Survey evaluation of the National Patient Safety Agency's Root Cause Analysis training programme in England and Wales: knowledge, beliefs and reported practices.

Background: Root Cause Analysis (RCA) is a systematic approach to investigations, and is applied in many healthcare settings within comprehensive patient safety systems. The National Patient Safety Agency (NPSA) in England and Wales commissioned a survey evaluation of its national training programme which consisted of 3-day workshops and internet support materials.

Methods: Anonymous survey of 374 health professionals immediately after they attended the programme (T1), and a further 350 participants 6 months after the programme (T 2), who had attended courses in England and Wales in 2005.

Communicating the diagnosis of motor neurone disease.

Communication of the diagnosis of motor neurone disease (MND) is a particularly difficult task for doctors in view of the poor prognosis and the lack of significant treatment. This study examined patients' views of being given the diagnosis and of how it was communicated. Fifty people who had been diagnosed with MND more than six months previously were interviewed about their experience of the diagnosis.

Coping with motor neurone disease--an analysis using self-regulation theory.

Medicine and environmental changes have had tremendous success in controlling the infectious diseases that were the major causes of death in the last century. However, the consequential extension of life has been accompanied by an increase in the number of persons living with and dying of chronic illness. Despite these changes and their implications, the means by which people cope with such illnesses has only recently begun to receive the attention the subject warrants.