1,721,031 research outputs found

    Palliative care for people living with HIV/AIDS: Factors influencing healthcare workers’ knowledge, attitude and practice in public health facilities, Abuja, Nigeria

    Full text link
    BackgroundPhysicians and nurses play vital roles in addressing palliative care (PC) needs of people living with HIV/AIDS (PLWHA). The healthcare workers’ (HCWs) experiences determine the success of palliative care delivery. There is paucity of data on PC for PLWHA. For this reason, we assessed the knowledge, attitude and practice of PC for PLWHA and associated factors among health care professionals.MethodsWe conducted a cross-sectional descriptive study among HCWs in public health facilities in the Federal Capital Territory, Nigeria between February and May, 2017. Multistage sampling technique with proportionate-to-size allocation was used to determine facility sample size and HCWs per professional discipline. Data were collected with questionnaires adapted from Palliative Care Quiz for Nursing, Frommelt Attitude toward Care of the Dying and practical questions adapted from PC standard guidelines. Participants' knowledge, attitude and practice were assessed by awarding one (1) point for each correct answer; incorrect or “not sure” answers took a zero (0) score. Correct responses were summed up to get a total score for each participant. Descriptive statistics was done to describe frequencies and proportions displayed on tables. Linear regression was done to determine factors associated with HCW’s knowledge, attitude and practice of PC for PLWHAResultWith a 100% response rate, the mean age of the 348 participants was 37.5 years (SD: ±8.9), 201 (57.8%) were female, 222 (63.8) were nurses and 230 (66.0%) had a work experience of 10 years or less. Majority of the participants, 310 (89.1%) agreed that palliative care focuses on the relief and prevention of suffering and 319 (91.7%) believe that PLWHA required palliative care. Misconceptions about palliative care include “palliative care is disease-oriented and not person oriented”, 252 (72.6%) believed; “palliative care is concerned with prolongation of life”, 279 (80.6%); and “use of placebos is appropriate in the treatment of some types of pain”, 252 (72.6%). Among the participants, 52% disagreed that “palliative care should be given only for dying PLWHA” while only 18 (5.2%) were right on “family should be involved in the physical care of the dying PLWHA”. Majority of the participants, 292 (84.1%) initiated palliative care discussion during patients’ diagnosis while 290 (83.6%) informed terminally ill patients about their diagnosis. Regarding psychological issues, 22 (6.3%) participants hid the truth from the patients while 196 (56.3%) provided emotional support to the patients. Morphine 240 (69.0%) and Pentazocine 194 (55.7%) were the most commonly used drugs for treatment of severe pain by participants across all centres.ConclusionIn-service training and undergraduate training on palliative care were associated with knowledge and practice of palliative care for people living with HIV/AIDS. We recommended continuous quality in-service training and education on palliative care for HCWs. While we ensure voluntariness of participation and other ethical principles, the high response rate could be as a result of more motivated health worker than the norm. The results are unlikely to be representative of doctors and nurses in primary health care centres.</div

    Bereavement care for ethnic minority communities: A systematic review of access to, models of, outcomes from, and satisfaction with, service provision

    Full text link
    Objectives To review and synthesize the existing evidence on bereavement care, within the United Kingdom (UK), for ethnic minority communities in terms of barriers and facilitators to access; models of care; outcomes from, and satisfaction with, service provision. Design A systematic review adopting a framework synthesis approach was conducted. An electronic search of the literature was undertaken in MEDLINE, Embase, PsycINFO, Social Work Abstract and CINAHL via EBSCO, Global Health, Cochrane library, the Trip database and ProQuest between 2000 and 2020. Search terms included bereavement care, ethnic minority populations and the UK setting. Results From 3,185 initial records, following screening for eligibility, and full-text review of 164 articles, seven studies were identified. There was no research literature outlining the role of family, friends and existing networks; and a real absence of evidence about outcomes and levels of satisfaction for those from an ethnic minority background who receive bereavement care. From the limited literature, the overarching theme for barriers to bereavement care was ‘unfamiliarity and irregularities’. Four identified subthemes were ‘lack of awareness’; ‘variability in support’; ‘type and format of support’; and ‘culturally specific beliefs’. The overarching theme for facilitators for bereavement care was ‘accessibility’ with the two subthemes being ‘readily available information’ and ‘inclusive approaches’. Three studies reported on examples of different models of care provision. Conclusions This review reveals a stark lack of evidence about bereavement care for ethnic minority populations. In particular, understanding more about the role of family, friends and existing support systems, alongside outcomes and satisfaction will begin to develop the evidence base underpinning current provision. Direct user-representation through proactive engagement and co-design approaches may begin to determine the most appropriate models and format of bereavement care for ethnic minority communities to inform service design and delivery

    Going Beyond Counting First Authors in Author Co-citation Analysis

    Full text link
    The 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 link
    We 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 link
    We 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

    Author Index

    No full text
    Nao informado

    koamabayili/VECTRON-author-checklist: VECTRON author checklist

    No full text
    We 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
    corecore