Faculty Bibliography

Despite vigorous efforts at deinstitutionalization, the state mental hospital continues to be the locus of care for a wide variety of patient populations. The authors examined the changes in one state hospital's clientele between 1972 and 1980 and discovered a 50 percent reduction in long-stay patients, a 27 percent increase in admissions, and the emergence of a new long-stay population. The authors say that the modern state hospital can be conceptualized as several different facilities under a single administrative roof rather than as a monolithic structure. They conclude that mental health planners must acknowledge the continued existence of a group of patients whose needs are perhaps best served by the state hospital. Strategies must be developed to use the existing hospital resources in the most efficient and effective manner

Under either the random patient-effect model with sequence effects or the fixed patient-effect model, the usual two-period, two-treatment crossover design, AB,BA, cannot be used to estimate the contrast between direct treatment effects when unequal carryover effects are present. If baseline observations are available, the design AB,BA can validly be used to estimate a treatment contrast. However, the design AB,BA,AA,BB with baseline observations is more efficient. In fact, we show that this design is optimal whether or not baseline observations are available. For experiments with more than two periods, universally optimal designs are found for both models, with and without carryover effects. It is shown that uncertainty about the presence of carryover effects is of little or no consequence, and the addition of baseline observations is of little or no added value for designs with three or more periods; however, if the experiment is limited to only two periods the investigator pays a heavy penalty

An analysis was made of data from over 4000 postepisiotomy, uterine cramping, and postsurgical patients complaining of moderate or severe pain. They had received 325, 650, or 1300 mg aspirin or placebo while they were subjects in 10 analgesic clinical trials. On the average, for the same verbally expressed pain intensity level and the same treatment, more relief was obtained by a patient with uterine cramping than one with episiotomy pain, who in turn obtained more relief than a patient with surgical pain. A new mathematical model which characterizes the probability that an analgesic provides complete relief as a function of dose, severity of pain intensity, and pain etiology is developed. The model utilizes the data itself to estimate the numerical score corresponding to verbal pain intensities. The results indicate that the numerical score quantifying severe surgical pain is 1.4 times greater than the score for severe episiotomy pain, which in turn is 3.2 times greater than the score for severe uterine cramping. Clinical trials must be designed to take these differences into account. Also, clinicians must be cognizant of such differences when choosing among drugs and dosages for patients with different pain intensity and etiology.

Studies were conducted on postpartum and postoperative patients to estimate the dose-response line of fenoprofen and to contrast it with codeine and placebo. The postpartum patients included women with episiotomy pain and with uterine cramping. This mix allowed contrast of ability of the various pain models to distinguish codeine from placebo. The methodology for the studies was single-dose parallel groups design with interviews conducted by trained nurse observers to obtain subjective responses. More than 850 patients participated in the trial. The results indicate that fenoprofen at doses as low as 12.5 mg has analgesic properties. In each of the five studies, the mean value of 100- and/or 200-mg doses of fenoprofen for the variable sum of the pain intensity difference (SPID) was higher than that of 65 mg codeine. The pooled relative potency calculation based on SPID suggests that 100 mg fenoprofen is approximately equivalent to 60 mg codeine. In their ability to distinguish codeine from placebo, patients with uterine cramp, episiotomy, or surgical pain did not appear to differ.