Evaluating WebQuests and the needs of a WebQuest rubric

Investigates how teachers evaluate WebQuests in an effort to describe and identify a common, generalizable rubric that new users of WebQuests could use. The investigation included how often the teachers who were surveyed used WebQuests in the classroom, and what these teachers used to evaluate WebQuests. Examines whether teachers are using rubrics they had created themselves, or WebQuest rubrics that are provided for them

An intelligent help system to support teachers to author learning sessions in decision-making in network design

Thèse numérisée par la Direction des bibliothèques de l'Université de Montréal

Texas Parks & Wildlife

Magazine discussing natural resources, parks, hunting and fishing, and other information related to the outdoors in Texas

Family and health-care professionals managing medicines for patients with serious and terminal illness at home: a qualitative study

BackgroundMore effective ways of managing symptoms of chronic and terminal illness enable patients to be cared for, and to die, at home. This requires patients and family caregivers to manage complex medicines regimens, including powerful painkillers that can have serious side effects. Little is known about how patients and family caregivers manage the physical and emotional work of managing medicines in the home or the support that they receive from health-care professionals and services.ObjectiveTo investigate how patients with serious and terminal illness, their family caregivers and the health-care professionals manage complex medication regimens and routines of care in the domestic setting.DesignA qualitative study involving (1) semistructured interviews and group discussions with 40 health-care professionals and 21 bereaved family caregivers, (2) 20 patient case studies with up to 4 months’ follow-up and (3) two end-of-project stakeholder workshops.SettingThis took place in Nottinghamshire and Leicestershire, UK.ResultsAs patients’ health deteriorated, family caregivers assumed the role of a care co-ordinator, undertaking the everyday work of organising and collecting prescriptions and storing and administering medicines around other care tasks and daily routines. Participants described the difficulties of navigating a complex and fragmented system and the need to remain vigilant about medicines prescribed, especially when changes were made by different professionals. Access to support, resilience and coping capacity are mediated through the resources available to patients, through the relationships that they have with people in their personal and professional networks, and, beyond that, through the wider connections – or disconnections – that these links have with others. Health-care professionals often lacked understanding of the practical and emotional challenges involved. All participants experienced difficulties in communication and organisation within a health-care system that they felt was complicated and poorly co-ordinated. Having a key health professional to support and guide patients and family caregivers through the system was important to a good experience of care.LimitationsThe study achieved diversity in the recruitment of patients, with different characteristics relating to the type of illness and socioeconomic circumstances. However, recruitment of participants from ethnically diverse and disadvantaged or hard-to-reach populations was particularly challenging, and we were unable to include as many participants from these groups as had been originally planned.ConclusionsThe study identified two key and inter-related areas in which patient and family caregiver experience of managing medicines at home in end-of-life care could be improved: (1) reducing work and responsibility for medicines management and (2) improving co-ordination and communication in health care. It is important to be mindful of the need for transparency and open discussion about the extent to which patients and family caregivers can and should be co-opted as proto-professionals in the technically and emotionally demanding tasks of managing medicines at the end of life.Future workPriorities for future research include investigating how allocated key professionals could integrate and co-ordinate care and optimise medicines management; the role of domiciliary home care workers in supporting medicines management in end-of-life care; patient and family perspectives and understanding of anticipatory prescribing and their preferences for involvement in decision-making; the experience of medicines management in terminal illness among minority, disadvantaged and hard-to-reach patient groups; and barriers to and facilitators of increased involvement of community pharmacists in palliative and end-of-life care