Journal of general internal medicine
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Lung cancer screening (LCS) is recommended for individuals at high risk due to age and smoking history after a shared decision-making conversation. However, little is known about best strategies for incorporating shared decision-making, especially in a busy primary care setting. ⋯ NCT03862001.
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Randomized Controlled Trial Multicenter Study
Effectiveness of Medical Student Counseling for Hospitalized Patients Addicted to Tobacco (MS-CHAT): a Randomized Controlled Trial.
Low-middle-income countries face an enormous burden of tobacco-related illnesses. Counseling for tobacco cessation increases the chance of achieving quit outcomes, yet it remains underutilized in healthcare settings. ⋯ Medical students can be trained to effectively provide smoking cessation counseling to hospitalized patients. Incorporating this program into the medical curriculum can provide experiential training to medical students while improving patient quit rates.
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Review
Health-Related Quality of Life Scores and Values as Predictors of Mortality: A Scoping Review.
Health-related quality of life (HRQoL) can be assessed through measures that can be generic or disease specific, encompass several independent scales, or employ holistic assessment (i.e., the derivation of composite scores). HRQoL measures may identify patients with differential risk profiles. However, the usefulness of generic and holistic HRQoL measures in identifying patients at higher risk of death is unclear. ⋯ HRQoL was found to be associated with mortality in the general population and clinical sub-populations with physical health conditions. Whether this relationship holds in people with mental health conditions is not known. HRQoL assessment may be useful for screening and/or monitoring purposes to understand how people perceive their health and well-being and as an indicator of mortality risk, encouraging better-quality and timely patient care to support and maximize what may be a patient's only modifiable outcome.
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Methods to accurately predict the risk of in-hospital mortality are important for applications including quality assessment of healthcare institutions and research. ⋯ An update to the KP method accurately predicted in-hospital mortality for general medicine inpatients in 28 hospitals in Ontario, Canada. This updated method can be implemented in a wider range of settings using common open-source tools.
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Results from high-profile randomized controlled trials (RCTs) are routinely reported through press release months prior to peer-reviewed publication. There are potential benefits to press releases (e.g., knowledge dissemination, ensuring regulatory compliance), but also potential drawbacks (e.g., selective reporting, positive "spin"). ⋯ Preemptive press releases were common, most often issued for trials funded by a pharmaceutical company, and typically preceded publication in a peer-reviewed journal by approximately eight months.