Publications by authors named "Heather Cook"

Introduction: Secondary spontaneous pneumothorax (SSP) is a medical emergency where the lung collapses in the presence of underlying chronic lung disease. Current international clinical guidelines advise intercostal drain (ICD) insertion for SSP. However, in a previous small study needle aspiration (NA) has been shown to reduce length of hospital stay (LOHS) and reduce complications.

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Article Synopsis
  • - The study aims to assess the effectiveness and cost-efficiency of low-dose amitriptyline as a second-line treatment for patients with irritable bowel syndrome (IBS) in primary care, especially when first-line treatments fail.
  • - Conducted as a pragmatic, double-blind, placebo-controlled trial across 55 general practices in England, the design included both quantitative outcomes and qualitative experiences from participants and general practitioners regarding the treatment.
  • - Participants included adults over 18 diagnosed with IBS who did not respond to initial therapies; they received either amitriptyline or a placebo for 6 months, with a focus on measuring the difference in IBS symptoms to see if the medication has a significant impact.
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Background: Irritable bowel syndrome (IBS) can cause troublesome symptoms impacting patients' quality of life and incur considerable health service resource use. Guidelines suggest low-dose amitriptyline for IBS as second line treatment, but this is rarely prescribed in primary care.

Aim: To explore patients' and general practitioners' (GPs) views and experiences of using low-dose amitriptyline for IBS.

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Background: A high proportion of patients do not regain outdoor mobility after hip fracture. Rehabilitation explicitly targeting outdoor mobility is needed to enable these older adults to recover activities which they value most. The overarching aim of this study is to determine the feasibility of a randomised controlled trial which aims to assess the clinical- and cost-effectiveness of an intervention designed to enable recovery of outdoor mobility among older adults after hip fracture (the OUTDOOR intervention).

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Aim: To evaluate the impact of usual care plus a fundamental nursing care guideline compared to usual care only for patients in hospital with COVID-19 on patient experience, care quality, functional ability, treatment outcomes, nurses' moral distress, patient health-related quality of life and cost-effectiveness.

Design: Parallel two-arm, cluster-level randomized controlled trial.

Methods: Between 18th January and 20th December 2021, we recruited (i) adults aged 18 years and over with COVID-19, excluding those invasively ventilated, admitted for at least three days or nights in UK Hospital Trusts; (ii) nurses caring for them.

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Background: Most patients with irritable bowel syndrome (IBS) are managed in primary care. When first-line therapies for IBS are ineffective, the UK National Institute for Health and Care Excellence guideline suggests considering low- dose tricyclic antidepressants as second-line treatment, but their effectiveness in primary care is unknown, and they are infrequently prescribed in this setting.

Methods: This randomised, double-blind, placebo-controlled trial (Amitriptyline at Low-Dose and Titrated for Irritable Bowel Syndrome as Second-Line Treatment [ATLANTIS]) was conducted at 55 general practices in England.

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Dry powder inhalers are an effective yet costly COPD medication-delivery device. Patients must possess a minimum peak inspiratory flow rate (PIFR) for inhaled medication to be properly deposited into the lungs. Hospitalized palliative-care patients with diminished lung function due to advanced COPD may not possess the minimum PIFR (30 L/min) for adequate drug delivery.

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Objective: To study the clinical use of elagolix in ovarian stimulation and its effect on premature ovulation in a cohort of women undergoing oocyte donation.

Design: A prospective cohort study with the use of historical controls.

Setting: A private reproductive endocrinology and infertility clinic.

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Background: Initial training and ongoing post-training consultation (i.e., ongoing support following training, provided by an expert) are among the most common implementation strategies used to change clinician practice.

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Communication gaps between the healthcare team and caregivers of pediatric patients can result in negative consequences. This study aims to identify specific words and phrases used in a pediatric emergency department (ED) that are unclear or confusing to caregivers. Research assistants at the Primary Children's Hospital recorded caregivers' responses to the question, " Across all steps in the care process, 62 of 220 participants (28.

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Background: Irritable bowel syndrome (IBS) is a common functional bowel disorder that has a considerable impact on patient quality of life and substantial societal and health care resource costs. Current treatments are often ineffective. Tricyclic antidepressants have shown promise in secondary care populations but their effectiveness in a primary care setting remains unclear.

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Palliative care (PC) pharmacists can play an important role in optimizing medications for patients with serious illnesses by aligning patients' goals with their treatment regimens. The objectives of this study were to (1) quantify successful pharmacist deprescribing interventions incorporated in the hospital discharge plan and (2) describe deprescribing interventions by medication class, reason for discontinuation, and perception of patient/caregiver understanding and acceptance. This pilot study included 45 inpatient PC consultations and collected data on deprescribing interventions performed by PC clinical pharmacists in Maryland and Washington, D.

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Clinician bias has been identified as a potential contributor to persistent healthcare disparities across many medical specialties and service settings. Few studies have examined strategies to reduce clinician bias, especially in mental healthcare, despite decades of research evidencing service and outcome disparities in adult and pediatric populations. This manuscript describes an intervention development study and a pilot feasibility trial of the Virtual Implicit Bias Reduction and Neutralization Training (VIBRANT) for mental health clinicians in schools-where most youth in the U.

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Background: Implementation strategies have flourished in an effort to increase integration of research evidence into clinical practice. Most strategies are complex, socially mediated processes. Many are complicated, expensive, and ultimately impractical to deliver in real-world settings.

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A comprehensive pain assessment is the first step in safe, effective pain management. Few studies have explored variations of strategies and measures for multidimensional pain assessment education in both verbal and nonverbal patients. In this retrospective cohort study, interprofessional health care students enrolled in a palliative care curriculum completed a pain assessment training, which taught the PQRSTA ("palliating factors, precipitating factors, previous treatments, quality, region, radiation, severity, temporal factors and associated symptoms") mnemonic as a strategy for assessing pain in verbal patients and the Pain Assessment in Advance Dementia and Checklist of Nonverbal Pain Indicators measures for nonverbal patients.

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Article Synopsis
  • The PSERENADE project focuses on global surveillance of invasive pneumococcal disease (IPD) to assess the impact of pneumococcal conjugate vaccines (PCV10/13).
  • Among 138 countries using PCV10/13 as of 2018, 109 had IPD surveillance systems, with data collected from 76, enabling a comprehensive analysis of 240,639 post-vaccine IPD cases.
  • The dataset will aid in understanding the effectiveness of the vaccines across different demographics and vaccination schedules, influencing future immunization policies globally and nationally.
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Article Synopsis
  • Serotype 1 (ST1) was a major cause of invasive pneumococcal disease (IPD) before the introduction of pneumococcal conjugate vaccines (PCVs), which include ST1 antigen.
  • The PSERENADE project analyzed global data on ST1 IPD to assess the impact of PCV10/13 on disease rates, using advanced statistical methods.
  • Results showed that after six years of using PCV10/13, there was a 95% reduction in ST1 IPD incidence across all age groups, but there is a need for more data from countries heavily affected by ST1 to improve the findings' applicability.
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Adermatoglyphia is a very rare autosomal-dominant condition that is genetically inherited and causes an individual to be born without conventional ridge detail on either their palmar or plantar surfaces (the fingers and palms of the hands and the toes and the soles of the feet). While adermatoglyphia has been the focus of medical and genetic research, no previous research has been conducted with regard to the forensic recovery and identification of marks from an adermatoglyphic individual. By observation of ridge detail donated by an adermatoglyphic subject, the study uses different methods in order to capture fingermarks (methods include: inked capture, livescan (biometric) capture, cyanoacrylate fuming, ninhydrin enhancement, and physical developer).

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Between 2010 and 2013, an outbreak of serotype-1 sequence type 306 (ST306) invasive pneumococcal disease (IPD) occurred primarily in remote locations of Northern and Central Australia. This is a descriptive study of the epidemiology of the outbreak using nationwide IPD surveillance data, supplemented with more detailed data held by affected jurisdictions, and of the response to the outbreak, including vaccination strategies. In the year the outbreak peaked (2011), serotype-1 IPD incidence was over 30-fold higher in the affected regions than in the rest of Australia (incidence rate ratio: 30.

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Multi-sectoral, interdisciplinary health research is increasingly recognizing integrated knowledge translation (iKT) as essential. It is characterized by diverse research partnerships, and iterative knowledge engagement, translation processes and democratized knowledge production. This paper reviews the methodological complexity and decision-making of a large iKT project called Seniors - Adding Life to Years (SALTY), designed to generate evidence to improve late life in long-term care (LTC) settings across Canada.

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Background: Universal pneumococcal conjugate vaccine (PCV) programs began in Indigenous Australian children in 2001 and all children in 2005, changing to 13-valent PCV (PCV13) in 2011. We used laboratory data for invasive pneumococcal disease (IPD) and coded hospitalizations for noninvasive pneumococcal community-acquired pneumonia (PnCAP) to evaluate long-term impact.

Methods: Annual incidence (per 100 000 population) was calculated for age-specific total IPD, PCV13 non-7-valent PCV (PCV7) serotypes, and PnCAP by Indigenous status.

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Medication reconciliation has been an area with increased focus among transitions of care due to associations with error rates and risk of patient harm. Chart reviews were performed to evaluate the discrepancies between the initial physician order sheet (POS), hospital discharge summary, electronic health record (EHR), health information exchange (HIE), and the patient interview/home medication list. The objectives were to determine which medication information source provided the least number of discrepancies and describe the different types of discrepancies among sources.

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Background: Undernutrition is a serious global problem that contributes to increased child morbidity and mortality, impaired neurocognitive development, and decreased educational and economic attainment. Current interventions are only marginally effective, and identification of associated metabolic pathways can offer new strategies for intervention.

Methods: Plasma samples were collected at 9 and 36 months from a subset of the PROVIDE child cohort (n = 130).

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