Older adults experiences of rehabilitation in acute health care

Rehabilitation is a key component of nursing and allied healthcare professionals’ roles in most health and social care settings. This paper reports on stage 2 of an action research project to ascertain older adult's experience of rehabilitation. Twenty postdischarge interviews were conducted and the interview transcripts were analysed using thematic content analysis. All older adults discharged from an acute older acute rehabilitation ward to their own homes in the community were eligible to participate. The only exclusion criterion was older adults who were thought to be unable to give consent to participate by the nurse in charge and the researcher. Whilst 92 older adults were eligible to participate in this research study, only 20 were interviewed. The findings from this study suggest that older adults valued communication with health professionals but were aware of their time constraints that hindered communication. This study suggests that both nurses and allied health professionals are not actively providing rehabilitative services to promote health and well-being, which contradicts the focus of active ageing. Furthermore, there was evidence of unmet needs on discharge, and older adults unable to recall the professions that were involved in their interventions and the rationale for therapy input. It is suggested that further research is needed to explore the effectiveness of allied health rehabilitation in the acute setting. This study highlights the need for further research into older adults’ perceptions of the rehabilitation process in the acute setting

A review for clinical outcomes research: hypothesis generation, data strategy, and hypothesis-driven statistical analysis

In recent years, more and more large, population-level databases have become available for clinical research. The size and complexity of these databases often present a methodological challenge for investigators. We propose that a “protocol” may facilitate the research process using these databases. In addition, much like the structured History and Physical (H&P) helps the audience appreciate the details of a patient case more systematically, a formal outcomes research protocol can also help in the systematic evaluation of an outcomes research manuscript

Soybean Flour and Wheat Germ Proportions in Artificial Diet and Their Effect on the Growth Rates of the Tobacco Budworm, Heliothis virescens

Soybean flour and wheat germ are the two most important protein components of wheat germ-based insect artificial diets. The effect of modifying the proportion of these two ingredients in a Noctuidae-specific diet was investigated utilizing the tobacco budworm Heliothis virescens (F.) (Lepidoptera: Noctuidae), with the goal of developing a suboptimal diet that, without drastically affecting this insect's growth and reproductive rates, could manifest subtle negative effects in this insect. The original diet formula contained 2.51% protein. When the proportions of soybean flour and wheat germ were changed to 2.15% protein the net reproductive rate of the first generation was significantly lower. In the second generation, the net reproductive rate, development time, percent female survivorship, fertility, intrinsic rate of increase, finite rate of increase and female longevity were significantly lower in both the 2.15% and 2.26% protein diets. The survival rate of immatures to the adult stage was 1% in the 2.05% protein diet in the first generation. Interestingly, females exposed to these suboptimal diets produced a significantly higher number of eggs but the survival of their larvae was significantly reduced. It is evident from these results that modifications to the protein content and the nutrient composition profile of the original wheat germ-based insect artificial formula can be used to produce subtle negative effects on the growth of tobacco budworm

Ontology of core data mining entities

In this article, we present OntoDM-core, an ontology of core data mining entities. OntoDM-core defines themost essential datamining entities in a three-layered ontological structure comprising of a specification, an implementation and an application layer. It provides a representational framework for the description of mining structured data, and in addition provides taxonomies of datasets, data mining tasks, generalizations, data mining algorithms and constraints, based on the type of data. OntoDM-core is designed to support a wide range of applications/use cases, such as semantic annotation of data mining algorithms, datasets and results; annotation of QSAR studies in the context of drug discovery investigations; and disambiguation of terms in text mining. The ontology has been thoroughly assessed following the practices in ontology engineering, is fully interoperable with many domain resources and is easy to extend

​Residential mobility:Towards progress in mobility health research

Research into health disparities has long recognized the importance of residential mobility as a crucial factor in determining health outcomes. However, a lack of connectivity between the health and mobility literatures has led to a stagnation of theory and application on the health side, which lacks the detail and temporal perspectives now seen as critical to understanding residential mobility decisions. Through a critical re-think of mobility processes with respect to health outcomes and an exploitation of longitudinal analytical techniques, we argue that health geographers have the potential to better understand and identify the relationship that residential mobility has with health.“The research leading to these results has received funding from the European Research Council under the European Union's Seventh Framework Programme (FP/2007-2013) / ERC Grant Agreement n. 615159 (ERC Consolidator Grant DEPRIVEDHOODS, Socio-spatial inequality, deprived neighbourhoods, and neighbourhood effects)”OLD Urban Renewal and Housin

Targeted hepatitis C antibody testing interventions: a systematic review and meta-analysis

Testing for hepatitis C virus (HCV) infection may reduce the risk of liver-related morbidity, by facilitating earlier access to treatment and care. This review investigated the effectiveness of targeted testing interventions on HCV case detection, treatment uptake, and prevention of liver-related morbidity. A literature search identified studies published up to 2013 that compared a targeted HCV testing intervention (targeting individuals or groups at increased risk of HCV) with no targeted intervention, and results were synthesised using meta-analysis. Exposure to a targeted testing intervention, compared to no targeted intervention, was associated with increased cases detected [number of studies (n) = 14; pooled relative risk (RR) 1.7, 95 % CI 1.3, 2.2] and patients commencing therapy (n = 4; RR 3.3, 95 % CI 1.1, 10.0). Practitioner-based interventions increased test uptake and cases detected (n = 12; RR 3.5, 95 % CI 2.5, 4.8; and n = 10; RR 2.2, 95 % CI 1.4, 3.5, respectively), whereas media/information-based interventions were less effective (n = 4; RR 1.5, 95 % CI 0.7, 3.0; and n = 4; RR 1.3, 95 % CI 1.0, 1.6, respectively). This meta-analysis provides for the first time a quantitative assessment of targeted HCV testing interventions, demonstrating that these strategies were effective in diagnosing cases and increasing treatment uptake. Strategies involving practitioner-based interventions yielded the most favourable outcomes. It is recommended that testing should be targeted at and offered to individuals who are part of a population with high HCV prevalence, or who have a history of HCV risk behaviour

Predictors of linkage to care following community-based HIV counseling and testing in rural Kenya

Despite innovations in HIV counseling and testing (HCT), important gaps remain in understanding linkage to care. We followed a cohort diagnosed with HIV through a community-based HCT campaign that trained persons living with HIV/AIDS (PLHA) as navigators. Individual, interpersonal, and institutional predictors of linkage were assessed using survival analysis of self-reported time to enrollment. Of 483 persons consenting to follow-up, 305 (63.2%) enrolled in HIV care within 3 months. Proportions linking to care were similar across sexes, barring a sub-sample of men aged 18–25 years who were highly unlikely to enroll. Men were more likely to enroll if they had disclosed to their spouse, and women if they had disclosed to family. Women who anticipated violence or relationship breakup were less likely to link to care. Enrolment rates were significantly higher among participants receiving a PLHA visit, suggesting that a navigator approach may improve linkage from community-based HCT campaigns.Vestergaard Frandse