ABSTRACT
OBJECTIVE: To assess the benefits of giving parents tape recorded child development centre assessment report summaries. DESIGN: Prospective randomly allocated study. SETTING: Child development centre, Birmingham Children's Hospital. SUBJECTS: Parents of 113 consecutive children attending for multidisciplinary developmental assessment. OUTCOME MEASURES: Recall of information and use of, and views on, the written and tape recorded summaries. RESULTS: Parents who received the tape recording showed no increase in recall of the summary's content six weeks later. Forty three per cent of English speaking parents favoured the tape recorded summary, as did 89% of Urdu/Punjabi speaking parents. CONCLUSIONS: Tape recorded summaries were popular with parents, but other methods are needed to help parents, especially those whose first language is not English, to understand the implications of multidisciplinary assessment of their child.
Subject(s)
Communication , Developmental Disabilities/diagnosis , Ethnicity , Parents , Tape Recording , Child , Fathers , Female , Humans , Male , Mental Recall , Mothers , Pakistan/ethnology , Prospective Studies , ReadingSubject(s)
Child Abuse , Referral and Consultation , Child , Humans , Social Conditions , United KingdomABSTRACT
The platelet transfusion requirements of 70 unselected children with lymphoblastic leukaemia were studied from the time of diagnosis to the achievement of complete remission, or to death if no remission was obtained. Platelets were not transfused unless clinically significant bleeding occurred in association with a platelet count of less than 20.0 x 10(9)/l, and on this basis only 31 transfusions were given to 11 (15%) patients for 17 episodes of apparent or presumed bleeding. No deaths occurred due to haemorrhage, and 67 (95%) patients achieved complete remission. These findings suggest that such children do not need prophylactic platelet transfusions, which are commonly given despite their inherent risks and sequelae.
Subject(s)
Blood Transfusion , Leukemia, Lymphoid/therapy , Plateletpheresis , Child , Child, Preschool , Female , Humans , Infant , Leukemia, Lymphoid/diagnosis , Leukemia, Lymphoid/mortality , Male , Platelet CountABSTRACT
Two children had pain in one arm, followed by weakness and wasting, after an acute exacerbation of bronchial asthma. Similar cases in which a poliomyelitis-like illness was associated with acute asthma have been reported, but the relationship between the two remains conjectural.
