New Diagnoses of Juvenile Idiopathic Arthritis Early in the COVID-19 Pandemic: Analysis of a Large United States Commercial Insurance Database.

Background/objective: Little is known about the rates of rheumatic disease diagnosis among children during the COVID-19 pandemic. We examined the impact of the pandemic on the diagnosis of juvenile idiopathic arthritis (JIA) in the United States.

Methods: We performed a historical cohort study using US commercial insurance data (2016-2021) to identify children aged <18 years without prior JIA diagnosis or treatment in the prior ≥12 months.

Norwegian nursing students' experience of international clinical placement abroad: A qualitative study.

Background: For several years, the Norwegian government's goal has been that half of those who complete a degree in Norwegian higher education, should have had a study period abroad. This also applies to undergraduate nursing students. Nurse education programs in Norway often offer clinical practice abroad in order for their students to gain experience from another country's health care system.

Validation of new medication use algorithms as proxies for worsening disease activity in patients with juvenile idiopathic arthritis.

Purpose: To facilitate claims-based research on populations with juvenile idiopathic arthritis (JIA), we sought to validate an algorithm of new medication use as a proxy for worsening JIA disease activity.

Methods: Using electronic health record data from three pediatric centers, we defined new JIA medication use as (re)initiation of disease-modifying antirheumatic drugs or glucocorticoids (oral or intra-articular). Data were collected from 201 randomly selected subjects with (101) or without (100) new medication use.

Validity of ICD-10-based algorithms to identify patients with influenza in inpatient and outpatient settings.

Purpose: To evaluate the validity of ICD-10-CM code-based algorithms as proxies for influenza in inpatient and outpatient settings in the USA.

Methods: Administrative claims data (2015-2018) from the largest commercial insurer in New Jersey (NJ), USA, were probabilistically linked to outpatient and inpatient electronic health record (EHR) data containing influenza test results from a large NJ health system. The primary claims-based algorithms defined influenza as presence of an ICD-10-CM code for influenza, stratified by setting (inpatient/outpatient) and code position for inpatient encounters.

Home living older adults' subjective perceptions, evaluation, and interpretations of various welfare technology: A systematic review of qualitative studies.

Objectives: This paper aims to map home-living older adults' subjective perceptions, evaluations, and interpretations of various welfare technologies.

Study Design: Systematic literature review.

Methods: The study was designed as a systematic literature review of qualitative studies.

Ten-Year Trends of Persistent Mortality With Gallstone Disease: A Retrospective Cohort Study in New Jersey.

Background And Aims: Recent trends in mortality with gallstone disease remain scarce in the United States. Yet multiple changes in clinical management, such as rates of endoscopy, cholecystectomy, and cholecystostomy, and insurance access at the state level, may have occurred. Thus, we evaluated recent secular trends of mortality with gallstone disease in New Jersey.

Impact of the COVID-19 Pandemic on the Management of Juvenile Idiopathic Arthritis: Analysis of United States Commercial Insurance Data.

Background/objective: Given limited information on health care and treatment utilization for juvenile idiopathic arthritis (JIA) during the pandemic, we studied JIA-related health care and treatment utilization in a commercially insured retrospective US cohort.

Methods: We studied rates of outpatient visits, new disease-modifying antirheumatic drug (DMARD) initiations, intra-articular glucocorticoid injections (iaGC), dispensed oral glucocorticoids and opioids, DMARD adherence, and DMARD discontinuation by quarter in March 2018-February 2021 (Q1 started in March). Incident rate ratios (IRR, pandemic vs prepandemic) with 95% confidence intervals (CIs) were estimated using multivariable Poisson or Quasi-Poisson models stratified by diagnosis recency (incident JIA, <12 months ago; prevalent JIA, ≥12 months ago).

The experimental multi-arm pendulum on a cart: A benchmark system for chaos, learning, and control.

The single, double, and triple pendulum has served as an illustrative experimental benchmark system for scientists to study dynamical behavior for more than four centuries. The pendulum system exhibits a wide range of interesting behaviors, from simple harmonic motion in the single pendulum to chaotic dynamics in multi-arm pendulums. Under forcing, even the single pendulum may exhibit chaos, providing a simple example of a damped-driven system.

Pneumonitis in advanced non-small cell lung cancer: no interaction between immune checkpoint inhibition and radiation therapy.

Background: Radiation pneumonitis and immune-related pneumonitis have been studied independently, but little information has emerged on the interactions between radiation therapy (RT) and immune checkpoint inhibition (ICI). We examine whether RT and ICI are synergistic in causing pneumonitis.

Methods: A retrospective cohort was assembled using the Surveillance, Epidemiology, and End Results-Medicare database, including Medicare beneficiaries diagnosed with American Joint Committee on Cancer 7th ed.

Decreased Emergency Cholecystectomy and Case Fatality Rate, Not Explained by Expansion of Medicaid.

Introduction: Population data on longitudinal trends for cholecystectomies and their outcomes are scarce. We evaluated the incidence and case fatality rate of emergency and ambulatory cholecystectomies in New Jersey (NJ) and whether the Medicaid expansion changed trends.

Materials And Methods: A retrospective population cohort design was used to study the incidence of cholecystectomies and their case fatality rate from 2009 to 2018.

Childhood asthma diagnoses declined during the COVID-19 pandemic in the United States.

Background: Prior studies have documented declines in pediatric asthma exacerbations and asthma-related health care utilization during the COVID-19 pandemic, but less is known about the incidence of asthma during the pandemic.

Methods: We conducted a retrospective cohort study of children under age 18 without a prior diagnosis of asthma within a large US commercial claims database. Incident asthma was defined using a combination of diagnosis codes, location of services, and medication dispensing.

Welfare technology interventions among older people living at home-A systematic review of RCT studies.

The main goal of health services is for the elderly to maintain their mental and physical health and live at home independently for as long as possible. Various technical welfare solutions have been introduced and tested to support an independent life. The aim of this systematic review was to examine different types of interventions and assess the effectiveness of welfare technology (WT) interventions for older people living at home.

Prevalence and predictive factors of depressive symptoms among primiparae in antenatal care: A cross-sectional study in the new families programme.

Aim/objective: To estimate the prevalence and assess the strength of associations between antenatal depressive symptoms and selected possible predictive factors among women attending antenatal care for the first time at the Child Health Centre.

Background: Evidence suggests that antenatal depression is a health problem as prevalent as postpartum depression. Antenatal depressive symptoms may persist into the postpartum period and potentially disturb the attachment between mother and family.

Registered nurses' experiences and perceptions of supervising international nursing students in a clinical setting - A qualitative study.

Aim: The aim of the study was to examine the experiences and perceptions of Indian RNs who supervise Norwegian undergraduate nursing students during their clinical practice in India.

Background: The globalization process has generated a need for registered nurses (RNs) to develop cultural competence. As a result, nursing education and policy need to respond to the challenging nature of global health and prepare RNs to work with diverse cultures by enhancing their cultural competence to help them encounter patients from different cultural backgrounds.

Use of a New Prevention Model in Acute Care Surgery: A Population Approach to Preventing Emergency Surgical Morbidity and Mortality.

Whether patients undergo the more morbid and costly emergent rather than an elective type of surgery, may depend on many factors. Since tertiary prevention (preventing poor outcomes from emergency surgery) carries a much higher mortality than secondary prevention (preventing emergency surgery) or primary prevention (preventing the disease requiring surgery), the United States mortality might be reduced significantly, if emergency surgery could be avoided via high-quality primary prevention and non-surgical therapy or increasing elective surgery at the expense of emergency procedures, e.g.

The Factors for Success and Lack of Success in the Breast Cancer Patient Care Pathway: A Qualitative Study From the Health Care Staff Perspective.

Objective: To produce information about factors related to successful and unsuccessful breast cancer care pathways from the health care staff perspective.

Materials And Methods: An electronic qualitative survey was used to collect data simultaneously from hospitals located in four different countries, focusing on four professional groups: diagnostic radiographers; radiation therapists; breast cancer nurses; and biomedical laboratory scientists (n = 23). The hospitals participating in the study treat breast cancer patients and research permits were applied from all of them.

Breast cancer patients' experiences on their individual care pathway: A qualitative study.

Introduction: Radiographers must be aware of the needs and expectations of women to be able to involve them in the decision making on their own care pathway. The purpose of the study is to describe experiences of women with breast cancer in their individual care pathway.

Methods: Data was collected with qualitative open-ended online questionnaires via national breast cancer patient organizations in four countries.

Measurement instruments for parental stress in the postpartum period: A scoping review.

Background: Parenting stress is a particular type of stress that is conceptualized as a negative psychological response to the numerous obligations associated with raising children. Despite a considerable increase in research on parenting stress, little attention has been given to the ways parenting stress are measured.

Objectives: This scoping review aimed to provide an overview of available instruments measuring parental stress and to describe their psychometric properties.

Pandemic vaccine testing: Combining conventional and challenge studies.

Early into COVID, human challenge trials were considered, but usually as alternatives to conventional randomized controlled trials. Instead, assessment of authorized COVID vaccines, of further COVID vaccines, and of vaccines against future pandemics should combine both designs, in five different ways, including a wholly novel one that we elaborate, Viz., combining data from both designs to answer a single question.

Mortality Risk of Antipsychotic Augmentation for Adult Depression.

(Reprinted with permission from 2020).

Validation of a claims-based algorithm for identifying non-infectious pneumonitis in patients diagnosed with lung cancer.

Purpose: Non-infectious pneumonitis (NIP) is a common complication of treatments for lung cancer. We know of no existing validated algorithm for identifying NIP in claims databases, limiting our ability to understand the morbidity and mortality of this toxicity in real-world data.

Methods: Electronic health records (EHR), cancer registry, and administrative data from a National Cancer Institute-designated comprehensive cancer center were queried for patients diagnosed with lung cancer between 10/01/2015-12/31/2020.

Effects of the Sonas Program on Anxiety and Depression in Nursing Home Residents with Dementia: A 6-Month Randomized Controlled Trial.

Introduction: There is a dearth of evidence about the effects of Sonas, a multisensory stimulation on people with dementia (PWD). The main aim of this study was to examine the effects of the Sonas program on anxiety and depression in nursing home (NH) residents with dementia.

Methods: In all, 120 PWD ≥65 years of age from 6 NHs were included in a randomized control trial and were allocated to 1 of 3 groups for 24 weeks: a Sonas program group ( = 48), a reading group ( = 32), and a control group ( = 40).

Risk of clinically relevant hyperglycemia with metoprolol compared to carvedilol in older adults with heart failure and diabetes.

Background: Although prior literature suggests that metoprolol may worsen glucose control compared to carvedilol, whether this has clinical relevance among older adults with diabetes and heart failure (HF) remains an open question.

Methods: This was a US retrospective cohort study utilizing data sourced from a 50% national sample of Medicare fee-for-service claims of patients with part D prescription drug coverage (2007-2017). Among patients with diabetes and HF, we identified initiators of metoprolol or carvedilol, which were 1:1 propensity score matched on >90 variables.

Ethical aspects in dementia care - The use of psychosocial interventions.

The use of psychosocial interventions for people with dementia is common and recommended because they focus on the underlying problem and well-being of the person. The promotion of well-being is a relevant dimension in person-centred care, where the aim is to confirm the person's 'personhood'. Most literature about ethics in dementia care instructs us on how and when to include people with dementia in our research.

The EMA assessment of avapritinib in the treatment of gastrointestinal stromal tumours harbouring the PDGFRA D842V mutation.

Avapritinib is a protein kinase inhibitor designed to selectively inhibit oncogenic KIT and platelet-derived growth factor receptor alpha (PDGFRA) mutants by targeting the active conformation of the kinase. On 24 September 2020, a marketing authorisation valid through the European Union was issued for avapritinib as treatment of adult patients with unresectable or metastatic gastrointestinal stromal tumours (GIST) harbouring the PDGFRA D842V mutation. The drug was evaluated in an open-label, phase I, first-in-human, dose-escalation, open-label study to evaluate the safety, tolerability, pharmacokinetics, pharmacodynamics, and efficacy of avapritinib in adults with unresectable or metastatic GIST.