Quality of collaboration and information handovers in palliative care: a survey study on the perspectives of nurses in the Southwest Region of the Netherlands

Background: When patients receiving palliative care are transferred between care settings, adequate collaboration and information exchange between health care professionals is necessary to ensure continuity, efficiency and safety of care. Several studies identified deficits in communication and information exchange between care settings. Aim of this study was to get insight in the quality of collaboration and information exchange in palliative care from the perspectives of nurses. Methods: We performed a cross-sectional regional survey study among nurses working in different care settings. Nurses were approached via professional networks and media. Respondents were asked questions about collaboration in palliative care in general and about their last deceased patient. Potential associations between quality scores for collaboration and information handovers and characteristics of respondents or patients were tested with Pearson’s chi-square test. Results: A total of 933 nurses filled in the questionnaire. Nurses working in nursing homes were least positive about inter-organizational collaboration. Forty-six per cent of all nurses had actively searched for such collaboration in the last year. For their last deceased patient, 10% of all nurses had not received the information handover in time, 33% missed information they needed. An adequate information handover was positively associated with timeliness and completeness of the information and the patient being well-informed, not with procedural characteristics. Conclusion: Nurses report that collaboration between care settings and information exchange in palliative care is suboptimal. This study suggests that health care organizations should give more attention to shared professionalization towards inter-organizational collaboration among nurses in order to facilitate high-quality palliative care

Type 2 diabetes mellitus is associated with an imbalance in circulating endothelial and smooth muscle progenitor cell numbers

AIMS/HYPOTHESIS: Individuals with type 2 diabetes mellitus have increased rates of macrovascular disease (MVD). Endothelial progenitor cells (EPCs), circulating angiogenic cells (CACs) and smooth muscle progenitor cells (SMPCs) are suggested to play a role in the pathogenesis of MVD. The relationship between vasoregenerative EPCs or CACs and damaging SMPCs and the development of accelerated MVD in diabetes is still unknown. We tried to elucidate whether EPC, CAC and SMPC numbers and differentiation capacities in vitro differ in patients with and without diabetes or MVD. METHODS: Peripheral blood was obtained from insdividuals with and without diabetes and MVD (coronary or peripheral artery disease). EPC and SMPC numbers were determined with flow cytometry. Furthermore, CAC and SMPC numbers were quantified after in vitro culture. Their in vitro differentiation capacity was investigated with real-time RT-PCR and quantitative immunofluorescence. RESULTS: In diabetic patients both EPC and CAC levels were reduced (1.3-fold [p < 0.05] and 1.5-fold [p < 0.05], respectively). CAC outgrowth from diabetic patients with MVD was reduced 1.5-fold compared with diabetic patients without MVD (p < 0.05). SMPC levels were similar between diabetic patients and healthy controls. The CAC/SMPC ratio of in vitro cultured progenitor cells was reduced 2.3-fold in samples from diabetic patients (p < 0.001). The differentiation capacity of CACs and SMPCs in vitro remained similar independently of diabetes or MVD. CONCLUSIONS/INTERPRETATION: The ratio between EPCs or CACs and SMPCs is disturbed in type 2 diabetes in favour of SMPCs. This may translate into reduced vascular repair capacity, thereby promoting MVD in type 2 diabetes. ELECTRONIC SUPPLEMENTARY MATERIAL: The online version of this article (doi:10.1007/s00125-012-2590-5) contains peer-reviewed but unedited supplementary material, which is available to authorised users

A latent trait approach to measuring HIV/AIDS related stigma in healthcare professionals: application of mokken scaling technique

The attitudes of healthcare professionals towards HIV positive patients and high risk groups are central to the quality of care and therefore to the management of HIV/AIDS related stigma in health settings. Extant HIV/AIDS stigma scales that measure stigmatising attitudes towards people living with HIV/AIDS have been developed using scaling techniques such as principal component analysis. This approach has resulted in instruments that are often long. Mokken scale analysis is a nonparametric hierarchical scaling technique that can be used to develop unidimensional cumulative scales. This technique is advantageous over the other approaches; as the scales are usually shorter, while retaining acceptable psychometric properties. Moreover, Mokken scales also make no distributional assumptions about the underlying data, other than that the data are capable of being ordered by item and by person. In this study we aimed at developing a precise and concise measure of HIV/AIDS related stigma among health care professionals, using Mokken scale analysis

A novel nonparametric item response theory approach to measuring socioeconomic position: a comparison using household expenditure data from a Vietnam health survey, 2003

BACKGROUND: Measures of household socio-economic position (SEP) are widely used in health research. There exist a number of approaches to their measurement, with Principal Components Analysis (PCA) applied to a basket of household assets being one of the most common. PCA, however, carries a number of assumptions about the distribution of the data which may be untenable, and alternative, non-parametric, approaches may be preferred. Mokken scale analysis is a non-parametric, item response theory approach to scale development which appears never to have been applied to household asset data. A Mokken scale can be used to rank order items (measures of wealth) as well as households. Using data on household asset ownership from a national sample of 4,154 consenting households in the World Health Survey from Vietnam, 2003, we construct two measures of household SEP. Seventeen items asking about assets, and utility and infrastructure use were used. Mokken Scaling and PCA were applied to the data. A single item measure of total household expenditure is used as a point of contrast. RESULTS: An 11 item scale, out of the 17 items, was identified that conformed to the assumptions of a Mokken Scale. All the items in the scale were identified as strong items (Hi > .5). Two PCA measures of SEP were developed as a point of contrast. One PCA measure was developed using all 17 available asset items, the other used the reduced set of 11 items identified in the Mokken scale analaysis. The Mokken Scale measure of SEP and the 17 item PCA measure had a very high correlation (r = .98), and they both correlated moderately with total household expenditure: r = .59 and r = .57 respectively. In contrast the 11 item PCA measure correlated moderately with the Mokken scale (r = .68), and weakly with the total household expenditure (r = .18). CONCLUSION: The Mokken scale measure of household SEP performed at least as well as PCA, and outperformed the PCA measure developed with the 11 items used in the Mokken scale. Unlike PCA, Mokken scaling carries no assumptions about the underlying shape of the distribution of the data, and can be used simultaneous to order household SEP and items. The approach, however, has not been tested with data from other countries and remains an interesting, but under researched approach

The Attitudes to Ageing Questionnaire:Mokken Scaling Analysis

BACKGROUND:Hierarchical scales are useful in understanding the structure of underlying latent traits in many questionnaires. The Attitudes to Ageing Questionnaire (AAQ) explored the attitudes to ageing of older people themselves, and originally described three distinct subscales: (1) Psychosocial Loss (2) Physical Change and (3) Psychological Growth. This study aimed to use Mokken analysis, a method of Item Response Theory, to test for hierarchies within the AAQ and to explore how these relate to underlying latent traits. METHODS:Participants in a longitudinal cohort study, the Lothian Birth Cohort 1936, completed a cross-sectional postal survey. Data from 802 participants were analysed using Mokken Scaling analysis. These results were compared with factor analysis using exploratory structural equation modelling. RESULTS:Participants were 51.6% male, mean age 74.0 years (SD 0.28). Three scales were identified from 18 of the 24 items: two weak Mokken scales and one moderate Mokken scale. (1) 'Vitality' contained a combination of items from all three previously determined factors of the AAQ, with a hierarchy from physical to psychosocial; (2) 'Legacy' contained items exclusively from the Psychological Growth scale, with a hierarchy from individual contributions to passing things on; (3) 'Exclusion' contained items from the Psychosocial Loss scale, with a hierarchy from general to specific instances. All of the scales were reliable and statistically significant with 'Legacy' showing invariant item ordering. The scales correlate as expected with personality, anxiety and depression. Exploratory SEM mostly confirmed the original factor structure. CONCLUSIONS:The concurrent use of factor analysis and Mokken scaling provides additional information about the AAQ. The previously-described factor structure is mostly confirmed. Mokken scaling identifies a new factor relating to vitality, and a hierarchy of responses within three separate scales, referring to vitality, legacy and exclusion. This shows what older people themselves consider important regarding their own ageing