Determinants of Adherence to Treatment in Hypertensive Patients of African Descent and the Role of Culturally Appropriate Education

In Western countries, better knowledge about patient-related determinants of treatment adherence (medication and lifestyle) is needed to improve treatment adherence and outcomes among hypertensive ethnic minority patients of African descent.To identify patient-related determinants of adherence to lifestyle and medication recommendations among hypertensive African Surinamese and Ghanaian patients with suboptimal treatment results (SBP≥140) living in the Netherlands and how culturally appropriate hypertension education (CAHE) influenced those determinants.This study analysed data of 139 patients who participated in the CAHE trial. Univariate logistic regression analysis was used to measure the association between patient-related determinants (medication self-efficacy, beliefs about medication and hypertension, social support, and satisfaction with care) and treatment adherence. We also tested whether CAHE influenced the determinants.Medication self-efficacy and social support were associated with medication adherence at baseline. At six months, more medication self-efficacy and fewer concerns about medication use were associated with improved medication adherence. Self-efficacy was also associated with adherence to lifestyle recommendations at baseline. CAHE influenced patients' illness perceptions by creating more understanding of hypertension, its chronic character, and more concerns about the associated risks.In this high-risk population, health care providers can support medication adherence by paying attention to patients' medication self-efficacy, the concerns they may have about medication use and patients' perceptions on hypertension. The CAHE intervention improved patients' perception on hypertension

National plans and awareness campaigns as priorities for achieving global brain health

Neurological conditions are the leading cause of death and disability combined. This public health crisis has become a global priority with the introduction of WHO's Intersectoral Global Action Plan on Epilepsy and Other Neurological Disorders 2022–2031 (IGAP). 18 months after this plan was adopted, global neurology stakeholders, including representatives of the OneNeurology Partnership (a consortium uniting global neurology organisations), take stock and advocate for urgent acceleration of IGAP implementation. Drawing on lessons from relevant global health contexts, this Health Policy identifies two priority IGAP targets to expedite national delivery of the entire 10-year plan: namely, to update national policies and plans, and to create awareness campaigns and advocacy programmes for neurological conditions and brain health. To ensure rapid attainment of the identified priority targets, six strategic drivers are proposed: universal community awareness, integrated neurology approaches, intersectoral governance, regionally coordinated IGAP domestication, lived experience-informed policy making, and neurological mainstreaming (advocating to embed brain health into broader policy agendas). Contextualised with globally emerging IGAP-directed efforts and key considerations for intersectoral policy design, this novel framework provides actionable recommendations for policy makers and IGAP implementation partners. Timely, synergistic pursuit of the six drivers might aid WHO member states in cultivating public awareness and policy structures required for successful intersectoral roll-out of IGAP by 2031, paving the way towards brain health for all.</p

What need-supportive and need-thwarting teaching behaviors do university teachers use in their honors classes?:An observational study

Teacher classroom behavior is an important factor in student learning and motivation. Past research within higher education has primarily concentrated on identifying teaching behaviors that teachers and students deem important in honors classrooms. Yet, what specific teaching behaviors either support or thwart the needs of students in real-world honors classrooms is currently not clear. This study, which utilizes video observation, sheds light on teaching behaviors that either support or thwart students’ needs, as viewed through the lens of self-determination theory, within the context of Dutch honors education. We developed an observation tool to analyze video recordings of 12 lessons from four different teachers, and identified the types of behaviors making up the various dimensions of need-supportive and need-thwarting behaviors. We found nine types of behaviors that had not previously been identified in observational studies. Structure-providing behaviors were the most common need-supportive behavior, while need-thwarting behaviors always occurred alongside need-supportive behaviors. The observation tool introduced here can be used for further study of teaching behaviors in honors education practice. These results also make an important contribution to teachers' further professionalization and instructional practices

Similarities and differences in teaching behavior for honors and regular bachelor’s education

Many institutions of higher education offer honors education, but research on teacher behavior in honors classes is scarce. Our aim is to gain deeper understanding of how teachers adapt their teaching practices in the honors classroom as compared with the regular classroom. We conducted semi-structured interviews with 12 Dutch teachers who teach in both types of classroom. Using self-determination theory as an analytical framework, we found that teachers supported the basic psychological needs of autonomy, competence, and relatedness in both settings in order to promote intrinsic motivation. However, there were differences in how and why these behaviors were enacted. Teachers had different ways of expressing basic psychological needs. In the regular classroom, the main focus of the teachers is on preparing students to become autonomous professionals, whereas in the honors classroom, the main focus is on personal development and individual learning

What need-supportive and need-thwarting teaching behaviors do university teachers use in their honors classes? An observational study

Teacher classroom behavior is an important factor in student learning and motivation. Past research within higher education has primarily concentrated on identifying teaching behaviors that teachers and students deem important in honors classrooms. Yet, what specific teaching behaviors either support or thwart the needs of students in real-world honors classrooms is currently not clear. This study, which utilizes video observation, sheds light on teaching behaviors that either support or thwart students’ needs, as viewed through the lens of self-determination theory, within the context of Dutch honors education. We developed an observation tool to analyze video recordings of 12 lessons from four different teachers, and identified the types of behaviors making up the various dimensions of need-supportive and need-thwarting behaviors. We found nine types of behaviors that had not previously been identified in observational studies. Structure-providing behaviors were the most common need-supportive behavior, while need-thwarting behaviors always occurred alongside need-supportive behaviors. The observation tool introduced here can be used for further study of teaching behaviors in honors education practice. These results also make an important contribution to teachers' further professionalization and instructional practices

The combined value of executive functions and self-regulated learning to predict differences in study success among higher education students

Introduction: Self-regulated learning (SRL) has traditionally been associated with study success in higher education. In contrast, study success is still rarely associated with executive functions (EF), while it is known from neuropsychological practice that EF can influence overall functioning and performance. However some studies have shown relationships between EF and study success, but this has mainly been investigated in school children and adolescents. EF refer to higher-order cognitive processes to regulate cognition, behavior, and emotion in service of adaptive and goal-directed behaviors. SRL is a dynamic process in which learners activate and maintain cognitions, affects, and behaviors to achieve personal learning goals. This study explores the added value of including EF and SRL to predict study success (i.e., the obtained credits). Methods: In this study, we collected data from 315 first-year psychology students of a University of Applied Sciences in the Netherlands who completed questionnaires related to both EF (BRIEF) and SRL (MSLQ) two months after the start of the academic year. Credit points were obtained at the end of that first academic year. We used Structural Equation Modeling to test whether EF and SRL together explain more variance in study success than either concept alone. Results: EF explains 19.8% of the variance, SRL 22.9%, and in line with our hypothesis, EF and SRL combined explain 39.8% of the variance in obtained credits. Discussion: These results indicate that focusing on EF and SRL could lead to a better understanding of how higher education students learn successfully. This might be the objective of further investigation.</p

Lessons learned from people with neurological diseases at the time of COVID‐19: The EFNA‐EAN survey

International audienceBackground and purpose: The European Federation of Neurological Associations (EFNA), in partnership with the NeuroCOVID-19 taskforce of the European Academy of Neurology (EAN), has investigated the impact of the first wave of the COVID-19 pandemic on individuals with neurological diseases, as well as the hopes and fears of these patients about the post-pandemic phase.Methods: An EFNA-EAN survey was available online to any person living with a neurological disorder in Europe. It consisted of 18 items concerning the impact of the first wave of the COVID-19 pandemic on the medical care of people with neurological disorders, and the hopes and fears of these individuals regarding the post-pandemic phase.Results: For 44.4% of the 443 survey participants, the overall care of their neurological disease during the pandemic was inappropriate. This perception was mainly due to significant delays in accessing medical care (25.7%), insufficiently reliable information received about the potential impact of COVID-19 on their neurological disease (49.6%), and a substantial lack of involvement in their disease management decisions (54.3%). Participants indicated that their major concerns for the post-pandemic phase were experiencing longer waiting times to see a specialist (24.1%), suffering from social isolation and deteriorating mental well-being (23.1%), and facing delays in clinical trials with disinvestment in neuroscience research (13.1%).Conclusions: Despite the great efforts of health services to cope with the first wave of the COVID-19 pandemic, individuals with neurological conditions feel they have been left behind. These findings provide invaluable insights for improving the care of patients with neurological disorders in the further course of the COVID-19 pandemic

Channel selection for multi-item goods

本研究目的主要是利用最佳化的方式透過實證研究提出零售商選擇採購通路的模型，並且證實市場安全食品採購通路發展的效益。 整數規劃是透過各項決策變數找到最適的採購量，分攤到各項採購通路，並且極大化公司利潤。交易成本理論被應用來完整的量測產品的總成本，除了採購成本外，並包含銷售過程中的成本。此研究並透過台灣一家定位於提供安全食品的零售商所取得的17種農產品的實際成本資料來做數字分析。除此之外，透過比較靜態分析三個採購通路，並透過變異數分析(ANOVA)來驗證三種通路之間分別的屬性及其通則，用來發展產品行銷策略。本論文結果經由實際資料驗證，以茲確保所發展模型的實用性。This study provides an optimization approach, demonstrated by empirical investigation, to select retailer procurement channel of agricultural produces, and to justify the benefit of purchasing development for the segmented market with safety goods. Integer programming is used to maximize corporate profit associated with decision variable of the procurement channel categorized into three levels and their allocated quantity in the case of multiple sourcing and multiple products. Transaction cost theory is applied to comprehensively measure the total cost of a produce in its not only procurement cost, but also sale process cost. The empirical study uses the real data of 17 agricultural produces provided by a well-known Taiwanese retail chain positioned in providing safety foods for numerical analysis. Besides, we make the comparative analysis between the three procurement channels. And analysis of variance is used to examine the generalization between the three channels. The result is also empirically verified to ensure the practice of the model developed.CONTENTS CHAPTER1 INTRODUCTION 1 1.1 Research motivation 1 1.2 Research purpose 4 1.3 Research methodology 4 1.4 Research flow 5 CHAPTER2 LITERATURE REVIEW 6 2.1 purchasing complexity 6 2.2 purchasing development 8 2.3purchasing benefit 10 2.4Transaction cost 10 CHAPTER3 MODEL AND DATA ANALYSIS 12 3.1 Model description 12 3.2 Numerical example of real data 16 3.3 Results of model operation 19 3.3 Analysis of variance 24 CHAPTER4 CONCLUSION AND FUTURE WORK 27 REFERENCE 2