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Antiviral Agents for the Treatment and Chemoprophylaxis of Influenza --- Recommendations of the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices (ACIP).

This report updates previous recommendations by CDC's Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices (ACIP) regarding the use of antiviral agents for the prevention and treatment of influenza (CDC. Prevention and control of influenza: recommendations of the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices [ACIP]. MMWR 2008;57[No. RR-7]).

This report contains information on treatment and chemoprophylaxis of influenza virus infection and provides a summary of the effectiveness and safety of antiviral treatment medications. Highlights include recommendations for use of 1) early antiviral treatment of suspected or confirmed influenza among persons with severe influenza (e.g., those who have severe, complicated, or progressive illness or who require hospitalization); 2) early antiviral treatment of suspected or confirmed influenza among persons at higher risk for influenza complications; and 3) either oseltamivir or zanamivir for persons with influenza caused by 2009 H1N1 virus, influenza A (H3N2) virus, or influenza B virus or when the influenza virus type or influenza A virus subtype is unknown; 4) antiviral medications among children aged <1 year; 5) local influenza testing and influenza surveillance data, when available, to help guide treatment decisions; and 6) consideration of antiviral treatment for outpatients with confirmed or suspected influenza who do not have known risk factors for severe illness, if treatment can be initiated within 48 hours of illness onset. Additional information is available from CDC's influenza website at http://www.cdc.gov/flu, including any updates or supplements to these recommendations that might be required during the 2010-11 influenza season. Health-care providers should be alert to announcements of recommendation updates and should check the CDC influenza website periodically for additional information.

Recommendations related to the use of vaccines for the prevention of influenza during the 2010-11 influenza season have been published previously (CDC. Prevention and control of influenza with vaccines: recommendations of the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices [ACIP], 2010. MMWR 2010;59[No. RR-8]).

The effectiveness of strategies to change organisational culture to improve healthcare performance.

Organisational culture is an anthropological metaphor used to inform research and consultancy and to explain organisational environments. Great emphasis has been placed during the last years on the need to change organisational culture in order to pursue effective improvement of healthcare performance.

However, the precise nature of organisational culture in healthcare policy often remains underspecified and the desirability and feasibility of strategies to be adopted has been called into question.

Self-reported prevalence of hypersensitivity reactions against drugs among medical students: does awareness cause any difference?

True epidemiologic data on hypersensitivity reactions to drugs are scarce. More accurate data may be obtained in more specific clinical settings. Considering their educational background, medical students may be an appropriate target audience for evaluating prevalence of drug hypersensitivity.

This study is designed to determine the prevalence of self-reported drug hypersensitivity alongside related factors among young adults.

Cough Hypersensitivity Syndrome: A Distinct Clinical Entity.

We postulate that most patients with chronic cough have a single discrete clinical entity: Cough Hypersensitivity Syndrome. We constructed a questionnaire that elicits the major components of the syndrome.

Here we describe the validation of this questionnaire. Following iterative development, the Hull Airway Reflux Questionnaire (HARQ) was administered to patients and normal volunteers. It is self-administered and comprises 14 items with a maximum score of 70. Unselected patients were recruited sequentially from the Hull Cough Clinic. Preclinic questionnaires were compared with those obtained at the clinic. Responsiveness was assessed 2 months after the clinic visit. One hundred eighty-five patients and 70 normal volunteers were included in this study. There was a marked difference in HARQ scores between patients with chronic cough and normal volunteers.

The sensitivity (94%) and specificity (95%) of the HARQ was high, with an area under the ROC curve of 0.99. All items of the scale significantly correlated positively with others in the scale and with the total score. On repeatability testing using Cohen's kappa with quadratic weights, significant agreement was noted for all items. Good correlation was observed between the total scores (r = 0.78). The questionnaire was also responsive to treatment; the minimum clinically significant change was estimated to be 16 points. We have demonstrated the HARQ to have good construct and criterion validity. It is both reproducible and responsive to change.

It can be used as a diagnostic instrument and demonstrates that chronic cough represents a single coherent entity: Cough Hypersensitivity Syndrome.

Grading quality of evidence and strength of recommendations in clinical practice guidelinesPart 3 of 3. The GRADE approach to developingrecommendations.

This is the third and last article in the series about the Grading of Recommendations Assessment, Development and Evaluation (GRADE) approach to grading the quality of evidence and the strength of recommendations in clinical practice guidelines and its application in the field of allergy.

We describe the factors that influence the strength of recommendations about the use of diagnostic, preventive and therapeutic interventions: the balance of desirable and undesirable consequences, the quality of a body of evidence related to a decision, patients' values and preferences, and considerations of resource use. We provide examples from two recently developed guidelines in the field of allergy that applied the GRADE approach. The main advantages of this approach are the focus on patient important outcomes, explicit consideration of patients' values and preferences, the systematic approach to collecting the evidence, the clear separation of the concepts of quality of evidence and strength of recommendations, and transparent reporting of the decision process.

The focus on transparency facilitates understanding and implementation and should empower patients, clinicians and other health care professionals to make informed choices.

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