A novel acute basic palliation concept for patients without specialised palliative needs.

Introduction: Among all Danish dying patients, 80% rely on non-specialised palliative care, an area lacking national and international guidelines. In this pilot study, we developed and tested an acute basic palliation concept (ABPC), a structured end-of-life (EOL) care plan for patients discharged from the emergency department to die at home compared with standard care.

Methods: This study compared symptom scores and EOL care statement scores during a standard care period with an ABPC period using unvalidated questionnaires.

Considerations for Cell Type Heterogeneity in Pediatric Salivary DNA Methylation Analyses: Comparison of Reference Panels & Stratification by Estimated Cell Type Proportion.

Saliva is a widely used sample in epigenetic research with children due to its non-invasive nature. Since DNA methylation (DNAm) profile is cell type (CT) specific, salivary DNAm associations with exposures may be influenced by CT compositions, which is highly variable in saliva as it contains immune and buccal epithelial cells (BEC). Reference-based CT deconvolution and statistically adjusting estimated CT in DNAm analyses have become an increasingly common practice.

Patterns of stress-related change in salivary alpha-amylase and cortisol among young children: Associations with maternal psychosocial risk factors.

Our understanding of associations between family-level risk factors and children's stress physiology is largely derived from studies that apply "mean-based" rather than "person-level" approaches. In this study, we employed group-based trajectory modeling, a person-centered approach, to identify children with similar patterns of stress-related sympathetic nervous system (SNS) and hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal (HPA) axis activation, and explored associations between these patterns and maternal psychosocial risk. Participants were five-year-old children (N=147; 52 % female; 62 % Black/African American) and their mothers.

Salivary and Serum Analytes and Their Associations with Self-rated Health Among Healthy Young Adults.

Background: Understanding the biological processes underlying poor self-rated health (SRH) can inform prevention efforts. The COVID-19 pandemic highlighted the importance of using self-reported measures and self-collected biospecimens, such as saliva, to understand physiological functioning and assist with health surveillance and promotion. However, the associations between salivary analytes and SRH remain understudied.