1,721,026 research outputs found
‘Life on hold’: the lived experience of radicular symptoms. A qualitative, interpretative inquiry
No full textBackground: Patients with radicular symptoms can experience high levels of pain and disability with at least a third experiencing on-going symptoms 12 months after onset. Aims: To explore ‘what matters’ about living with radicular symptoms at the point of seeing a spinal specialist and to consider how care can be aligned to best address need. Methods: In this qualitative study, based on the principles of interpretative phenomenological analysis, 14 participants with a clinical presentation of radicular symptoms were purposively recruited from an NHS, Musculoskeletal Service in the UK. Individual, semi-structured interviews were undertaken, audio-recorded and transcribed verbatim. Data were managed using a Framework approach and analysed thematically. Findings: Radicular symptoms were experienced as a protracted journey of acute exacerbations of symptoms that were difficult to make sense of. Adversely affecting almost all aspects of life, participants struggled to maintain their physical and functional independence; their important relationships; social networks and the roles and activities that provided joy and purpose. The impact of radicular symptoms was a ‘life on hold’ and an uncertain future, and 3/14 reported suicidal thoughts. Conclusions: This paper, the first to focus on the lived experience of radicular symptoms at the point of seeing a spinal specialist, reveals the severity and devastating impact of radicular symptoms. Important implications have been identified regarding the need for clinicians to legitimise the symptoms and impact of radicular symptoms; to identify early those patients who might benefit from injection/surgery; and to signpost appropriate patients to sources of psychological support.</p
“Go and get it checked”: exploring the decision to attend the emergency department for low back pain
No full textPurpose and background: low back pain affects individuals and society, straining Emergency Departments (EDs) and prolonging wait times. While personal factors influence ED visits, third-party advice's role is underexplored. Limited guidance for healthcare professionals emphasises the need for effective back pain management to ease system strain and improve patient outcomes. This study examines motivations for ED visits due to low back pain. Methods and results: this research utilised secondary analysis of qualitative data from a previous multisite study, adopting a subtle realist approach. From August to December 2021, 47 patients (26 M:21 F, aged 23–79) with back pain were sampled from four English EDs (2 Northern, 2 Southern) to capture diversity in sociodemographic and LBP characteristics. Eight patients had previously visited the ED for this back pain episode. During the pandemic, semi-structured interviews were conducted online, audio-recorded, transcribed, and analysed thematically. Three key themes influenced decisions to attend ED: Healthcare professionals, trusted others, and individuals. Healthcare professionals often dictated choices, making participants feel powerless. Trusted others offered varying support, acting as allies. Individuals wrestled with anxiety about pain severity and uncertainty regarding LBP. Conclusion: this study emphasises the need for healthcare professionals to offer clear guidance on when individuals and their caregivers should visit the ED for back pain. Findings show that pain-related worries significantly drive ED visits, misaligning with practice guidelines. Healthcare providers must consider these issues when creating strategies to manage low back pain patients and optimise ED resources.</p
Why managing sciatica is difficult: patients’ experiences of an NHS sciatica pathway. A qualitative, interpretative study
No full textObjectives Amid a political agenda for integrated, high-value care, the UK is implementing its Low Back and Radicular Pain Pathway. To align care with need, it is imperative to understand the patients’ perspective. The purpose of this study was, therefore, to explore how people experience being managed for sciatica within an National Health Service (NHS) pathway.Design Qualitative interpretative study.Setting Musculoskeletal Service in an NHS, Primary Care Trust, UK.Participants The sample comprised 14 people aged ≥18 years with a clinical presentation of sciatica, who were currently under the care of a specialist physiotherapist (the specialist spinal triage practitioner), had undergone investigations (MRI) and received the results within the past 6 weeks. People were excluded if they had previously undergone spinal surgery or if the suspected cause of symptoms was cauda equina syndrome or sinister pathology. Participants were sampled purposively for variation in age and gender. Data were collected using individual semi-structured interviews (duration: 38–117 min; median: 82.6 min), which were audio-recorded and transcribed verbatim. Data were analysed thematically.Results A series of problems with the local pathway (insufficient transparency and information; clinician-led decisions; standardised management; restricted access to specialist care; and a lack of collaboration between services) made it difficult for patients to access the management they perceived necessary. Patients were therefore required to be independent and proactive or have agency. This was, however, difficult to achieve (due to the impact of sciatica and because patients lacked the necessary skills, funds and support) and together with the pathway issues, this negated patients’ capability to manage sciatica.Conclusions This novel paper explores how patients experience the process of being managed within a sciatica pathway. While highlighting the need to align with recommended best practice, it shows the need to be more person-centred and to support and empower patient agency.Trial registration number ClinicalTrials.gov reference (UOS-2307-CR); Pre-results
Investigations for radiculopathy: The patient perspective. A qualitative, interpretative inquiry
No full textBackground:Clinical guidelines recommend that investigations, such as magnetic resonance imaging, are offered only when likely to change management. Meanwhile, the optimal process of diagnosing radiculopathy remains uncertain and, in clinical practice, differences of opinion can occur between patient and clinician regarding the perceived importance of investigations.Objectives:To explore peoples' experiences of investigations and the effect of concordance between clinical presentation and investigation findings.Methods:In this qualitative study, 14 participants who had recently undergone investigations for a clinical presentation of radiculopathy were purposively recruited from an NHS, Primary Care Service in the United Kingdom. Based on the principles of interpretative phenomenological analysis, individual, semi-structured interviews were recorded and transcribed verbatim. Data were managed using a framework approach and analysed thematically.Findings:Although people reported wanting investigations to understand the cause of symptoms and inform management, access to them was reported to be difficult and protracted. When investigations revealed potentially relevant findings, people experienced relief, validation, empowerment and decisive decision-making. Disappointment emerged, however, regarding treatment options and waiting times, and long-term prognosis. When investigations failed to identify relevant findings, people were unable to make sense of their symptoms, relinquish their search to identify the cause, or to move forward in their management.Conclusions:This study provides the first reported in-depth interpretation of peoples' experience of undergoing investigations specifically for radiculopathy. Important implications have been identified for: investigation referral criteria; shared-decision-making; information sharing and managing expectations and disappointment
Contrasting cultures of emergency department care: a qualitative study of patients’ experiences of attending the emergency department for low back pain in the UK
Full text linkObjectives: This article aimed to explore patients’ experiences of attending the emergency department (ED) for low back pain (LBP) and provides a theoretically informed analysis of the ED cultures perceived by patients to inform their experiences of care. Design: Multisite, cross-sectional qualitative interview study. Setting: Four NHS Emergency Departments located in the UK. Participants: 47 adults (aged 23–79 years) who, in the past 6 weeks, had attended the ED for LBP (all types and durations). Purposive sampling was used to gain variation in the recruiting sites, and participants’ LBP and demographic characteristics. Interventions: Data were collected using individual, semistructured, telephone interviews (median 45 min duration) which were audio-recorded and transcribed verbatim. Analysis was informed using reflexive thematic analysis and ideal type analysis. Cycles of inductive and deductive analysis were undertaken, with Bourdieu’s concepts of field and habitus employed to help explain the findings. Results: We present three contrasting cultures of ED care for LBP, comprising (1) emergency screening only, (2) ‘cynicism and neglect’ and (3) appropriate and kind care. Taking each culture (field) in turn, we explore important differences in the content and delivery of care. Drawing on Bourdieu’s concepts of field and habitus, we consider the social and institutional norms and misrepresentations likely to underpin the thoughts and behaviours of ED staff (their habitus), and why these tended to vary based on where and by whom the patient was managed in the ED. Conclusions: Strategies to improve patients’ experience need to review the social and institutional norms that underpin staff habitus, the assumptions informing these norms and the voices that validate and reproduce them. ISRCTN registration number: ISRCTN77522923
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
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