Analysis of Caregiver Burden Expressed in Social Media Discussions.

Almost 40% of US adults provide informal caregiving, yet research gaps remain around what burdens affect informal caregivers. This study uses a novel social media site, Reddit, to mine and better understand what online communities focus on as their caregiving burdens. These forums were accessed using an application programming interface, a machine learning classifier was developed to remove low information posts, and topic modeling was applied to the corpus.

The informed consent form navigator: a tool for producing readable and compliant consent documents.

Background/objective: Informed consent forms (ICFs) and practices vary widely across institutions. This project expands on previous work at the University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences (UAMS) Center for Health Literacy to develop a plain language ICF template. Our interdisciplinary team of researchers, comprised of biomedical informaticists, health literacy experts, and stakeholders in the Institutional Review Board (IRB) process, has developed the ICF Navigator, a novel tool to facilitate the creation of plain language ICFs that comply with all relevant regulatory requirements.

Institutional improvements in readability of written informed consent forms sustained post-revised Common Rule.

Obtaining informed consent is a fundamental and ethical practice within human subjects' research. Informed consent forms (ICFs) include a large amount of information, much of which may be unfamiliar to research subjects, and the revised Common Rule resulted in several required additions to that language. As limited health literacy impacts many potential subjects, efforts should be made to optimize subjects' ability to read and understand ICFs.

Accuracy of the Spinal Pain Diagram Is Influenced by Patient Health Literacy in Completion of the Scoliosis Research Society30 Questionnaire.

The Scoliosis Research Society Questionnaire (SRS30) was designed to measure healthrelated quality of life in scoliosis patients. Patients with low health literacy may need specific guidance when providing feedback on the SRS30 so that reliable and valid results are collected for clinical decision making. The purpose of this research study was to investigate the health literacy demands of the Scoliosis Research Society Questionnaire (SRS30) and to determine if health literacy best practices mitigate errors for patients with low health literacy.

Barriers and solutions to implementing a pragmatic diabetes education trial in rural primary care clinics.

Introduction: The purpose of this report is to describe barriers and solutions to the implementation and optimization of a pragmatic trial that tests an evidence-based, patient-centered, low literacy intervention promoting diabetes self-care in rural primary care clinics.

Methods: The two-arm pragmatic trial has been implemented in six rural family medicine clinics in Arkansas. It tests a self-management education and counseling intervention for patients with type 2 diabetes compared to enhanced usual care.

Implementation of a health-literate patient decision aid for chest pain in the emergency department.

Objective: The aim of this study was to investigate the implementation of a new health-literacy-tested patient decision aid for chest pain in Emergency Department (ED) patients. Outcomes included disposition, knowledge, decisional conflict and satisfaction prior to discharge. Patient health literacy was explored as a factor that may explain disparities in sub-group analysis of all outcomes.

Rationale and development of a randomized pragmatic trial to improve diabetes outcomes in patient-centered medical homes serving rural patients.

Proper diabetes self-care requires patients to have considerable knowledge, a range of skills, and to sustain multiple health behaviors. Self-management interventions are needed that can be readily implemented and sustained in rural clinics with limited resources that disproportionately care for patients with limited literacy. Researchers on our team developed an evidence-based, patient-centered, low literacy intervention promoting diabetes self-care that includes: 1) the American College of Physicians (ACP) Diabetes Guide that uses plain language and descriptive photographs to teach core diabetes concepts and empower patients to initiate behavior change; 2) a brief counseling strategy to assist patients in developing short-term, explicit and attainable goals for behavior change ('action plans'); and 3) a training module for health coaches that prepares them to assume educator/counselor roles with the Diabetes Guide as a teaching tool.

Impact of a laparoscopic renal surgery mini-fellowship program on postgraduate urologist practice patterns at 3-year followup.

Purpose: To assist practicing urologists incorporate laparoscopic renal surgery into their practice we established a 5-day mini-fellowship program with a mentor, preceptor and a potential proctor at our institution. We report the impact of our mini-fellowship program at 3-year followup.

Materials And Methods: A total of 106 urologists underwent laparoscopic ablative (44) or laparoscopic reconstructive (62) renal surgery training.

Preliminary study of virtual reality and model simulation for learning laparoscopic suturing skills.

Purpose: Repetitive practice of laparoscopic suturing and knot tying can facilitate surgeon proficiency in performing this reconstructive technique. We compared a silicone model and pelvic trainer to a virtual reality simulator in the learning of laparoscopic suturing and knot tying by laparoscopically naïve medical students, and evaluated the subsequent performance of porcine laparoscopic cystorrhaphy.

Materials And Methods: A total of 20 medical students underwent a 1-hour didactic session with video demonstration of laparoscopic suturing and knot tying by an expert laparoscopic surgeon.

Preliminary evaluation of a genitourinary skills training curriculum for medical students.

Purpose: Basic urology training in medical school is considered important for many medical and surgical disciplines. We developed a 2-day intensive genitourinary skills training curriculum for medical students beginning their clinical clerkship training years and evaluated the initial experience with this program.

Materials And Methods: All 94 third-year medical students at the University of California, Irvine were required to participate in a 5.