[Anxiety and depression in the elderly: results of a regional examination]. / Angst und Depression bei Älteren - Ergebnisse einer regionalen Untersuchung.

AIM: The aim of this study was to determine the point prevalence of anxiety, depression and a mixed form of anxiety and depression in people older than 54 years. METHOD: A cross-section study by postal questioning using HADS-D was carried out. RESULTS: In total, 24.8% of the examined population group reported about having anxiety, depression or a mixed form of both - depression: 12.7% (men: 5.1%, women: 7.6%), anxiety: 4% (men: 1.5%, women: 2.5%), mixed form: 8.1% (men: 2.5%, women: 5.5%). There was no significant statistical difference between men and women in severity of the examined psychological disorders. However, the mean scores in men as well as in women were higher with multiple psychological stress factors than with single psychological stress. Women were significantly more affected by the mixed form than men (χ (2)=5.2; p=0.02). There were positive correlations between age and seriousness of depression in the mixed form in women (r=0.62; p=0.001). CONCLUSION: In comparison, depression in older people develops 3 times and anxiety 2 times more often than in the general population; the sex ratio (men:women) in the general population is 1:2 for depression and anxiety; in the present study the ratio is almost 2:3.

[Treatment of GP's telephone requests for admission. Assessment of departments for 4 medical specialties]. / Programmation d'une hospitalisation sur appel d'un médecin généraliste.

OBJECTIVES: To assess the capacity of 4 types of medical departments in the Paris hospital network (AP-HP) to plan hospitalization following a telephoned request from a GP (who do not have hospital admitting privileges). METHOD: Four simulated cases were designed to present a specific problem, requiring prompt but not urgent admission into a department of internal medicine, rheumatology, gastroenterology and neurology. The experiment took place from January 17 through 12 February 2002, during standard office hours: an investigator posing as a locum tenens covering for a general practitioner called the hospital switchboard, requested the department, asked to speak to someone able to arrange the admission, and provided details of the simulated case. When a single hospital had several departments of the same specialty, we made only one telephone call. The details recorded in each case were principally the time elapsed for each stage and the final result. RESULTS: We contacted 55 medical departments: 19 of the 20 internal medicine departments in the network, all 9 rheumatology, all 19 gastroenterology, and 8 of 13 neurology departments. The mean time spent on the phone was 5.04 min (range 1.40-10.14, SD 2.20). Justification for the referral was never questioned. Twenty-two (40%) referrals succeeded: 10/19 (53%) in internal medicine, 4/9 (44%) in rheumatology, 6/19 (32%) in gastroenterology, and 2/8 (25%) in neurology. Admission could not be arranged in 33 (60%) cases because: no one able to arrange the admission was available for 17 cases (31%) (the person was in a meeting 9 times and could not be found 8); no bed was available in 13 (24%). Alternatives solutions were proposed in 10 of these 13 cases: call the emergency unit (6/13), or call another hospital (3/13). CONCLUSION: Only hospital reorganization and regular assessments can improve the procedure for handling GP referrals for admission.

Enumeration of probiotic bacilli spores in animal feed: interlaboratory study.

Fourteen out of 17 laboratories completed an interlaboratory study comparing 2 pretreatment protocols of feed samples containing authorized probiotic bacilli spores. Both methods used tryptone soy agar for enumeration. Pretreatment A involved preparation of a suspension of the feed sample in 50% ethanol. For pretreatment B, the sample was suspended in peptone salt solution and heated at 80 degrees C for 10 min. Each laboratory analyzed 12 samples (6 per pretreatment), which represented duplicates of a high (10(9) colony-forming units [CFU]/g) and low (10(5) CFU/g) level of bacilli spores or a blank that contained vegetative probiotic bacteria only. For pretreatment A, the repeatability relative standard deviation (RSD(r)) was 2.9% for the low level and 2.5% for the high. The reproducibility relative standard deviation (RSDR) values were 7.8 and 5.9%, respectively. Pretreatment B revealed RSD(r) values of 1.1 and 1.0%, and RSDR values of 5.8 and 3.4%, respectively. The heat treatment (pretreatment B) of feed samples had better precision data, resulted in higher viable bacilli counts, and was more effective in deactivating vegetative background flora. It is therefore recommended for adoption for official control purposes and for CEN and ISO standards.

Microbiological assay of avoparcin in animal feeds and pre-mixes--co-operative study.

A microbiological method for the determination of the antibiotic growth promoter avoparcin in animal feeds and pre-mixes was first published in 1979. The existing method has been applied to new matrices as commercial use of avoparcin has spread. Problems with the existing analytical procedure have been reported, particularly in Germany. This paper identifies the causes of the problems and includes revisions to the existing analytical procedure. The testing of these revisions in co-operative studies with up to five German official laboratories is also reported.

[Conditions for the formation of mycotoxins in animal feed]. / Bedingungen für die Bildung von Mykotoxinen in Futtermitteln.

The development of moulds and the production of mycotoxins are closely related, but the optima of environmental factors for both do not necessarily coincide. Depending on the species, the percentage of toxinogenic strains differs considerably. Complex substrates, with a high content of carbohydrates, are favoured. Over a wide range of temperature toxin-production is possible, also at a very low partial pressure of oxygen. Too few is known about the factors, which promote toxin-production in the field. There seems to be a dependence on the area, where the grain is grown, and on the weather during the year of cropping, but the influence of methods of plant production, fertilization, plant protection and choice of cultivars have to be investigated.