300 research outputs found

    Identifying the content and context of pain within paediatric rheumatology healthcare professional curricula in the UK: a summative content analysis.

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    From Europe PMC via Jisc Publications RouterHistory: ppub 2021-08-01, epub 2021-08-21Publication status: PublishedFunder: Versus Arthritis; Grant(s): 12794BackgroundThe curriculum for professionals working in paediatric rheumatology should include pain but it is unclear to what extent this currently occurs. The aim of this study was to identify pain-related curriculum content and the context in which pain is presented in educational and training documentation for healthcare professionals in this clinical speciality.MethodsCore curricula documents from UK based professional organisations were identified in partnership with healthcare professionals. Documents were analysed using a summative content analysis approach. Key pain terms were quantified and weighted frequencies were used to explore narrative pain themes. Latent content was interpreted qualitatively to explore the context within which pain terms were positioned.ResultsNine curriculum documents were identified and analysed from doctors, nurses, physiotherapists and occupational therapists specialising in paediatric rheumatology. Pain themes represented a mean percentage of 1.51% of text across all documents. Pain was rarely presented in the context of both inflammatory and non-inflammatory condition types despite being a common feature of each. Musculoskeletal pain was portrayed simply as a 'somatic' symptom, rather than as a complex phenomenon involving biological and psychosocial processes. Content around the assessment and management of pain was vague and inexplicit.ConclusionCurrent educational and training documentation in paediatric rheumatology do not include core pain topics. Curricula for these healthcare professionals would benefit from updates in contemporary pain theories and examples of in-context, evidence-based pain practices. This should be a priority starting point for optimising patient pain care in paediatric musculoskeletal healthcare

    Are dietary inequalities among Australian adults changing? a nationally representative analysis of dietary change according to socioeconomic position between 1995 and 2011-13

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    Abstract Background Increasing inequalities in rates of obesity and chronic disease may be partly fuelled by increasing dietary inequalities, however very few nationally representative analyses of socioeconomic trends in dietary inequalities exist. The release of the 2011–13 Australian National Nutrition and Physical Activity Survey data allows investigation of change in dietary intake according to socioeconomic position (SEP) in Australia using a large, nationally representative sample, compared to the previous national survey in 1995. This study examined change in dietary intakes of energy, macronutrients, fiber, fruits and vegetables among Australian adults between 1995 and 2011–13, according to SEP. Methods Cross-sectional data were obtained from the 1995 National Nutrition Survey, and the 2011–13 National Nutrition and Physical Activity Survey. Dietary intake data were collected via a 24-h dietary recall (n = 17,484 adults) and a dietary questionnaire (n = 15,287 adults). SEP was assessed according to educational level, equivalized household income, and area-level disadvantage. Survey-weighted linear and logistic regression models, adjusted for age, sex/gender and smoking status, examined change in dietary intakes over time. Results Dietary intakes remained poor across the SEP spectrum in both surveys, as evidenced by high consumption of saturated fat and total sugars, and low fiber, fruit and vegetable intakes. There was consistent evidence (i.e. according to ≥2 SEP measures) of more favorable changes in dietary intakes of carbohydrate, polyunsaturated and monounsaturated fat in higher, relative to lower SEP groups, particularly in women. Intakes of energy, total fat, saturated fat and fruit differed over time according to a single SEP measure (i.e. educational level, household income, or area-level disadvantage). There were no changes in intake of total sugars, protein, fiber or vegetables according to any SEP measures. Conclusions There were few changes in dietary intakes of energy, most macronutrients, fiber, fruits and vegetables in Australian adults between 1995 and 2011–13 according to SEP. For carbohydrate, polyunsaturated and monounsaturated fat, more favorable changes in intakes occurred in higher SEP groups. Despite the persistence of suboptimal dietary intakes, limited evidence of widening dietary inequalities is positive from a public health perspective. Trial registration Clinical trials registration: ACTRN12617001045303

    Parental risk factors and children entering out-of-home care: The effects of cumulative risk and parent's sex

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    Background Parental difficulties, including mental ill health, substance misuse, domestic violence and learning disability have been associated with children entering out-of-home care. There is also evidence that these issues may co-occur within families. Understanding how the co-occurrence of these difficulties is associated with care entry is complex because they may co-occur in the same or different household members and have different impacts on the likelihood of care entry when they occur in mothers, fathers or in single parent households. Method Administrative data from local authority children’s services in Wales were linked with demographic data to identify households in which children lived prior to entering care. Linkage to birth data identified biological mothers. Linkage with primary care, emergency department, hospital admissions and substance misuse services data enabled indicators of substance misuse, mental health, assaults in the home, learning disability and neurodivergence in the adults in those households to be identified. A series of multilevel binary logistic regression models were used to explore the odds of a household having one or more children entering care if risk factors were present. These considered the effects of individual risks, and cumulative risk both in individual adults in the household, and across the whole household. The effects of the number of adults, having adults with no risks and the differential impacts of risks in biological mothers, other women or men were also explored. Additional models explored these factors in single adult households. Results Cumulative risks increased the likelihood of care entry, however this effect disappeared when individual risks were controlled for. The presence of an individual with no risks in the household acted as a protective factor. Overall, the impact of the risks on the odds of care entry was substantially greater if the risks were present in the biological mother than if they occurred in other adults (men or women) in the household. In single adult households risk factors had a much greater impact when they occurred in households headed by women as opposed to men. Conclusion Substantial differences in the effects of risk factors in female and male adults are apparent and further research is needed to understand why this is occurring to ensure that parents are treated equally in terms of support and statutory intervention regardless of their sex

    Clinical impairment in premanifest and early Huntington's disease is associated with regionally specific atrophy.

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    TRACK-HD is a multicentre longitudinal observational study investigating the use of clinical assessments and 3-Tesla magnetic resonance imaging as potential biomarkers for future therapeutic trials in Huntington's disease (HD). The cross-sectional data from this large well-characterized dataset provide the opportunity to improve our knowledge of how the underlying neuropathology of HD may contribute to the clinical manifestations of the disease across the spectrum of premanifest (PreHD) and early HD. Two hundred and thirty nine gene-positive subjects (120 PreHD and 119 early HD) from the TRACK-HD study were included. Using voxel-based morphometry (VBM), grey and white matter volumes were correlated with performance in four domains: quantitative motor (tongue force, metronome tapping, and gait); oculomotor [anti-saccade error rate (ASE)]; cognition (negative emotion recognition, spot the change and the University of Pennsylvania smell identification test) and neuropsychiatric measures (apathy, affect and irritability). After adjusting for estimated disease severity, regionally specific associations between structural loss and task performance were found (familywise error corrected, P < 0.05); impairment in tongue force, metronome tapping and ASE were all associated with striatal loss. Additionally, tongue force deficits and ASE were associated with volume reduction in the occipital lobe. Impaired recognition of negative emotions was associated with volumetric reductions in the precuneus and cuneus. Our study reveals specific associations between atrophy and decline in a range of clinical modalities, demonstrating the utility of VBM correlation analysis for investigating these relationships in HD

    Use of Novel Strategies to Develop Guidelines for Management of Pyogenic Osteomyelitis in Adults: A WikiGuidelines Group Consensus Statement.

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    Importance Traditional approaches to practice guidelines frequently result in dissociation between strength of recommendation and quality of evidence. Objective To construct a clinical guideline for pyogenic osteomyelitis management, with a new standard of evidence to resolve the gap between strength of recommendation and quality of evidence, through the use of a novel open access approach utilizing social media tools. Evidence Review This consensus statement and systematic review study used a novel approach from the WikiGuidelines Group, an open access collaborative research project, to construct clinical guidelines for pyogenic osteomyelitis. In June 2021 and February 2022, authors recruited via social media conducted multiple PubMed literature searches, including all years and languages, regarding osteomyelitis management; criteria for article quality and inclusion were specified in the group's charter. The GRADE system for evaluating evidence was not used based on previously published concerns regarding the potential dissociation between strength of recommendation and quality of evidence. Instead, the charter required that clear recommendations be made only when reproducible, prospective, controlled studies provided hypothesis-confirming evidence. In the absence of such data, clinical reviews were drafted to discuss pros and cons of care choices. Both clear recommendations and clinical reviews were planned with the intention to be regularly updated as new data become available. Findings Sixty-three participants with diverse expertise from 8 countries developed the group's charter and its first guideline on pyogenic osteomyelitis. These participants included both nonacademic and academic physicians and pharmacists specializing in general internal medicine or hospital medicine, infectious diseases, orthopedic surgery, pharmacology, and medical microbiology. Of the 7 questions addressed in the guideline, 2 clear recommendations were offered for the use of oral antibiotic therapy and the duration of therapy. In addition, 5 clinical reviews were authored addressing diagnosis, approaches to osteomyelitis underlying a pressure ulcer, timing for the administration of empirical therapy, specific antimicrobial options (including empirical regimens, use of antimicrobials targeting resistant pathogens, the role of bone penetration, and the use of rifampin as adjunctive therapy), and the role of biomarkers and imaging to assess responses to therapy. Conclusions and Relevance The WikiGuidelines approach offers a novel methodology for clinical guideline development that precludes recommendations based on low-quality data or opinion. The primary limitation is the need for more rigorous clinical investigations, enabling additional clear recommendations for clinical questions currently unresolved by high-quality data

    Health Care Utilization and Behavior Changes After Workplace Genetic Testing at a Large US Health Care System

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    PURPOSE: This study explored employee health behavior changes and health care utilization after workplace genetic testing (wGT). Wellness-program-associated wGT seeks to improve employee health, but the related health implications are unknown. METHODS: Employees of a large US health care system offering wGT (cancer, heart disease, and pharmacogenomics [PGx]) were sent electronic surveys. Self-reported data from those who received test results were analyzed. Descriptive statistics characterized responses, whereas logistic regression analyses explored correlates of responses to wGT. RESULTS: 53.9% (n = 418/776) of respondents (88.3% female, mean age = 44 years) reported receiving wGT results. 12.0% (n = 48/399) received results indicating increased risk (IR) of cancer, 9.5% (n = 38/398) had IR of heart disease, and 31.4% (n = 125/398) received informative PGx results. IR results for cancer and/or heart disease (n = 67) were associated with health behavior changes (adjusted odds ratio: 3.23; 95% CI 1.75, 6.13; P \u3c .001) and health care utilization (adjusted odds ratio: 8.60; 95% CI 4.43, 17.5; P \u3c .001). Informative PGx results (n = 125) were associated with medication changes (PGx-informative: 15.2%; PGx-uninformative: 4.8%; P = .002). CONCLUSION: This study explored employee responses to wGT, contributing to the understanding of the ethical and social implications of wGT. Receiving IR results from wGT may promote health behavior changes and health care utilization in employees

    Guidelines for Diagnosis and Management of Infective Endocarditis in Adults: A WikiGuidelines Group Consensus Statement.

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    IMPORTANCE Practice guidelines often provide recommendations in which the strength of the recommendation is dissociated from the quality of the evidence. OBJECTIVE To create a clinical guideline for the diagnosis and management of adult bacterial infective endocarditis (IE) that addresses the gap between the evidence and recommendation strength. EVIDENCE REVIEW This consensus statement and systematic review applied an approach previously established by the WikiGuidelines Group to construct collaborative clinical guidelines. In April 2022 a call to new and existing members was released electronically (social media and email) for the next WikiGuidelines topic, and subsequently, topics and questions related to the diagnosis and management of adult bacterial IE were crowdsourced and prioritized by vote. For each topic, PubMed literature searches were conducted including all years and languages. Evidence was reported according to the WikiGuidelines charter: clear recommendations were established only when reproducible, prospective, controlled studies provided hypothesis-confirming evidence. In the absence of such data, clinical reviews were crafted discussing the risks and benefits of different approaches. FINDINGS A total of 51 members from 10 countries reviewed 587 articles and submitted information relevant to 4 sections: establishing the diagnosis of IE (9 questions); multidisciplinary IE teams (1 question); prophylaxis (2 questions); and treatment (5 questions). Of 17 unique questions, a clear recommendation could only be provided for 1 question: 3 randomized clinical trials have established that oral transitional therapy is at least as effective as intravenous (IV)-only therapy for the treatment of IE. Clinical reviews were generated for the remaining questions. CONCLUSIONS AND RELEVANCE In this consensus statement that applied the WikiGuideline method for clinical guideline development, oral transitional therapy was at least as effective as IV-only therapy for the treatment of IE. Several randomized clinical trials are underway to inform other areas of practice, and further research is needed

    Effects of antiplatelet therapy on stroke risk by brain imaging features of intracerebral haemorrhage and cerebral small vessel diseases: subgroup analyses of the RESTART randomised, open-label trial

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    Background Findings from the RESTART trial suggest that starting antiplatelet therapy might reduce the risk of recurrent symptomatic intracerebral haemorrhage compared with avoiding antiplatelet therapy. Brain imaging features of intracerebral haemorrhage and cerebral small vessel diseases (such as cerebral microbleeds) are associated with greater risks of recurrent intracerebral haemorrhage. We did subgroup analyses of the RESTART trial to explore whether these brain imaging features modify the effects of antiplatelet therapy

    The Fourteenth Data Release of the Sloan Digital Sky Survey: First Spectroscopic Data from the extended Baryon Oscillation Spectroscopic Survey and from the second phase of the Apache Point Observatory Galactic Evolution Experiment

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    The fourth generation of the Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS-IV) has been in operation since July 2014. This paper describes the second data release from this phase, and the fourteenth from SDSS overall (making this, Data Release Fourteen or DR14). This release makes public data taken by SDSS-IV in its first two years of operation (July 2014-2016). Like all previous SDSS releases, DR14 is cumulative, including the most recent reductions and calibrations of all data taken by SDSS since the first phase began operations in 2000. New in DR14 is the first public release of data from the extended Baryon Oscillation Spectroscopic Survey (eBOSS); the first data from the second phase of the Apache Point Observatory (APO) Galactic Evolution Experiment (APOGEE-2), including stellar parameter estimates from an innovative data driven machine learning algorithm known as "The Cannon"; and almost twice as many data cubes from the Mapping Nearby Galaxies at APO (MaNGA) survey as were in the previous release (N = 2812 in total). This paper describes the location and format of the publicly available data from SDSS-IV surveys. We provide references to the important technical papers describing how these data have been taken (both targeting and observation details) and processed for scientific use. The SDSS website (www.sdss.org) has been updated for this release, and provides links to data downloads, as well as tutorials and examples of data use. SDSS-IV is planning to continue to collect astronomical data until 2020, and will be followed by SDSS-V.Comment: SDSS-IV collaboration alphabetical author data release paper. DR14 happened on 31st July 2017. 19 pages, 5 figures. Accepted by ApJS on 28th Nov 2017 (this is the "post-print" and "post-proofs" version; minor corrections only from v1, and most of errors found in proofs corrected

    What do you mean, ‘megafire’?

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    BACKGROUND : ‘Megafire’ is an emerging concept commonly used to describe fires that are extreme in terms of size, behaviour, and/or impacts, but the term’s meaning remains ambiguous. APPROACH : We sought to resolve ambiguity surrounding the meaning of ‘megafire’ by conducting a structured review of the use and definition of the term in several languages in the peer-reviewed scientific literature. We collated definitions and descriptions of megafire and identified criteria frequently invoked to define megafire. We recorded the size and location of megafires and mapped them to reveal global variation in the size of fires described as megafires. RESULTS : We identified 109 studies that define the term ‘megafire’ or identify a megafire, with the term first appearing in the peer-reviewed literature in 2005. Seventy-one (~65%) of these studies attempted to describe or define the term. There was considerable variability in the criteria used to define megafire, although definitions of megafire based on fire size were most common. Megafire size thresholds varied geographically from > 100–100,000 ha, with fires > 10,000 ha the most common size threshold (41%, 18/44 studies). Definitions of megafire were most common from studies led by authors from North America (52%, 37/71). We recorded 137 instances from 84 studies where fires were reported as megafires, the vast majority (94%, 129/137) of which exceed 10,000 ha in size. Megafires occurred in a range of biomes, but were most frequently described in forested biomes (112/137, 82%), and usually described single ignition fires (59% 81/137). CONCLUSION : As Earth’s climate and ecosystems change, it is important that scientists can communicate trends in the occurrence of larger and more extreme fires with clarity. To overcome ambiguity, we suggest a definition of megafire as fires > 10,000 ha arising from single or multiple related ignition events. We introduce two additional terms – gigafire (> 100,000 ha) and terafire (> 1,000,000 ha) – for fires of an even larger scale than megafires.DATA AVAILABILITY STATEMENT: A list of the references from which the data were extracted can be found in the Appendix A: Data sources. The data used in this study are openly available at zenodo.org: https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.6252145.Threatened Species Recovery Hub; NSW Bushfire Risk Management Research Hub; Australian Wildlife Society; World Wildlife Fund.http://wileyonlinelibrary.com/journal/gebZoology and Entomolog
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