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The main aim of this study was to analyze the psychometric properties of the Children's Surgical Worries Questionnaire developed by Quiles, Mendez, and Hidalgo (1999). We applied the questionnaire to a representative sample of 1,311 Spanish-speaking, elementary school students. The exploratory factor analysis isolated only 1 factor-corroborated by the confirmatory factor analysis-Children Surgical Worries, which included 17 items and accounted for the 22.13% of the variance. Internal consistency (.83) and test-retest reliability with a 7- to 10-day interval (.90) were satisfactory. Surgical worries correlated positively with medical fears (.60). The most worrisome situations for children were those related to the negative repercussions of surgery, pain, and separation from parents. Girls (p = .000) and children who had never had an operation (p = .005) presented a higher degree of surgical worries. No statistically significant differences were found regarding age nor the interaction of gender, age, and surgical experience variables. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Anaerobic bacteremia (116 cases) represented 5.4% of the total cases of bacteremia in the Hospital Nuestra Señora de Covadonga of Oviedo, Spain, during a five-year period (1981-1985). Microbiologic data for all 116 cases and clinical data for 63 patients were analyzed. A total of 129 isolates were identified as gram-negative bacilli (45.7%), gram-positive bacilli (38.0%), gram-positive cocci (14.0%), and gram-negative cocci (2.3%). Bacteroides fragilis and Clostridium perfringens were the most frequently occurring species. Anaerobic polymicrobial infection was detected in 21 patients. The most relevant clinical features were fever (79%), metastatic abscesses (33%), anemia (27%), septic shock (25%), and disseminated intravascular coagulation (6%). The overall mortality rate was 25.4%, and the factors associated with a poor prognosis were age over 60 years, lack of adequate surgical treatment, severe underlying disease, metastatic foci, and polymicrobial and/or nosocomial infection.

During a 1-year period resistance to macrolides and lincosamides among staphylococci in a general hospital was studied. The macrolide-lincosamide resistance phenotype was found in 36.7% of coagulase-negative and in 3.7% of coagulase-positive species. Isolates showing this phenotype were more abundant from indwelling artificial devices, blood, respiratory tract and sterile fluids. The surgery and intensive care units of the hospital provided the highest proportion of such strains. Methicillin resistance was present in 13.9% of the staphylococci but no relationship between methicillin and macrolide-lincosamide resistance was observed.

We conducted a surveillance program on epidemic and/or endemic Shigella strains in Asturias (Spain), their frequency and dispersion in our community, and their R-plasmids. We analyzed initial isolates of Shigella sonnei from two epidemic outbreaks using antibiotic resistance patterns and plasmid profile analysis as epidemiological markers. We found that the 2 outbreaks were caused by different S. sonnei strains, which respectively carried one and two R-plasmids together with other plasmids. The molecular relationship among these and three other R-plasmids from two S. sonnei strains isolated during a previous outbreak, were studied by restriction enzyme analysis and DNA-DNA hybridizations. We were able to establish different levels of relationship among the six R-plasmids.