1,720,962 research outputs found
Use of mHealth Technologies to Increase Sleep Quality among Older Adults: A Scoping Review
Full text linkSleep disorders increase with age and are known risk factors for several mental and physical diseases. They also significantly contribute to a lower quality of life. Nonpharmaceutical approaches, such as cognitive behavioral therapy for insomnia, sleep hygiene advice, relaxation exercises, and physical activity programs, can be delivered directly to patients via mHealth technologies, thereby increasing the accessibility of such interventions and reducing health care-related costs. This scoping review aims to evaluate the effectiveness of mHealth interventions for improving sleep quality among older adults. Published studies in the last 10 years (2013–2023) were identified by searching electronic medical databases (PubMed, PsycINFO, CINAHL, and Scopus) in July 2023 and were independently reviewed by two different authors. The analysis of the data was performed in 2023. The research retrieved 693 records; after duplicates were removed, 524 articles were screened based on their title and abstract, and 28 of them were assessed in full text. A total of 23 studies were excluded because they did not meet the inclusion criteria in terms of population age (60 years or over) or type of intervention (mHealth-based) or because they addressed secondary insomnia. A total of five studies were included in this review, and all of them reported improvements in subjective sleep quality after the application of the mHealth interventions. Two studies also conducted objective assessments of sleep outcomes using actigraphy, reporting improvements only in some of the variables considered. Despite the limited number of available studies, these results are promising and encourage further research
Governance for Patient Safety: A Framework of Strategy Domains for Risk Management
No full textBackground: Adverse events in healthcare are primarily due to system failures rather than individuals. Risk reduction strategies should therefore focus on strengthening systems, bringing about improvements in governance, and targeting individual practices or products. The purpose of this study was to conduct a scoping review to develop a global framework of management strategies for sustaining a safety-oriented culture in healthcare organizations, focusing on patient safety and the adoption of good safety-related practices. Methods: We conducted a search on safety-related strategies in 2 steps. The first involved a search in the PubMed database to identify effective, broadly framed, cross-sector domains relevant to clinical risk management strategies in healthcare systems. In the second step, we then examined the strategies adopted by running a scoping review for each domain. Results: Our search identified 8 strategy domains relevant to patient safety: transformational leadership, patient engagement, human resources management quality, innovation technology, skills certification, education in patient safety, teamwork, and effective communication. Conclusions: This scoping review explores management strategies key to healthcare systems' efforts to create safety-oriented organizations. Improvement efforts should focus particularly on the domains identified: combined together, they would nurture an overall safety-oriented culture and have an impact on preventable adverse events
Behavioral traits and Socio-economic factors associated with overweight in primary-school children
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Health care service usage and costs for high-needs elderly patients with heart failure
Full text linkGoing 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
Is adherence to the Mediterranean diet associated with good sleep duration in primary-school children?
Full text linkOBJECTIVE: The Mediterranean diet (MD) contributes to preventing numerous chronic diseases and has benefits on cognitive development. Adherence to the MD is associated with sleep quality and duration in adults and adolescents, but this association seems to have been little investigated in primary-school children. The aim of this cross-sectional study was to verify whether good sleep duration was associated with adherence to the MD. DESIGN: The study enrolled a sample of Italian primary school children. Their mothers were asked to answer an anonymous, self-administered questionnaire investigating the children's adherence to the MD (using the KidMed score) and variables related to their lifestyles, behavioral traits and socio-economic factors. Logistic regression models were developed to analyze the association between adherence to the MD, entered as the dependent variable, and adequacy of sleep duration. SETTING: Primary schools in Padova, Italy. SUBJECTS: 267 Italian 6-year-olds in their first year of primary school. RESULTS: The multivariate analysis showed an association between adherence to the MD and hours of sleep: for children with a good sleep duration, the odds ratio of a poor-to-moderate adherence to the MD was 0.282 (95% CI, 0.109–0.681, p < 0.05). CONCLUSION: Ensuring an adequate sleep duration may be an important strategy for enhancing adherence to the MD. Sleep and dietary education should be included in future health promotion programs
How different combinations of comorbidities affect healthcare use by elderly patients with obstructive lung disease
Full text linkPrevious research had shown the number of comorbidities is a major factor influencing the burden of care for elderly patients with obstructive lung disease (OLD). This retrospective cohort study on a large population of elderly patients (age > 65 years) with OLD in northern Italy measures the use of healthcare resources associated with the most frequent combinations of comorbidities and investigates the most common reasons for hospitalization. Total health costs, pharmacy costs, emergency department (ED) visits, outpatient visits, and hospital admissions are assessed for every subject. The most common causes of hospitalization by a number of comorbidities and the most common sets of three comorbidities are identified. For each comorbidity group, we rank a list of the most frequent causes of hospitalization, both overall and avoidable with effective ambulatory care. A small group of patients suffering from major comorbidities accounts for the use of most healthcare resources. The most frequent causes of hospitalization are respiratory failure, heart failure, chronic bronchitis, and bronchopneumonia. The most common conditions manageable with ambulatory care among causes of hospitalizations are heart failure, bacterial pneumonia, and COPD. The set of three comorbidities responsible for the highest average total costs, and the highest average number of hospitalizations and outpatient visits comprised hypertension, cardiac arrhythmias, and heart failure. The main reasons for hospitalization proved to remain linked to heart failure and acute respiratory disease, regardless of specific combinations of comorbidities. Based on these findings, specific public health interventions among patients with OLD cannot be advised on the basis of specific sets of comorbidities only
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
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