The effectiveness of digital tools to maintain physical activity among people with a long-term condition(s): A systematic review and meta-analysis.

Objective: Given the well-accepted health benefits, it is important to identify scalable ways to support people with long-term conditions (LTCs) to remain physically active. This systematic review aimed to evaluate the effect of digital tools on the maintenance of physical activity (PA) amongst this population.

Methods: Electronic databases were searched for randomised controlled trials investigating the effect of digital tools on PA maintenance at least three months post-intervention compared with a non-digital control in participants with long-term conditions.

Nurse understaffing associated with adverse outcomes for surgical admissions.

Background: Nurses play a crucial role in maintaining the safety of surgical patients. Few nurse staffing studies have looked specifically at surgical patients to examine the impact of exposure to low staffing on patient outcomes.

Methods: A longitudinal patient analysis was conducted in four organizations in England using routine data from 213 910 admissions to all surgical specialties.

Staffing levels and hospital mortality in England: a national panel study using routinely collected data.

Objectives: Examine the association between multiple clinical staff levels and case-mix adjusted patient mortality in English hospitals. Most studies investigating the association between hospital staffing levels and mortality have focused on single professional groups, in particular nursing. However, single staff group studies might overestimate effects or neglect important contributions to patient safety from other staff groups.

Understanding support systems for Parkinson's disease management in community settings: A cross-national qualitative study.

Background: Health and social care systems face difficulties in managing multimorbidity, disease burden and complex needs in long-term conditions such as Parkinson's disease.

Objective: This study aimed to develop a European understanding of how health and social care professionals can collaborate with stakeholders from different organizations and sectors to enhance the management of Parkinson's disease in a community setting by identifying the existing gaps in this process and how people with Parkinson's disease and their family carers could benefit from these partnerships.

Methods: A mixed-methods sequential study was conducted in Denmark, Norway, Spain and the United Kingdom.

Exploring the prevalence and types of fall-risk-increasing drugs among older people with upper limb fractures.

Objectives: Medications and specifically fall-risk-increasing drugs (FRIDs) are associated with increased risk of falls: reducing their prescription may improve this risk. This study explored patient characteristics associated with FRID use, prevalence and type of FRIDs and changes in their prescriptions among older people with arm fractures over 6 months.

Methods: Observational prospective study in three fracture clinics in England.

Digital tools to support the maintenance of physical activity in people with long-term conditions: A scoping review.

Objective: This scoping review aimed to bring together and identify digital tools that support people with one or more long-term conditions to maintain physical activity and describe their components and theoretical underpinnings.

Methods: Searches were conducted in Cumulative Index to Nursing and Allied Health Literature, Medline, EMBASE, IEEE Xplore, PsycINFO, Scopus, Google Scholar and clinical trial databases, for studies published between 2009 and 2019, across a range of long-term conditions. Screening and data extraction was undertaken by two independent reviewers and the Preferred Reporting Items for Scoping Reviews guidelines informed the review's conduct and reporting.

Prediction of Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease Exacerbation Events by Using Patient Self-reported Data in a Digital Health App: Statistical Evaluation and Machine Learning Approach.

Background: Self-reporting digital apps provide a way of remotely monitoring and managing patients with chronic conditions in the community. Leveraging the data collected by these apps in prognostic models could provide increased personalization of care and reduce the burden of care for people who live with chronic conditions. This study evaluated the predictive ability of prognostic models for the prediction of acute exacerbation events in people with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease by using data self-reported to a digital health app.

Persistently normal blood tests in patients taking methotrexate for RA or azathioprine for IBD: a retrospective cohort study.

Background: Disease-modifying anti-rheumatic drugs (DMARDs), including methotrexate and azathioprine, are commonly used to treat rheumatoid arthritis (RA) and inflammatory bowel disease (IBD). Blood-test safety monitoring is mainly undertaken in primary care. Normal blood results are common.

The feasibility and acceptability of assessing and managing sarcopenia and frailty among older people with upper limb fracture.

Background: sarcopenia and frailty are associated with increased risk of falls and fractures. This study evaluated the feasibility of assessing sarcopenia and frailty among older people attending fracture clinics.

Methods: patients aged 65+ years with an arm fracture attending fracture clinics in one UK city were recruited.

Projections for primary hip and knee replacement surgery up to the year 2060: an analysis based on data from The National Joint Registry for England, Wales, Northern Ireland and the Isle of Man.

Introduction: We estimated the number of primary total hip and knee replacements (THR and TKR) that will need to be performed up to the year 2060.

Methods: We used data from The National Joint Registry for England, Wales, Northern Ireland and the Isle of Man on the volume of primary THRs (=94,936) and TKRs (=100,547) performed in 2018. We projected future numbers of THR and TKR using a static estimated rate from 2018 applied to population growth forecast data from the UK Office for National Statistics up to 2060.

Nurses' experiences and preferences around shift patterns: A scoping review.

Objective: To explore the evidence on nurses' experiences and preferences around shift patterns in the international literature.

Data Sources: Electronic databases (CINHAL, MEDLINE and Scopus) were searched to identify primary studies up to April 2021.

Methods: Papers reporting qualitative or quantitative studies exploring the subjective experience and/or preferences of nurses around shift patterns were considered, with no restrictions on methods, date or setting.

The Experiences of Treatment Burden in People with Parkinson's Disease and Their Caregivers: A Systematic Review of Qualitative Studies.

BackgroundHigh treatment burden is associated with poor adherence, wasted resources, poor quality of life and poor health outcomes. Identifying factors that impact treatment burden in Parkinson's disease can offer insights into strategies to mitigate them.ObjectiveTo explore the experiences of treatment burden among people with Parkinson's disease (PwP) and their caregivers.

Consensus Development Project (CDP): An overview of staffing for safe and effective nursing care.

We present an overview of the research evidence on nurse staffing levels in acute hospitals, and how it has been applied to policy and practice, focussing primarily on the UK. Drawing on research reviews and examples of specific studies, we outline the current state of knowledge. Much of the evidence comes from cross-sectional studies.

The association between nurse staffing and inpatient mortality: A shift-level retrospective longitudinal study.

Background: Worldwide, hospitals face pressure to reduce costs. Some respond by working with a reduced number of nurses or less qualified nursing staff.

Objective: This study aims at examining the relationship between mortality and patient exposure to shifts with low or high nurse staffing.

Beyond ratios - flexible and resilient nurse staffing options to deliver cost-effective hospital care and address staff shortages: A simulation and economic modelling study.

Background: In the face of pressure to contain costs and make best use of scarce nurses, flexible staff deployment (floating staff between units and temporary hires) guided by a patient classification system may appear an efficient approach to meeting variable demand for care in hospitals.

Objectives: We modelled the cost-effectiveness of different approaches to planning baseline numbers of nurses to roster on general medical/surgical units while using flexible staff to respond to fluctuating demand.

Design And Setting: We developed an agent-based simulation, where hospital inpatient units move between being understaffed, adequately staffed or overstaffed as staff supply and demand (as measured by the Safer Nursing Care Tool patient classification system) varies.

Association between Quality of Interactions Schedule ratings and care experiences of people with a dementia in general hospital settings: a validation study.

Introduction: Establishing methods to evaluate interactions between hospital staff and patients with a dementia is vital to inform care delivery. This study aimed to assess the validity of Quality of Interactions Schedule (QuIS) ratings in relation to the care experiences of people with a dementia in a general hospital setting.

Methods: Four hundred and ninety face-to-face interactions between staff and patients with a dementia (n = 107) on six medicine for older people wards in a UK National Health Service hospital were observed and rated using QuIS and the Psychological Well-Being in Cognitively Impaired Persons (PWB-CIP) tool.

Development and validation of a methodology to measure the time taken by hospital nurses to make vital signs observations.

Background: Several time and motion studies have sought to quantify the nursing work involved in observing patients' vital signs. However, none of these studies offered a validated methodology that can be replicated. This is reflected in the high variation between these studies in the mean times for measuring and recording observations.

Longitudinal Study of the Variation in Patient Turnover and Patient-to-Nurse Ratio: Descriptive Analysis of a Swiss University Hospital.

Background: Variations in patient demand increase the challenge of balancing high-quality nursing skill mixes against budgetary constraints. Developing staffing guidelines that allow high-quality care at minimal cost requires first exploring the dynamic changes in nursing workload over the course of a day.

Objective: Accordingly, this longitudinal study analyzed nursing care supply and demand in 30-minute increments over a period of 3 years.

Nursing workload, nurse staffing methodologies and tools: A systematic scoping review and discussion.

Background: The importance of nurse staffing levels in acute hospital wards is widely recognised but evidence for tools to determine staffing requirements although extensive, has been reported to be weak. Building on a review of reviews undertaken in 2014, we set out to give an overview of the major approaches to assessing nurse staffing requirements and identify recent evidence in order to address unanswered questions including the accuracy and effectiveness of tools.

Methods: We undertook a systematic scoping review.