Patient Prefer Adher
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Patient Prefer Adher · Jan 2018
Patient preferences for the integration of mental health counseling and chronic disease care in South Africa.
To describe patient perceptions of the acceptability of integrating mental health counseling within primary care facilities in the Western Cape province of South Africa and their preferences for the way in which this care is delivered. ⋯ Findings demonstrate a need for mental health counseling within the context of chronic disease care in South Africa. Task-shared approaches, using lay counselors, seem acceptable to patients - provided counselors are selected to ensure they possess the qualities associated with effective counselors. Findings have informed the design of a task-shared mental health program that is responsive to the preferences of patients with chronic diseases.
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Patient Prefer Adher · Jan 2018
Computerized adaptive testing with decision regression trees: an alternative to item response theory for quality of life measurement in multiple sclerosis.
The aim of this study was to propose an alternative approach to item response theory (IRT) in the development of computerized adaptive testing (CAT) in quality of life (QoL) for patients with multiple sclerosis (MS). This approach relied on decision regression trees (DRTs). A comparison with IRT was undertaken based on precision and validity properties. ⋯ We presented a new adaptive testing algorithm based on DRT, which has equivalent level of performance to IRT-based approach. The use of DRT is a natural and intuitive way to develop CAT, and this approach may be an alternative to IRT.
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Patient Prefer Adher · Jan 2018
The evaluation of pharmaceutical pictograms among elderly patients in community pharmacy settings - a multicenter pilot study.
The search for new ways to optimize the use of medications by patients has led the pharmaceutical community to promote the idea of introducing pictograms into routine practice. The main intention of pictograms is to ease patient adherence and to reduce potential risks or errors associated with the use of medications. ⋯ A majority of the designed and modified pictograms reached satisfactory guess-ability scores. Feedback from patients enabled modification of the pictograms and proved that patients have an important voice in the discussion regarding the design of additional pictograms.
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Patient Prefer Adher · Jan 2018
Complex interrelations between self-reported oral health attitudes and behaviors, the oral health status, and oral health-related quality of life.
The purpose of this study was to develop and test a moderated mediation model that was able to describe the relationships between oral health-related attitudes and behaviors, oral health status (OHS), and oral health-related quality of life. The hypothesized relations corresponded to research questions such as "is a person's oral health predicted by the actions that person takes in order to prevent oral health conditions?" and "do individuals with better oral health also have higher levels of oral health-related quality of life?". ⋯ The "straightforward" causality between oral health-related behavior and the actual OHS must be considered with caution, as well as their impact on the oral health-related quality of life. Further research is needed to investigate the interaction between variables, the strength of the interrelations and the magnitude of their interactions, and the confidence that can be placed in these measurements, with respect to the general population and/or those lacking domain-specific education.
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Patient Prefer Adher · Jan 2018
The effects of presenting oncologic information in terms of opposites in a medical context.
An extensive body of literature has demonstrated that many patients who have been asked to participate in clinical trials do not fully understand the informed consent forms. A parallel independent study has demonstrated that opposites have a special status in human cognitive organization: they are common to all-natural languages and are intuitively and naturally understood and learnt. ⋯ The encouraging results imply that further testing of the use of opposites in informed consent forms and in doctor-patient communication is strongly advisable.