Alcohol Screening and Brief Advice in NHS General Dental Practices:A Cluster Randomized Controlled Feasibility Trial

AIM: To assess the feasibility and acceptability of screening for alcohol misuse and delivering brief advice to eligible patients attending NHS dental practices in London.METHODS: A two-arm cluster randomized controlled feasibility trial was conducted. Twelve dental practices were recruited and randomized to intervention and control arms. Participants attending for a dental check were recruited into the study and were eligible if they consumed alcohol above recommended levels assessed by the AUDIT-C screening tool. All eligible participants were asked to complete a baseline socio-demographic questionnaire. Six months after the completion of baseline measures, participants were contacted via telephone by a researcher masked to their allocation status. The full AUDIT tool was then administered. Alcohol consumption in the last 90 days was also assessed using the Form 90. A process evaluation assessed the acceptability of the intervention.RESULTS: Over a 7-month period, 229 participants were recruited (95.4% recruitment rate) and at the 6 months follow-up, 176 participants were assessed (76.9% retention rate). At the follow-up, participants in the intervention arm were significantly more likely to report a longer abstinence period (3.2 vs. 2.3 weeks respectively, P = 0.04) and non-significant differences in AUDIT (44.9% vs. 59.8% AUDIT positive respectively, P = 0.053) and AUDIT C difference between baseline and follow-up (-0.67 units vs. -0.29 units respectively, P = 0.058). Results from the process evaluation indicated that the intervention and study procedures were acceptable to dentists and patients.CONCLUSIONS: This study has demonstrated the feasibility and acceptability of dentists screening for alcohol misuse and providing brief advice.</p

Rapid prioritisation of topics for rapid evaluation: the case of innovations in adult social care and social work.

BACKGROUND: Prioritisation processes are widely used in healthcare research and increasingly in social care research. Previous research has recommended using consensus development methods for inclusive research agenda setting. This research has highlighted the need for transparent and systematic methods for priority setting. Yet there has been little research on how to conduct prioritisation processes using rapid methods. This is a particular concern when prioritisation needs to happen rapidly. This paper aims to describe and discuss a process of rapidly identifying and prioritising a shortlist of innovations for rapid evaluation applied in the field of adult social care and social work. METHOD: We adapted the James Lind Alliance approach to priority setting for rapid use. We followed four stages: (1) Identified a long list of innovations, (2) Developed shortlisting criteria, (3) Grouped and sifted innovations, and (4) Prioritised innovations in a multi-stakeholder workshop (n = 23). Project initiation through to completion of the final report took four months. RESULTS: Twenty innovations were included in the final shortlist (out of 158 suggested innovations). The top five innovations for evaluation were identified and findings highlighted key themes which influenced prioritisation. The top five priorities (listed here in alphabetical order) were: Care coordination for dementia in the community, family group conferencing, Greenwich prisons social care, local area coordination and MySense.Ai. Feedback from workshop participants (n = 15) highlighted tensions from using a rapid process (e.g. challenges of reaching consensus in one workshop). CONCLUSION: The method outlined in this manuscript can be used to rapidly prioritise innovations for evaluation in a feasible and robust way. We outline some implications and compromises of rapid prioritisation processes for future users of this approach to consider

Predictors of dentists' behaviours in delivering prevention in primary dental care in England:using the theory of planned behaviour

BACKGROUND: To explore the factors predicting preventive behaviours among NHS dentists in Camden, Islington and Haringey in London, using constructs from the Theory of Planned Behaviour. METHODS: A cross-sectional survey of NHS dentists working in North Central London was conducted. A self-completed questionnaire based on the theoretical framework of the Theory of Planned Behaviour was developed. It assessed dentists' attitudes, current preventive activities, subjective norms and perceived behavioural control in delivering preventive care. In model 1, logistic regression was conducted to assess the relationship between a range of preventive behaviours (diet, smoking and alcohol) and the three TPB constructs attitude, subjective norms and perceived behavioural control. Model 2 was adjusted for intention. RESULTS: Overall, 164 questionnaires were returned (response rate: 55.0%). Dentists' attitudes were important predictors of preventive behaviours among a sample of dentists in relation to asking and providing diet, alcohol and tobacco advice. A dentist was 3.73 times (95 % CI: 1.70, 8.18) more likely ask about a patient's diet, if they had a positive attitude towards prevention, when adjusted for age, sex and intention. A similar pattern emerged for alcohol advice (OR 2.35, 95 % CI 1.12, 4.96). Dentists who had a positive attitude were also 2.59 times more likely to provide smoking cessation advice. CONCLUSIONS: The findings of this study have demonstrated that dentists' attitudes are important predictors of preventive behaviours in relation to delivery of diet, smoking and alcohol advice

Hypoglycaemia is associated with increased risk of fractures in patients with type 2 diabetes mellitus: a cohort study.

Objective Type 2 diabetes is associated with an increased risk of fracture. Any factor that incrementally increases this risk should be taken into account when individualising treatment. Hypoglycaemia is a common complication of antidiabetes medications and suggested as a risk factor for fractures; yet, its real-life clinical impact is unclear. Design A population-based, retrospective open cohort study using routinely collected data between 1st of January 1995 and 1st of May 2016 in The Health Improvement Network (THIN) database. Methods Patients with type 2 diabetes mellitus with documented hypoglycaemic events were compared to randomly matched patients with type 2 diabetes mellitus without documented hypoglycaemic events matched to exposed patients on age, sex, duration of diabetes and BMI. The primary outcome was any incident fracture. Secondary outcome was incident fragility (osteoporotic) fracture. Results A total of 41 163 patients with type 2 diabetes were included: 14 147 patients in the exposed cohort and 27 016 patients in the unexposed cohort. Patients with a documented hypoglycaemic event were significantly more likely to sustain any fracture compared to patients with no record of hypoglycaemic events: adjusted IRR = 1.20 (95% CI: 1.12-1.30; P < 0.0001). Patients who had a documented hypoglycaemic event were significantly more likely to suffer a fragility fracture compared to controls: adjusted IRR = 1.24 (95% CI: 1.13-1.37; P < 0.0001). Conclusions Hypoglycaemic events are a significant risk factor for fractures in patients with diabetes mellitus. This observation is clinically relevant when individualising targets for glycaemic control and selecting antidiabetic agents