Immune-mediated inflammatory disease patients' preferences in adverse drug reaction information regarding biologics

Objectives: Patient-reported outcomes (PROs) are increasingly used in studies and medical practice to obtain information on patients’ perspectives toward their treatment or disease. However, most study outcomes are primarily directed at healthcare professionals. It was aimed to obtain insight in which type of information immune-mediated inflammatory disease (IMID) patients prefer to receive after participating in the Dutch Biologic Monitor (DBM), a PRO-based prospective cohort event monitoring system focused on adverse drug reactions (ADRs). Methods: A survey was conducted among DBM participants that wanted information about the results. Patients’ preferences were identified using twelve statements and rated with five-point Likert-type scales. Subgroup analyses and differences between statements were performed using Mann-Whitney U Tests. Results: The survey was completed by 591 patients (response rate 67.6%). Most respondents had inflammatory rheumatic diseases (76.8%) and used adalimumab (37.2%) or etanercept (33.2%). Respondents preferred results per IMID over aggregated results (p = <0.001). Information on whether patients with similar IMIDs experience ADRs (average 4.5), which biologics are most likely to cause ADRs (4.4) and whether ADRs disappear (4.4) were most interesting. Conclusion: DBM participants prefer to receive disease-specific information on ADRs that is tailored to their own biologic and IMID, including the outcome of ADRs

The development of study-specific self-efficacy during grammar school.(Zur Entwicklung der studienspezifischen Selbstwirksamkeit in der Oberstufe)

Article is in German. Even if more and more German adolescents acquire a university entrance qualification, not all of them finally enrol at a university. In particular, the transition from school to university strongly depends on parent’s education. Even with the same marks in school, adolescents from non-academic households are less likely to enrol in universities than adolescents from academic housholds. One important reason is their lower belief to master a university study. This study analyses a specific intervention in grammar school to improve study-specific self- efficacy, the belief in one’s capabilities to master a university study, using a longitudinal design. We apply a difference-in-difference framework and show that programme participation significantly improves the study-specific self-efficacy for puplis from non- academic families but not for those from academic families. Hence, such a programme could reduce social disparities between both groups

Patients' perspectives on a drug safety monitoring system for immune-mediated inflammatory diseases based on patient-reported outcomes

Patient-reported outcomes (PROs) on adverse drug reactions (ADRs) are increasingly used in cohort event monitoring (CEM) to obtain a better understanding of patients’ real-world experience with drugs. Despite the leading role for patients, little is known about their perspectives on CEM systems. In a cross-sectional open survey following the rationale of the Technology Acceptance Model, we aimed to obtain insight in patients’ perspectives on the perceived usefulness, ease of use and attitude toward using a PRO-based drug safety monitoring system for ADRs attributed to biologics. Patients considered structural reporting of ADRs in web-based questionnaires as useful and not burdensome. It was preferred to link the questionnaire frequency to regular hospital consultations or the biologic administration schedule. Various respondents were interested in sharing questionnaires with their medical specialist (49.0%) or pharmacist (34.2%), and suggested to minimize the questionnaire frequency in case of an unaltered situation or absence of ADRs. Patients’ perspectives should be considered in the setup of PRO-based CEM studies, as this contributes to data quality and patient centeredness. Since incorporation of patients’ perspectives in CEM studies is indispensable, a delicate balance should be found between user-friendliness and study aims.</p

Zahlungsverhalten in den Niederlanden – eine Fallstudie

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Use of fluorescence spectroscopy to differentiate yeast and bacterial cells

This study focuses on the characterization of bacterial and yeast species through their autofluorescence spectra. Lactic acid bacteria (Lactobacillus sp.), and yeast(Saccharomyces sp.) were cultured under controlled conditions and studied for variations in their autofluorescence, particularly in the area representative of tryptophan residues of proteins. The emission and excitation spectra clearly reveal that bacterial and yeast species can be differentiated by their intrinsic fluorescence with UV excitation. The possibility of differentiation between different strains of Saccharomyces yeast was also studied, with clear differences observed for selected strains. The study shows that fluorescence can be successfully used to differentiate between yeast and bacteria and between different yeast species, through the identification of spectroscopic fingerprints, without the need for fluorescent staining

Development of a Method for Predicting the Recurrence of States of Atmospheric Air Pollution Concentration in Industrial Cities

This paper reports the method developed for predicting the recurrence of states related to air pollution at industrial cities based on the modified window measure. The new scientific result implies that dangerous states of the urban air pollution should be identified and predicted based not on the prediction of the concentration of pollution as it is, but based on forecasting the recurrence of states of the concentration of atmospheric air pollutions. The proposed prediction method makes it possible to operatively forecast not only the clear but also hidden dangerous states of air pollution at industrial cities. This provides for an overall improvement in the effectiveness of interventions to prevent hazardous contamination of the atmosphere and the environment. The results of experimental testing indicate the feasibility of the proposed method. It was established that in the test interval of monitoring (between counts 12‒36) there were sharp characteristic changes in the predicted measure for the recurrence of state. It is noted that such changes are the predictors of hidden events involving hazardous air pollution at industrial cities. It was experimentally found that a more accurate forecast is ensured for the forecast horizon d=1 (6 hours). It is shown that in the considered case, in order to ensure the reliability of forecasting laminar states in the contaminated atmosphere, the smoothing parameter to be selected should not be less than 0.8. It is noted that in order to predict dangerous states of the atmosphere pollution based on the dynamics in the prediction of a state recurrence measure, there is no need in the information about meteorological conditions at the time of forecasting and in the future. This is the main distinguishing feature and advantage of the proposed prediction method. A given method for RS forecasting proves to be invariant to urban configuration, the types of stationary and mobile pollution sources, as well as meteorological condition