Kindness: Poor cousin or equal kin to Compassion and Empathy in the Healthcare Literature? A Scoping Review.

Objective: This scoping review seeks to understand how kindness, compassion and empathy are defined and conceptualised within existing healthcare services literature.

Introduction: Little consensus exists on how healthcare literature defines and conceptualises kindness. Kindness is often conflated with the terms compassion and empathy, which both have more prominence in the literature.

Preventive interventions to improve older people's health outcomes: systematic review and meta-analysis.

Background: Systematic reviews of preventive, non-disease-specific primary care trials for older people often report effects according to what is thought to be the intervention's active ingredient.

Aim: To examine the effectiveness of preventive primary care interventions for older people and to identify common components that contribute to intervention success.

Design And Setting: A systematic review and meta-analysis of 18 randomised controlled trials (RCTs) published in 22 publications from 2009 to 2019.

Investigating the health status of primary school children in Tonga: Lessons learnt and reflections on field work in the Pacific Islands.

Globally, the child health focus has been on reducing under-5-year mortality, with large populations in low-resource regions prioritised. Children in older age groups, particularly in less populated regions such as the Pacific, have received limited attention. Child health research in the Pacific region has been lacking, and research approaches for the region have historically been from Western biomedical paradigms.

The Practice and Feasibility of Screening, Treatment, and Referral for Gaming Problems in Gambling, Alcohol and Other Drugs, and Youth Services.

Screening, brief intervention, and referral to treatment (SBIRT) is a comprehensive approach to identifying people at risk of addiction, but its feasibility for gaming disorder is unknown. This study surveyed 88 clinicians from gambling, alcohol and other drugs, and youth services in New Zealand. Results indicated that the most frequent GD screening method was an unstructured interview (61%), but 74% stated they would use a standardized tool if available.

The impact of COVID-19 on addiction treatment in New Zealand.

COVID-19 public health measures, including lockdowns, have disrupted psychological service delivery for substance use and behavioural addictions. This study aimed to examine how addictions treatment had been affected by COVID-19 related factors from the perspective of addiction and mental health service providers. Participants (n = 93) were experienced service managers and clinicians in New Zealand who completed an online survey.

Surviving versus thriving: The wellbeing of primary school aged children in Tonga.

Aim: To enable improvements in global child health, the focus must move beyond child survival to child wellbeing. In the Pacific Islands, the wellbeing of children has received little attention. This study aimed to investigate the wellbeing of children from three primary schools in Tonga.

Primary Care Variation in Rates of Unplanned Hospitalizations, Functional Ability, and Quality of Life of Older People.

Purpose: To investigate variability in older people's outcomes according to general practitioner (GP) and practice characteristics in New Zealand and the Netherlands.

Methods: We used data from 2 primary care-based, cluster-randomized, controlled trials to separately fit mixed models of unplanned admission rates, functional ability, and quality of life (QOL) and examine variation according to GP- and practice-level characteristics after adjusting for participant-level characteristics. For the New Zealand sample (n = 3,755 aged 75+ years in 60 practices), we modeled 36-month unplanned admission rates, Nottingham Extended Activities of Daily Living (NEADL) scale, and QOL domain ratings from the brief version of the World Health Organization Quality of Life assessment tool.

Person-centred interventions for problem gaming: a stepped care approach.

Background: Problem gaming is reported by approximately 1-3% of the population and is associated with decreased health and wellbeing. Research on optimal health responses to problem gaming remains limited. This study aimed to identify and describe the key components of a person-centred approach to interventions for problem gaming for individuals who voluntary seek assistance.

GP- and practice-related variation in ambulatory sensitive hospitalisations of older primary care patients.

Background: Reducing ambulatory sensitive hospitalisations (ASHs) is a strategy to control spending on hospital care and to improve quality of primary health care. This research investigated whether ASH rates in older people varied by GP and practice characteristics.

Methods: We identified ASHs from the national dataset of hospital events for 3755 community-dwelling participants aged 75+ enrolled in a cluster randomised controlled trial involving 60 randomly selected general practices in three regions in New Zealand.

Taking the pulse of the health services research community: a cross-sectional survey of research impact, barriers and support.

Objective This study reports on the characteristics of individuals conducting health service research (HSR) in Australia and New Zealand, the perceived accessibility of resources for HSR, the self-reported impact of HSR projects and perceived barriers to conducting HSR. Methods A sampling frame was compiled from funding announcements, trial registers and HSR organisation membership. Listed researchers were invited to complete online surveys.

Usual primary care of older people in New Zealand: association between practice characteristics and practice activities.

INTRODUCTION Information on the processes used by primary care practices to help identify older patients in need of assistance are limited in New Zealand. AIM To describe the processes used to promote early problem detection in older patients in primary care and the practice characteristics associated with the use of these proactive processes. METHODS Sixty practices were randomly selected from all primary care practices in three regions (52% response rate) and surveyed in 2010 to identify characteristics of practices performing the following activities: using assessment tools; auditing the practice; conducting specific clinics; providing home visits; and providing active patient follow-up.

Children's perceptions of a 'self-explaining road' intervention to improve neighbourhood safety.

Aim: Safe neighbourhood environments can provide important spaces for child activity and well-being. Self-explaining roads (SERs), which reduce vehicle speeds by changing neighbourhood street design, are an intervention with known safety benefits. However, little is known about children's experiences of SERs.

Living Life After Traumatic Brain Injury: Phase 1 of a Longitudinal Qualitative Study.

Objective: To explore what helps and hinders recovery and adaptation after disabling traumatic brain injury (TBI) and make recommendations for improving service responsiveness.

Design: A longitudinal qualitative descriptive study across all TBI severities.

Setting: Community.

Exploring the experience of sleep and fatigue in male and female adults over the 2 years following traumatic brain injury: a qualitative descriptive study.

Objectives: To explore the experience of fatigue and sleep difficulties over the first 2 years after traumatic brain injury (TBI).

Design: Longitudinal qualitative descriptive analysis of interviews completed as part of a larger longitudinal study of recovery following TBI. Data relating to the experience of fatigue and/or sleep were extracted and coded by two independent researchers.

Approaches to capturing the financial cost of family care-giving within a palliative care context: a systematic review.

The economic burden faced by family caregivers of people at the end of life is well recognised. Financial burden has a significant impact on the provision of family care-giving in the community setting, but has seen limited research attention. A systematic review with realist review synthesis and thematic analysis was undertaken to identify literature relating to the financial costs and impact of family care-giving at the end of life.

The cluster-randomized BRIGHT trial: Proactive case finding for community-dwelling older adults.

Purpose: People are now living longer, but disability may affect the quality of those additional years of life. We undertook a trial to assess whether case finding reduces disability among older primary care patients.

Methods: We conducted a cluster-randomized trial of the Brief Risk Identification Geriatric Health Tool (BRIGHT) among 60 primary care practices in New Zealand, assigning them to an intervention or control group.

Met and unmet need for personal assistance among community-dwelling New Zealanders 75 years and over.

Ageing in place initiatives that aim to keep older people out of hospitals and rest homes and in their own homes for longer have been at the forefront of aged care policy since the early 1990s. The success of these policies depends largely on the availability of a suitable home environment, a supportive social network and regular assessment to detect changes in the older person's health status and needs for support. The BRIGHT Trial was a randomised control trial investigating the effectiveness of introducing case finding in primary care settings to detect unmet need and risk of disability among older people.

Exploring the financial impact of caring for family members receiving palliative and end-of-life care: a systematic review of the literature.

Background: Research regarding the economic dimensions of palliative care is relatively limited. The economic implications of providing informal care are well recognised; however, within the context of palliative care, little is known about the costs and implications of providing care for a loved one at the end of life.

Aim: To explore the financial costs and the financial impact of caring for family members receiving palliative/end-of-life care.

Estimating the additional cost of disability: beyond budget standards.

Disabled people have long advocated for sufficient resources to live a life with the same rights and responsibilities as non-disabled people. Identifying the unique resource needs of disabled people relative to the population as a whole and understanding the source of these needs is critical for determining adequate levels of income support and for prioritising service provision. Previous attempts to identify the resources and costs associated with disability have tended to rely on surveys of current resource use.

Cost of prescribed and delivered health services resulting from a comprehensive geriatric assessment tool in New Zealand.

The objective of this study was to estimate the health service use and costs resulting from the introduction of the interRAI Minimum Data Set-Home Care (MDS-HC) assessment compared with usual assessment.A randomised controlled trial of elderly people in New Zealand measured the use and cost of prescribed and delivered (4 months post-assessment) health services of 153 participants assessed using the standard [Needs Assessment and Service Co-ordination (NASC)] tool,and 158 participants assessed using the MDS-HC. The results suggest that the MDS-HC resulted in more prescribed personal health and community services, and less disability support services than with NASC.