BMJ open
-
Investigate the use of call-out (CO) and closed-loop communication (CLC) during a simulated emergency situation, and its relation to profession, age, gender, ethnicity, years in profession, educational experience, work experience and leadership style. ⋯ This study showed that despite focus on the importance of communication in terms of CO and CLC, the difficulty in achieving safe and reliable verbal communication within the interdisciplinary team remained. This finding indicates the need for validated training models combined with further implementation studies.
-
To determine the low back pain beliefs of Aboriginal Australians; a population previously identified as protected against the disabling effects of low back pain due to cultural beliefs. ⋯ Findings are consistent with research in other populations and support that disabling CLBP may be at least partly iatrogenic. This raises concerns for all populations exposed to Western biomedical approaches to examination and management of low back pain. The challenge for healthcare practitioners dealing with people with low back pain from any culture is to communicate in a way that builds positive beliefs about low back pain and its future consequences, enhancing resilience to disability.
-
Panic-like anxiety (panic attacks with or without panic disorder), a highly treatable condition, is the most prevalent condition associated with unexplained chest pain in the emergency department. Panic-like anxiety may be responsible for a significant portion of the negative consequences of unexplained chest pain, such as functional limitations and chronicity. However, more than 92% of panic-like anxiety cases remain undiagnosed at the time of discharge from the emergency department. The 4-item Panic Screening Score (PSS) questionnaire was derived in order to increase the identification of panic-like anxiety in emergency department patients with unexplained chest pain. ⋯ This study protocol has been reviewed and approved by the Alphonse-Desjardins research ethics committee. The results of the study will be presented in scientific conferences and published in peer-reviewed scientific journals. Further dissemination via workshops and a dedicated website is planned.
-
Given the increasing rate of obesity, the effects of excessive body weight on surgical outcomes constitute a relevant quality of care concern. Our aim was to determine the relationship between preoperative body mass index (BMI) on perioperative complications after oesophagectomy for adenocarcinoma of the oesophagus. ⋯ In our experience, patients with an elevated BMI and oesophageal adenocarcinoma do not experience an increase in morbidity and mortality after oesophagectomy as stated in previous reports, when performed at a high volume centre. Additionally, BMI did not affect the quality of oncological resection as determined by number of harvested lymph-nodes and rates of R0 resections.
-
Pain is the commonest reason that patients present to an emergency department (ED), but it is often not treated effectively. Patient controlled analgesia (PCA) is used in other hospital settings but there is little evidence to support its use in emergency patients. We describe two randomised trials aiming to compare PCA to nurse titrated analgesia (routine care) in adult patients who present to the ED requiring intravenous opioid analgesia for the treatment of moderate to severe pain and are subsequently admitted to hospital. ⋯ The study is registered with the European Clinical Trials Database (EudraCT Number: 2011-000194-31) and is on the ISCRTN register (ISRCTN25343280).