Quality of life and quality of care as experienced by patients with advanced cancer and their relatives: A multicentre observational cohort study (eQuiPe).

Aim: This study aims to assess the quality of life and quality of care as experienced by patients with advanced cancer and their relatives while taking their interdependency into account.

Methods: A prospective multicentre observational study (eQuiPe study) was conducted. Quality of life scores (EORTC QLQ-C30) was compared to a matched normative population and logistic regression analyses were conducted to assess the relation between high emotional functioning (EF, measured with the EORTC QLQ-C30) and experienced quality of care (IN-PATSAT32, CQ-index PC).

On the Neuronal Dynamics of Aesthetic Experience: Evidence from Electroencephalographic Oscillatory Dynamics.

Aesthetic experiences have an influence on many aspects of life. Interest in the neural basis of aesthetic experiences has grown rapidly in the past decade, and fMRI studies have identified several brain systems supporting aesthetic experiences. Work on the rapid neuronal dynamics of aesthetic experience, however, is relatively scarce.

Bayes factor testing of equality and order constraints on measures of association in social research.

Measures of association play a central role in the social sciences to quantify the strength of a linear relationship between the variables of interest. In many applications researchers can translate scientific expectations to hypotheses with equality and/or order constraints on these measures of association. In this paper a Bayes factor test is proposed for testing multiple hypotheses with constraints on the measures of association between ordinal and/or continuous variables, possibly after correcting for certain covariates.

Assessing measurement invariance in the EORTC QLQ-C30.

Purpose: We aimed to investigate measurement invariance (MI) in the European Organisation for research and treatment of cancer quality of life questionnaire core 30 (EORTC QLQ-C30) in a heterogeneous sample of patients with cancer.

Methods: Data from 12 studies within the PROFILES registry were used for secondary analyses (n = 7007). We tested MI by successive restrictions on thresholds, loadings, and intercepts across subgroups based on primary cancer sites, age, sex, time since diagnosis, and life stage, using multigroup confirmatory factor analysis (MGCFA) for ordered categorical measures.

From Experience to Memory: On the Robustness of the Peak-and-End-Rule for Complex, Heterogeneous Experiences.

Memory forms the input for future behavior. Therefore, how individuals a certain experience may be just as important as the experience itself. The peak-and-end-rule (PE-rule) postulates that remembered experiences are best predicted by the peak emotional valence and the emotional valence at the end of an experience in the here and now.

A combined epicardial implantation and subsequent extraction strategy in pacemaker device infection in pacemaker-dependent patients.

Introduction: Treatment infections is challenging in pacemaker (PM) dependent patients. We proposed a novel implantation strategy for this group of patients.

Methods: Patients who were PM dependent and were admitted with a PM infection received a combined procedure of left ventricular (LV) epicardial implantation of a PM lead and subsequent extraction of the infected system.

Clusters of cultures: diversity in meaning of family value and gender role items across Europe.

Survey data are often used to map cultural diversity by aggregating scores of attitude and value items across countries. However, this procedure only makes sense if the same concept is measured in all countries. In this study we argue that when (co)variances among sets of items are similar across countries, these countries share a common way of assigning meaning to the items.

The preferred role and perceived performance of the welfare state: European welfare attitudes from a multidimensional perspective.

Welfare state support has two core dimensions: attitudes about what the welfare state should do and beliefs about its actual performance. People can combine any position on one dimension with any position on the other, yielding four opinion clusters: people can combine preferences for a relatively strong role of the welfare state with a perception of a relatively low or high welfare state performance; likewise, people preferring a small role of the welfare state can perceive a high or low performing welfare state. We apply Latent Class Factor Analysis to data of 22 European countries from the 2008/9 European Social Survey.

The Multidimensionality of Welfare State Attitudes: A European Cross-National Study.

When evaluating the various aspects of the welfare state, people assess some aspects more positively than others. Following a multidimensional approach, this study systematically argues for a framework composed of seven dimensions of the welfare state, which are subject to the opinions of the public. Using confirmatory factor analyses, this conceptual framework of multidimensional welfare attitudes was tested on cross-national data from 22 countries participating in the 2008 European Social Survey.

Partnership in health care: views of family caregivers on sharing care responsibility with government, clients and health insurers.

In this study, we asked family caregivers about their opinion on division of care responsibility between the government, family caregivers, clients, and health insurers. We investigated whether different clusters of respondents could be distinguished, using Latent Cluster Analysis, and what is the relation is with perceived stress and joy and with several background characteristics. Three clusters of respondents could be distinguished: a 'caring together', a 'caring individually', and a 'government-responsible caring' cluster.

Ranked motives of long-term care providing family caregivers.

Family caregivers provide long-term care to their chronically ill loved ones and as a consequence they experience physical, relational and financial problems. This study investigates how long-term family caregivers rank 12 motives for caregiving. Motives are derived from the views of four philosophical anthropologists and are related to self-reported stress and joy and to several different background characteristics of respondents.