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This paper critically appraised the validity and generalizability of the safety of the Stockholm Birth Center care study to determine if it can be relied on to answer the question,“Is primiparous labor and birth in a birth center as safe for babies as standard medical care?” The retrospective cohort study is summarized, and statistical and methodological aspects are evaluated. Errors that were identified include selection bias and two forms of performance bias, both involving the independent variable. Nondefinition and lack of control of the independent variable and minor statistical errors were also noted. More serious concerns relate to the validity of an intention-to-treat analysis. Some methodological problems reduced validity of the study and ability to generalize the findings to other birth centers. Birth center care is a desirable and established birth option. A more useful approach to improving maternity care provision could involve comparing multiple birth center sites with each other to find best practice so that it can be analyzed and duplicated.(BIRTH 32:2 June 2005) [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper presents a study of hopes and expectations concerning the professional health-care sector, as expressed by a group of Swedish cancer patients. The data are derived from a cross-sectional interview study of patients diagnosed with a malignant disease at one general hospital in Stockholm in 1987. A seeming discrepancy exists between the problematic situations and experiences described in narrative form by the participants, and the high rate or positive responses to direct questions concerned with satisfaction with care in this study. A combination of data types and an analytic process derived from medical anthropology has been utilized in order to understand the culturally related hopes and expectations which arc behind statements of satisfaction with care. Hopes and expectations reflect the perceived breadth and limits of the professional health-care sector. Patients appear to organize their experiences in manners which 'work'. General dissatisfaction with care may not be an effective technique for promoting well-being when diagnosed with a potentially life-threatening disease. The patients in this study actively avoid dissatisfaction in a number of ways, which include assuming responsibility themselves, accepting the unarticulated as a form of discourse and adapting frameworks for that which is 'normal' from the professional sector. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Two major studies on asthma and respiratory symptoms are presently in progress in Stockholm. The FinEsS-studies has been ongoing since 1996, with a follow-up study preformed in 2006 and a new cohort selected in 2007. The FinEsS studies focus on prevalence and incidence of asthma and respiratory symptoms in a general population. Clinical follow-up surveys will also target COPD. Further aims include remission and relapse of disease and symptoms and their determinants. The Stockholm adult Asthma Study (SaAS) began in the spring of 2007 and data is being collected presently. The SaAS study focus on the medical care and medication given to asthmatics in Stockholm, and the study population consists of asthmatics found in the two Swedish cohort studies. Please cite this paper as: Ekerljung L and Lundbäck B. FinEsS-Stockholm and the Stockholm adult asthma study. The Clinical Respiratory Journal 2008; 2: 127–128. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]