Publications by authors named "Carolyn Tarrant"

Objectives: To assess the prevalence of UK healthcare workers (HCWs) who reported symptoms of COVID-19 lasting for longer than 5 weeks and examine associated factors with experiencing long COVID in an ethnically diverse cohort.

Design: A cross-sectional study using data from the UK Research study into Ethnicity And COVID-19 Outcomes in HCWs cohort study.

Setting: Data were collected electronically between December 2020 and March 2021.

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In this article we explore how people who experienced a stroke, transient ischaemic attack, or heart attack sought health care during the COVID-19 lockdown periods. Semi-structured interviews were conducted with 27 patients admitted to hospital between March 2020 and May 2021, and one carer who was recruited from cardiac and stroke rehabilitation services in two large acute NHS trusts in England. Drawing on concepts of candidacy, illness and moral work, we discuss how people's sense-making about their symptoms fundamentally shaped both their decisions about seeking help and the impact of COVID-19 on help seeking.

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Background: Many older people are now living with co-occurring physical and mental health disorders, but these often managed separately. The aim of this systematic review was to explore integrated physical-mental health care services available internationally for older people living with mental health diagnoses, and whether these result in improved health outcomes.

Methods: Medline, Embase, CINAHL, PsycINFO and Scopus were searched with a predefined search strategy (PROSPERO: CRD42022383824), generating 6210 articles.

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Background: Innovations such as toolkits and frameworks are developed through applied health and social care research, to address identified gaps in quality or safety of care. The intention is to subsequently implement these innovations into practice to bring about improvements. Challenges can arise from poor choice of implementation strategies or lack of alignment to local contexts.

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Introduction: In healthcare teams, psychological safety is associated with improved performance, communication, collaboration and patient safety. Extracorporeal membrane oxygenation (ECMO) retrieval teams are multidisciplinary teams that initiate ECMO therapy for patients with severe acute respiratory failure in referring hospitals and transfer patients to regional specialised centres for ongoing care. The present study aimed to explore an ECMO team's experience of psychological safety and generate recommendations to strengthen psychological safety.

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Article Synopsis
  • The Safety Case is a regulatory method primarily used in high-risk industries to identify and minimize hazards, with a recent attempt to implement it in healthcare clinical pathways.
  • A mixed-methods evaluation of the Safer Clinical Systems programme included interviews and analysis of Safety Cases, revealing that while participants appreciated the systematic approach, executing it proved challenging due to resource constraints.
  • Although compiling Safety Cases helped identify previously hidden safety hazards, many issues were beyond the control of clinical teams and posed a dilemma for leadership on whether to prioritize their resolution over other urgent matters.
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A cross-sectional survey among participants in India and South Africa to explore perceptions and awareness of SARS-CoV-2-related risks. Main outcome measures-proportion of participants aware of SARS-CoV-2, and their perception of infection risks as it related to their views and perceptions on vaccination, i.e.

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Background: Hospitalised people with dementia (PwD) experience worse care and more patient safety incidents than non-dementia patients. Visual identifiers are commonly used to identify patients who have a diagnosis of dementia, with the aim of promoting more personalised care. However, little is known about how they work in practice, nor about the potential unintended consequences that might arise from their use.

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Article Synopsis
  • Antibiotic resistance (ABR) poses significant global health challenges, and this review aimed to estimate its economic burden across various countries and healthcare settings from studies published between 2016 and 2021.
  • The review analyzed 29 studies, with a majority from high-income countries, finding that resistant infections can lead to substantial costs per patient, increased hospital stays, and greater mortality and readmission rates.
  • The authors emphasize a notable gap in research concerning ABR's economic impact in low-and-middle-income countries and suggest further studies are needed, especially from a societal and primary care perspective.
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Background: The coronavirus pandemic has had a profound impact on organization and delivery of care. The challenges faced by healthcare organizations in dealing with the pandemic have intensified interest in the concept of resilience. While effort has gone into conceptualising resilience, there has been relatively little work on how to evaluate organizational resilience.

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Objective: The irrational use of antibiotics is a leading contributor to antibiotic resistance. Antibiotic stewardship (AS) interventions predominantly focus on prescribers. This study investigated the influence and participation of inpatients in infection-related care, including antibiotic decision-making, within and across two tertiary hospitals in South Africa (Cape Town) and India (Kerala).

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Introduction: A proportion of those who survive the acute phase of COVID-19 experience prolonged symptoms, commonly known as long COVID-19. Given that healthcare workers (HCWs) face an elevated risk of acute COVID-19 compared with the general population, the global burden of long COVID-19 in HCWs is likely to be large; however, there is limited understanding of the prevalence of long COVID-19 in HCWs, or its symptoms and their clustering. This review will aim to estimate the pooled prevalence and the symptoms of long COVID-19 among HCWs infected with SARS-CoV-2 globally, and investigate differences by country, age, sex, ethnicity, vaccination status and occupation.

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Objective: To identify perceptions and awareness of changes in infection prevention and control (IPC) and antimicrobial stewardship (AMS) practices among healthcare workers (HCWs) during the COVID-19 pandemic in India and South Africa (SA).

Method: A self-administered online survey which included participant demographics, knowledge and sources of COVID-19 infection, perceived risks and barriers, and self-efficacy. Data were analysed using descriptive statistics.

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Introduction: Postoperative infections represent a significant burden of disease, demanding antibiotic prescriptions, and are contributing to antimicrobial resistance. The burden of infection as a surgical complication is greater in low- and middle-income countries (LMICs). We report the protocol of a pilot study for the co-design, implementation and evaluation of two infection prevention and control (IPC) and antimicrobial stewardship (AMS) interventions across the surgical pathway in a teaching hospital in India.

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Objectives: We investigated the roles of patient carers in infection-related care on surgical wards in a South Indian hospital from the perspective of healthcare workers (HCWs), patients, and their carers.

Methods: Ethnographic study included ward-round observations (138 hours) and face-to-face interviews (44 HCWs, 6 patients/carers). Data (field notes, interview transcripts) were coded in NVivo 12 and thematically analyzed.

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Objective: Central venous access devices (CVADs), often known as central lines, are important for delivering medically complex care in children, and are increasingly used for children living at home. Central line-associated bloodstream infection (CLABSI) is a serious, life-threatening complication. Although the physical consequences of CLABSIs are well documented, families' views and experiences of CLABSI are poorly understood.

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Many quantitative studies have supported the association between social media use and poorer mental health, with less known about adolescents' perspectives on social media's impact on their mental health and wellbeing. This narrative literature review aimed to explore their perspectives, focusing on adolescents aged between 13 and 17. It reviewed qualitative studies published between January 2014 and December 2020, retrieved from four databases: APA Psychinfo, Web of Science, PubMed and Google Scholar.

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Article Synopsis
  • The study explores the concept of 'voiceable concern' in healthcare organizations, highlighting how staff can be crucial sources of information about safety issues but often struggle to voice their concerns.
  • Through 165 interviews across multiple hospitals, researchers found that identifying what qualifies as a 'voiceable concern' involves personal judgment influenced by specific organizational and cultural contexts.
  • The findings suggest that understanding the dynamics behind recognizing voiceable concerns is essential for improving communication and safety practices in healthcare settings.
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Introduction: Coronavirus disease (Covid-19) has led to a global pandemic since its emergence in December 2019. The majority of research into Covid-19 has focused on transmission, and mortality and morbidity associated with the virus. However, less attention has been given to its impact on health-related quality of life (HRQoL) of patients with Covid-19.

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Antibiotic prescribing can be conceptualised as a social dilemma in which the overuse of antibiotics, to minimise immediate risks to individual patients, results in a sub-optimal outcome for society (antimicrobial resistance) and increased risks to all patients in the long run. Doctors face the challenge of balancing the interests of individual patients against the collective good when prescribing antibiotics. While evidence suggests that doctors tend to prioritise individual interests over those of the collective, the conventional interpretation of such decisions as selfish may be inappropriate because most doctors are motivated by prosocial concerns about their patients.

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