Partners completed measures of marital functioning, depression, hopelessness, empathic caregiving (patient), and caregiver burden (caregiver) before randomization at baseline (T0), post-intervention (T1), and 3-month post-intervention (T2). Data were analyzed using three-way analyses of covariance; main effects were treatment, patient status, and sex. Multilevel modeling was also employed. Results At T1, INT group led to significant improvement in marital functioning (p?=?0.0001) and patients’ experience of caregiver empathic care (p?=?0.02) versus CTL group. Effect sizes for these differences

were in the large range (d?=?1.00). In both groups, patients showed a marginally higher mean score for marital functioning compared with caregivers [INT: BAY 11-7082 order M?=?56.3, standard deviation (SD)?=?4.6 vs M?=?54.3, SD?=?4.5; CTL group: M?=?43.4, SD?=?10.3 vs M?=?42.4, SD?=?6.8, respectively]. At T2, results were maintained. Conclusions The effectiveness of and adherence to the EFT couple intervention for patients facing advanced cancer selleck products were demonstrated in this study. Larger randomized control trials are needed to confirm these findings. Qualitative studies may help to further understand the mechanism by which such an intervention may act. Copyright (c) 2011 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.”
“We examined how preoperative

urodynamic findings are related to the urinary problems following surgical repair of pelvic organ prolapse (POP).

The clinical records of 87 women who underwent surgery for POP were reviewed retrospectively. Preoperatively, cough stress test and urodynamic selleckchem testing, including pressure-flow study, were performed with prolapse reduction. Postoperative evaluation included uroflowmetry, postvoid residuals,

and symptom assessment using questionnaires.

A cough stress test with simple filling was sufficient for diagnosis of occult stress urinary incontinence (SUI). The presence of detrusor overactivity was a good predictor of postoperative persistence of urgency and urge urinary incontinence. Postvoid residuals (PVR) largely increased immediately after surgery, but usually recovered within 1 month. Poor detrusor contractility was the best predictor of large PVR occurrence.

Preoperative urodynamic evaluation of SUI and detrusor function was useful for predicting postoperative urinary conditions in POP patients. Its cost-effectiveness remains to be examined.”
“The remote plasma deposition of hydrogenated amorphous carbon (a-C:H) thin films is investigated by in situ spectroscopic ellipsometry (SE). The dielectric function of the a-C:H film is in this paper parametrized by means of B-splines. In contrast with the commonly used Tauc-Lorentz oscillator, B-splines are a purely mathematical description of the dielectric function.