How did European countries set health priorities in response to the COVID-19 threat? A comparative document analysis of 24 pandemic preparedness plans across the EURO region.

The COVID-19 pandemic has forced governments across the world to consider how to prioritise the allocation of scarce resources. There are many tools and frameworks that have been designed to assist with the challenges of priority setting in health care. The purpose of this study was to examine the extent to which formal priority setting was evident in the pandemic plans produced by countries in the World Health Organisation's EURO region, during the first wave of the COVID-19 pandemic.

[Umbilical pilonidal sinus - a rare disease?].

Umbilical pilonidal sinus is a rare diagnosis which is characterized by an inflammatory granulomatous reaction to hair shafts penetrating the epidermis. It is most often seen in adolescent male with a hairy abdomen. The patients often present with a history of pain and umbilical discharge.

Implementing community-based health program in conflict settings: documenting experiences from the Central African Republic and South Sudan.

Background: The delivery of quality healthcare for women and children in conflict-affected settings remains a challenge that cannot be mitigated unless global health policymakers and implementers find an effective modality in these contexts. The International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) and the Canadian Red Cross (CRC) used an integrated public health approach to pilot a program for delivering community-based health services in the Central African Republic (CAR) and South Sudan in partnership with National Red Cross Societies in both countries. This study explored the feasibility, barriers, and strategies for context-specific agile programming in armed conflict affected settings.

Advance care planning in oncology: a scoping review and some recommendations.

Purpose Of Review: Cancer patients' communication with their relatives and healthcare professionals (HCPs) is essential for advance care planning (ACP). The purpose of this scoping review was to synthesize recent research findings about factors enabling cancer patients', their relatives', and physicians' communication about ACP, and to propose recommendations for future ACP implementation in cancer care.

Recent Findings: This review confirmed the importance of aspects of the cancer care context (i.

Improving emotion regulation in breast cancer patients in the early survivorship period: Efficacy of a brief ecologically boosted group intervention.

Purpose: This study reports the short- and mid-term benefits of an eight-session emotion and self-regulation group intervention ecologically boosted through daily app-based prompts. The intervention was designed for breast cancer patients in the early survivorship period meeting criteria for clinical levels of psychological symptoms.

Methods: Patients were randomly assigned to the immediate intervention arm (n = 61; intervention received immediately) or to the delayed intervention arm (n = 59; intervention received 5 months later).

Efficacy of a support intervention designed to improve parents' communication with children dealing with parental cancer: a randomized pilot trial.

Objective: Cancer-related communication is critical for parents' and children's adaptation to the disease. This randomized pilot study was conducted to test the feasibility, acceptability, and efficacy of a 4-session intervention designed to improve parents' communication.

Methods: A 4-session intervention was developed to aid parents to support their children through more open/adapted communication.

A randomized controlled trial assessing behavioral, cognitive, emotional and physiological changes resulting from a communication skills training in physicians caring for cancer patients.

Objective: This randomized study assesses behavioral, cognitive, emotional and physiological changes resulting from a communication skills training (CST) for physicians caring for cancer patients.

Methods: Medical specialists (N = 90) were randomly assigned in groups to complete a manualized 30-h CST or to a waiting list. Assessments included behavioral (communication skills), cognitive (self-efficacy, sense of mastery), emotional (perceived stress) and physiological (heart rate) measures.

Psychological factors associated with clinical fear of cancer recurrence in breast cancer patients in the early survivorship period.

Objectives: Clinical fear of cancer recurrence (FCR) is highly prevalent among breast cancer patients and appears early in the disease trajectory. A better understanding of psychological factors associated with clinical FCR is essential to guide screening and intervention development. This cross-sectional study aimed to assess the contribution of attentional bias, intrusive thoughts, metacognitive beliefs, intolerance of uncertainty, thought suppression, and worry to clinical FCR in breast cancer patients in the early survivorship period.

Efficacy of a dyadic intervention to improve communication between patients with cancer and their caregivers: A randomized pilot trial.

Objective: Cancer-related communication is critical for patients' and caregivers' adaptation to illness. This randomized pilot study was conducted to test the feasibility, acceptability, and efficacy of a specific dyadic intervention to improve communication.

Methods: A four weekly-session intervention was developed to reinforce cancer-related patient-caregiver communication.

Evaluate the Effect of Zinc Oxide and Silver Nanoparticles on Biofilm and icaA Gene Expression in Methicillin-Resistant Staphylococcus aureus Isolated From Burn Wound Infection.

Methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus is the cause of nosocomial and community-acquired infections. This study aimed to evaluate the effect of zinc oxide and silver nanoparticles (ZnO-Ag NPs) on biofilms formation and icaA gene expression in methicillin-resistant S. aureus (MRSA).

How does physicians' decisional conflict influence their ability to address treatment outcomes in a decision-making encounter with an advanced-stage cancer simulated patient? A descriptive study.

Objectives: This descriptive study assesses how physicians' decisional conflict influences their ability to address treatment outcomes (TOs) in a decision-making encounter with an advanced-stage cancer simulated patient (SP).

Methods: Physicians (N = 138) performed a decision-making encounter with the SP trained to ask for TOs information. The physicians' decisional conflict regarding patients' cancer treatments in general was assessed with the General Decisional Conflict Scale (Gen-DCS).

Decisional conflict of physicians during the decision-making process for a simulated advanced-stage cancer patient: an international longitudinal study with German and Belgian physicians.

Background: Decision making with advanced cancer patients is often associated with decisional conflict regarding treatment outcomes. This longitudinal multicenter study investigated German physicians' course of decisional conflict during the decision-making process for a Simulated advanced-stage cancer Patient (SP). Results were compared to a matched sample of Belgian physicians.

Training in communication of oncology clinicians: a position paper based on the third consensus meeting among European experts in 2018.

Background: Since there is sound evidence that communication skills training (CST) programs modify communication behavior of oncology clinicians, they have been widely implemented over the last decades. However, more recently, certain aspects of this training have been criticized.

Methods: Based on this background, a call to re-launch a discussion about the future of CST led to the third European consensus meeting on communication in cancer care, organized by the Swiss Cancer League.

Efficacy of a hypnosis-based intervention to improve well-being during cancer: a comparison between prostate and breast cancer patients.

Background: Prostate and breast cancer can have a lot of negative consequences such as fatigue, sleep difficulties and emotional distress, which decrease quality of life. Group interventions showed benefits to emotional distress and fatigue, but most of these studies focus on breast cancer patients. However, it is important to test if an effective intervention for breast cancer patients could also have benefits for prostate cancer patients.

Development of the Multi-Dimensional Analysis of Patient Outcome Predictions (MD.POP) during medical encounters.

Objective: Our first objective was to develop the Multi-Dimensional analysis of Patient Outcome Predictions (MD.POP), an interaction analysis system that assesses how HCPs discuss precisely and exclusively patient outcomes during medical encounters. The second objective was to study its interrater reliability.

How have systematic priority setting approaches influenced policy making? A synthesis of the current literature.

Background: There is a growing body of literature on systematic approaches to healthcare priority setting from various countries and different levels of decision making. This paper synthesizes the current literature in order to assess the extent to which program budgeting and marginal analysis (PBMA), burden of disease & cost-effectiveness analysis (BOD/CEA), multi-criteria decision analysis (MCDA), and accountability for reasonableness (A4R), are reported to have been institutionalized and influenced policy making and practice.

Methods: We searched for English language publications on health care priority setting approaches (2000-2017).

Communication about uncertainty and hope: A randomized controlled trial assessing the efficacy of a communication skills training program for physicians caring for cancer patients.

Background: Although previous studies have reported the efficacy of communication skills training (CST) programs, specific training addressing communication about uncertainty and hope in oncology has not yet been studied. This paper describes the study protocol of a randomized controlled trial assessing the efficacy of a CST program aimed at improving physician ability to communicate about uncertainty and hope in encounters with cancer patients.

Methods/design: Physician participants will be randomly assigned in groups (n = 3/group) to a 30-h CST program (experimental group) or to a waiting list (control group).

Predictors of physicians' communication performance in a decision-making encounter with a simulated advanced-stage cancer patient: A longitudinal study.

Objectives: Physicians' characteristics that influence their communication performance (CP) in decision-making encounters have been rarely studied. In this longitudinal study, predictors of physicians' CP were investigated with a simulated advanced-stage cancer patient.

Methods: Physicians (n=85) performed a decision-making encounter with a simulated patient (SP).

Cognitive compensatory processes of older, clinically fit patients with hematologic malignancies undergoing chemotherapy: A longitudinal cohort study.

Objective: Despite the well-known negative impacts of cancer and anticancer therapies on cognitive performance, little is known about the cognitive compensatory processes of older patients with cancer. This study was designed to investigate the cognitive compensatory processes of older, clinically fit patients with hematologic malignancies undergoing chemotherapy.

Methods: We assessed 89 consecutive patients (age ≥ 65 y) without severe cognitive impairment and 89 age-, sex-, and education level-matched healthy controls.

Polypharmacy and risk of acute pancreatitis.

Purpose: Drug-induced pancreatitis is receiving increased medical and epidemiological attention. However, as no study has examined the role of polypharmacy per se in the development of acute pancreatitis, we examined the association between polypharmacy and risk of acute pancreatitis.

Methods: A nationwide case-control study was conducted between 2006 and 2008 of Swedish people aged 40-84 years.

Improving anxiety regulation in patients with breast cancer at the beginning of the survivorship period: a randomized clinical trial comparing the benefits of single-component and multiple-component group interventions.

Objective: To compare in a multicenter randomized controlled trial the benefits in terms of anxiety regulation of a 15-session single-component group intervention (SGI) based on support with those of a 15-session multiple-component structured manualized group intervention (MGI) combining support with cognitive-behavioral and hypnosis components.

Methods: Patients with nonmetastatic breast cancer were randomly assigned at the beginning of the survivorship period to the SGI (n = 83) or MGI (n = 87). Anxiety regulation was assessed, before and after group interventions, through an anxiety regulation task designed to assess their ability to regulate anxiety psychologically (anxiety levels) and physiologically (heart rates).

Development of the LaComm 1.0, A French medical communication analysis software: A study assessing its sensitivity to change.

Objective: To test and compare the sensitivity to change of a communication analysis software, the LaComm 1.0, to the CRCWEM's using data from a randomized study assessing the efficacy of a communication skills training program designed for nurses.

Methods: The program assessment included the recording of two-person simulated interviews at baseline and after training or 3 months later.

Vulnerabilities in Older Patients when Cancer Treatment is Initiated: Does a Cognitive Impairment Impact the Two-Year Survival?

Introduction: Dementia is a known predictor of shorter survival times in older cancer patients. However, no empirical evidence is available to determine how much a cognitive impairment shortens survival in older patients when cancer treatment is initiated.

Purpose: To longitudinally investigate how much a cognitive impairment detected at the initiation of cancer treatment influences survival of older patients during a two-year follow-up duration and to compare the predictive value of a cognitive impairment on patients survival with the predictive value of other vulnerabilities associated with older age.