Potential consequences of health anxiety underlines need to treat it, say researchers People who needlessly worry that they have, or will develop, serious illness—popularly referred to as ‘the worried well’—may be boosting their risk of developing heart disease, suggests research published in the online journal BMJ Open. Anxiety is a known risk factor for heart […]
Category: Content
Current system unlikely to pick up surgeons with above average patient death rates
Performance within ‘expected’ range not good enough to detect outliers, say researchers Publishing the patient death rates of individual surgeons in England is unlikely to pick up those whose mortality rates are above average, because the caseload varies so much, concludes the first analysis of its kind published in the online journal BMJ Open. Performance […]
Women catching up with men in alcohol consumption and its associated harms
Trend most evident among young adults, international analysis shows Women are catching up with men in terms of their alcohol consumption and its impact on their health, finds an analysis of the available international evidence, spanning over a century and published in the online journal BMJ Open. The trend, known as ‘sex convergence’, is most evident […]
Most read articles in September: young people’s views on school sex education, gender equity in academic medicine and improving patient safety
September’s most read list sees several new entries as well as some popular non-movers. This month’s top spot still belongs to Ravnskov et al and their systematic review on the associations between low-density-lipoprotein cholesterol and mortality in the elderly. Pound et al come in at number three with a qualitative synthesis of young people’s views and […]
Guest blog: Improving peer review using peer-reviewed studies #PeerRevWk16
This week is the second ever “peer review week”. The theme for this year is “Recognition for Review”. Peer review week aims to highlight the importance of peer review, which is a crucial part of the research process. We asked Dr Adrian Barnett, from the Queensland University of Technology, and a member of our editorial board, to survey […]
School sex education often negative, heterosexist, and out of touch
And taught by poorly trained, embarrassed teachers, say young people School sex education is often negative, heterosexist, and out of touch, and taught by poorly trained, embarrassed teachers, finds a synthesis of the views and experiences of young people in different countries, published in the online journal BMJ Open. Schools’ failure to acknowledge that sex education […]
Volunteering and mental health, breast feeding outcomes and condom use intentions: Most read articles in August
Association of volunteering and mental well-being, breast feeding outcomes and place of birth, and condom use intentions of heterosexual men The August most read list contains papers with a number of different study designs, on a number of different topics. Returning to the top spot this month is a systematic review on the lack of […]
Volunteering in middle age and senior years linked to enhanced mental health
No positive association seen before age of 40, suggesting link varies across life course Volunteering in middle and older age is linked to good mental health/emotional wellbeing, finds a large study of British adults, published in the online journal BMJ Open. But no such association was seen before the age of 40, suggesting that the […]
Third to half of UK population lives with chronic pain
Proportion likely to rise as population ages; major cause of disability and distress Between a third and half (43%) of the UK population—roughly 28 million adults—lives with chronic pain, finds an analysis of the available evidence, published in the online journal BMJ Open. This proportion is likely to rise as the population ages, warn the […]
Drug treatment of hyperactivity in kids may have levelled off in UK
But it lasts much longer than it does in rest of Europe or US The tendency to treat childhood hyperactivity (ADHD) with drugs may have reached a plateau in the UK, following a steep rise in the number of prescriptions for these medicines over the past 20 years, reveals research published in the online journal BMJ […]