Publications by authors named "Langton J"

Background: Paediatric critical care nurses face challenges in promptly detecting patient deterioration and delivering high-quality care, especially in low-resource settings (LRS). Patient monitors equipped with data-driven algorithms that monitor and integrate clinical data can optimise scarce resources (e.g.

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  • - Integrated youth services (IYS) like Foundry are a key response to the youth mental health and substance use crisis in Canada, expanding to 11 physical centers and adding virtual services during the COVID-19 pandemic.
  • - The study analyzed data from 23,749 unique youth (ages 12-24) who accessed services between April 2018 and March 2021, revealing a consistent rate of high distress and poor self-rated mental health regardless of the pandemic.
  • - Findings indicate a significant increase (65%) in clients during the study period, emphasizing the importance of youth-centered practices for future service improvements within IYS.
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Background: Critically ill children require close monitoring to facilitate timely interventions throughout their hospitalisation. In low- and middle-income countries with a high disease burden, scarce paediatric critical care resources complicates effective monitoring. This study describes the monitoring practices for critically ill children in a paediatric high-dependency unit (HDU) in Malawi and examines factors affecting this vital process.

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  • TIPS (Transjugular intrahepatic portosystemic shunt) is an underutilized treatment for complications of portal hypertension, prompting this study to analyze patient demographics, reasons for the procedure, and outcomes in two regional hepatology centers over a six-year period.
  • A total of 48 patients with an average age of 56 underwent TIPS, primarily due to refractory ascites and variceal bleeding, showing high survival rates of 93% at 3 months and 77% at 1 year post-procedure.
  • The study found significant reductions in hospital costs and paracentesis procedures after TIPS, confirming its safety and effectiveness for managing portal hypertension complications in regional healthcare settings.
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In low-resource settings, a reliable bedside score for timely identification of children at risk of dying, could help focus resources and improve survival. The rapid bedside Liverpool quick Sequential Organ Failure Assessment (LqSOFA) uses clinical parameters only and performed well in United Kingdom cohorts. A similarly quick clinical assessment-only score has however not yet been developed for paediatric populations in sub-Saharan Africa.

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Shock is considered one of the most important mechanisms of critical illness in children. However, data on paediatric shock in sub-Saharan Africa is limited, which constrains development of effective treatment strategies. We aimed to describe the prevalence, mortality, and aetiology of paediatric shock in a tertiary hospital in Malawi.

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Background: As countries strive to achieve sustainable development goal 3.2, high-quality medical education is crucial for high-quality neonatal care. Women are encouraged to deliver in health units attended by a skilled team.

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  • PARPs (PARP1 and PARP2) play a crucial role in repair mechanisms for damaged DNA, specifically in Rad52-dependent replication fork repair when homologous recombination fails.
  • Mre11 and ATM proteins activate PARP in response to replication stress, which facilitates break-induced replication (BIR) by recruiting Rad52 to damaged sites.
  • The study highlights that PolD3 is specifically ADP-ribosylated by PARP1/PARP2 during replication stress, and this modification is essential for maintaining genome stability and recovery of replication forks.
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Hypoxemia and hypoglycemia are known risks for mortality in children in low-income settings. Routine screening with pulse oximetry and blood glucose assessments for outpatients could assist in early identification of high-risk children. We assessed the prevalence of hypoglycemia and hypoxemia, and the overlap with Integrated Management of Childhood Illness (IMCI) general danger signs, among children seeking outpatient care in Malawi.

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Objectives: Dedicated PICUs are slowly starting to emerge in sub-Saharan Africa. Establishing these units can be challenging as there is little data from this region to inform which populations and approaches should be prioritized. This study describes the characteristics and outcome of patients admitted to the first PICU in Malawi, with the aim to identify factors associated with increased mortality.

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Background: The burden of antimicrobial resistance is a major threat to global health; however, prospective clinical outcome data from Africa are scarce. In Malawi, third-generation cephalosporins are the antibiotics of choice in patients admitted to hospital despite a rapid proliferation of resistance to these drugs. We aimed to quantify the effect of resistance to third-generation cephalosporins on mortality and length of hospital stay among patients with bloodstream infections.

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Ballistography(BSG) is a non-intrusive and low- cost alternative to electrocardiography (ECG) for heart rate (HR) monitoring in infants. Due to the inter-patient variance and susceptibility to noise, heartbeat detection in the BSG waveform remains a challenge. The aim of this study was to estimate HR from a bed-based pressure mat BSG signal using a deep learning approach.

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Objectives: Shock is a life-threatening condition in children in low- and middle-income countries (LMIC), with several controversies. This systematic review summarizes the etiology, pathophysiology and mortality of shock in children in LMIC.

Methods: We searched for studies reporting on children with shock in LMIC in PubMed, Embase and through snowballing (up to 1 October 2019).

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Objective: To investigate survival in children referred from primary care in Malawi, with a focus on hypoglycaemia and hypoxaemia progression.

Methods: The study involved a prospective cohort of children aged 12 years or under referred from primary health-care facilities in Mchinji district, Malawi in 2019 and 2020. Peripheral blood oxygen saturation (SpO) and blood glucose were measured at recruitment and on arrival at a subsequent health-care facility (i.

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Mycotic aneurysms are rare and if left untreated, can have devastating outcomes. In this case, a 72-year-old man presented to hospital with fevers, night sweats and abdominal pain. A CT scan revealed the development an infrarenal pseudoaneurysm over the course of 8 weeks, increasing from 2.

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Background: The majority of deaths amongst children under 5 years are still due to preventable infectious causes. Emergency care has been identified as a key health system weakness, and referrals are often challenging.

Objective: We aimed to establish how prepared frontline facilities in Malawi are to implement WHO Emergency Triage Assessment and Treatment (ETAT) guidelines, to support policy and planning decisions.

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Low blood glucose concentrations < 5 mmol/L in severely ill children presenting to hospitals in low-income countries are associated with mortality. Adrenal insufficiency with low cortisol levels may contribute to low blood glucose concentrations. Understanding the association between low cortisol and low blood glucose may assist in improving guidelines for management of severely ill children.

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Background: The introduction of the WHO's Integrated Management of Childhood Illnesses (IMCI) guidelines in the mid-1990s contributed to global reductions in under-five mortality. However, issues in quality of care have been reported. We aimed to determine resource availability and healthcare worker knowledge of IMCI guidelines in two districts in Malawi.

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Supported by the 10% set-aside funds in the Community Mental Health Block grant, distributed at the state level, coordinated specialty care (CSC) have been widely disseminated throughout the U.S. This study explores variations in the geographical accessibility of CSC programs by neighborhood level characteristics in Washington State.

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Background: Group model building (GMB) is a method to facilitate shared understanding of structures and relationships that determine system behaviors. This project aimed to determine the feasibility of GMB in a resource-limited setting and to use GMB to describe key barriers and facilitators to effective acute care delivery at a tertiary care hospital in Malawi.

Methods: Over 1 week, trained facilitators led three GMB sessions with two groups of healthcare providers to facilitate shared understanding of structures and relationships that determine system behaviors.

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Background: Low blood glucose concentrations are common in sick children who present to hospital in low-resource settings and are associated with increased mortality. The cutoff blood glucose concentration for the diagnosis and treatment of hypoglycaemia currently recommended by WHO (2·5 mmol/L) is not evidence-based. We aimed to assess whether increasing the cutoff blood glucose concentration for hypoglycaemia treatment in severely ill children at presentation to hospital improves mortality outcomes.

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Background: The presence of low or hypo glycaemia in children upon admission to hospital in low income countries is a marker for poor outcome. Fasting during illness may contribute to low blood glucose and caretakers' feeding practices during childhood illnesses may thus play a role in the development of low or hypo glycaemia. This study aims to describe the caretaker's feeding practices and association of fasting with low or hypo glycaemia in sick children in Malawi.

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Objective: While public reporting of hospital-based performance measurement is commonplace, it has lagged in the primary care sector, especially in Canada. Despite the increasing recognition of patients as active partners in the health-care system, little is known about what information about primary care performance is relevant to the Canadian public. We explored patient perspectives and priorities for the public reporting of primary care performance measures.

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Background: Primary care serves all age groups and individuals with health states ranging from those with no chronic conditions to those who are medically complex, or frail and approaching the end of life. For information to be actionable and guide planning, there must be some population disaggregation based on differences in expected needs for care. Promising approaches to segmentation in primary care reflect both the breadth and severity of health states, the types and amounts of health care utilization that are expected, and the roles of the primary care provider.

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