Background: Emergency medical services attend out-of-hospital cardiac arrests all across Australia. Resuscitation by emergency medical services is attempted in nearly half of all cases. However, resuscitation skills can degrade over time without adequate exposure, which negatively impacts patient survival.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFAims: To (1) evaluate the efficacy of OptimAAPP, a smartphone insulin dose calculator for carbohydrate, fat, and protein in managing glycaemia compared with carbohydrate counting in adolescents and adults with type 1 diabetes using flexible multiple daily injection therapy (MDI, ≥4 injections/day) and (2) assess user acceptability of OptimAAPP.
Methods: In this free-living trial, participants aged 12-50 years were randomised to use carbohydrate counting or OptimAAPP for meal insulin dose calculation for 3 months, then use the alternate method for 3 months. The primary outcome, time-in-range (3.
Background: Approximately 70% of patients in intensive care units (ICUs) experience untreated pain, often due to severe patient conditions and communication barriers.
Aim: The aim of this study was to implement the Critical-Care Pain Observation Tool (CPOT) to improve pain assessment in patients unable to self-report pain in the ICU.
Method: A stepped-wedge trial was conducted in six adult ICUs in Saudi Arabia between February and June 2022.
Introduction: The Australian population presenting with surgical pathology is becoming older, frailer and more comorbid. Shared decision-making is rapidly becoming the gold standard of care for patients considering high-risk surgery to ensure that appropriate, value-based healthcare decisions are made. Positive benefits around patient perception of decision-making in the immediacy of the decision are described in the literature.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFObjective: The aim of this study was to test the effectiveness of a tailored quitline tobacco treatment ('Quitlink') among people receiving support for mental health conditions.
Methods: We employed a prospective, cluster-randomised, open, blinded endpoint design to compare a control condition to our 'Quitlink' intervention. Both conditions received a brief intervention delivered by a peer researcher.
Borderline Personal Disord Emot Dysregul
May 2023
Background: While the COVID-19 crisis has had numerous global negative impacts, it has also presented an imperative for mental health care systems to make digital mental health interventions a part of routine care. Accordingly, through necessity, many Dialectical Behaviour Therapy (DBT) programs transitioned to telehealth, despite little information on clinical outcomes compared with face-to-face treatment delivery. This study examined differences in client engagement (i.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFPurpose: The EPID PSM is a useful EPID calibration method for QA applications. The dependence of the EPID PSM on the photon beam used to acquire it has been investigated in this study for the four available PSM methods. The aim is to inform upon the viability of applying a single PSM for all available photon beams to simplify PSM implementation and maintenance.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFPurpose: Calibration of a radiotherapy electronic portal imaging device (EPID) using the pixel-sensitivity-map (PSM) in place of the flood field correction improves the utility of the EPID for quality assurance applications. Multiple methods are available for determining the PSM and this study provides an evaluation to inform on which is superior.
Methods: Three different empirical methods ("Calvary Mater Newcastle" [CMN], "Varian," and "WashU") and a Monte Carlo-based method of PSM determination were investigated on a single Varian TrueBeam STx linear accelerator (linac) with an aS1200 EPID panel.