The process of clinical decision-making in chronic wound care: A scenario-based think-aloud study.

Aims: To undertake a comprehensive investigation into both the process of information acquisition and the clinical decision-making process utilized by primary care nurses in the course of treating chronic wounds.

Design: Scenario-based think-aloud method, enriched by the integration of information processing theory. The study was conducted within the framework of home care nursing organizations situated in Flanders, the Flemish speaking part of Belgium.

Preanalytical variables influencing the interpretation and reporting of biological tests on blood samples of living and deceased donors for human body materials.

With the present paper, the Working Group on Cells, Tissues and Organs and other experts of the Superior Health Council of Belgium aimed to provide stakeholders in material of human origin with advice on critical aspects of serological and nucleic acid test (NAT) testing, to improve virological safety of cell- and tissue and organ donation. The current paper focusses on a number of preanalytical variables which can be critical for any medical biology examination: (1) sampling related variables (type of samples, collection of the samples, volume of the sample, choice of specific tubes, identification of tubes), (2) variables related to transport, storage and processing of blood samples (transport, centrifugation and haemolysis, storage before and after centrifugation, use of serum versus plasma), (3) variables related to dilution (haemodilution, pooling of samples), and (4) test dependent variables (available tests and validation). Depending on the type of donor (deceased donor (heart-beating or non-heart beating) versus living donor (allogeneic, related, autologous), and the type of donated human material (cells, tissue or organs) additional factors can play a role: pre- and post-mortem sampling, conditions of sampling (e.

A Belgian student with black eschars.

Background: Human cowpox virus infection is a rare zoonotic disease. Cowpox virus is a member of the Orthopoxvirus genus, like smallpox. Over the last years records of cowpox virus transmission from pet cats and pet rats to humans in Europe have increased.

The measurement properties of assessment tools for chronic wounds: A systematic review.

Background: Chronic wounds are an increasing problem in the aging population, patients experience a lower health-related quality of life and the care for these patients is associated with high costs. Thorough wound assessments facilitate objective monitoring of wound status and progress. A wound assessment tool can guide clinicians in these wound assessments and in recording wound progress or deterioration.

Silicone adhesive multilayer foam dressings as adjuvant prophylactic therapy to prevent hospital-acquired pressure ulcers: a pragmatic noncommercial multicentre randomized open-label parallel-group medical device trial.

Background: Silicone adhesive multilayer foam dressings are used as adjuvant therapy to prevent hospital-acquired pressure ulcers (PUs).

Objectives: To determine whether silicone foam dressings in addition to standard prevention reduce the incidence of PUs of category 2 or worse compared with standard prevention alone.

Methods: This was a multicentre, randomized controlled medical device trial conducted in eight Belgian hospitals.