Journal of evaluation in clinical practice
-
Appropriate patient reassurance is an essential feature of clinical practice. My recent experience as a patient, interpreted via my expertise as a health services researcher, led me to insights on ideal and suboptimal reassurance styles in the context of worrisome symptoms. Reassurance is complex: often poorly defined in the scientific literature, rarely rigorously studied, imperfectly understood, and requiring some adaptation to each patient situation. ⋯ Explicit medically appropriate reassurance notably reduced my concerns and anxiety. Interactions devoid of key reassurance components (acknowledging concerns, contextualising the problem, providing information on risk and next steps and incorporating discussion) exacted an unnecessary psychic toll. The striking differences among my clinicians' approaches illustrate how more thoughtful and salubrious interactions can occur using straightforward existing guidance on best reassurance practices, even without burdensome training, time, or resources.
-
Chronic respiratory disorders such as asthma and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) may deteriorate into acute exacerbations requiring hospitalization. Assessing the predictors of prolonged hospital stays could help identify potential interventions to reduce the burden on patients and healthcare systems. ⋯ Gender, pulmonary hypertension, allergic rhinitis, ICU admission, mechanical ventilation, the number of medications and smoking were significantly related to LOS. These findings emphasize the importance of patients' demographics and their clinical status in determining LOS, hence providing protective interventions to shorten it.
-
Recurrent ischemic stroke (RIS) induces additional functional limitations in patients. Prognosticating globally functional outcome (GFO) in RIS patients is thereby important to plan a suitable rehabilitation programme. This study sought to investigate the ability of baseline features for classifying the patients with and without improving GFO (task 1) and identifying patients with poor GFO (task 2) at the third month after discharging from RIS. ⋯ A machine learning model could be used to classify GFO responses to treatment and identify the third-month poor GFO in RIS patients, supporting physicians in clinical practice.
-
College students represent a unique demographic group as they are adults no longer under direct parental care, yet often lack the institutional health support available to more established members of society, which can lead to their health needs being neglected, despite their substantial contributions to blood donation. The objective of this study is to shed light on the health status of college students in Hefei, with a specific focus on transfusion-transmitted diseases. Based on the detailed data analysis, the implementation of some constructive strategies will play a good warning role in improving clinical blood safety and promoting better health monitoring of this population in the future. ⋯ The overall group had prevalence rates of 0.44% for hepatitis B, 0.15% for hepatitis C, 0.02% for HIV, and 0.42% for Treponema pallidum. When focusing on the student cohort, the prevalence rates were 0.17% for hepatitis B, 0.04% for hepatitis C, 0.02% for HIV, and 0.23% for Treponema pallidum. Transmissibility through blood transfusion All donors (%) Students (%) Non-students (%) Any infection 1.23 0.48 1.51 HbsAg 0.44 0.17 0.54 Anti-HCV 0.15 0.04 0.19 HIV Ag/Ab 0.02 0.02 0.02 Anti-TP 0.42 0.23 0.49 Individuals with two or more infectious agents occur more than once in all categories. While it leads to numerical over-representation, such overlap is minimal and statistically insignificant.
-
This study aims to assess the performance of machine learning (ML) techniques in optimising nurse staffing and evaluating the appropriateness of nursing care delivery models in hospital wards. The primary outcome measures include the adequacy of nurse staffing and the appropriateness of the nursing care delivery system. ⋯ While the study lacked direct patient involvement, its goal was to enhance patient care and healthcare efficiency. Future research will aim to incorporate patient and public insights more directly.