Table of Contents

September 15, 2009; 151 (6)

Articles

  • Gensichen and colleagues evaluated whether telephone case management facilitated by health care assistants can reduce depression symptoms and improve the process of care for patients with major depression in small primary care practices. Among the 626 adults with depression, those randomly assigned to receive case management reported slightly greater improvements in depression symptoms, better adherence to antidepressant therapies, and more favorable assessments of the quality of their care than did patients randomly assigned to receive usual care.

  • Using cross-sectional data from 2 national ambulatory medical care surveys, Fortuna and coworkers examined ambulatory medical care and provision of preventive care among young adults age 20 to 29 years. They found that young adults have fewer ambulatory care visits than adolescents or adults 30 to 39 years of age. In addition, young adults who are male, black, or Hispanic have fewer visits than other young adults and infrequently receive preventive care.

  • In this economic analysis of observational cohort data from a small group of Mayo Clinic patients with type 2 diabetes, researchers assessed whether the value of changes in health care, defined as the prevention of future mortality and morbidity, exceeded the increase in costs of that management. They found that the economic value of improved outcomes exceeded the dollars spent to achieve those outcomes.

Academia and Clinic

  • Investigators in the HF-ACTION (Heart Failure and a Controlled Trial Investigation Outcomes of Exercise Training) trial created a scoring system to help designate authorship for multiple manuscripts related to the large multicenter trial. The system took into account individual investigators' contributions, roles, and preferences. Contributions were quantified on the basis of numbers of participants enrolled, adherence to study interventions, data completion, and other trial efforts.

Reviews

  • The relative benefits and harms of intensive versus conventional glucose control for type 2 diabetes is controversial. This review of 5 large trials found that, compared with conventional glucose control, intensive glucose control reduced the risk for cardiovascular disease (mostly nonfatal myocardial infarction) but not for cardiovascular death or all-cause mortality, and increased risk for severe hypoglycemia. Early trials suggested a possible decreased risk for death with intensive glucose control, whereas some more recent trials suggested a possible increased risk for death with more stringent glucose control.

  • Retinal vessel caliber may be a novel marker of coronary heart disease (CHD) risk. However, the sex-specific effect, magnitude of association, and effect independent of traditional CHD disease risk factors remain unclear. In this meta-analysis of 21 428 participants from 6 population-based studies, variations in retinal vessel caliber (both wider venules and narrower arterioles) were associated with an increased risk for incident CHD in women but not in men. The risk associated with changes in retinal vessel caliber was higher among women without diabetes or hypertension.

Perspectives

  • Access to palliative sedation, a potential response to end-of-life suffering, is uneven and unpredictable, in part because of confusion about the different kinds of sedation. In their article, Quill and colleagues define 3 forms of palliative sedation and discuss ethical and legal issues related to their utilization.

Editorial

  • In this issue, Gensichen and colleagues found that provision of telephone support by established practice staff to patients with depression improved 12-month depression outcomes. The study demonstrates that office-based support provided by health care assistants can make a difference, and clinicians should consider providing telephone support for their patients with depression.

On Being a Doctor

  • I entered my call room and slipped off my shoes before lying down. I ran through the checklist of things that needed to happen for that woman by morning. Quickly, however, my mind wandered to a rather unexpected person, my grandmother, and an unexpected place, her kitchen…

Letters

Medical Writings: Book Notes

ACP Journal Club