Infection Prevention and Control

AbstractHealthcare-associated infections (HAI) are adverse events exposing patients to a potentially avoidable risk of morbidity and mortality. Antimicrobial resistance (AMR) is increasingly contributing to the burden of HAIs and emerging as of the most alarming challenges for public health worldwide. Practically, harm mitigation and risk containment demand cross-sectional initiatives incorporate both approaches to infection prevention and control and methodologies from clinical risk management

Dairy products, dietary calcium and the risk of inflammatory bowel disease: results from a European prospective cohort investigation

Background: Dairy products may be involved in the etiology of inflammatory bowel disease by modulating gut microbiota and immune responses, but data from epidemiological studies examining this relationship are limited. We investigated the association between prediagnostic intake of these foods and dietary calcium, and the subsequent development of Crohn's disease (CD) and ulcerative colitis (UC). Methods: In total, 401,326 participants were enrolled in the European Prospective Investigation into Cancer and Nutrition cohort. At recruitment, consumption of total and specific dairy products (milk, yogurt, and cheese) and dietary calcium was measured using validated food frequency questionnaires. Cases developing incident CD (n = 110) or UC (n = 244) during follow-up were matched with 4 controls. Conditional logistic regression analyses were used to calculate odds ratios (ORs) with 95% confidence intervals (CIs), adjusted for total energy intake and smoking. Results: Compared with the lowest quartile, the ORs for the highest quartile of total dairy products and dietary calcium intake were 0.61 (95% CI, 0.32-1.19, p trend = 0.19) and 0.63 (95% CI, 0.28-1.42, p trend = 0.23) for CD, and 0.80 (95% CI, 0.50-1.30, p trend = 0.40) and 0.81 (95% CI, 0.49-1.34, p trend = 0.60) for UC, respectively. Compared with nonconsumers, individuals consuming milk had significantly reduced odds of CD (OR 0.30, 95% CI, 0.13-0.65) and nonsignificantly reduced odds of UC (OR 0.85, 95% CI, 0.49-1.47). Conclusions: Milk consumption may be associated with a decreased risk of developing CD, although a clear dose-response relationship was not established. Further studies are warranted to confirm this possible protective effect

A many-analysts approach to the relation between religiosity and well-being

The relation between religiosity and well-being is one of the most researched topics in the psychology of religion, yet the directionality and robustness of the effect remains debated. Here, we adopted a many-analysts approach to assess the robustness of this relation based on a new cross-cultural dataset (N=10,535 participants from 24 countries). We recruited 120 analysis teams to investigate (1) whether religious people self-report higher well-being, and (2) whether the relation between religiosity and self-reported well-being depends on perceived cultural norms of religion (i.e., whether it is considered normal and desirable to be religious in a given country). In a two-stage procedure, the teams first created an analysis plan and then executed their planned analysis on the data. For the first research question, all but 3 teams reported positive effect sizes with credible/confidence intervals excluding zero (median reported β=0.120). For the second research question, this was the case for 65% of the teams (median reported β=0.039). While most teams applied (multilevel) linear regression models, there was considerable variability in the choice of items used to construct the independent variables, the dependent variable, and the included covariates

Measuring gaze patterns during colonoscopy : a useful tool to evaluate colon inspection?

BACKGROUND AND OBJECTIVE: Considerable variation in adenoma detection has been shown between endoscopists, which may be explained by differences in colon inspection. Eye-tracking technology is an objective tool that detects differences in viewing patterns. We investigated the feasibility of eye-tracking technology during real-time, self-performed colonoscopies. METHODS: In this pilot study, 10 endoscopists performed two colonoscopies each. A mobile eye-tracking system to register the right eye position was used to determine the gaze across four areas of interest of the endoscopy monitor (upper, lower, left, and right quadrant). The measured gaze across the endoscopy monitor was correlated with the gaze across the endoscopically visualized colonic surface. RESULTS: Gaze patterns were measured successfully in 18 of 20 procedures. Significant differences in the time spent per area of interest were observed between endoscopists. The measured total gaze time per area of interest correlated strongly with the time spent on the corresponding area of the colonic surface (Pearson correlation coefficients ranging between 0.91 and 0.97). Endoscopists with more years of colonoscopy experience showed significantly higher percentages of overlap between the measured gaze position in the different areas of interest and the actual inspected area of the colonic surface (r=0.65, P=0.02). More experienced endoscopists had nonsignificantly longer mean gaze times per area of interest (r=0.52, P=0.06). CONCLUSION: Eye-tracking technology to measure gaze patterns of endoscopists during real-time, self-performed colonoscopies is feasible and may be used to evaluate and compare viewing behavior across the colonic surface of experienced endoscopists