Maren Karine Olsen

Journal article Health Econ · August 2012 Featured Publication OBJECTIVES: Outpatient visit co-payments have increased in recent years. We estimate the patient response to a price change for specialty care, based on a co-payment increase from $15 to $50 per visit for veterans with hypertension. DESIGN, SETTING, AND PA ... Full text Link to item Cite

Move over LOCF: principled methods for handling missing data in sleep disorder trials.

Journal article Sleep Med · February 2012 Featured Publication Missing data, e.g. patient attrition, are endemic in sleep disorder clinical trials. Common approaches for dealing with this situation include complete-case analysis (CCA) and last observation carried forward (LOCF). Although these methods are simple to im ... Full text Link to item Cite

Enhancing communication between oncologists and patients with a computer-based training program: a randomized trial.

Journal article Ann Intern Med · November 1, 2011 Featured Publication BACKGROUND: Quality cancer care requires addressing patients' emotions, which oncologists infrequently do. Multiday courses can teach oncologists skills to handle emotion; however, such workshops are long and costly. OBJECTIVE: To test whether a brief, com ... Full text Link to item Cite

Measuring blood pressure for decision making and quality reporting: where and how many measures?

Journal article Ann Intern Med · June 21, 2011 Featured Publication BACKGROUND: The optimal setting and number of blood pressure (BP) measurements that should be used for clinical decision making and quality reporting are uncertain. OBJECTIVE: To compare strategies for home or clinic BP measurement and their effect on clas ... Full text Open Access Link to item Cite

Obesity and receipt of clinical preventive services in veterans.

Journal article Obesity (Silver Spring) · September 2010 Featured Publication Although obese individuals utilize health care at higher rates than their normal weight counterparts, they may be less likely to receive certain preventive services. We conducted a retrospective cohort study of veterans with visits to 136 national Veterans ... Full text Link to item Cite

Two self-management interventions to improve hypertension control: a randomized trial.

Journal article Ann Intern Med · November 17, 2009 Featured Publication BACKGROUND: Fewer than 40% of persons with hypertension in the United States have adequate blood pressure (BP) control. OBJECTIVE: To compare 2 self-management interventions for improving BP control among hypertensive patients. DESIGN: A 2 x 2 randomized t ... Full text Link to item Cite

Cognitive behavioral therapy for patients with primary insomnia or insomnia associated predominantly with mixed psychiatric disorders: a randomized clinical trial.

Journal article Sleep · April 2009 Featured Publication OBJECTIVE: This study was conducted to evaluate the efficacy of cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT) against a sleep hygiene education control therapy in patients with primary or comorbid insomnia. DESIGN AND SETTING: Randomized, parallel-group, clinical tri ... Full text Link to item Cite

Strategies for analyzing multilevel cluster-randomized studies with binary outcomes collected at varying intervals of time.

Journal article Stat Med · December 20, 2008 Featured Publication Frequently, studies are conducted in a real clinic setting. When the outcome of interest is collected longitudinally over a specified period of time, this design can lead to unequally spaced intervals and varying numbers of assessments. In our study, these ... Full text Link to item Cite

Variations in coronary procedure utilization depending on body mass index.

Journal article Arch Intern Med · June 27, 2005 Featured Publication BACKGROUND: Increased body mass index (BMI) (calculated as weight in kilograms divided by the square of height in meters) is a risk factor for coronary heart disease and is associated with lower preventive services utilization. The relationship between BMI ... Full text Link to item Cite

Utility of hemoglobin A1c in predicting diabetes risk.

Journal article J Gen Intern Med · December 2004 Featured Publication BACKGROUND: There is controversy surrounding the issue of whether, and how, to screen adults for type 2 diabetes. Our objective was to measure the incidence of new diabetes among outpatients enrolled in a health care system, and to determine whether hemogl ... Full text Link to item Cite

A low-carbohydrate, ketogenic diet versus a low-fat diet to treat obesity and hyperlipidemia: a randomized, controlled trial.

Journal article Ann Intern Med · May 18, 2004 Featured Publication BACKGROUND: Low-carbohydrate diets remain popular despite a paucity of scientific evidence on their effectiveness. OBJECTIVE: To compare the effects of a low-carbohydrate, ketogenic diet program with those of a low-fat, low-cholesterol, reduced-calorie die ... Full text Link to item Cite

Clinical identifiers of complicated Staphylococcus aureus bacteremia.

Journal article Arch Intern Med · September 22, 2003 Featured Publication BACKGROUND: Complications of Staphylococcus aureus bacteremia (SAB) are often difficult to identify. The ability to accurately predict the likelihood of these complications would impact patient management. This investigation sought to define readily availa ... Full text Link to item Cite