Rationale & Objective: Sharing Patient's Illness Representations to Increase Trust (SPIRIT) is an evidence-based advance care planning intervention targeting dialysis patients and their surrogate decision-makers. To address SPIRIT's implementation potential, we report on a process evaluation in our recently completed five-state cluster-randomized trial.
Study Design: A descriptive study of implementation within a randomized clinical trial.
Rationale & Objective: Dialysis patient care technicians (PCTs) provide essential, frontline care for patients receiving in-center hemodialysis. We qualitatively explored perceptions of the PCT job role, responsibilities, and training among current PCTs, non-PCT dialysis staff, and patients receiving hemodialysis.
Study Design: Focus group study.
Objective: Recent research has explored frailty in systemic lupus erythematosus using multiple measures. We examined the agreement among frailty measures and the association of each with cross-sectional and longitudinal health outcomes.
Methods: We used data from the California Lupus Epidemiology Study to examine the following measures of frailty: Systemic Lupus International Collaborating Clinics (SLICC) Frailty Index (SLICC-FI), Short Physical Performance Battery (SPPB), and Fatigue, Resistance, Ambulation, Illness, and Loss of Weight (FRAIL) scale questionnaire.