1,721,027 research outputs found
Influenza molecular diagnostic testing in a 1000-bed academic Italian hospital during the 2018–19 influenza season
Full text linkAim: The aims of this study were to examine the requests for influenza molecular tests processed by the Virology Laboratory of the University Hospital of Udine during the 2018–19 influenza season and to assess the test results and to estimate costs. Subjects and methods: We analyzed various administrative databases of the hospital health information system, which can be deterministically linked at the individual level through an anonymous stochastic key. Requests for influenza molecular tests from November 1, 2018, to April 15, 2019, and test results were described by week and, for hospitalized patients, hospital ward. Previous vaccination status of tested patients, outcomes and estimated test costs were assessed. Results: In the 2018–19 influenza season, 979 influenza A and B virologic tests were processed by the laboratory, corresponding to 758 patients. Requests had more than doubled compared with the previous influenza season. Rapid real-time PCR tests, routinely available at the University Hospital of Udine since January 2019, represented 17% of requests. Six hundred forty-eight patients were hospitalized. Medical wards requested the test after a median of 1 day after admission, whereas requests were delayed for surgical and oncologic patients. The number of tests, proportion of positivity and consumption of rapid tests varied by medical specialty. Overall consumption of oseltamivir was similar to that of the previous influenza season. Conclusions: This analysis, benefiting from the availability of integrated health administrative databases, provided useful information to support public health decision-making and managing the supply and demand for diagnostic tests
Anti-cardiolipin and anti-beta2-glycoprotein I antibodies: performance of new commercial ELISA kits.
No full textGoing 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
A wide range of strategies to cope with healthcare workers’ vaccine hesitancy in a North-Eastern Italian region: are they enough?
No full textThe recent pandemic reminded the world of the high risk of healthcare workers (HCWs) and patient contagiousness along with the healthcare services disruption related to nosocomial outbreaks. This study aims at describing vaccination campaigns within healthcare institutions of a North-Italian Region and comparing their effectiveness in term of vaccination coverage. In December 2019, we surveyed all healthcare institutions of Friuli Venezia Giulia Region throughout an email questionnaire with 15 questions investigating strategies adopted for the vaccination of HCWs against influenza and other vaccine-preventable diseases (VPDs), along with actions put in place in case of a VPD exposure. We found a strong heterogeneity in VPDs prevention and control policy and practice for HCWs, along with responsibility attribution ranging among different stakeholders. Strategies adopted to promote vaccination included a wide range of methods, but HCWs’ influenza vaccination coverage still ranged from 17.0 to 33.3%. Contact tracing after a VPD exposure did not always include medical residents and students and visitors/caregivers/extra personnel as possible contacts. Even if knowledge and complacency gaps among HCWs could be faced with education activities, more efforts should be done in identifying and implementing effective vaccination strategies, and mandatory vaccination for HCWs could be introduced to achieve host, herd, and healthcare immunity preventing possible hospital outbreaks
Immunization programs for hospital healthcare workers in Northern-Italy, can we do more?
No full textBackground:
Coverage for vaccine-preventable diseases (VPDs) among healthcare workers (HCWs) in Italy remains low, and WHO strongly recommends to tailor immunization programs to tackle hesitancy. Aim of the study was to investigate HCW- specific immunization programs within Friuli Venezia Giulia (FVG) Region in order to plan new common strategies. Methods:
In December 2019 we collected information about FVG hospitals and HCWs immunization programs conducted within each of them, including: number of HCWs employed, monitored VPDs, immunization assumption, vaccination strategies and refusers management.
Results:
We obtained data from 7/7 hospitals, for a total of 12,557 employed HCWs (average 1,794; range 467-3,922); 2 hospitals are academic centers, while 2 are research institutions. All hospitals have immunization programs for measles, mumps, rubella; the majority for hepatitis B (6/7); 5 for diphtheria, tetanus, pertussis, chicken pox. Presumptive evidence of immunity is established when written vaccination documenta- tion is available or in presence of laboratory evidence. HCWs immunization programs are responsibility of the occupational doctor in most hospitals (6/7). Vaccination promotion strategies include: mail or email personal invitation, training courses, video and notice display on hospital website, reminders. Most hospitals set up a dedicated vaccination service located in a hospital common area (4) or outside the hospital (2); one hospital also offered ward on-site vaccination. For airborne or droplets transmission diseases, refusers are asked to wear a mask during shift in 2 hospitals. Conclusions:
HCWs immunization programs in FVG Region are hetero- geneous, and their specific effectiveness has to be studied yet. This study represents the first step in the process of FVG hospitals engagement in sharing effective actions in order to plan a new regional strategy for HWCs immunization.
Key messages:
The investigation of effective strategies conducted in
different FVG hospitals is essential for their scaling-up
evaluation.
A common regional plan for healthcare workers immunization is needed to tackle hesitancy and reduce infectious risk within hospitals
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
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