Method of preparing a document for survey instrument validation by experts.
Ontology highlight
ABSTRACT:
SUBMITTER: Elangovan N
PROVIDER: S-EPMC8374321 | biostudies-literature |
REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature
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Project description:Background:Chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) is associated with multiple comorbidities, which impact negatively on patients and are often underdiagnosed, thus lacking a proper management due to the absence of clear guidelines. Purpose:To elaborate expert recommendations aimed to help healthcare professionals to provide the right care for treating COPD patients with comorbidities. Methods:A modified RAND-UCLA appropriateness method consisting of nominal groups to draw up consensus recommendations (6 Spanish experts) and 2-Delphi rounds to validate them (23 Spanish experts) was performed. Results:A panel of Spanish internal medicine experts reached consensus on 73 recommendations and 81 conclusions on the clinical consequences of the presence of comorbidities. In general, the experts reached consensus on the issues raised with regard to cardiovascular comorbidity and metabolic disorders. Consensus was reached on the use of selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors in cases of depression and the usefulness of referring patients with anxiety to respiratory rehabilitation programmes. The results also showed consensus on the usefulness of investigating the quality of sleep, the treatment of pain with opioids and the evaluation of osteoporosis by lateral chest radiography. Conclusion:This study provides conclusions and recommendations that are intended to improve the management of the complexity of patients with COPD and important comorbidities, usually excluded from clinical trials.
| S-EPMC7217705 | biostudies-literature
Project description:An objective measure of nutrition literacy is unavailable for use in the primary care population. The Nutrition Literacy Assessment instrument (NLit) is a tool designed to measure nutrition literacy across six domains and has been previously piloted in breast cancer and parent populations. The purpose of this research was to engage nutrition experts and patients to guide revisions of the NLit for use in adult primary care. Experts (n=5) reviewed each item in the NLit using a survey to assign rankings of their agreement according to relevance, clarity, and reading difficulty. Relevance rankings were used to calculate Scale Content Validity Index. After suggested revisions were made, patients (n=12) were recruited from urban primary care clinics of a University Medical Center located in the Midwestern United States and were interviewed by trained researchers using the cognitive interview approach to generate thoughts, feelings, and ideas regarding NLit items. Data analysis involved qualitative and quantitative methods. Content validity from expert review was confirmed with a total Scale Content Validity Index of 0.90. Themes emerging from the cognitive interviews resulted in changes in the NLit to improve instrument clarity. These data suggest the NLit achieves its target constructs, is understood by the target audience, and is ready to undergo validity and reliability testing within the primary care population.
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Project description:ObjectiveTo critically analyse and define therapeutic objectives, response to treatment evaluation and related decisions in psoriasis.MethodsExpert consensus meetings, a systematic and narrative reviews and a collaborative Delphi procedure were carried out. A steering committee from the Spanish Group of Psoriasis was established who based on the reviews generated a set of related statements. Subsequently, a group of 40 experts tested their agreement with the statements, through 3 Delphi rounds.ResultsWe found a great variability in clinical guidelines regarding to the definition of treatment goal and the response. In general, treatment failure was considered if a PASI50 is not achieved. The panel of experts agreed on (1) clearly differentiate between ideal and a realistic goals when establishing the therapeutic goal in moderate to severe psoriasis; (2) treatment goals should be in general established regardless of the type of drug for psoriasis; (3) treatment failure if PASI75 response is not reached; (4) an absolute PASI is in general preferred to the rate of PASI improvement from baseline; (5) disease characteristics, patients and physicians opinions/needs and treatment adherence influence treatment goals.ConclusionsA clear treatment decision making framework is vital to improve management of psoriasis.KEY MESSAGESPsoriasis characteristics, patients and physicians opinions/needs and treatment adherence influence treatment goals.Different disease indexes could be used to assess treatment response but absolute PASI is preferredIn general psoriasis treatment failure should be considered if PASI75 response is not reached.
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Project description:The German IVF Register (Deutsches IVF-Register [D.I.R]) has been collecting and publishing data on the use of IVF and related methods in Germany since 1982. It is the only institution which provides information for all of Germany on procedures and their success rates. For this reason it plays an important role in the provision of information to the public, to patients, political decision-makers and the scientific community. However, the register does not have the data of all centers offering treatment in Germany nor does it have complete datasets on all reported treatments. The register accepts retrospective data entries, it does not publish the success rates of individual centers and up until 2015 it did not provide a summary of information which was suitable for non-specialists. The D.I.R has been the focus of criticism in the past. Even today, the information it provides to the scientific community, the public, political decision-makers and potential patients on the outcomes of assisted reproduction is insufficient. The documentation of reproductive medicine procedures in other countries is much more meaningful.
| S-EPMC4922890 | biostudies-other
Project description:Background: Stigma is a prominent issue among nurses working with patients with infectious diseases, but the unavailability of validated measures of such stigma. The aim of our study was to adapt, modify, and validate the COVID-19 Stigma Instrument-Nurse -Version 3 (CSI-N-3) with both classical test theory and item response theory (IRT) analysis. Methods: We administered the scale to 249 eligible nurses who worked in a COVID-19 designed hospital in Shanghai, China. Results: The two-factor structure was confirmed by confirmatory factor analysis. The 15-item CSI-N-3 achieved Cronbach's α of 0.64 to 0.84. Convergent validity was also demonstrated. In IRT analysis, the CSI-N-3 has ordered response thresholds, with the appropriate item difficulty and infit and outfit mean squares. Self-reported social support was the only factor influencing nurses' COVID-19 stigma (standardized coefficients β =-0.21). Conclusions: The CSI-N-3 is an instrument with sound psychometric properties that can be used to measure COVID-19 stigma during the COVID-19 outbreak or afterward among nurses.
| S-EPMC9164521 | biostudies-literature
Project description:BackgroundIn a growing number of countries worldwide, clinicians are sharing mental health notes, including psychiatry and psychotherapy notes, with patients.ObjectiveThe aim of this study is to solicit the views of experts on provider policies and patient and clinician training or guidance in relation to open notes in mental health care.MethodsIn August 2020, we conducted a web-based survey of international experts on the practice of sharing mental health notes. Experts were identified as informaticians, clinicians, chief medical information officers, patients, and patient advocates who have extensive research knowledge about or experience of providing access to or having access to mental health notes. This study undertook a qualitative descriptive analysis of experts' written responses and opinions (comments) to open-ended questions on training clinicians, patient guidance, and suggested policy regulations.ResultsA total of 70 of 92 (76%) experts from 6 countries responded. We identified four major themes related to opening mental health notes to patients: the need for clarity about provider policies on exemptions, providing patients with basic information about open notes, clinician training in writing mental health notes, and managing patient-clinician disagreement about mental health notes.ConclusionsThis study provides timely information on policy and training recommendations derived from a wide range of international experts on how to prepare clinicians and patients for open notes in mental health. The results of this study point to the need for further refinement of exemption policies in relation to sharing mental health notes, guidance for patients, and curricular changes for students and clinicians as well as improvements aimed at enhancing patient and clinician-friendly portal design.
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Project description:Microscopic plastic (microplastic, 0.1 µm-5 mm) is a widespread pollutant impacting upon aquatic ecosystems across the globe. Environmental sampling has revealed synthetic fibers are prevalent in seawater, sediments and biota. However, microplastic fibers are rarely used in laboratory studies as they are unavailable for purchase and existing preparation techniques have limited application. To facilitate the incorporation of environmentally relevant microplastic fibers into future studies, new methods are required. Here, a novel cryotome protocol has been developed. Nylon, polyethylene terephthalate and polypropylene fibers (10-28 μm diameter) were aligned, embedded in water-soluble freezing agent, and sectioned (40-100 μm length) using a cryogenic microtome. Microplastic fibers were prepared to specified lengths (P < 0.05, ANOVA) and proved consistent in size. Fluorescent labelling of Nylon microfibers with Nile Red facilitated imaging. A 24 h feeding experiment confirmed bioavailability of 10 × 40 μm Nylon fibers to brine shrimp (Artemia sp). This protocol provides a consistent method for preparing standardised fibrous microplastics, with widths similar to those observed in the natural environment, which could ultimately lead to a better understanding of the biological and ecological effects of microplastic debris in the environment.
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Project description:We propose a new method for vectorizing a document using the relational characteristics of the words in the document. For the relational characteristics, we use two types of relational information of a word: 1) the centrality measures of the word and 2) the number of times that the word is used with other words in the document. We propose these methods mainly because information regarding the relations of a word to other words in the document are likely to better represent the unique characteristics of the document than the frequency-based methods (e.g., term frequency and term frequency-inverse document frequency). In experiments using a corpus consisting of 14 documents pertaining to four different topics, the results of clustering analysis using cosine similarities between vectors of relational information for words were comparable to (and more accurate than in some cases) those obtained using vectors of frequency-based methods. The clustering analysis using vectors of tie weights between words yielded the most accurate result. Although the results obtained for the small dataset used in this study can hardly be generalized, they suggest that at least in some cases, vectorization of a document using the relational characteristics of the words can provide more accurate results than the frequency-based vectors.
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Project description:Ever since the ground-breaking isolation of graphene, numerous two-dimensional (2D) materials have emerged with 2D metal dihalides gaining significant attention due to their intriguing electrical and magnetic properties. In this study, we introduce an innovative approach via anhydrous solvent-induced recrystallization of bulk powders to obtain crystals of metal dihalides (MX2, with M = Cu, Ni, Co and X = Br, Cl, I), which can be exfoliated to 2D flakes. We demonstrate the effectiveness of our method using CuBr2 as an example, which forms large layered crystals. We investigate the structural properties of both the bulk and 2D CuBr2 using X-ray diffraction, along with Raman scattering and optical spectroscopy, revealing its quasi-1D chain structure, which translates to distinct emission and scattering characteristics. Furthermore, microultraviolet photoemission spectroscopy and electronic transport reveal the electronic properties of CuBr2 flakes, including their valence band structure. We extend our methodology to other metal halides and assess the stability of the metal halide flakes in controlled environments. We show that optical contrast can be used to characterize the flake thicknesses for these materials. Our findings demonstrate the versatility and potential applications of the proposed methodology for preparing and studying 2D metal halide flakes.
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