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AIMS: Although absolute (AID) and functional iron deficiency (FID) are known risk factors for patients with cardiovascular (CV) disease, their relevance for the general population is unknown. The aim was to assess the association between AID/FID with incident CV disease and mortality in the general population. METHODS AND RESULTS: In 12164 individuals from three European population-based cohorts, AID was defined as ferritin&nbsp

Introduction: Diagnostic clinical decision support systems (CDSS) integrate and present processed information to healthcare professionals at the point of care so that they can make an appropriate diagnosis [ref:1], [ref:2], [ref:3], [ref:4]. CDSS have a medical [for full text, please go to the a.m. URL]

Introduction: While the role of the gut microbiome in the pathogenesis of Parkinson’s disease (PD) is under intense investigation, the results presented in the literature are still very heterogeneous. These discrepancies arise not only from the highly heterogeneous pathology of PD, but also [for full text, please go to the a.m. URL]

The present study introduces the assessment of depression and depressive symptoms in the German National Cohort (NAKO), a population-based mega cohort. Distribution of core measures, and associations with sociodemographic factors are examined.The current analysis includes data from the first 101,667 participants (NAKO data freeze 100,000). Depression and depressive symptoms were assessed using a modified version of the depression section of the Mini-International Neuropsychiatric Interview (MINI), self-reported physician's diagnosis of depression, and the depression scale of the Patient Health Questionnaire (PHQ-9).A lifetime physician's diagnosis of depression was reported by 15.0% of participants. Of those, 47.6% reported having received treatment for depression within the last 12 months. Of the subset of 26,342 participants undergoing the full depression section of the modified MINI, 15.9% were classified by the MINI with a lifetime depressive episode. Based on the PHQ-9, 5.8% of the participants were classified as currently having a major or other depression by the diagnostic algorithm, and 7.8% according to the dimensional assessment (score ≥ 10). Increased frequency of depression measures and higher depression scores were observed in women and participants with lower education level or a family history of depression.The observed distributions of all depression measures and their associations with sociodemographic variables are consistent with the literature on depression. The NAKO represents a valuable epidemiologic resource to investigate depression, and the range of measures for lifetime and current depression allows users to select the most suitable instrument for their specific research question.

Acute respiratory infections (ARIs) are the most common childhood illnesses worldwide whereby the reported frequency varies widely, often depending on type of assessment. Symptom diaries are a powerful tool to counteract possible under-reporting, particularly of milder infections, and thus offer the possibility to assess the full burden of ARIs. The following analyses are based on symptom diaries from participants of the German birth cohort study LoewenKIDS. Primary analyses included frequencies of ARIs and specific symptoms. Factors, which might be associated with an increased number of ARIs, were identified using the Poisson regression. A subsample of two hundred eighty-eight participants were included. On average, 13.7 ARIs (SD: 5.2 median: 14.0 IQR: 10-17) were reported in the first two years of life with an average duration of 11 days per episode (SD: 5.8, median: 9.7, IQR: 7-14). The median age for the first ARI episode was 91 days (IQR: 57-128, mean: 107, SD: 84.5). Childcare attendance and having siblings were associated with an increased frequency of ARIs, while exclusive breastfeeding for the first three months was associated with less ARIs, compared to exclusive breastfeeding for a longer period. This study provides detailed insight into the symptom burden of ARIs in German infants.

Background: Sexual contact patterns determine the spread of sexually transmitted infections and are a central input parameter for mathematical models in the field. As they touch a sensitive topic, data on sexual contact patterns are scarce. The main objective of this study is to provide a population-level[for full text, please go to the a.m. URL], 65th Annual Meeting of the German Association for Medical Informatics, Biometry and Epidemiology (GMDS), Meeting of the Central European Network (CEN: German Region, Austro-Swiss Region and Polish Region) of the International Biometric Society (IBS)

Additional file 1: Appendix 1. STARD checklist. Appendix 2. Details of changes to published study protocol. Appendix 3. Routine data used from patient data management system for CDSS assessment of all participants. Appendix 4. Strategy for SIRS episode evaluation with examples. Appendix 5. Flow diagram for recruited patients with intensive care days and patient’s PICU stays. Appendix 6. Submitted forms during routine assessment per shift and per day. Appendix 7. False decisions from the CDSS diagnostic approach, classified into error categories.

Additional file 4. Additional data analyses information. This file provides more data analyses details.

Additional file 2. Consideration of additional contacts. This file illustrates how additional contacts were dealt with in the data management process.

Additional file 1. c statistic for all-cause death within 5 years after study visit (sensitivity analysis).

Additional file 1. COVIMOD questionnaire. This additional file includes the questionnaire.

Additional file 3. Additional results. This file provides results additional to the ones provided in the manuscript.

Introduction: Assessment of public awareness on antibiotic use and resistance can identify key issues for campaigns addressing these problems. Our aim was to assess the knowledge, attitudes, and practice (KAP) related to antibiotic use and multi-drug resistant (MDR) pathogens in a general population in Germany. Methods: We conducted a KAP survey on antibiotics and on MDR pathogens using an online panel recruited from the general population, which was established using stratified random sampling from the population registry in four districts in Lower Saxony, Germany. Results: In the 12 months preceding the survey, 32.3% of the participants had received at least one prescription for antibiotics, 95.7% reported to follow the recommendations of prescribers, and 10.3% reported to stop taking antibiotics as soon as they feel better. Up to 94.9% of the participants had heard of MDR pathogens, 42.7% reported to know somebody who had been tested positive for it, 0.8% had an infection with it, and 37.2% were worried of contracting it. In case of contact with a carrier of MDR pathogens, over 90% would increase hand hygiene and 0.8% would avoid the carrier completely. Participants considered health care workers (75.1%) and everybody in society (87.8%) to be responsible for combating the spread of MDR pathogens. Conclusion: There is a high reported exposure to antibiotics and awareness of the problem of MDR pathogens. Despite personal worries, most of the participants indicated a reasonable, non-stigmatizing behavior toward carriers of MDR pathogens, and that every individual was responsible to avoid their spread.

Differences in 2014’s risk perception between individuals who responded to both surveys and individuals who responded to the first survey only (PDF 209 kb)

Table S1: Overview of all sepsis cases with site of infection and relevant corresponding infectiological data. Table S2: Systematic Overview of the Predictors used in the Analysis. Table S3: Overview of all models in the backward selection procedure. Methods S1: Detailed description and explanation of data analysis approach. Code S1: R code for the main analysis. Figure S1: AUCs of the time-split approach with different mtry parameter. Figure S2: ROC analysis without validation procedure (“Apparent Performance”). (DOCX 81 kb)

Comparison of the study population’s composition with the target population’s (inhabitants of Lower Saxony between 15 and 69 years of age) composition. Data about the target population are taken from the Census 2011 by the Federal Statistical Office of Germany [19]. (PDF 322 kb)