Psychological impact and recovery after involvement in a patient safety incident: A repeated measures analysis

OBJECTIVE: To examine individual, situational and organisational aspects that influence psychological impact and recovery of a patient safety incident on physicians, nurses and midwives. DESIGN: Cross-sectional, retrospective surveys of physicians, midwives and nurses. SETTING: 33 Belgian hospitals. PARTICIPANTS: 913 clinicians (186 physicians, 682 nurses, 45 midwives) involved in a patient safety incident. MAIN OUTCOME MEASURES: The Impact of Event Scale was used to retrospectively measure psychological impact of the safety incident at the time of the event and compare it with psychological impact at the time of the survey. RESULTS: Individual, situational as well as organisational aspects influenced psychological impact and recovery of a patient safety incident. Psychological impact is higher when the degree of harm for the patient is more severe, when healthcare professionals feel responsible for the incident and among female healthcare professionals. Impact of degree of harm differed across clinicians. Psychological impact is lower among more optimistic professionals. Overall, impact decreased significantly over time. This effect was more pronounced for women and for those who feel responsible for the incident. The longer ago the incident took place, the stronger impact had decreased. Also, higher psychological impact is related with the use of a more active coping and planning coping strategy, and is unrelated to support seeking coping strategies. Rendered support and a support culture reduce psychological impact, whereas a blame culture increases psychological impact. No associations were found with job experience and resilience of the health professional, the presence of a second victim support team or guideline and working in a learning culture. CONCLUSIONS: Healthcare organisations should anticipate on providing their staff appropriate and timely support structures that are tailored to the healthcare professional involved in the incident and to the specific situation of the incident

Immunoactive preparations and regulatory responses in the respiratory tract: potential for clinical application in chronic inflammatory airway diseases

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Politics, ethics & the law, legal practice & scholarship

This paper examines legal practice, legal scholarship, ethics and politics from the viewpoint of an academic who in his lifetime has, besides having been a professor, been a vice-rector, a civil servant, an advocate general and an anti-corruption officer.. As a vice-rector he acknowledged the essence of decision making: based on intuition kept in check by deliberation. As a civil servant he learned to involve considerations of general interest in the decision making process. As an advocate general he tried to combine assistance to the Court with assistance to the legal community in a multicultural and pluralist European environment. As an “anti-corruption” officer he used his judicial experience to advance reform in the EC Commission. As an academic he sought to promote the “bottom up” approach of comparative law: from judicial (and legislative) solutions to general principles which the EU member states have in common

La forme juridique d'un « investment trust » en Belgique,, en France et aux Pays-Bas

Van Gerven Walter. La forme juridique d'un « investment trust » en Belgique,, en France et aux Pays-Bas. In: Revue internationale de droit comparé. Vol. 12 N°3, Juillet-septembre 1960. pp. 527-558

European Court of Justice Case Law as a Means of Unification of Private Law?

This Essay does not focus on the feasibility of an European Community ( EC ) civil code, but rather addresses questions of substance relating to the law of obligations, that is, the law of contract and tort, leaving aside the law of property and family law. Nevertheless, I must state that I do not believe in the feasibility of a uniform Civil Code for the European Community. Rather than employing legislation as the means of bringing about uniformity, I prefer discovering general principles common to statutes and case law of European Union Member State legal systems, as influenced and brought closer to each other, but not justified, by case law from the European Community (\u27EC\u27) and the European Convention Human Rights judiciary. For indeed, the European Community courts, the European Court of Justice (“ECJ” or “Court”), and the European Court of First Instance (“ECFI”) will not result in the unification of national private laws. Similar to the impact of EC directives on private law, the impact of ECJ case law on private law will only be piece-meal; that is, only visible in some limited fields of private law, and will tend to harmonize, rather than to unify, the national rules in those fields. Therefore, ECJ case law will never lead to any kind of a coherent statutory unification of contract law