1,721,143 research outputs found
Integrating germline genetic testing into routine care of patients with breast or ovarian cancer: Acceptability and feasibility of implementing mainstream genetic testing pathways
No full textIt is important to identify patients with breast or ovarian cancer who carry a hereditary predisposition for cancer. Identifying such a hereditary predisposition may impact treatment and surveillance options to prevent or identify a second cancer in an early stage. In addition, family members may also be eligible for surveillance options if they carry the same hereditary predisposition. Despite these important implications, not all patients with breast or ovarian cancer who are eligible for genetic testing are referred to a genetics department for counseling and testing. Therefore, we aimed to make genetic testing more accessible to patients with breast or ovarian cancer.
This thesis describes the development, implementation and evaluation of mainstream genetic testing. In these mainstream genetic testing pathways, non-genetic healthcare professionals (i.e., doctors and nurses who are already treating the patient) discuss the advantages and disadvantages of genetic testing and order genetic testing themselves for their patients after completing a concise online training. The results show that non-genetic healthcare professionals in both breast and ovarian cancer care have predominantly positive attitudes toward mainstream genetic testing and it is feasible for them to incorporate genetic testing into their routine care. Patients feel well-informed after counseling about genetic testing and mainstream genetic testing provides good quality of care. For patients with ovarian cancer, mainstream genetic testing led to higher testing rates and a reduction in genetics-related healthcare costs. Based on these results, we can conclude that mainstream genetic testing for patients with breast or ovarian cancer is acceptable and feasible for both healthcare professionals and patients to incorporate into routine care
Equal access to breast cancer genetic counseling and testing : Development and implementation of a health literacy training program for surgical oncologists and specialized nurses
No full textPatients with a lower educational or a migrant background seem to have poorer access to breast cancer genetic counseling and testing. Referral is not always adequately discussed with these groups of patients, and limited health literacy as well as cultural differences seem to play a role. Ineffective communication is recognized as one of the contributing factors to differences in access to healthcare and to health disparities in general. Although the exact relationship between limited health literacy and access to care in general remains unclear, in the context of genetics, provider recommendation seems important. Lack of physician recommendation is the primary reason many eligible breast cancer patients remain untested.
The general aim of the research project described in this thesis was to develop, implement and evaluate an intervention to reduce disparities in referral to breast cancer genetic counseling and testing. We assessed educational level and migrant status of counselees referred to cancer genetic counseling and developed a health literacy training program and a plain-language guide to communicate effectively about breast cancer genetic testing. We assessed the training program on perceived applicability and usefulness. Further on we evaluated the effect of the training program on awareness, knowledge and self-efficacy of healthcare professionals and on the referral rate of patients with limited health literacy or a migrant background. In the development of the plain-language guide we worked together with healthcare professionals, breast cancer patients with limited health literacy and low literate individuals. The result is a plain-language guide for healthcare professionals (clinical geneticists, genetic counselors and breast surgeons) with 33 jargon words reformulated in a clear and concise description in plain language. Acceptability and perceived usefulness of the guide among these intended end-users was high. The health literacy training program was evaluated positively by the healthcare professionals. They reported a high degree of acceptance, and the combination of an online module and a group training on location was considered useful and time-efficient.
No significant differences were found in knowledge scores and on awareness of the impact of health literacy on medical communication and the importance to take into account cultural factors when communicating with patients with a migrant background. However, we found a significant increase in self-assessed awareness of the prevalence and impact of limited health literacy and in healthcare professionals’ self-efficacy to recognize limited health literacy and to communicate effectively with patients with limited health literacy or a migrant background.
Unexpectedly, no significant differences were found in educational level, level of health literacy and migrant background of patients referred by healthcare professionals working in hospitals that participated in the training program. However, the mean age of the referred patients referred was significantly lower after the intervention. And that is important, because the risk of hereditary breast cancer is higher for younger women with breast cancer. For a better understanding of the role of health literacy training programs on reducing disparities in access to breast cancer genetic testing, research in a more controlled design, with targeted interventions is needed
Going Beyond Counting First Authors in Author Co-citation Analysis
Full text linkThe present study examines one of the fundamental aspects of author co-citation analysis (ACA) - the way co-citation
counts are defined. Co-citation counting provides the data on which all subsequent statistical analyses and mappings
are based, and we compare ACA results based on two different types of co-citation counting - the traditional type that
only counts the first one among a cited work's authors on the one hand and a non-traditional type that takes into
account the first 5 authors of a cited work on the other hand. Results indicate that the picture produced through this non-traditional author co-citation counting contains more coherent author groups and is therefore considerably clearer. However, this picture represents fewer specialties in the research field being studied than that produced through the traditional first-author co-citation counting when the same number of top-ranked authors is selected and analyzed. Reasons for these effects are discussed
Variations on the Author
Full text link“Variations on the Author” discusses two of Eduardo Coutinho’s recent films (Um Dia na Vida, from 2010, and Últimas Conversas, posthumously released in 2015) and their contribution to the general question of documentary authorship. The director’s filmography is characterized by a consistent yet self-effacing form of authorial self-inscription: Coutinho often features as an interviewer that rather than express opinions propels discourses; an interviewer that is good at listening. This mode of self-inscription characterizes him as an author who is not expressive but who is nonetheless markedly present on the screen. In Um Dia na Vida, however, Coutinho is completely absent form the image, while Últimas Conversas, on the contrary, includes a confessional prologue that moves the director from the margins to the center of his films. This article examines the ways in which these works stand out in the filmography of a director who offers new insights into the notion of cinematic authorship
Appropriate Similarity Measures for Author Cocitation Analysis
Full text linkWe provide a number of new insights into the methodological discussion about author cocitation analysis. We first argue that the use of the Pearson correlation for measuring the similarity between authors’ cocitation profiles is not very satisfactory. We then discuss what kind of similarity measures may be used as an alternative to the Pearson correlation. We consider three similarity measures in particular. One is the well-known cosine. The other two similarity measures have not been used before in the bibliometric literature. Finally, we show by means of an example that our findings have a high practical relevance.information science;Pearson correlation;cosine;similarity measure;author cocitation analysis
Dispelling the Myths Behind First-author Citation Counts
Full text linkWe conducted a full-scale evaluative citation analysis study of scholars in the XML research field to explore just how different from each other author rankings resulting from different citation counting methods actually are, and to demonstrate the capability of emerging data and tools on the Web in supporting more realistic citation counting methods. Our results contest some common arguments for the continued
use of first-author citation counts in the evaluation of scholars, such as high correlations between author rankings by first-author citation counts and other citation
counting methods, and high costs of using more realistic citation counting methods that are not well-supported by the ISI databases. It is argued that increasingly available digital full text research papers make it possible for citation analysis studies to go beyond what the ISI databases have directly supported and to employ more
sophisticated methods
Ovarian cancer in BRCA-positive women: vigilance is mandatory despite screening programs.
No full textItem does not contain fulltex
koamabayili/VECTRON-author-checklist: VECTRON author checklist
No full textWe have done our best to complete the author checklist relating to the use of animals in the hut study. Note that the objective for the hut study was to evaluate the IRS treatment applications for residual efficacy against Anopheles mosquitoes, including the local An. coluzzii mosquito population. Cows were only used to attract mosquitoes into the huts and no tests were carried out directly on the cows. The author checklist is intended for use with studies where experiments are carried out on animals, which is why we have had such difficulty in completing this for the hut study, as many of the questions do not relate to how the cows were used
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