How Do Older Persons Understand the Purpose and Relevance of Preventive Home Visits? A Study of Experiences after a First Visit

The aim of this study was to explore and describe older persons’ experiences of their first Preventive Home Visit. Preventive Home Visits (PHV) are health services that aim to promote older persons' health, prevent functional decline, and reduce the need for comprehensive healthcare. The knowledge base to guide the design of effective PHV interventions is scarce. Studies that explore older persons' experiences of the first visit are essential, as compliance with the service is a prerequisite for positive outcomes. An explorative and descriptive design was applied. Qualitative research interviews with ten older persons who had received the first PHV the previous year were analysed with regard to manifest and latent content. The findings revealed that the understanding of the purpose of PHV varied. For some participants, the concepts and aims of health promotion and disease prevention were difficult to comprehend. The possibility to prepare for the visit was sought. All participants appreciated the service; the dialogue quality was good and a trusted municipal contact person provided security. To enhance compliance and ensure effective PHV, the invitation to the PHV service should include clearly stated aims and specific information about the first visit. An individualised, person-centred approach should be applied

Implementation of advanced practice nursing for orthopaedic patients in the emergency care context – A study protocol for outcome studies

Aim. To evaluate the implementation of advanced practice nursing in emergency care in Norway for patients with orthopedic injuries, including hip fractures. The outcomes relate to quality of care and patient trust. Design. A non-inferiority study comparing an advanced practice nursing care model with a standard (physician-led) care model. Methods. Data will be collected from patient records and through the Patient Trust Questionnaire, completed by patients. The data will be analysed by descriptive and inferential statistics. Funding for the research was granted in 2015 and the regional ethical committee approved the current study in February 2019. Discussion. In Norway and the other Nordic countries, advanced practice nursing is still in its infancy, especially in the emergency care context. This study will evaluate advanced practice nursing in this new context. Impact. The study will add to knowledge on the quality of care provided for orthopedic patients with minor orthopedic injuries or hip fractures as delivered by advanced practice nurses and physicians, respectively. It will also evaluate how well advanced practice nursing is accepted by patients in this new context

Time in Care for Older People Living in Nursing Homes

In order to measure actual care needs in relation to resources required to fulfill these needs, an instrument (Time in Care) with which to evaluate care needs and determine the time needed for various care activities has been developed with the aim of assessing nursing intensity in municipal care for older people. Interreliability (ICC = 0.854) of time measurements (n = 10'546) of 32 nursing activities in relation to evaluated care levels in two nursing homes (staff n = 81) has been determined. Nursing intensity for both periods at the two nursing homes comprised on average a direct care time of 75 (45%) and 101 (42%) minutes, respectively. Work time was measured according to actual schedule (462 hours per nursing home during two weeks). Given that the need for care was high, one must further investigate if the quality of care the recipients received was sufficiently addressed

Stop worrying; start growing: Risk research on GM crops is a dead parrot: it is time to start reaping the benefits of GM

Opponents of genetically modified crops continue to raise concerns about risk, despite 20 years of research disproving their claims. Science should close the book on risk research and turn to studying the economic and environmental benefits of agricultural biotechnolog

Harnessing ward-level administrative data and expert knowledge to improve staffing decisions: A multi-method case study

© 2019 John Wiley & Sons Ltd Aim: The aim of this study was to investigate the impact of changes to bed configuration and patient mix on nurses’ workload in a single ward. Design: Multi-method case study. Method: The study was undertaken in an acute 28-bed ward in a tertiary referral public hospital in Queensland, Australia. Ward-level administrative data were obtained for a 2-year period, 12 months before bed configuration changes in October 2015 and 12 months after. These data included patient activity (bed occupancy, transfers, length of stay and casemix) and nurse staffing (budgeted and actual staffing levels, employment status and skillmix). Semi-structured interviews were conducted with ward nurses (N = 17) to explore the impact of the bed configuration changes on their workload. Results: Administrative data showed that the bed configuration changes resulted in more complex and dependent patients, increased patient transfers and greater variability in casemix. The interview data found these changes to patient complexity and activity intensified workloads, which were further increased by staffing decisions that resulted in greater reliance on temporary staff. Conclusion: Hospitals already possess the data and expert knowledge needed to improve staffing and bed management decisions without the need for additional, costly workload systems. Impact: Determining appropriate nurse staffing in light of the complexities and variation of patient needs at the ward level remains a challenge. This study identified increases in patient complexity, dependency, variability and churn that increased workload. Staffing grew but hidden factors associated with temporary staffing and skillmix further intensified nurses’ workload. Harnessing existing data and the expertise and experience of nursing unit managers (NUMs) would help staff wards more efficiently and effectively, providing reasonable workloads and appropriate skillmix that can enhance the safety and quality of patient care. To facilitate this, NUMs need access to accurate, timely, data and authority in staffing and bed management decisions

Can care of elderly be measured? A method for estimating the individual care of recipients in community health care

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>Almost every country in the Western world has great difficulties allocating enough financial resources to meet the needs in the care of the increasing elderly population. The main problem is common to all countries and concerns the efforts to meet elderly persons' needs on an individual level while still maintaining society's responsibility for distributing justice. The aim of this study is to elaborate an instrument for measuring the quality of individual care and staff's working time in order to allocate public resources fairly. The present study gives an account of a new classification system named TiC (Time in Care), indicating how it can be used most effectively and also investigating the validity and reliability of the system.</p> <p>Methods</p> <p>All recipients in 13 sheltered homes for elderly care (n = 505) in a Swedish municipality were surveyed regarding the care they needed, in dimensions of General Care, Medical Care, Cognitive Dysfunction and Rehabilitation, and the time required. Construct validity was assessed by means of factor analysis. The inter-rater agreement of two raters concerning 79 recipients was measured using weighted Kappa. The stability of the instrument and its sensitivity to change were investigated through test-retest reliability measurements, conducted once a month during a six-month period. The content validity of the instrument was also assessed.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>Factor analysis resulted in a reduction of the number of items from 25 to 16 in three dimensions: General Care, Medical Care and Cognitive Dysfunction. The Kappa analysis showed satisfactory to excellent inter-rater agreement. The care need scores were basically stable but showed sensitivity to change in health status.</p> <p>Conclusion</p> <p>The instrument was found to be useful and reliable for assessing individual needs in community health care.</p

Acute effects of nicotine on visual search tasks in young adult smokers

Rationale Nicotine is known to improve performance on tests involving sustained attention and recent research suggests that nicotine may also improve performance on tests involving the strategic allocation of attention and working memory. Objectives We used measures of accuracy and response latency combined with eye-tracking techniques to examine the effects of nicotine on visual search tasks. Methods In experiment 1 smokers and non-smokers performed pop-out and serial search tasks. In experiment 2, we used a within-subject design and a more demanding search task for multiple targets. In both studies, 2-h abstinent smokers were asked to smoke one of their own cigarettes between baseline and tests. Results In experiment 1, pop-out search times were faster after nicotine, without a loss in accuracy. Similar effects were observed for serial searches, but these were significant only at a trend level. In experiment 2, nicotine facilitated a strategic change in eye movements resulting in a higher proportion of fixations on target letters. If the cigarette was smoked on the first trial (when the task was novel), nicotine additionally reduced the total number of fixations and refixations on all letters in the display. Conclusions Nicotine improves visual search performance by speeding up search time and enabling a better focus of attention on task relevant items. This appears to reflect more efficient inhibition of eye movements towards task irrelevant stimuli, and better active maintenance of task goals. When the task is novel, and therefore more difficult, nicotine lessens the need to refixate previously seen letters, suggesting an improvement in working memory

The antisaccade task as an index of sustained goal activation in working memory: modulation by nicotine

The antisaccade task provides a laboratory analogue of situations in which execution of the correct behavioural response requires the suppression of a more prepotent or habitual response. Errors (failures to inhibit a reflexive prosaccade towards a sudden onset target) are significantly increased in patients with damage to the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex and patients with schizophrenia. Recent models of antisaccade performance suggest that errors are more likely to occur when the intention to initiate an antisaccade is insufficiently activated within working memory. Nicotine has been shown to enhance specific working memory processes in healthy adults. MATERIALS AND METHODS: We explored the effect of nicotine on antisaccade performance in a large sample (N = 44) of young adult smokers. Minimally abstinent participants attended two test sessions and were asked to smoke one of their own cigarettes between baseline and retest during one session only. RESULTS AND CONCLUSION: Nicotine reduced antisaccade errors and correct antisaccade latencies if delivered before optimum performance levels are achieved, suggesting that nicotine supports the activation of intentions in working memory during task performance. The implications of this research for current theoretical accounts of antisaccade performance, and for interpreting the increased rate of antisaccade errors found in some psychiatric patient groups are discussed

Smoking trends among adolescents from 1990 to 2002 in ten European countries and Canada

BACKGROUND: Daily smoking adolescents are a public health problem as they are more likely to become adult smokers and to develop smoking-related health problems later on in their lives. METHODS: The study is part of the four-yearly, cross-national Health Behaviour in School-aged Children study, a school-based survey on a nationally representative sample using a standardised methodology. Data of 4 survey periods are available (1990–2002). Gender-specific daily smoking trends among 14–15 year olds are examined using logistic regressions. Sex ratios are calculated for each survey period and country. Interaction effects between period and gender are examined. RESULTS: Daily smoking prevalence in boys in 2002 ranges from 5.5% in Sweden to 20.0% in Latvia. Among girls, the daily smoking prevalence in 2002 ranges from 8.9% in Poland to 24.7% in Austria. Three daily smoking trend groups are identified: countries with a declining or stagnating trend, countries with an increasing trend followed by a decreasing trend, and countries with an increasing trend. These trend groups show a geographical pattern, but are not linked to smoking prevalence. Over the 4 surveys, the sex ratio has changed in Belgium, Switzerland, and Latvia. CONCLUSION: Among adolescents in Europe, three groups of countries in a different stage of the smoking epidemic curve can be identified, with girls being in an earlier stage than boys. In 2002, large differences in smoking prevalence between the countries have been observed. This predicts a high mortality due to smoking over 20–30 years for some countries, if no policy interventions are taken

Considering Intra-individual Genetic Heterogeneity to Understand Biodiversity

In this chapter, I am concerned with the concept of Intra-individual Genetic Hetereogeneity (IGH) and its potential influence on biodiversity estimates. Definitions of biological individuality are often indirectly dependent on genetic sampling -and vice versa. Genetic sampling typically focuses on a particular locus or set of loci, found in the the mitochondrial, chloroplast or nuclear genome. If ecological function or evolutionary individuality can be defined on the level of multiple divergent genomes, as I shall argue is the case in IGH, our current genetic sampling strategies and analytic approaches may miss out on relevant biodiversity. Now that more and more examples of IGH are available, it is becoming possible to investigate the positive and negative effects of IGH on the functioning and evolution of multicellular individuals more systematically. I consider some examples and argue that studying diversity through the lens of IGH facilitates thinking not in terms of units, but in terms of interactions between biological entities. This, in turn, enables a fresh take on the ecological and evolutionary significance of biological diversity