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Professionisti sanitari e cura del fine vita: lo studio E.L.D.Y. (End of Life Decisions studY)
Get PDFBackground. In developed societies, the main causes of death are represented by degenerative illnesses, and an increasing number of patients in intensive care yards remain in a coma or in a terminal phase for long time. In such a context, clinical decisions at the end of life are becoming more and more complex, and involve medical, psychological and ethical aspects. A multidisciplinary reflection on these problems increased the interest toward end-of-life issues in the national and international context, highlighting important changes in shared thoughts and different opinions on these topics by Italian professionals compared to European or American colleagues. Topics such as end-of-life decisions, cures and treatments in the terminal phase, respect for living will are increasingly present in the literature. However, only a few studies investigated these topics in the geriatric field, particularly in Italy.
Aims. The E.L.D.Y. study (End of Life Decision studY) aims at: investigate the type and frequency of decisions taken, in the clinical practice during the terminal phase of patients’ life, by physicians and professional nurses, especially in the geriatric field in the Italian Regions Veneto, Trentino Alto-Adige and Marche; assess the opinions concerning end-of-life decisions by professionals involved in the assistance of elderly patients; analyze the possible associations between end-of-life opinions and individual characteristics; compare the obtained findings with those of similar studies previously conducted both in the Italian and in the European context.
Materials and Methods. Through an articulated multidisciplinary work, a new questionnaire has been constructed, taking into account the critiques formulated to the previous national and international studies. The instrument was send to approximately 6000 physicians, nurses, psychologists and healthcare workers in elderly patients assistance units in Veneto, Trentino Alto-Adige and Marche Regions. The questionnaire was composed by three parts: the first, to be compiled by physicians and nurses only, concerned the decisions taken about the last death patient they assisted; the second, regarding health workers in general, aimed at investigating end-of-life related opinions; the third assessed some individual characteristics of the professionals.
Results. Respondents were 1545 social and health workers: 301 physicians (MD), 788 registered nurses (RN), 231 healthcare workers, 108 psychologists; 117 were other workers in the structures. The questionnaires that met the selection criteria for the statistical analyses were 680 for end-of-life decisions and 1425 for the investigated opinions.
A total of 161 decisions to end life (DEL) emerged (24% of deaths that did not occur suddenly and that professionals had the opportunity to follow). They were divided into 141 non-treatment decisions and 20 cases of medically assisted death. Among the latter, 2 were cases of euthanasia (MD: 1 and RN: 1), while 16 were cases of death suppression without explicit request by the patient (MD: 3 and RN: 13). Overall, 1.4% of physicians stated that they intervened directly and intentionally to anticipate the end of life.
Fifty percent of physicians reported that they had started or not stopped a treatment taking into account the possibility that this action could have prolonged the patient’s life; the 31%, instead, reported that they did not start or that they stopped a treatment taking into account the possibility that this action could have hastened the death of a terminal ill patient.
Concerning opinions, only a minority (26%) of physicians and nurses agree with the principle according to which there is not a right to die, while the majority (76%) agree with the right of a patient to decide on the possibility to hasten the end of life. About half of our respondents (52%) think that it is acceptable to use lethal drugs if requested by a terminally ill patient with untreatable suffering. About 60% of participants think that living will should always be respected, even if this could hasten death. Finally, the separation of the items concerning artificial nutrition and artificial hydration allowed us to observe that the latter is administered more frequently than the former, suggesting that artificial hydration only is considered as a basic form of care. Concerning communication, results indicate that physicians tend to discuss the proposed topics more with relatives than with patients, differently from what emerged in other European countries.
Regarding differences between professionals, the main ones concern the answers provided by psychologists. The psychologists in our study, almost all from Triveneto, consistently with their professional role, tend to attribute particular importance to topics such as communication with patients, respect of their indications and will, and the act of listening in the relations with relatives. The main differences related to regional origin concern the administration of treatments such as artificial nutrition, dialysis and ventilation, that is considered as more necessary in Marche than in Triveneto.
Conclusions. The conducted study presents some limitations: data concern three Italian Regions, two from the North and one in Central Italy and, therefore, in the future it would be useful to extend the investigation to other Italian Regions and possibly to other nations; many of our variables regard the opinions of respondents and not only their actual behaviours. Despite these limitations, this work is certainly useful to provide indications concerning fundamental problems of a clinical, psychological and ethical nature that health professionals encounter when facing end-of-life issues. Moreover, given the high percentages of respondents who reported interest toward the questionnaire, so as the absence of substantial criticisms, we can conclude that the aim of creating a new instrument, useful to effectively assess practices and opinions related to end-of-life in Italy, has been reached
5mC-hydroxylase activity is influenced by the PARylation of TET1 enzyme
Get PDF5-hydroxymethylcytosine is a new epigenetic modification deriving from the oxidation of 5-methylcytosine by the TET hydroxylase enzymes. DNA hydroxymethylation drives DNA demethylation events and is involved in the control of gene expression. Deregulation of TET enzymes causes developmental defects and is associated with pathological conditions such as cancer. Little information thus far is available on the regulation of TET activity by post-translational modifications. Here we show that TET1 protein is able to interact with PARP-1/ARTD1 enzyme and is target of both noncovalent and covalent PARylation. In particular, we have demonstrated that the noncovalent binding of ADP-ribose polymers with TET1 catalytic domain decreases TET1 hydroxylase activity while the covalent PARylation stimulates TET1 enzyme. In addition, TET1 activates PARP-1/ARTD1 independently of DNA breaks. Collectively, our results highlight a complex interplay between PARylation and TET1 which may be helpful in coordinating the multiple biological roles played by 5-hydroxymethylcytosine and TET proteins
Going Beyond Counting First Authors in Author Co-citation Analysis
Get PDFThe 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
Get PDF“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
Get PDFWe 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
Get PDFWe 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
PARP-1 controls Snail expression in epithelial cancer cells exposed to doxorubicin
No full textSnail is the master gene of epithelial–mesenchymal transition (EMT), a program of cell development characterized by loss of cell adhesion, repression of E-cadherin and increased cell mobility. EMT has also been implicated in two of the most important processes responsible for cancer-related mortality: formation of metastasis and acquisition of therapeutic resistance. The molecular mechanisms that govern the different roles of Snail in tumor progression are poorly understood, but recent works have shown that Snail is an anti-apoptotic factor necessary for the survival of migrating cells. Growing evidences indicate that PARP-1 is involved in controlling Snail expression and, taking in consideration Snail cytoprotective role, we assume that PARP-1 contribution to Snail expression modulates the resistance to apoptosis of some types of cancer cells.
In this study we investigate whether PARP-1 is involved in the regulation of Snail level upon induction of DNA damage by doxorubicin
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