Publications by authors named "Belanger L"

Article Synopsis
  • Spine surgery often leads to postoperative medical adverse events (AEs), primarily minor ones, which can be costly and impact patient outcomes; a study aimed to assess the effectiveness of a quality improvement (QI) care bundle in reducing these events.
  • The research spanned 14 years and compared outcomes before and after implementing the QI care bundle, analyzing nearly 13,500 patients to evaluate changes in AEs and associated costs.
  • Results indicated a significant reduction in several types of AEs, such as cardiac and pulmonary issues, following QI implementation; however, some AEs, like delirium, did not show improvement.
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Aim: Describe the stressors that long-term care facility (LTCF) residents and their family members were exposed to during the COVID-19 pandemic, the resources they mobilised to cope with them, and the strategies used by professionals to support them.

Design: A descriptive qualitative design study.

Method: Between March 2021 and February 2022, we carried out semi-structured interviews with 8 LTCF residents, 11 family members, and 6 focus groups made up of healthcare and support staff from 8 LTCFs.

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Severe burn injuries (SBIs) are known to pose a significant burden on patients, caregivers, and the healthcare system. Yet, scarce data on the short and long-term clinical and economic impacts of these injuries limit the development of evidence-informed strategies and policies to better care for these patients. To fill in this gap, we adapted a previously validated self-reported out-of-pocket cost measurement questionnaire, the Cost for Patients Questionnaire (CoPaQ), to the severe burn injury survivor context.

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Background: More than half of older persons admitted to an emergency department after a fall have a hip fracture and require surgery for a total hip replacement. This procedure has a high risk of postoperative complications and consequences for older persons, their informal caregivers, and the healthcare system. This study aimed to explore the perceptions of older persons, their informal caregivers and health professionals about intra-personal, inter-personal and extra-personal stressors arising from hip surgery following the fall of an older person hospitalised in orthopaedics, as well as the coping strategies used and the results obtained.

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The aim of this study was to develop a patient-reported experience measure (PREM) for comparing the experience of care received by ambulatory patients with acute unexpected needs presenting in emergency departments (EDs), walk-in clinics, and primary care practices. The Ambulatory Patient EXperience (APEX) questionnaire was developed using a 5-phase mixed-methods approach. The questionnaire was pretested by asking potential users to rate its clarity, usefulness, redundancy, content and face validities, and discrimination on a 9-point scale (1 = strongly disagree to 9 = strongly agree).

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Objectives: Since 2018, four establishments in Quebec have been instrumental in implementing the PAROLE-Onco program, which introduced accompanying patients (APs) into healthcare teams to improve cancer patients' experience. APs are patient advisors who have acquired specific experiential knowledge related to living with cancer, using services, and interacting with healthcare professionals. They are therefore in a unique and reliable position to be able to provide emotional, informational, cognitive and navigational support to patients who are dealing with cancer.

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Importance: Daytime functional impairments are the primary reasons for patients with insomnia to seek treatment, yet little is known about what the optimal treatment is for improving daytime functions and how best to proceed with treatment for patients whose insomnia has not remitted.

Objectives: To compare the efficacy of behavioral therapy (BT) and zolpidem as initial therapies for improving daytime functions among patients with insomnia and evaluate the added value of a second treatment for patients whose insomnia has not remitted.

Design, Setting, And Participants: In this sequential multiple-assignment randomized clinical trial conducted at institutions in Canada and the US, 211 adults with chronic insomnia disorder were enrolled between May 1, 2012, and December 31, 2015, and followed up for 12 months.

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Background: The COVID-19 pandemic has had a profound impact on emergency department (ED) care in Canada and around the world. To prevent transmission of COVID-19, personal protective equipment (PPE) was required for all ED care providers in contact with suspected cases. With mass vaccination and improvements in several infection prevention components, our hypothesis is that the risks of transmission of COVID-19 will be significantly reduced and that current PPE use will have economic and ecological consequences that exceed its anticipated benefits.

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Background: Centre hospitalier de l'Université de Montréal in Canada introduced accompanying patients (APs) into the breast cancer care trajectory. APs are patients who have been treated for breast cancer and have been integrated into the clinical team to expand the services offered to people affected by cancer. This study describes the profiles of the people who received the support and explores whether one-offs vs ongoing encounters with APs influence their experience of care, on self-efficacy in coping with cancer, and on their level of psychological distress.

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Introduction: Since 2018, four establishments in Quebec, Canada, have decided to implement the PAROLE-Onco programme, which introduced accompanying patients (APs) in healthcare teams to improve the experience of cancer patients. APs are patient advisors who have had a cancer treatment experience and who conduct consultations to complement the service offered by providing emotional, informational and educational support to patients undergoing treatments (e.g.

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Background And Objectives: Traumatic spinal cord injury (SCI) is highly heterogeneous, and tools to better delineate pathophysiology and recovery are needed. Our objective was to profile the response of 2 biomarkers, neurofilament light (NF-L) and glial fibrillary acidic protein (GFAP), in the serum and CSF of patients with acute SCI to evaluate their ability to objectively characterize injury severity and predict neurologic recovery.

Methods: Blood and CSF samples were obtained from prospectively enrolled patients with acute SCI through days 1-4 postinjury, and the concentration of NF-L and GFAP was quantified using Simoa technology.

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Background: The latest global figures show that 55 million persons lived with major neurocognitive disorders (MNCDs) worldwide in 2021. In Quebec, Canada, most of these older adults are cared for by family physicians in interdisciplinary primary care clinics such as family medicine groups (FMG). When a person has a MNCD, taking potentially inappropriate medications or polypharmacy (5 different medications or more) increases their vulnerability to serious adverse events.

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Recovery from work is a critical component for employees' proper functioning. While research has documented the beneficial effects of after-work recovery, it has focused far less on the recovery that happens while in the form of work breaks. In this review, we systematically review available empirical evidence on the relationship between work breaks and well-being and performance among knowledge workers.

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Temporary housing programs (THPs) aim to serve the homeless population. This article explores the impacts of a THP, the Winter Interim Solution to Homelessness (WISH) in London, Canada, which applied a barrier-free, harm reduction model. Adopting an intersectional lens and interpretive description methodology, we analyzed data collected from WISH residents, utilizing a thematic analytic approach.

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Introduction: During the first regional COVID-19 lockdown in March 2020, we conducted a study aimed at evaluating completeness of telemedicine consultation in urology. Of 1679 consultations, 67% were considered completely managed by phone. The aim of the present study was to assess patients' experience and satisfaction with telemedicine and to compare them with urologists' perceptions about quality and completeness of the telemedicine consultation.

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Reliable treatment burden measures are needed given the aging population and the associated increase in multimorbidity and polypharmacy. Treatment burden is defined as the effort to care for one's health and the resulting impact on one's daily life. This study aimed to translate the Multimorbidity Treatment Burden Questionnaire (MTBQ) for French-Canadians and assess its reliability and validity.

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Article Synopsis
  • * The study looked at how hospitals care for patients with insomnia and found that doctors often don't talk about sleep issues, usually giving medications instead.
  • * For better treatment, using a web-based therapy called CBT-I could work, but it needs training for staff and support to succeed in hospitals.
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Study Design: Observational study.

Objectives: To examine the feasibility of meeting the current clinical guidelines for the hemodynamic management of acute spinal cord injury (SCI) which recommend maintaining mean arterial pressure (MAP) at 85-90 mmHg in the days following injury.

Methods: This study examined data collected minute-by-minute to describe the pressure profile in the first 5 days following SCI in 16 patients admitted to the Intensive Care Unit at Vancouver General Hospital (40 ± 19 years, 13 M/3 F, C4-T11).

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Study Objectives: It is common to provide insomnia patients a second treatment when the initial treatment fails, but little is known about optimal treatment sequences for different patient types. This study examined whether pre-treatment characteristics/traits predict optimal treatment sequences for insomnia patients.

Methods: A community sample of 211 adults (132 women; Mage = 45.

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There is currently a lack of information regarding neuropathic pain in the very early stages of spinal cord injury (SCI). In the present study, neuropathic pain was assessed using the Douleur Neuropathique 4 Questions (DN4) for the patient's worst pain within the first 5 days of injury (i.e.

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Despite the emergence of promising therapeutic approaches in preclinical studies, the failure of large-scale clinical trials leaves clinicians without effective treatments for acute spinal cord injury (SCI). These trials are hindered by their reliance on detailed neurological examinations to establish outcomes, which inflate the time and resources required for completion. Moreover, therapeutic development takes place in animal models whose relevance to human injury remains unclear.

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Study Design: Qualitative study.

Objectives: The purpose of this study is to understand the patient perspective after diagnosis of an acute traumatic spinal cord injury (tSCI). Discussing the diagnosis and prognosis of a tSCI with a patient can be a challenging experience for both the patient and the physician.

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A major obstacle for translational research in acute spinal cord injury (SCI) is the lack of biomarkers that can objectively stratify injury severity and predict outcome. Ubiquitin C-terminal hydrolase L1 (UCH-L1) is a neuron-specific enzyme that shows promise as a diagnostic biomarker in traumatic brain injury (TBI), but has not been studied in SCI. In this study, cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) and serum samples were collected over the first 72-96 h post-injury from 32 acute SCI patients who were followed prospectively to determine neurological outcomes at 6 months post-injury.

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