Deprescribing for older people living in residential aged care facilities: Pharmacist recommendations, doctor acceptance and implementation.

Background: Deprescribing is an intervention to address the high prevalence of inappropriate polypharmacy in older people living in residential aged care facilities (RACFs). Many deprescribing interventions are complex and involve several stages including initial pharmacist recommendation, subsequent acceptance of the recommendations by a prescriber and the patient, and then actual implementation.

Objectives: This study aimed to investigate pharmacist deprescribing recommendations for residents within RACFs, general practitioner (GP) acceptance, and the actual implementation of the accepted recommendations at 12-month.

Polypharmacy and medicine regimens in older adults in residential aged care.

Objective: To describe medicines regimens used by older people living in residential aged care facilities (RACFs).

Materials And Methods: This cross-sectional study presents baseline data from a randomised controlled trial in seventeen Australian RACFs that recruited residents aged 65 years and older at the participating facilities. The main outcome measures were to evaluation of medicines utilisation, including the number of medicines, medicine regimen complexity, potential under-prescribing and high-risk prescribing (prescribing cascades, anticholinergic or sedative medicines or other potentially inappropriate medicines) with data analysed descriptively.

The increase in healthcare costs associated with frailty in older people discharged to a post-acute transition care program.

Background: older people are high users of healthcare resources. The frailty index can predict negative health outcomes; however, the amount of extra resources required has not been quantified.

Objective: to quantify the impact of frailty on healthcare expenditure and resource utilisation in a patient cohort who entered a community-based post-acute program and compare this to a cohort entering residential care.

A thematic analysis of the role of the organisation in building allied health research capacity: a senior managers' perspective.

Background: Evidence-based practice aims to achieve better health outcomes in the community. It relies on high quality research to inform policy and practice; however research in primary health care continues to lag behind that of other medical professions. The literature suggests that research capacity building (RCB) functions across four levels; individual, team, organisation and external environment.

Enhancing student nurses' medication calculation knowledge; integrating theoretical knowledge into practice.

Background: Accurate calculation of dosages and safe administration of medications in clinical practice is an essential skill for the registered nurse. Appropriate educational preparation of student nurses is the key to ensuring they become safe practitioners in the workforce. A review of the literature on different approaches for teaching and assessing medication calculation with student nurses revealed three main factors that influenced student nurses' ability to calculate medications accurately and identify mistakes.

Patterns of multimorbidity in working Australians.

Background: Multimorbidity is becoming more prevalent. Previously-used methods of assessing multimorbidity relied on counting the number of health conditions, often in relation to an index condition (comorbidity), or grouping conditions based on body or organ systems. Recent refinements in statistical approaches have resulted in improved methods to capture patterns of multimorbidity, allowing for the identification of nonrandomly occurring clusters of multimorbid health conditions.

Health-related productivity losses increase when the health condition is co-morbid with psychological distress: findings from a large cross-sectional sample of working Australians.

Background: The health condition of workers is known to impact on productivity outcomes. The relationship between health and productivity is of increasing interest amid the need to increase productivity to meet global financial challenges. Prevalence of psychological distress is also of growing concern in Australia with a two-fold increase in the prevalence of psychological distress in Australia from 1997-2005.

Exploration of the family's role and strengths after a young woman is diagnosed with breast cancer: views of women and their families.

Purpose: This exploratory descriptive study examined the role and strengths of the family when supporting the younger woman (<50 years) after a diagnosis of breast cancer. The perspectives of women and family members were sought.

Method: Participants were recruited from oncology outpatient units in Australia.

Predicting emotional well-being following traumatic brain injury: a test of mediated and moderated models.

This study examined two models for predicting emotional well-being following traumatic brain injury (TBI), namely the Lazarus and Folkman (1984) mediated model of stress and coping and the stress-buffer hypothesis (Cohen & Edwards, 1988). The mediated model suggests that antecedent variables (i.e.

Teenage mothers: a pilot study.

This paper presents the findings of a pilot study carried out in one regional center in Queensland, Australia. The study aimed to develop a snapshot image of teenage mothers. Of the thirty mothers who participated; just over half (16/30; 53%) reported using contraceptives, less than a third (8/30; 27%) used condoms to protect themselves from STDs and the majority (23/30; 77%) said their pregnancy was unplanned.