Cochrane Db Syst Rev
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Cochrane Db Syst Rev · Sep 2021
Review Meta AnalysisIntegrated disease management interventions for patients with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease.
People with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) show considerable variation in symptoms, limitations, and well-being; this often complicates medical care. A multi-disciplinary and multi-component programme that addresses different elements of care could improve quality of life (QoL) and exercise tolerance, while reducing the number of exacerbations. ⋯ This review shows that IDM probably results in improvement in disease-specific QoL, exercise capacity, hospital admissions, and hospital days per person. Future research should evaluate which combination of IDM components and which intervention duration are most effective for IDM programmes, and should consider contextual determinants of implementation and treatment effect, including process-related outcomes, long-term follow-up, and cost-effectiveness analyses.
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Cochrane Db Syst Rev · Sep 2021
ReviewInterventions to improve adherence to pharmacological therapy for chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD).
Chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) is a chronic lung condition characterised by persistent respiratory symptoms and limited lung airflow, dyspnoea and recurrent exacerbations. Suboptimal therapy or non-adherence may result in limited effectiveness of pharmacological treatments and subsequently poor health outcomes. ⋯ Single component interventions (e.g. education or motivational interviewing provided by a health professional) can help to improve adherence to pharmacotherapy (low to very low certainty). There were slight improvements in quality of life with a Bluetooth inhaler device, but evidence is from one study and very low certainty. Change to pharmacotherapy (e.g. single inhaler instead of two, or different doses of roflumilast) has little impact on hospitalisations or exacerbations (very low certainty). There is no difference in people experiencing adverse events (all-cause or COPD-related), or deaths (very low certainty). Multi-component interventions may improve adherence with education, motivational or behavioural components delivered by health professionals (low certainty). There is little to no impact on quality of life (low to very low certainty). They may help reduce the number of people admitted to hospital overall (specifically pharmacist-led approaches) (low certainty), and fewer people may have COPD-related hospital admissions (moderately certainty). There may be a small reduction in people experiencing severe exacerbations, but evidence is from one study (low certainty). Limited evidence found no difference in people experiencing adverse events, serious adverse events or deaths (low to very low certainty). The evidence presented should be interpreted with caution. Larger studies with more intervention types, especially single interventions, are needed. It is unclear which specific COPD subgroups would benefit, therefore discussions between health professionals and patients may help to determine whether they will help to improve health outcomes.
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Cochrane Db Syst Rev · Sep 2021
Review Meta AnalysisInterventions targeted at women to encourage the uptake of cervical screening.
This is an update of the Cochrane review published in Issue 5, 2011. Worldwide, cervical cancer is the fourth commonest cancer affecting women. High-risk human papillomavirus (HPV) infection is causative in 99.7% of cases. Other risk factors include smoking, multiple sexual partners, the presence of other sexually transmitted diseases and immunosuppression. Primary prevention strategies for cervical cancer focus on reducing HPV infection via vaccination and data suggest that this has the potential to prevent nearly 90% of cases in those vaccinated prior to HPV exposure. However, not all countries can afford vaccination programmes and, worryingly, uptake in many countries has been extremely poor. Secondary prevention, through screening programmes, will remain critical to reducing cervical cancer, especially in unvaccinated women or those vaccinated later in adolescence. This includes screening for the detection of pre-cancerous cells, as well as high-risk HPV. In the UK, since the introduction of the Cervical Screening Programme in 1988, the associated mortality rate from cervical cancer has fallen. However, worldwide, there is great variation between countries in both coverage and uptake of screening. In some countries, national screening programmes are available whereas in others, screening is provided on an opportunistic basis. Additionally, there are differences within countries in uptake dependent on ethnic origin, age, education and socioeconomic status. Thus, understanding and incorporating these factors in screening programmes can increase the uptake of screening. This, together with vaccination, can lead to cervical cancer becoming a rare disease. ⋯ There is moderate-certainty evidence to support the use of invitation letters to increase the uptake of cervical screening. Low-certainty evidence showed lay health worker involvement amongst ethnic minority populations may increase screening coverage, and there was also support for educational interventions, but it is unclear what format is most effective. The majority of the studies were from developed countries and so the relevance of low- and middle-income countries (LMICs), is unclear. Overall, the low-certainty evidence that was identified makes it difficult to infer as to which interventions were best, with exception of invitational interventions, where there appeared to be more reliable evidence.
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Cochrane Db Syst Rev · Sep 2021
ReviewWhole-cell pertussis vaccine in early infancy for the prevention of allergy in children.
Atopic diseases are the most common chronic conditions of childhood. The apparent rise in food anaphylaxis in young children over the past three decades is of particular concern, owing to the lack of proven prevention strategies other than the timely introduction of peanut and egg. Due to reported in vitro differences in the immune response of young infants primed with whole-cell pertussis (wP) versus acellular pertussis (aP) vaccine, we systematically appraised and synthesised evidence on the safety and the potential allergy preventive benefits of wP, to inform recommendation for future practice and research. ⋯ There is very low-certainty evidence that a first dose of wP given early in infancy, compared to a first dose of aP, affects the risk of atopic diseases in children. The incidence of all-cause SAEs in wP and aP vaccinees was low, and no cases of encephalopathy were reported. The certainty of the evidence was judged as moderate for all-cause SAEs, and low for encephalopathy. Future studies should use sensitive and specific endpoints of clinical relevance, and should be conducted in settings with high prevalence of IgE-mediated food allergy. Safety endpoints should prioritise common vaccine reactions, parental acceptability, SAEs and their potential relatedness to the dose administered.