University of North Texas

About: University of North Texas is a education organization based out in Denton, Texas, United States. It is known for research contribution in the topics: Population & Poison control. The organization has 11866 authors who have published 26984 publications receiving 705376 citations. The organization is also known as: Fight, North Texas & UNT.

The Economic impact of ME/CFS: Individual and societal costs

Abstract: ME/CFS is characterized by debilitating fatigue in addition to other physical and cognitive symptoms. It is estimated to affect over 800,000 adults in the U.S. ME/CFS often results in diminished functionality and increased economic impact. The economic impact of an illness is generally divided into two categories: direct and indirect costs. Despite high prevalence rates and the disabling nature of the illness, few studies have examined the costs of ME/CFS at the individual and societal level. In fact, of the four studies examining the economic impact of ME/ME/CFS only two used a U. S. sample. The current study used community and tertiary samples to examine the direct costs of ME/CFS. Using archival data, Study 1 examined the direct cost of ME/CFS in a community-based sample in Chicago. Study 2 estimated the direct cost of ME/CFS in a tertiary sample in Chicago. Both Study1 and Study 2 assessed direct costs using office visit costs, medical test costs, and medication costs. For Study 1, the annual direct total cost per ME/CFS patient was estimated to be $2,342, with the total annual direct cost of ME/CFS to society being approximately $2 billion. In Study 2, the annual direct was estimated to be $8,675 per ME/CFS patient, with the total annual direct cost of ME/CFS to society being approximately $7 billion. Using ME/CFS prevalence data of 0.42 and indirect costs estimates from Reynolds et al. (2004), the direct and indirect cost of ME/CFS to society was estimated to be $18,677,912,000 for the community sample and $23,972,300,000 for the tertiary sample. These findings indicate that whether or not individuals are recruited from a community or tertiary sample, ME/CFS imposes substantial economic costs.

Identifying Motivations for the Use of Commercial Web Sites

Abstract: The uses and gratifications theoretical framework has continued to prove useful in the study of new and emerging media. In previous research on television as a medium, motivations for media use have been grouped into either process gratifications motivations associated with using the medium, like channel surfing or content gratifications motivations related to information or entertainment delivered by the medium, like watching the evening news for information. This study applies the uses and gratifications perspective to better understand the factors motivating commercial Web site use, and identifies a new media use gratification unique to the Internet: socialization using the medium to communicate with people. Through the cooperation of two major on-line companies, this research reports the results of a two-part study that begins with the identification of 179 motivations for Web use and subsequently reduces those to five primary underlying factors. These factors are discussed and related to three key indicators: frequency of Web use, frequency of computer use, and affinity with the computer. Implications for new social gratifications for Internet use are discussed, and directions for future research are proposed.