Risk evaluations and condom use decisions of homeless youth: a multi-level qualitative investigation.

BackgroundHomeless youth are at higher risk for sexually transmitted infections and unwanted pregnancy than non-homeless youth. However, little is known about how they evaluate risk within the context of their sexual relationships. It is important to understand homeless youths' condom use decisions in light of their sexual relationships because condom use decisions are influenced by relationship dynamics in addition to individual attitudes and event circumstances. It is also important to understand how relationship level factors, sexual event circumstances, and individual characteristics compare and intersect.MethodsTo explore these issues, we conducted semi-structured interviews with 37 homeless youth in Los Angeles County in 2011 concerning their recent sexual relationships and analyzed the data using systematic methods of team-based qualitative data analysis.ResultsWe identified themes of risk-related evaluations and decisions at the relationship/partner, event, and individual level. We also identified three different risk profiles that emerged from analyzing how different levels of risk intersected across individual respondents. The three profiles included 1) Risk Takers, who consistently engage in risk and have low concern about consequences of risk behavior, 2) Risk Avoiders, who consistently show high concern about protection and consistently avoid risk, and 3) Risk Reactors, those who are inconsistent in their concerns about risk and protection and mainly take risks in reaction to relationship and event circumstances.ConclusionsInterventions targeting homeless youth should reflect multiple levels of risk behavior and evaluation in order to address the diversity of risk profiles. Relationship/partner-, event-, and individual-level factors are all important but have different levels of importance for different homeless youth. Interventions should be tailored to address the most important factor contributing to homeless youth reproductive needs

Experiences With Chiropractic Care for Patients With Low Back or Neck Pain.

BackgroundMusculoskeletal disorders are the second leading cause of disability worldwide.ObjectiveExamine experiences of chiropractic patients in the United States with chronic low back or neck pain.MethodObservational study of 1853 chronic low back pain and neck pain patients (74% female) who completed an online questionnaire at the 3-month follow-up that included Consumer Assessment of Healthcare Providers and Systems (CAHPS) items assessing their experiences with care.ResultsWe found similar reports of communication for the chiropractic sample and patients in the 2016 CAHPS National Database, but 85% in the database versus 79% in the chiropractic sample gave the most positive response to the time spent with provider item. More patients in the CAHPS database rated their provider at the top of the scale (8 percentage points). More chiropractic patients reported always getting answers to questions the same day (16 percentage points) and always being seen within 15 minutes of their appointment time (29 percentage points).ConclusionsThe positive experiences of patients with chronic back and neck pain are supportive of their use of chiropractic care

Coping and Management Techniques Used by Chronic Low Back Pain Patients Receiving Treatment From Chiropractors.

OBJECTIVES:The purpose of this study was to describe coping strategies (eg, mechanisms, including self-treatment) that a person uses to reduce pain and its impact on functioning as reported by patients with chronic low back pain who were seen by doctors of chiropractic and how these coping strategies vary by patient characteristics. METHODS:Data were collected from a national sample of US chiropractic patients recruited from chiropractic practices in 6 states from major geographical regions of the United States using a multistage stratified sampling strategy. Reports of coping behaviors used to manage pain during the past 6 months were used to create counts across 6 domains: cognitive, self-care, environmental, medical care, social activities, and work. Exploratory analyses examined counts in domains and frequencies of individual items by levels of patient characteristics. RESULTS:A total of 1677 respondents with chronic low back pain reported using an average of 9 coping behaviors in the prior 6 months. Use of more types of behaviors were reported among those with more severe back pain, who rated their health as fair or poor and who had daily occurrences of pain. Exercise was more frequent among the healthy and those with less pain. Female respondents tended to report using more coping behaviors than men, and Hispanics more than non-Hispanics. CONCLUSION:Persons with chronic back pain were proactive in their coping strategies and frequently used self-care coping strategies like those provided by chiropractors in patient education. In alignment with patients' beliefs that their condition was chronic and lifelong, many patients attempted a wide range of coping strategies to relieve their pain

Parents’ Disclosure of Their HIV Infection to Their Children in the Context of the Family

We interviewed 33 HIV-infected parents from the HIV Cost and Services Utilization Study (HCSUS), 27 of their minor children, 19 adult children, and 15 caregivers about the process of children learning that their parents were HIV positive. We summarize the retrospective descriptions of parents’ disclosure of their HIV status to their children, from the perspective of multiple family members. We analyzed transcripts of these interviews with systematic qualitative methods. Both parents and children reported unplanned disclosure experiences with positive and negative outcomes. Parents sometimes reported that disclosure was not as negative as they feared. However, within-household analysis showed disagreement between parents and children from the same household regarding disclosure outcomes. These findings suggest that disclosure should be addressed within a family context to facilitate communication and children’s coping. Parents should consider negative and positive outcomes, unplanned disclosure and children’s capacity to adapt after disclosure when deciding whether to disclose

What do sequential behavioral patterns suggest about the medical decision-making process?: Modeling home case management of acute illnesses in a rural Cameroonian village

It is well recognized that much of the world's medical care is in the hands of laypeople. In pluralistic medical settings, laypeople choose what to do first, second, third, and fourth from a variety of treatment options. In retrospect, laypeople's choices can be represented as an ordered series of health-related behaviors. A systematic analysis of such sequential data provides insights into caregivers' patterns of resort and suggests a tentative theory for how laypeople make medical choices. This study examines sequences of health-related behaviors from a small, Kom-speaking village in Cameroon. Local residents consider seven health actions, including: delaying initial treatment, using various home remedies or pharmaceuticals, going to a government clinic or a Catholic hospital, and consulting a private nurse or a traditional healer. Researchers visited 88 randomly selected compounds on a weekly basis over a 5-month period. Data were collected on the treatments associated with 429 nonchronic episodes. Analysis of the treatment sequences suggests that residents customarily use delay of treatments as a tactic in the decision-making process. Caregivers were more likely to use home-based treatments and to use them earlier in the treatment sequences than they were to seek treatment from outside the compound. When seeking assistance, caregivers often used traditional healers as a conduit to other outside options. Laypeople used a limited number of unique treatment sequences and avoided the repetition of treatment modalities. Caregivers act as if they were following three basic tenets. They minimize uncertainty by identifying illness types that require particular health actions and by delaying action. they minimize the cost of care by first resorting to treatments that are less expensive and easier to administer or by reducing the number of treatments tried. And laypeople maximize treatment variety in the hopes of finding at least one treatment that helps stop the illness.lay treatments decision-making sequential behaviors caregivers

Etnografía de la infección respiratoria aguda en una zona rural del altiplano mexicano

Objetivo. Identificar los términos utilizados por las madres para referirse a enfermedades, signos y síntomas relacionados con infecciones respiratorias agudas, así como los signos de alarma que las motivan a buscar atención médica; asimismo, describir prácticas comunes de manejo de la enfermedad en el hogar. Material y métodos. Se trata de un estudio etnográfico en seis comunidades rurales del altiplano mexicano. Se entrevistó a 12 informantes clave, a seis madres de niños fallecidos por infección respiratoria aguda, y a 24 madres de niños menores de cinco años, con diversas técnicas etnográficas para complementar la información obtenida ("triangulación"). Resultados. Las enfermedades comúnmente identificadas incluyeron gripa, anginas, tos, bronquitis, pulmonía, neumonía y "broncomonía". Los síntomas clave para el diagnóstico fueron escurrimiento de moco nasal, dolor de garganta, tos, dolor de cabeza o de cuerpo, calentura, "hervor" de pecho, y referencias a que el niño "está molesto o llorón", se pone morado o le hace falta el aire. La taquipnea fue referida como "respira fuerte", "respira mucho", "respira rápido" y "tiene sesido"; el tiraje, "se le hunde el pecho"; el estridor, como "quejido o ronquido de pecho"; la sibilancia, como "ronquido de pecho", y para la cianosis; "se pone morado". Entre los tratamientos ofrecidos en el hogar destacan el uso de tés, aplicación de limón, jitomate, tomate o papa en la garganta, y aplicación de sebo o pomada en pecho y espalda. No fue común la autoprescripción de antibióticos pero sí la de antipiréticos. La mayoría de las madres reconoció enfermedades leves y, en menor proporción, graves. Ante un caso grave de insuficiencia respiratoria aguda, la opción más frecuentemente elegida fue acudir a la clínica del proyecto; en segundo lugar al médico particular en la cabecera municipal, y al hospital de la Secretaría de Salud en la Jurisdicción. La cercanía y el menor costo fueron razones frecuentemente aducidas para estas elecciones. Conclusiones. Esta información puede resultar útil para mejorar la comunicación con las madres

Moving upstream: healthcare partnerships addressing social determinants of health through community wealth building

Abstract Background Healthcare-based interventions addressing social needs such as food and housing generally fail to impact the upstream wealth and power inequities underlying those needs. However, a small number of US healthcare organizations have begun addressing these upstream inequities by partnering with community wealth building initiatives. These initiatives include community land trusts, resident-owned communities, and worker cooperatives, which provide local residents ownership and control over their housing and workplaces. While these partnerships represent a novel, upstream approach to the social determinants of health, no research has yet evaluated them. Methods To assess the current state and key aspects of healthcare-community wealth building partnerships, we conducted a multiple case study analysis using semi-structured interviews with thirty-eight key informants across ten partnerships identified through the Healthcare Anchor Network. To analyze the interviews, we used a two-stage coding process. First, we coded responses based on the phase of the intervention to which they corresponded: motivation, initiation, implementation, or evaluation. Then we assessed responses within each aspect for common themes and variation on salient topics. Results Partnerships were generally motivated by a combination of community needs, such as affordable housing and living wage jobs, and health system interests, such as workforce housing and supply chain resilience. Initiating projects required identifying external partners, educating leadership, and utilizing risk mitigation strategies to obtain health system buy-in. Implementation took various forms, with healthcare organizations providing financial capital in the form of grants and loans, social capital in the form of convening funders and other stakeholders, and/or capacity building support in the form of strategic planning or technical assistance resources. To evaluate projects, healthcare organizations used more process and community-level metrics rather than metrics based on individual health outcomes or returns on investment. Based on best practices from each partnership phase, we provide a roadmap for healthcare organizations to develop effective community wealth building partnerships. Conclusions Assessing healthcare partnerships with community wealth building organizations yields key strategies healthcare organizations can use to develop more effective partnerships to address the upstream causes of poor health