Psychotherapeutic Intervention for Adults With Acquired Brain Injury::A Case Study Using BackUp

A moderate-to-severe acquired brain injury (ABI) can have tremendous lifelong consequences for ABI-survivors and their families. Despite rehabilitation practice since the 1980s aspiring to a dynamic, coherent and holistic approach, the psychological dimension still seems to be a challenge and research has revealed persisting psychosocial impairments after ABI. Therefore, we developed BackUp©, a manual based short term psychological intervention for adults with ABI. This study explores the effect of the intervention though a small feasibility study, employing a single case design. One client received the intervention. Self-report measures were collected, and a semi structured interview was conducted. While results from pre, post and follow-up measures do not show clear positive results, the interview reveals positive experiences and the participant reported achieving his therapy goal. This case study provides support for a psychological intervention to support the psychological rehabilitation after an ABI

Long-term impact of four different strategies for delivering an on-line curriculum about herbs and other dietary supplements

BACKGROUND: Previous research has shown that internet education can lead to short-term improvements in clinicians' knowledge, confidence and communication practices. We wished to better understand the duration of these improvements and whether different curriculum delivery strategies differed in affecting these improvements. METHODS: As previously described, we conducted a randomized control trial comparing four different strategies for delivering an e-curriculum about herbs and other dietary supplements (HDS) to clinicians. The four strategies were delivering the curriculum by: a) email over 10 weeks; b) email within one week; c) web-site over 10 weeks; d) web-site within one week. Participants were surveyed at baseline, immediately after the course and 6–10 months after completing the course (long-term). Long-term outcomes focused on clinicians' knowledge, confidence and communication practices. RESULTS: Of the 780 clinicians who completed the course, 385 (49%) completed the long-term survey. Completers and non-completers of the long-term survey had similar demographics and professional characteristics at baseline. There were statistically significant improvements from baseline to long-term follow-up in knowledge, confidence and communication practices; these improvements did not differ by curriculum delivery strategy. Knowledge scores improved from 67.7 ± 10.3 at baseline to 78.8 ± 12.3 at long-term follow-up (P < 0.001). Confidence scores improved from 53.7 ± 17.8 at baseline to 66.9 ± 12.0 at long term follow-up (P < 0.001); communication scores improved from 2.6 ± 1.9 at baseline to 3.6 ± 2.1 (P < 0.001) at long-term follow-up. CONCLUSION: This e- curriculum led to significant and sustained improvements in clinicians' expertise about HDS regardless of the delivery strategy. Future studies should compare the impact of required vs. elective courses and self-reported vs. objective measures of behavior change

Evaluating the cost-effectiveness of biologic treatments for psoriatic arthritis: : can we make better use of patient data registries?

The primary aim of this study is to explore the extent to which registry data may fulfill the evidence requirements of cost-effectiveness analysis (CEA) studies evaluating biologic therapies for the treatment of psoriatic arthritis (PsA), where trial data are lacking or insufficient. In addition, the paper aims to identify how future data collection in PsA registries might be better tailored to inform CEA research. A review of the literature was performed to identify existing registries containing PsA patients. Where possible, information was extracted on the design and characteristics of the registries. The registries were then appraised according to a set of criteria that was formulated based on the methods currently used to model PsA in the CEA literature. A review of the literature identified 21 potentially relevant registries from around the world containing patients with PsA. There was substantial variation regarding the extent to which the registries, as a whole, were useful for the purposes of CEA studies. There were also notable disparities found in terms of the accessibility of the registries to researchers. The critical review conducted in this study showed that all of the registries identified are potentially useful, at least in some degree, for the purposes of informing CEA studies in PsA. However, no individual registry on its own was found to meet all of the evidence requirements when considering how the disease has been modeled previously