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The article reports on a study investigating the physician to patient communication skills examination's results as a predictor of medical care complaints. Medical schools have incorporated clinical skills and patient communication studies into their curricula to address patient dissatisfaction and to decrease the incidence of malpractice claims. A national licensing examination was instituted in Canada and the U.S. to evaluate physicians' ability to communicate with patients. The study explains the correlation with the scores and predicted complaints.

Accurate estimation of the exposure-response relationship between environmental particulate air pollution and mortality is important from both an etiologic and regulatory perspective. However, little is known about the actual shapes of these exposure-response curves. The objective of this studywas to estimate theexposure-response relationshipsbetween mortality and long-term average city-specific levels of sulfates and fine particulate matter (PM 2.5 ). We reanalyzed the data derived from the American Cancer Society (ACS) Cancer Prevention Study II, a large prospective study conducted in the United States between 1982 and 1989. Exposure to particulate air pollution was assessed prior to entry into the cohort. Mean sulfate concentrations for 1980 were available in 151 cities, and median PM 2.5 levels between 1979 and 1983 were available in 50 cities. Two sampling strategies were employed to reduce the computational burden. The modified case-cohort approach combined a random subcohort of 1200 individuals with an additional 1300 cases (i.e., deaths). The second strategy involved pooling the results of separate analyses of 10 disjoint random subsets, each with about 2200 participants. To assess the independent effect of the particulate levels on all-causes mortality, we relied on flexible, nonparametric survival analytical methods. To eliminate potentially restrictive assumptions underlying the conventional models, we employed a flexible regression spline generalization of the Cox proportional-hazards (PH) model. The regression spline method allowed us to model simultaneously the time-dependent changes in the effect of particulate matter on the hazard and a possibly nonlinear exposure-response relationship. The PH and linearity hypotheses were tested using likelihood ratio tests. In all analyses, we stratified by age and 5-yr age groups and adjusted for the subject's age, lifetime smoking exposure, obesity, and education. For both fine particles (PM 2.5 ) and sulfates, there was a statistically significant (at .05 level) departure from the conventional linearity assumption. The adjusted effect of fine particles on mortality indicated a stronger relationship in the lower (up to about 16 μg/m 3 ) than in the higher range of their values. Increasing levels of sulfates in the lower range (up to about 12 μg/m 3 ) had little impact on mortality, suggesting a possible "no-effect threshold." For body mass index (BMI), the risks were lowest in the middle range and increased for both very obese and very lean individuals. It was concluded that flexible modeling yields new insights about the effect of long-term air pollution on mortality. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The authors compared the effectiveness of thiazide diuretic (TD), angiotensin-converting enzyme inhibitor (ACEI), angiotensin receptor blocker (ARB), and calcium channel blocker (CCB) monotherapies for the treatment of nondiabetic hypertension using MarketScan Databases 2010-2014. Multivariable Cox regression models assessed whether the addition of a new antihypertensive drug, treatment discontinuation, or switch and major cardiovascular or cerebrovascular events varied across groups. A total of 565 009 patients started monotherapy with ACEIs (43.6%), CCBs (23.6%), TDs (18.8%), or ARBs (14.0%). Patients who took TDs had a higher risk for either drug addition or discontinuation than patients who took ACEIs (hazard ratio [HR], 0.69 [95% CI, 0.68-0.70] vs HR, 0.81 [95% CI, 0.80-0.81]), ARBs (HR, 0.67 [95% CI, 0.66-0.68] vs HR, 0.66 [95% CI, 0.65-0.67]), and CCBs (HR, 0.85 [95% CI, 0.84-0.87] vs HR, 0.94 [95% CI, 0.93-0.95]). Conversely, patients who took TDs experienced a lower risk of clinical events compared with patients who took ACEIs (HR, 1.24 [95% CI, 1.15-1.33]), ARBs (HR, 1.28 [95% CI, 1.18-1.39]), and CCBs (HR, 1.35 [95% CI, 1.25-1.46]). Our results provide a strong rationale for choosing TDs as first-line monotherapy for the control of hypertension. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Presents a re-analysis of the Harvard Six Cities Study and the American Cancer Society Study of particulate air pollution and mortality in the United States. Role of both studies on the establishment of the first National Ambient Air Quality Standards for fine particulate matter; Objectives of the re-analysis; Validation and replication.

This article provides an overview of the Reanalysis Study of the Harvard Six Cities and the American Cancer Society (ACS) studies of particulate air pollution and mortality. The previous findings of the studies have been subject to debate. In response, a reanalysis team, comprised of Canadian and Amercian researchers, was invited to participate in an independent reanalysis project to address the concerns. Phase I of the reanalysis involved the design of data audits to determine whether each study conformed to the consistency and accuracy of their data. Phase II of the reanalysis involved conducting a series of comprehensive analyses using alternative statistical methods. Alternative models were also used to identify covariates that may confound or modify the association of particulate air pollution as well as identify sensitive population subgroups. The audit demonstrated that the data in the original analyses were of high quality, as were the risk estimates reported by the original investigators. The sensitivity analysis illustrated that the mortality risk estimates reported in both studies were found to be robust against alternative Cox models. Detailed investigation of the covariate effects found a significant modifying effect of education and a relative risk of mortality associated with fine particles and declining education levels. The study team applied spatial analytic methods to the ACS data, resulting in various levels of spatial autocorrelations supporting the reported association for fine particles mortality of the original investigators as well as demonstrating a significant association between sulfur dioxide and mortality. Collectively, our reanalysis suggest that mortality may be attributable to more than one component of the complex mixture of ambient air pollutants for U.S. urban areas. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]