Study on the time of retention and related influencing factors of patients receiving methadone maintenance treatment in Hunan province / 中华流行病学杂志

Objective to explore the current situation and related influencing factors on the retention time of patients receiving methadone maintenance treatment (MMT). Methods Information on basic situation and daily treatment of the patients were collected from the 7 MMT clinics opened in the pro-two batch in Hunan province. Retention rate and influencing factors were analyzed. Results (1) The retention rates after 6 and 12 months of MMT became 72.06% and 49.65% respectively. (2) The retention rates of high-dosage group and low-dosage group were 85.03% and 68.03% after 6 months on MMT program while became 60.48% and 46.28% after 12 months of MMT respectively. (3) The mean retention time of HIV+ patients and HIV- patients were 9.46 months and 8.62 months respectively during the 12 months follow-up observation, showing a significant difference. (4) Patients who took large dose methadone, did not share needles, at older age or HIV+ , were prone to keep MMT at a long period. Conclusion The retention rates for 6 months and 12 months in the MMT program in Hunan province were similar to the national data. Dose, type of drug abuse, age and HIV status were related to the period of retention.

Quality of life for drug abusers accepting methadone maintenance treatment / 中南大学学报(医学版)

OBJECTIVE@#To explore the change and influence factors of quality of life QOL for drug abusers who accepted methadone maintenance treatment (MMT).@*METHODS@#The questionnaire of QOL-BRIEF was used to measure the level of QQL when patients just entered the study and 6 months after the treatment respectively. The effect of therapy and characteristic of patients on change of QOL was analyzed.@*RESULTS@#The scores in physiological domain, psychological domain, and the total score obviously increased after the treatment. There was no significant difference in the change of QOL between the patients of different dose groups. The QOLs of males and patients with long-time drug use improved significantly after the treatment.@*CONCLUSION@#MMT can raise the QOL of drug abusers. Gender and time of drug use may be the risk factors of QOL improvement.

Years of potential life of residents among different flood areas in Hunan province / 中南大学学报(医学版)

OBJECTIVE@#To determine the damage of different types of floods on the residents health.@*METHODS@#The methods of standard mortality rate (SMR) and years of potential life lost (YPLL) were used to analyze the death of sample residents from flood areas in Dongting Lake in Hunan province.@*RESULTS@#The order of death causes in the soaked area, the collapsed area and the non-flood area was the same. But the mortality rates of residents injury, poisoning and malignant neoplasm diseases in the soaked area and the collapsed area were higher than those of non-flood area. The resident standard rates of years of potential life lost (SYPLL) in the soaked area and the collapsed area were higher than that of the controls, especially in the age group of 30 to 45. The flood-attributed SYPLL in the male was higher than that of the female.@*CONCLUSION@#Flood actually affected the health of residents. The more serious the flood is, the worse the effect is. It is very important to decrease the resident mortality rate of the injury, poisoning and malignant neoplasm, and to pay attention to protect people of 30 to 45 years old in flood areas.

A study on the health status of residents affected by flood disasters / 中华流行病学杂志

<p><b>OBJECTIVE</b>To study the immediate and long-term effects of disasters caused by floods on residents health status.</p><p><b>METHODS</b>Stratified sampling by ranks of flood disaster occurred in 1996 and 1998, flood disaster areas and control areas were carried out. A retrospective study was also carried out to study all diseases involved during 1996 - 1999.</p><p><b>RESULTS</b>The incident rates of acute infectious disease in flooding areas in 1996 and 1998 were both higher than those of non-flooding areas (863.181/100 000 and 736.591/100 000, respectively). But there was no different between the incident rate of the first years in flooding areas and that of non-flooding areas. The prevalence rates of 8 kinds of chronic diseases related to circulatory system, nervous system, digestive system, injury and poisonous diseases in flooding areas were also higher than that in the non-flooding areas. The highest incidence rates of most diseases were in the mountainous flooding areas, followed by areas collapsed by flooding, and the lowest were seen in soakedareas by floods. The incidence rates of intestinal infectious diseases and respiratory infectious diseases were lower in areas where prevention and control measures were weak.</p><p><b>CONCLUSION</b>Flood could lead to the increase of incidence rates both on acute infectious diseases and non-infectious diseases. Interventions on non-infectious diseases should also be enforced to stop the epidemics when preventing and controlling acute infectious disease.</p>