Are patient falls in the hospital associated with lunar cycles? A retrospective observational study

BMC Nursing 2005, 4:5
doi:10.1186/1472-6955-4-5

Schwendimann R, Joos F, De Geest S, Milisen K.

Institute of Nursing Science, University of Basel, Bernoullistrasse 28, 4056 Basel, Switzerland.

BACKGROUND:

Falls and associated negative outcomes in hospitalized patients are of significant concerns. The etiology of hospital inpatient falls is multifactorial, including both intrinsic and extrinsic factors. Anecdotes from clinical practice exist in which health care professionals express the idea that the number of patient falls increases during times of full moon. The aim of this study was to examine in-hospital patient fall rates and their associations with days of the week, months, seasons and lunar cycles.

METHODS:

3,842 fall incident reports of adult in-patients who fell while hospitalized in a 300-bed urban public hospital in Zurich, Switzerland were included. Adjusted fall rates per 1'000 patient days were compared with days of the week, months, and 62 complete lunar cycles from 1999 to 2003.

RESULTS:

The fall rate per 1000 patient days fluctuated slightly over the entire observation time, ranging from 8.4 falls to 9.7 falls per month (P = 0.757), and from 8.3 falls on Mondays to 9.3 falls on Saturdays (P = 0.587). The fall rate per 1000 patient days within the lunar days ranged from 7.2 falls on lunar day 17 to 10.6 falls on lunar day 20 (P = 0.575).

CONCLUSION:

The inpatient fall rates in this hospital were neither associated with days of the week, months, or seasons nor with lunar cycles such as full moon or new moon. Preventive strategies should be focused on patients' modifiable fall risk factors and the provision of organizational conditions which support a safe hospital environment.

http://www.biomedcentral.com/1472-6955/4/5

Homosexual sex as harmful as drug abuse, prostitution, or smoking

Psychological Reports
Volume 96 Issue 3 Pt 2 pp. 915-961 2005 Jun

Paul Cameron, Thomas Landess, Kirk Cameron

Family Research Institute, P.O. Box 62640, Colorado Springs, CO 80962, USA

In 2003, the U.S. Supreme Court said same-sex sexual activity could not be prohibited by law. Analyzing data from the 1996 National Household Survey of Drug Abuse (N= 12,381) and comparing those who engaged in four recreational activities-homosexual sex, illegal drug use, participation in prostitution, and smoking --against those who abstained, participants (1) were more frequently disruptive (e.g., more frequently criminal, drove under the influence of drugs or alcohol, used illegal drugs, took sexual risks), (2) were less frequently productive (e.g., less frequently had children in marriage, more frequently missed work), and (3) generated excessive costs (e.g., more promiscuous, higher consumers of medical services). Major sexuality surveys have reported similar findings for homosexuals. Societal discrimination inadequately accounts for these differences since parallel comparisons of black and white subsamples produced a pattern unlike the differences found between homosexuals and nonhomosexuals.

http://www.amsciepub.com/doi/abs/10.2466/pr0.96.3c.915-961?journalCode=pr0

Family Research Institute is a non-profit scientific and educational corporation that believes the strength of our society depends on preserving America's historic moral framework and the traditional family. FRI is working to produce sound, scientific data on pressing social issues — especially homosexuality — in an effort to promote traditional policies. We welcome all who would join in the fight to restore a world where marriage is upheld and honored, where children are nurtured and protected, and where homosexuality is not taught and accepted, but instead is discouraged and rejected at every level.

www.familyresearchinst.org/about/

Monkeys Pay Per View: Adaptive Valuation of Social Images by Rhesus Macaques

Current Biology
Volume 15, Issue 6, 29 March 2005, Pages 543–548

Robert O. Deaner [1], Amit V. Khera [1], Michael L. Platt [1,2,3]

[1] Department of Neurobiology, Duke University Medical Center, Durham, North Carolina 27710
[2] Center for Cognitive Neuroscience, Duke University Medical Center, Durham, North Carolina 27710
[3] Department of Biological Anthropology and Anatomy, Duke University Medical Center, Durham, North Carolina 27710

Summary

Individuals value information that improves decision making. When social interactions complicate the decision process, acquiring information about others should be particularly valuable. In primate societies, kinship, dominance, and reproductive status regulate social interactions and should therefore systematically influence the value of social information, but this has never been demonstrated. Here, we show that monkeys differentially value the opportunity to acquire visual information about particular classes of social images. Male rhesus macaques sacrificed fluid for the opportunity to view female perinea and the faces of high-status monkeys but required fluid overpayment to view the faces of low-status monkeys. Social value was highly consistent across subjects, independent of particular images displayed, and only partially predictive of how long subjects chose to view each image. These data demonstrate that visual orienting decisions reflect the specific social content of visual information and provide the first experimental evidence that monkeys spontaneously discriminate images of others based on social status.

http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S096098220500093X

The Role of Auditory Cues in Modulating the Perceived Crispness and Staleness of Potato Chips

Journal of Sensory Studies
Volume 19, Issue 5, pages 347–363, October 2004

Massimiliano Zampini and Charles Spence

Department of Experimental Psychology
University of Oxford
South Parks Road
Oxford, OX1 3UD
UK

ABSTRACT

We investigated whether the perception of the crispness and staleness of potato chips can be affected by modifying the sounds produced during the biting action. Participants in our study bit into potato chips with their front teeth while rating either their crispness or freshness using a computer-based visual analog scale. The results demonstrate that the perception of both the crispness and staleness was systematically altered by varying the loudness and/or frequency composition of the auditory feedback elicited during the biting action. The potato chips were perceived as being both crisper and fresher when either the overall sound level was increased, or when just the high frequency sounds (in the range of 2 kHz−20 kHz) were selectively amplified. These results highlight the significant role that auditory cues can play in modulating the perception and evaluation of foodstuffs (despite the fact that consumers are often unaware of the influence of such auditory cues). The paradigm reported here also provides a novel empiric methodology for assessing such multisensory contributions to food perception.

http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1745-459x.2004.080403.x/abstract