Reliability of the COOP/WONCA charts. Test-retest completed by patients presenting psychosocial health problems to their general practitioner.

OBJECTIVE: To study the reliability of the COOP/WONCA charts when completed by patients who contacted their general practitioner (GP) with psychosocial health problems. DESIGN: Test-retest study. Three measures: on day 0, day 1 and day 14. Comparisons were made between measures on day 0 and day 1 (1-day test) and measures on day 1 and day 14 (13-day test). Patients reported separately if change in their health had occurred between the measurements. SETTING: General practice, Denmark. MATERIAL: 54 1-day test chart sets and 54 13-day test chart sets. METHOD: Cohen's weighted kappa was used to assess reproducibility. In the group of patients who reported health change in the 13-day test we used clinically significant changes in the individual items to assess the charts' sensitivity to changes. RESULTS: The items "overall health", "feelings", and "social activities" showed high reproducibility for patients without reported health change between the tests, and good sensitivity to reflect the reported changes for patients with change. CONCLUSION: The COOP/WONCA health status measures: "overall health", "feelings", and "social activities" are, combined with "change in health", reliable for assessing primary care patients with psychosocial health problems.

The distribution of cadmium within the human prostate.

Five normal prostates from autopsies of humans aged 61-76 yr were divided into 2 x 24 topographically well-defined pairs of slices that were analyzed for cadmium (Cd) and examined histologically. The corresponding kidney cortex concentrations were also determined. The concentrations in ng Cd/g wet wt were in the range of 50-500 in the prostates and 8,000-39,000 in the kidneys with good mutual correlation. Large variations in Cd concentrations within the prostates were found. The concentrations were highest at the base (near the bladder) and lowest at the apex of the gland. Furthermore, large variations within horizontal layers were found, and this variation was not correlated to the histological amount of stroma or glands.