JAMA network open
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Meta Analysis
Rate and Risk Factors Associated With Prolonged Opioid Use After Surgery: A Systematic Review and Meta-analysis.
Prolonged opioid use after surgery may be associated with opioid dependency and increased health care use. However, published studies have reported varying estimates of the magnitude of prolonged opioid use and risk factors associated with the transition of patients to long-term opioid use. ⋯ The findings suggest that prolonged opioid use after surgery may be a substantial burden to public health. It appears that strategies, such as proactively screening for at-risk individuals, should be prioritized.
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The associations of spiritual and religious factors with patient-reported outcomes among adolescents with cancer are unknown. ⋯ In this study, multiple facets of spirituality and religiousness were associated with anxiety, depression, and fatigue, all of which were indirectly associated with the participant's sense of meaning and peace, which is a modifiable process. Although these results do not establish a causal direction, they do suggest palliative interventions addressing meaning-making, possibly including a spiritual or religious dimension, as a novel focus for intervention development.
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Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) is a global pandemic and can involve the gastrointestinal (GI) tract, including symptoms like diarrhea and shedding of the severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) in feces. ⋯ These findings suggest that that 12% of patients with COVID-19 will manifest GI symptoms; however, SAR-CoV-2 shedding was observed in 40.5% of patients with confirmed SARS-CoV-2 infection. This highlights the need to better understand what measures are needed to prevent further spread of this highly contagious pathogen.
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Association of Hospital Discharge Against Medical Advice With Readmission and In-Hospital Mortality.
Hospital readmissions contribute to higher expenditures and may sometimes reflect suboptimal patient care. Individuals discharged against medical advice (AMA) are a vulnerable patient population and may have higher risk for readmission. ⋯ Individuals discharged AMA have higher odds of 30-day readmission at significant cost to the health care system and lower in-hospital mortality rates compared with non-AMA patients. Patients discharged AMA are also more likely to be readmitted to different hospitals and to have earlier bounce-back readmissions, which may reflect dissatisfaction with their initial episode of care.