Publications by authors named "Siso-Almirall A"

Article Synopsis
  • Mental health disorders are increasingly prevalent in primary care settings worldwide, with a study in Catalonia revealing 18.2% of individuals had at least one mental health diagnosis from 2010 to 2019.
  • The most common diagnoses included unspecified anxiety disorder, insomnia, and unspecified depressive disorder, with an increase in these cases noted until 2015, after which the rates stabilized.
  • Factors such as being female, having a lower socioeconomic status, higher BMI, and smoking were significantly associated with mental health diagnoses, suggesting a need for innovative community-based approaches to address the rising burden of mental health issues.
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Objective: To validate the efficacy of brief CPR training with dual feedback to maintain the ability to perform quality chest compressions.

Materials And Methods: Quasi-experimental study with two groups to evaluate a brief theoretical training followed by a practice with manikin with feedback; Participants: 155 health and non-health professionals from 5 primary care health centers of urban area (43 losses); Main measurements: Characteristics of compressions that were measured before and after the brief training and their maintenance at 3 and 6 months according to the study group. The effect of training and maintenance of skills were analyzed using multiple linear regression models.

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This cluster randomised clinical trial carried out in 20 primary care centres in Barcelona was aimed at assessing the effect of a continuous intervention focused on C-reactive protein (CRP) rapid testing and training in enhanced communication skills (ECS) on antibiotic consumption for adults with acute cough due to lower respiratory tract infection (LRTI). The interventions consisted of general practitioners and nurses' use of CRP point-of-care and training in ECS separately and combined, and usual care. The primary outcomes were antibiotic consumption and variation of the quality-adjusted life years during a 6-week follow-up.

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Purpose: To comprehensively synthesize the existing evidence concerning mHealth interventions for patients with breast cancer (BC).

Design: On July 30, 2023, we searched PubMed, PsycINFO, and Google Scholar for articles using the following inclusion criteria: evaluation of mHealth interventions in patients with cancer, at least 30 participants with BC, randomized control trials or prospective pre-post studies, determinants of health (patient-reported outcomes [PROs] and quality of life [QoL]) as primary outcomes, interventions lasting at least 8 weeks, publication after January 2015. Publications were excluded if they evaluated telehealth or used web-based software for desktop devices only.

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Immune-related adverse events (irAEs) are toxicities that arise after the administration of monoclonal antibodies targeting immune checkpoints (immune checkpoint inhibitors [ICIs]) in patients with cancer. They can occur at any time after initiation of ICI treatment, with a broad clinical phenotype that can be organ-specific or systemic. Although most irAEs manifest as mild to moderate signs and symptoms, severe forms of irAEs can lead to irreversible organ failure and have acute life-threatening presentations.

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Background: Digital health tools may facilitate the continuity of care. Enhancement of digital aid is imperative to prevent information gaps or redundancies, as well as to facilitate support of flexible care plans.

Objective: The study presents Health Circuit, an adaptive case management approach that empowers health care professionals and patients to implement personalized evidence-based interventions, thanks to dynamic communication channels and patient-centered service workflows; analyze the health care impact; and determine its usability and acceptability among health care professionals and patients.

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Introduction: Studies on the prevalence of asthma and allergies often lack representation of the pediatric population, and their impact has not been examined using children without these diseases as a reference group. This study aimed to determine the prevalence of asthma and allergies in children under 14 years old in Spain and their impact on health-related quality of life, activities, healthcare utilization, and environmental and household exposure risk factors.

Methods: Data came from a Spanish population-based representative survey of children aged <14 years (N=6297).

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Background: Enhanced management of multimorbidity constitutes a major clinical challenge. Multimorbidity shows well-established causal relationships with the high use of health care resources and, specifically, with unplanned hospital admissions. Enhanced patient stratification is vital for achieving effectiveness through personalized postdischarge service selection.

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Introduction: The health emergency caused by COVID-19 has led to substantial changes in the usual working system of primary healthcare centers and in relations with users. The Catalan Society of Family and Community Medicine designed a survey that aimed to collect the opinions and facilitate the participation of its partners on what the future work model of general practitioners (GPs) should look like post-COVID-19. Methodology: Online survey of Family and Community Medicine members consisting of filiation data, 22 Likert-type multiple-choice questions grouped in five thematic axes, and a free text question.

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Background: The introduction of portable and pocket ultrasound scanners has potentiated the use of ultrasound in primary care, whose many applications have been studied, analyzed and collected in the literature. However, its use is heterogeneous in Europe and there is a lack of guidelines on the necessary training and skills.

Objectives: To identify the fundamental applications and indications of ultrasound for family physicians, the necessary knowledge and skills, and the definition of a framework of academic and pragmatic training for the development of these competencies.

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Objectives: Studies of the diagnosis of hypertension have emphasized long-term cost-effectiveness analysis, but the patient experience and costs of blood pressure monitoring methods at the diagnosis stage remain unclear. We studied four diagnostic methods: a new 1 h-automated office blood pressure (BP) monitoring, office BP measurement, home BP monitoring, and awake-ambulatory BP monitoring.

Methods: We carried out a comparative effectiveness study of four methods of diagnosing hypertension in 500 participants with a clinical suspicion of hypertension from three primary healthcare (PHC) centers in Barcelona city (Spain).

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Policies in sunny countries, such as those in the Mediterranean area, do not promote vitamin D supplementation despite some studies might suggest the high prevalence of sub-optimal levels. The objective was to determine the vitamin D levels by 25-hydroxyvitamin D (25(OH)D) of a Mediterranean population and their characteristics. This population-based study included a database of public health system from all individuals living in Catalonia > 18 years who had some measure of 25(OH)D between January 2018 and April 2021.

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Primary healthcare services have changed from face-to-face to tele-consults during the two COVID-19 years. We examined trends before and during the COVID-19 pandemic years based on groups of professionals, patient ages, and the associations with the diagnostic registry. We analyzed proportions for both periods, and ratios of the type of consults in 2017-2019 and 2020-2021 were calculated.

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More than 90 years have passed since Hendrik Sjögren began to consider that behind the dryness that several of his patients presented, there could be a systemic disease potentially linked to abnormal immune responses. For many years, the disease was mostly considered a minor syndrome compared with other systemic autoimmune diseases such as systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE), systemic sclerosis (SSc) and vasculitis, and advances in its understanding were slow and little recognised. The irruption of new technologies at the end of the 20th century rapidly promoted the development of international projects with a wide impact and diffusion.

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This study aimed to observe if quinoa could produce a benefit on postprandial glycemia that would result in less progression to type 2 diabetes (T2D). A cross-over design pilot clinical study with a nutritional intervention for 8 weeks was performed: 4 weeks on a regular diet (RD) and 4 weeks on a quinoa diet (QD). Nine subjects aged ≥65 years with prediabetes were monitored during the first 4 weeks of RD with daily dietary records and FreeStyle Libre®.

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Background: Cardiac rehabilitation after acute myocardial infarction permits recovery of the heart function and enables secondary prevention programs in which changes in lifestyle habits are crucial. Cardiac rehabilitation often takes place in hospitals without coordination with primary healthcare and is not focused on individual patient preferences and goals, which is the core of the motivational interview. The objective of this study was to evaluate the efficacy of a cardiac rehabilitation program with a motivational interview in patients discharged from hospital after acute myocardial infarction.

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In chronic non-cancer pain (CNCP), evidence of the effectiveness of strong opioids (SO) is very limited. Despite this, their use is increasingly common. To examine SO prescriptions, we designed a descriptive, longitudinal, retrospective population-based study, including patients aged ≥15 years prescribed SO for ≥3 months continuously in 2013-2017 for CNCP in primary care in Catalonia.

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The prescription of strong opioids (SO) for chronic non-cancer pain (CNCP) is steadily increasing. This entails a high risk of adverse effects, a risk that increases with the concomitant prescription of SO with central nervous system depressant drugs and with the use of SO for non-recommended indications. In order to examine this concomitant risk prescription, we designed a descriptive, longitudinal, retrospective population-based study.

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Introduction: Preventing or delaying frailty has important benefits. Studies show the effectiveness of multifactorial interventions in the frail and pre-frail elderly, but few have evaluated their long-term effectiveness. Frailty and its consequences have been shown to increase the use of health resources.

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Article Synopsis
  • The study aims to analyze how the age at diagnosis affects the symptoms and characteristics of primary Sjögren's syndrome (pSS), specifically looking at sicca symptoms, diagnostic tests, immunological markers, and systemic disease.
  • Researchers evaluated data from over 12,000 patients across 25 countries, grouping them based on the age they were diagnosed, to determine patterns in disease expression.
  • Findings revealed an increase in the frequency of oral dryness with age at diagnosis, along with a decrease in levels of autoantibodies and immunological markers, indicating that older patients tend to exhibit more severe symptoms and altered disease characteristics.
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Primary care physicians can play a crucial role by recognising Sjögren's syndrome (SS) in the early stages identifying those patients with the greatest probability of being diagnosed with SS. SS has a very specific epidemiological profile at presentation (female aged 30-50 years), which may aid an early diagnosis. Although the disease may be expressed in many guises, there are three predominant clinical presentations that should be considered as key clues to increased clinical suspicion (multiple symptoms of dryness, asthenia-polyalgia syndrome and systemic organ-specific manifestations).

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Objectives: To analyse the frequency and characteristics of post-COVID-19 syndrome in patients with primary Sjögren's syndrome (pSS) affected by acute SARS-CoV-2 infection.

Methods: By the first week of April 2021, all centres included in the Big Data Sjögren Consortium were contacted asking for patients included in the Registry diagnosed with SARSCoV-2 infection according to the ECDC guidelines. According to the NICE definitions, symptoms related to COVID-19 were classified as acute COVID-19 (signs and symptoms for up to 4 weeks), ongoing symptomatic COVID-19 (presence of signs and symptoms from 4 to 12 weeks) and post-COVID-19 syndrome (signs and symptoms that continue for > 12 weeks not explained by an alternative diagnosis after a protocolized study).

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The immense impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on health systems has motivated the scientific community to search for clinical prognostic factors for SARS-CoV-2 infection. Low cycle threshold values (Ct) of diagnostic real-time RT-PCR assays in hospitalized patients have been associated with a poor prognosis in several studies, whereas other studies did not find this association. We explored whether SARS-CoV-2 Ct values at diagnosis were associated with a poor outcome (admission to hospital and death) in 604 community patients diagnosed at primary health centers.

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Aims: The objective of this study was to examine the validity of 1 h automated office blood pressure measurement for the diagnosis of hypertension.

Methods: We included patients requiring a hypertension diagnostic test. Participants underwent ambulatory blood pressure monitoring, 1 h automated office blood pressure measurement, office blood pressure measurement and home blood pressure monitoring.

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