Rae Spiwak

University of Manitoba | UMN · Department of Surgery

Introduction: While effective vaccines and natural immunity have significantly reduced hospitalizations and the need for critical care, SARS-CoV-2 is now endemic and is expected to continue to pose a threat to health. New variants are expected to continue to emerge, and vaccines may become less effective. Effective and affordable therapeutics for S...

Background Alcohol use is a contributing factor in many cases of traumatic injury. There is conflicting evidence on the impact of alcohol use at the time of physical trauma on severity of injury and hospital course. Similarly, the significance of alcohol use disorder on outcomes in hospitalized trauma patients is unclear. This scoping review aims t...

Background Alcohol use is a contributing factor in many cases of traumatic injury. There is conflicting evidence on the impact of alcohol use at the time of physical trauma on severity of injury and hospital course. Similarly, the significance of alcohol use disorder on outcomes in hospitalized trauma patients is unclear. This scoping review aims t...

Introduction Traumatic physical injuries are the number one cause of hospitalization and death among children in Canada. The majority of these injuries are preventable. The burden from injury can be reduced through prevention programs tailored to at-risk groups, however, existing research does not provide a strong explanation of how social factors...

Introduction Limited research examines alcohol-related injury in the context of social determinants of health (SDoH) to guide effective intervention and prevention programmes. SDoH are non-medical factors that impact health such as income, housing and childhood environment. This scoping review aims to explore the role SDoH in childhood have in alco...

Background: The coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic and associated public health measures have shifted the way people access health care. We aimed to study the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic on psychotropic medication adherence. Methods: A retrospective cohort study using administrative data from the Manitoba Centre for Health Policy...

Background: The coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic and public health measures that took place have led to concerns regarding mental health and receipt of psychotropic medications. We aimed to study the changes in psychotropic medication dispensation rates before and during the COVID-19 pandemic in the general population. Methods: Administ...

Burn injuries have a tremendous impact on not only the physical health of the burn survivor, but also mental health and social outcomes of the individual and their support systems. While much effect occurs at the point of injury, post-injury pain, infection, scarring, inflammatory response and metabolic changes all impact the long-term health of th...

Background: The COVID-19 pandemic has had adverse impacts on mental health and substance use worldwide. Systematic reviews suggest eHealth interventions can be effective at addressing these problems. However, strong positive eHealth outcomes are often tied to the intensity of web-based therapist guidance, which has time and cost implications that c...

BACKGROUND The COVID-19 pandemic has had adverse impacts on mental health and substance use worldwide. Systematic reviews suggest eHealth interventions can be effective at addressing these problems. However, strong positive eHealth outcomes are often tied to the intensity of web-based therapist guidance, which has time and cost implications that ca...

Background: COVID-19 has resulted in an increased demand for eHealth services globally. There is emerging evidence for the efficacy for group eHealth interventions that support population-based mental health and wellbeing, but a systematic review is lacking. The primary objective of this systematic review is to summarize the evidence for eHealth gr...

Background This study compares a longitudinal population-based sample of spouses bereaved by suicide and those bereaved by other sudden deaths to determine if suicide-bereaved spouses (SBS) experience greater rates of physician-diagnosed mental disorders. Methods: First, married individuals whose spouse died by suicide, sudden natural death (SND) a...

Background: COVID-19 has resulted in an increased demand for mental health services globally. There is emerging evidence for the efficacy for group eHealth interventions that support population-based mental health and wellbeing, but a systematic review is lacking. The primary objective of this systematic review is to summarize the evidence for eHea...

Background: COVID-19 has resulted in an increased demand for eHealth services globally. There is emerging evidence for the efficacy for group eHealth interventions that support population-based mental health and wellbeing, but a systematic review is lacking. The primary objective of this systematic review is to summarize the evidence for eHealth gr...

Background: COVID-19 has resulted in an increased demand for eHealth services globally. There is emerging evidence for the efficacy for group eHealth interventions that support population-based mental health and wellbeing, but a systematic review is lacking. The primary objective of this systematic review is to summarize the evidence for eHealth gr...

Background: Canadian medical student and residents' severity ratings of professionalism vignettes were examined to identify the differences in ratings by the level of training and by sex. Methods: Eight hundred and thirty-five medical learners (400 medical students and 435 residents) were invited to participate in an online survey measuring medi...

Chaque année, dans le monde, entre 48 et 50 millions de personnes se retrouvent endeuillées à la suite d’un suicide. Au Canada seulement, ce sont 4 000 individus qui se suicident chaque année, laissant derrière eux un grand nombre de personnes qui doivent faire face au caractère traumatisant et complexe du suicide. Dans un contexte qui avait déjà v...

In this issue of JAMA Pediatrics, Yu et al⁷ use a population-based cohort study from national registers in Denmark (1973-2009) and Sweden (1973-2008) to study the mortality risk among 55 818 individuals who had a sibling die during childhood. All-cause mortality, cause-specific mortality, and mortality by type of death were the main study outcomes....

Background: Essential Burn Management (EBM) is a burn training program created for East Africa and aims to meet the needs of low- and middle-income countries. The authors present a report on objective testing of change in knowledge, with pre and post tests, and comparison of this testing with the self perception of knowledge gained to explore cour...

Objectives: This paper investigates severe partner perpetrated burn (SPPB) in India and associated social correlates. Methods: Data are from the National Family Health Survey (NFHS-3), a cross-sectional nationally representative household-based survey. Age, wealth index, education, urban/rural status, region, in-law violence, parental abuse, fat...

This study examined which factors predict future suicide attempts (SAs) among people referred to psychiatric services in the emergency department (ED). It included consecutive adult (age >18 years) presentations (N = 6919) over a 3-year period to the two tertiary care hospitals in Manitoba, Canada. Medical professionals assessed each individual on...

Introduction: Standardized courses for the care of the burn patient have historically been developed in High Income Countries (HIC). These courses do not necessarily reflect the challenges and needs of Low Income Countries (LIC) and some components may not be relevant there (i.e. use of ventilators in a country that has no or very limited number o...

Objective: The SAD PERSONS scale (SPS) is widely used for suicide risk assessment in clinical and educational settings. The study objective was to systematically review the SPS performance in clinical situations. Methods: A systematic search of electronic databases. Relevant descriptive, quality, and outcome data were reviewed. Results:148 studies...

There is increasing interest in teaching professionalism to medical learners. The purpose of this study was to explore professionalism observed among medical learners and faculty in a Canadian academic institution. A total of 253 medical learners (30% response rate) completed an online survey measuring medical professionalism. The survey used a val...

To investigate the association between physical intimate partner violence (IPV) and sexually transmitted infection (STI) in two national samples. Data came from the National Epidemiologic Survey on Alcohol and Related Conditions Wave 2 (n = 34,653) and the National Family Health Survey-3 (n = 124 385). Ever-married women between the ages of 20 and...

In Canada, suicide has transitioned from being a criminal activity with much associated stigma, to being a public health concern that needs to be managed by governments and clinicians in a culturally sensitive manner. In Canada and worldwide, the social attitudes toward and legal interpretation of suicide have been dynamic. Much has been proposed i...

Context Suicide bereavement remains understudied and poorly understood. Objectives To examine outcomes of parents bereaved by the suicide death of their offspring and to compare these with both nonbereaved parent controls and parents who had offspring die in a motor vehicle crash (MVC). Design Population-based case-control study. Suicide-bereaved p...

To date there have been no studies examining complicated grief (CG) in Aboriginal populations. Although this research gap exists, it can be hypothesized that Aboriginal populations may be at increased risk for CG, given a variety of factors, including increased rates of all-cause mortality and death by suicide. Aboriginal people also have a past hi...

The SAD PERSONS scale is a widely used risk assessment tool for suicidal behavior despite a paucity of supporting data. The objective of this study was to examine the ability of the scale in predicting suicide attempts. Participants consisted of consecutive referrals (N=4,019) over 2 years (January 1, 2009 to December 31, 2010) to psychiatric servi...

Fatigue is commonly associated with multiple sclerosis and leads to significant disability and loss of quality of life. Several kind of interventions have been carried out, but definitive evidence on their relative efficacy and tolerability are not available. As quite recently it has been hypothesised a relationship between low carnitine levels in...

The objective of this study was to investigate the association between exposure to caregiver suicidality and subsequent adult suicide attempt (SA). Data came from the National Epidemiologic Survey on Alcohol and Related Conditions Wave 2 (n = 34,653). Respondents were asked if they had a caregiver attempt or complete suicide during childhood. Logis...

Evidence suggests that nicotine dependence is the key barrier to successful smoking cessation. No previous study has documented predictors of persistent nicotine dependence among adults in the community. The goal of this study is to prospectively identify predictors of continued nicotine dependence over a 3-year period among adults. Data were drawn...

The purpose of this study is to determine the lowest concentration of subcutaneous phenylephrine (neosynephrine) required for effective vasoconstriction in skin graft donor sites. Surgery for burn injury is associated with blood loss. Tourniquet use and tumescence with epinephrine have decreased blood loss. However, absorption of epinephrine has be...

Orthopaedic leaders face extraordinary pressures in a world of diminishing resources, aging baby boomers and escalating demands for hip and knee replacement surgeries. Never has the need for focused, proactive care to improve outcomes and avoid unnecessary hospital days been greater. In this study, risk factors associated with prolonged length of s...

Background: Previous studies have shown that adding ketamine to morphine for postsurgical pain can reduce the unwanted side effects of morphine. However, it is not known if the combination of ketamine and morphine reduces pain to a greater extent than morphine alone after hysterectomy. Objective: The primary objective was to determine whether the u...

It is well known that women are at an increased risk for violence during separation. Existing research does not provide an understanding of why separated women are more at risk. The following study helps to fill this gap through an empirical examination of indicators derived from potential explanations for the relationship between separation and vi...

Thesis (M.Sc.)--University of Manitoba, 2004. Includes bibliographical references.