major health problems in most industrialised countries, but the relationship between overweight and AD in infants and young children is unclear. We ...

Background Thousands of flowering plant species attract pollinators without offering rewards, but the evolution of this deceit is poorly understood. Rewardless flowers of the orchid Erycina pusilla have an ...

Background Levels of non-neutralising antibodies (AB) to the C5 domain of HIV Env gp120 are inversely related to progression of HIV infection. In this phase I/II clinical study we investigated safety of ...

Background Utilization of diagnostic information from national patient registries rests on the quality of the registered diagnoses. We aimed to investigate the agreement and consistency of diagnoses of ...

Background Triggering receptor expressed on myeloid cells 2 (TREM2) and apolipoprotein E (APOE) are genetically linked to Alzheimer’s disease. Here, we investigated whether human ApoE mediates signal ...

Background The effectiveness of complex interventions, as well as their success in reaching relevant populations, is critically influenced by their implementation in a given context. Current conceptual ...

Background Electronic-health (e-health) provides opportunities for quality improvement of healthcare, but implementation in low and middle income countries is still limited. Our aim was to describe the ...

Background The African wolf, for which we herein recognise Canis lupaster Hemprich and Ehrenberg, 1832 (Symbolae Physicae quae ex Itinere Africam Borealem er Asoam Occidentalem Decas Secunda. Berlin, 1833) ...

Background DNA processing chain A (DprA) is a DNA binding protein which is ubiquitous in bacteria, and is required for DNA transformation to various extents among bacterial species. However, the interaction ...

Background A person’s sense of coherence (SOC) reflects their perception that the world is meaningful and predictable, and impacts their ability to deal with stressors in a health-promoting manner. A valid, ...

Background Patients with inflammatory joint diseases (IJD) have increased risk of cardiovascular disease (CVD). Our aim was to compare CVD risk profiles in patients with IJD, including rheumatoid arthritis ...

Background Patients with personality disorders commonly exhibit impairment in psychosocial function that persists over time even with diagnostic remission. Further causal knowledge may help to identify and ...

Background Cellular angiofibroma is a rare benign mesenchymal neoplasm with morphological and immunohistochemical similarities to spindle cell lipoma. Karyotypic information on cellular angiofibroma is ...

Background Satellite telemetry studies provide information that is critical to the conservation and management of species affected by ecological change. Here we report on the performance and retention of ...

Background Approximately 15% of primary colorectal cancers have DNA mismatch repair deficiency, causing a complex genome with thousands of small mutations—the microsatellite instability (MSI) phenotype. ...

Background Chronic fatigue syndrome (CFS) is a prevalent and disabling condition affecting adolescents. The pathophysiology is poorly understood, but immune alterations might be an important component. ...

Background Focus Cardiac Ultrasound (FoCUS) performed by internal medicine residents on call with 2 h of training can provide a means for ruling out cardiac disease, but with poor sensitivity. The purpose ...

Background This prospective study from end of medical school through internship investigates the course and possible change of self- reported self-efficacy in communication skills compared with observers’ ...

Background Empirical evidence shows that family involvement (FI) can play a pivotal role in the coping and recovery of persons with severe mental illness (SMI). Nevertheless, various studies demonstrate ...

Background People with morbid obesity (body mass index ≥40) may experience changes in their health after participating in a tailored patient education course. The aims of this study were to assess the ...

Background It has been proposed that future reference genomes should be graph structures in order to better represent the sequence diversity present in a species. However, there is currently no standard ...

Background Norway has no prospective surveillance system to monitor the outcome of knee cartilage surgery. In 2004 the Norwegian Registry of Knee Ligament (NKLR) was successfully established, and has yielded ...

Background High-intensity exercise induces many metabolic responses. In is unknown whether the response in the peripheral blood mononuclear cells (PBMCs) reflects the response in skeletal muscle and whether ...

Background A visualization referred to as rainfall plot has recently gained popularity in genome data analysis. The plot is mostly used for illustrating the distribution of somatic cancer mutations along a ...

Background The interpretation of the SF-36 in Norwegian populations largely uses normative data from 1996. This study presents data for the general population from 2002–2003 which has been used for comparative ...

Background To date, mitochondrial genomes of more than one hundred flatworms (Platyhelminthes) have been sequenced. They show a high degree of similarity and a strong taxonomic bias towards parasitic lineages. ...

Background Patient safety culture concerns leader and staff interaction, attitudes, routines, awareness and practices that impinge on the risk of patient-adverse events. Due to their complex multiple diseases, ...

Amyloid-β (Aβ) deposition is one of the hallmarks of the amyloid hypothesis in Alzheimer’s disease (AD). Mouse models using APP-transgene overexpression to generate amyloid plaques have shown to model only certain parts ...

Background Diet has a major influence on the composition of the gut microbiota, whose importance for gut health and overall well-being is increasingly recognized. Knowledge is limited regarding health ...

Background Some previous studies have postulated an association between migraine and excessive daytime sleepiness (EDS). This study evaluated the association of EDS with migraine and headache frequency in ...

Background The use of coercion is morally problematic and requires an ongoing critical reflection. We wondered if not knowing or being uncertain whether coercion is morally right or justified (i.e. experiencing ...

Background The pH of the human gastric mucosa varies around 2.5 so that only bacteria with strong acidic stress tolerance can colonize it. The ulcer causing Helicobacter pylori thrives in the gastric mucosa. ...

Background Few studies have investigated the drug utilization patterns and factors predicting drug use in pregnant women with migraine. This longitudinal drug utilization study aimed to describe patterns ...

Background Comparing sets of sequences is a situation frequently encountered in bioinformatics, examples being comparing an assembly to a reference genome, or two genomes to each other. The purpose of the ...

Background The effective treatment of airway compromise in trauma and non-trauma patients is important. Hypoxia and hypotension are predictors of negative patient outcomes and increased mortality, and may ...

Background Advances in sequencing technologies and bioinformatics have made the analysis of microbial communities almost routine. Nonetheless, the need remains to improve on the techniques used for gathering ...