Open Access

Hintergrund: Alkoholassoziierte Morbidität und Mortalität ist ein bedeutender Kostenfaktor im Gesundheitswesen. Daher sind genaue Kenntnisse über den Zusammenhang zwischen Alkoholkonsum und der Inanspruchnahme medizinischer Leistungen von Relevanz für alle Entscheidungsträger im Gesundheitswesen. Studien aus Japan, Kanada, Spanien und den USA zeigen, dass Personen mit riskantem Alkoholkonsum und Personen, die derzeit abstinent leben, seltener medizinische Hilfe in Anspruch nehmen als leichte Alkoholkonsumenten. Ziel dieser Arbeit ist es, diesen beschriebenen U-förmigen oder umgekehrt linearen Zusammenhang in der bundesdeutschen Allgemeinbevölkerung zu bestätigen. Außerdem werden zwei Erklärungsansätze geprüft, welche dem Befund einer höheren Inanspruchnahme medizinischer Leistungen bei abstinent lebenden Personen zugrunde liegen könnten. Methode: Die Daten wurden im Rahmen der Study of Health in Pomerania (SHIP) und des Bundesgesundheitssurvey 1998 (BGS) erhoben und basieren auf Zufallsstichproben der erwachsenen Allgemeinbevölkerung. Die Studienregion der SHIP umfasst die Region Nordost-Vorpommern und erreichte mit N = 4.310 eine Ausschöpfungsquote von 69%. Der BGS umfasste das gesamte Bundesgebiet; N = 7.124 nahmen an der Untersuchung teil (Ausschöpfung 60%). In beiden Querschnittsstudien wurden mittels Fragebögen, computergestützten Interviews und medizinischen Untersuchungen Daten erhoben, welche mit Hilfe multivariabler statistischer Verfahren ausgewertet wurden. Ergebnisse: In der erwachsenen Allgemeinbevölkerung bestand eine höhere Nachfrage medizinischer Leistungen bei abstinent lebenden Personen als bei Konsumenten mit moderatem Alkoholkonsum. Darüber hinaus fand sich ein umgekehrter Zusammenhang zwischen Alkoholkonsum und der Inanspruchnahme medizinischer Leistungen. Zwei Hypothesen für die höhere Inanspruchnahme abstinent lebender Personen wurden untersucht. (1) Ehemalige Risikokonsumenten, die derzeit keinen Alkohol trinken, nahmen mehr ambulante Leistungen wahr als andere Abstinente. (2) Abstinent lebende Personen und Alkoholkonsumenten unterschieden sich hinsichtlich sozialer, lebensstil- und gesundheitsbezogener Risikofaktoren, welche mit einem schlechteren Gesundheitszustand und höherer Inanspruchnahme in Verbindung stehen. Die Berücksichtigung dieser Merkmale als konfundierende Variablen im statistischen Modell verdeutlichte, dass insbesondere alkoholassoziierte Erkrankungen, welche bei Abstinenten häufiger auftraten, für den Befund einer höheren Inanspruchnahme abstinenter Personen verantwortlich sind. Diskussion: Angesichts der vorliegenden Ergebnisse muss davon ausgegangen werden, dass die in internationalen Studien gefundene höhere Inanspruchnahme medizinischer Leistungen auf unberücksichtigte konfundierende Variablen sowie auf eine Fehlklassifikation der ehemaligen Risikokonsumenten zurückzuführen ist. Dieser Befund ist auch für die wissenschaftliche Evidenz zum protektiven Effekte des moderaten Alkoholkonsum von Relevanz, weil in den meisten Studien Konfundierung und Fehlklassifikation bei der Datenanalyse nicht ausreichen Berücksichtigung gefunden haben.

Background: A telemedicine care concept based on telephone contacts and individualized text messages was developed for patients with mental disorders to continue treatment after therapy in a psychiatric day hospital. The primary objective of this study was to evaluate the effectiveness of the telemedicine interventions. Methods: The study had a 3-armed, randomized design with 2 intervention arms (intervention 1: telephone contacts; intervention 2: telephone contacts and short text messages; both took place over a period of 6 months and in addition to usual care), and a control group with usual care. Primary outcomes were 18-item Brief Symptom Inventory (BSI-18) scores for anxiety, depression and somatization. All participants were recruited from psychiatric day hospitals. The study was registered in the German Clinical Trials Register (DRKS00000662). Results: 113 participants were analyzed 6 months after starting the intervention. The average BSI-18 anxiety score after 6 months was -2.04 points lower in intervention group 2 than in the control group (p value: 0.042). The difference in BSI depression score between these two groups was marginally significant (p value: 0.1), with an average treatment effect of -1.73. In an exploratory sensitivity analysis restricted to the 75% of patients with the highest symptom scores at baseline, intervention group 1 yielded a significant effect for anxiety and depression compared to the control group (p = 0.036 and 0.046, respectively). Conclusions: Telemedicine provides a novel option in psychiatric ambulatory care with statistically significant effects on anxiety. A positive tendency was observed for depression, especially in cases with higher symptom load at baseline.

ObjectiveWhole-body MRI (wb-MRI) is increasingly used in research and screening but little is known about the effects of incidental findings (IFs) on health service utilisation and costs. Such effects are particularly critical in an observational study. Our principal research question was therefore how participation in a wb-MRI examination with its resemblance to a population-based health screening is associated with outpatient service costs.DesignProspective cohort study.SettingGeneral population Mecklenburg-Vorpommern, Germany.ParticipantsAnalyses included 5019 participants of the Study of Health in Pomerania with statutory health insurance data. 2969 took part in a wb-MRI examination in addition to a clinical examination programme that was administered to all participants. MRI non-participants served as a quasi-experimental control group with propensity score weighting to account for baseline differences.Primary and secondary outcome measuresOutpatient costs (total healthcare usage, primary care, specialist care, laboratory tests, imaging) during 24 months after the examination were retrieved from claims data. Two-part models were used to compute treatment effects.ResultsIn total, 1366 potentially relevant IFs were disclosed to 948 MRI participants (32% of all participants); most concerned masses and lesions (769 participants, 81%). Costs for outpatient care during the 2-year observation period amounted to an average of €2547 (95% CI 2424 to 2671) for MRI non-participants and to €2839 (95% CI 2741 to 2936) for MRI participants, indicating an increase of €295 (95% CI 134 to 456) per participant which corresponds to 11.6% (95% CI 5.2% to 17.9%). The cost increase was sustained rather than being a short-term spike. Imaging and specialist care related costs were the main contributors to the increase in costs.ConclusionsCommunicated findings from population-based wb-MRI substantially impacted health service utilisation and costs. This introduced bias into the natural course of healthcare utilisation and should be taken care for in any longitudinal analyses.

Background Observational and in-vivo research suggested a bidirectional relationship between depression and periodontitis. We estimated the genetic correlation and examined directionality of causation. Methods The study used summary statistics from published genome wide association studies, with sample sizes ranging from 45,563 to 797,563 individuals of European ancestry. We performed linkage disequilibrium score regression (LDSC) to estimate global correlation and used Heritability Estimation from Summary Statistics (ρ-HESS) to further examine local genetic correlation. Latent Heritable Confounder Mendelian randomization (LHC-MR), Causal Analysis using Summary Effect estimates (CAUSE), and conventional MR approaches assessed bidirectional causation. Results LDSC observed only weak genetic correlation (rg = 0.06, P-Value = 0.619) between depression and periodontitis. Analysis of local genetic correlation using ρ-HESS did not reveal loci of significant local genetic covariance. LHC-MR, CAUSE and conventional MR models provided no support for bidirectional causation between depression and periodontitis, with odds ratios ranging from 1.00 to 1.06 in either direction. Conclusions Results do not support shared heritability or a causal connection between depression and periodontitis.

Abstract Aim Observational research suggests that periodontitis affects psoriasis. However, observational studies are prone to reverse causation and confounding, which hampers drawing causal conclusions and the effect direction. We applied the Mendelian randomization (MR) method to comprehensively assess the potential bi‐directional association between periodontitis and psoriasis. Materials and Methods We used genetic instruments from the largest available genome‐wide association study of European descent for periodontitis (17,353 cases, 28,210 controls) to investigate the relationship with psoriasis (13,229 cases, 21,543 controls), and vice versa. Causal Analysis Using Summary Effect (CAUSE) estimates and inverse variance‐weighted (IVW) MR analyses were used for the primary analysis. Robust MR approaches were used for sensitivity analyses. Results Both univariable methods, CAUSE and IVW MR analyses, did not reveal any impact of periodontitis on psoriasis (CAUSE odds ratio [OR] = 1.00, p = 1.00; IVW OR = 1.02, p = .6247), or vice versa (CAUSE OR = 1.01, p = .5135; IVW OR = 1.00, p = .7070). The null association was corroborated by pleiotropy‐robust methods with ORs close to 1 and p‐values >.59. Overall, MR analyses did not suggest any effect of periodontitis on psoriasis. Similarly, there was no evidence to support an effect of psoriasis on periodontitis. Conclusions Within the limitations of this MR study, the outcomes supported neither periodontitis affecting psoriasis nor psoriasis affecting periodontitis.