Plos One
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The National Institutes of Health (NIH) K18 award mechanism provides funded opportunities for established investigators to gain knowledge in fields outside of their primary disciplines, but outcomes associated with these awards have not been evaluated to date. NIH's Basic Behavioral and Social Sciences Opportunity Network (OppNet) is one of the few initiatives that has used this award mechanism. We explored how the unique features of K18 awards affect the ability of recipients to obtain follow-on NIH research funding. ⋯ We hypothesized that K18 award recipients might be (1) more successful than are other K award recipients in obtaining follow-on NIH research funding due to their career experience or (2) less successful due to the competing demands of other projects. By analyzing follow-on NIH research awards and interview data, we found that OppNet K18 award recipients were at least as successful as were other K award recipients in obtaining follow-on funding and may have been more successful by certain measures. K18 awards produce their outcomes with a lower investment per investigator than do other K awards, suggesting continued or enhanced use of the mechanism.
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Developments in information technology offer opportunities to enhance medication safety in primary care. We evaluated the implementation and adoption of a complex pharmacist-led intervention involving the use of an electronic audit and feedback surveillance dashboard to identify patients potentially at risk of hazardous prescribing or monitoring of medicines in general practices. The intervention aimed to create a rapid learning health system for medication safety in primary care. This study aimed to explore how the intervention was implemented, adopted and embedded into practice using a qualitative process evaluation. ⋯ Our study highlighted the importance of the combined use of information technology and the role of pharmacists working in general practice settings. Medicine optimisation activities in primary care may be enhanced by the implementation of a pharmacist-led electronic audit and feedback system. This intervention established a rapid learning health system that swiftly translated data from electronic health records into changes in practice to improve patient care. Using NPT provided valuable insights into the ways in which developing relationships, collaborations and communication between health professionals could lead to the implementation, adoption and sustainability of the intervention.
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The Cognitive Emotion Regulation Questionnaire for children (CERQ-k) is a useful clinical and research tool to identify cognitive patterns of emotion regulation that predict the presence of emotional symptomatology. This study aimed to validate the Spanish version of the CERQ-k (the CERQ-Sk) using a sample of children from Spain, which is not available. ⋯ Results suggest that the CERQ-Sk is a reliable and valid tool that can be useful for researchers and clinicians to identify maladaptive cognitive emotion regulation patterns that may increase the risk of emotional problems, and orient treatment and prevention of mental health problems in children from Spanish-speaking countries.
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Polymyositis and dermatomyositis (PM/DM) are systemic autoimmune diseases with multiple organ involvements that manifest as muscular and cutaneous disorders, interstitial lung disease (ILD) and malignancies. However, information concerning the outcomes and associated factors for PM/DM patients who are hospitalized is limited. ⋯ PM/DM patients continue to display high in-hospital mortality. Pulmonary infection is the strongest predictor of poor prognosis in PM/DM patients, followed by pneumomediastinum, Gottron's papules, and elevated ESR.
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Clinical Trial
The characteristics of residents with unawareness of hepatitis C virus infection in community.
Control of hepatitis C virus infection (HCV) is an increasingly important issue. Enhancing screening coverage is necessary to discover more HCV infected subjects in community. However, a substantial population is unaware of HCV infection that needs more attention. ⋯ In HCV endemic villages of Taiwan, residents with unaware HCV infection comprised about one third of HCV infected residents and exhibited obscure characteristics to identify. Less than half of already known HCV infected residents received adequate medical care. To eliminate HCV infection, vigorous efforts on enhancing screening coverage, educating update knowledge of liver diseases, and linking to medical care are urgently needed.