Oral piercings and orthodontic treatment: A questionnaire-based national survey

Objective: To obtain opinions from orthodontic colleagues nationally on how they currently manage orthodontic patients with oral piercings. The secondary objectives were to assimilate the national opinions from the survey and attempt to generate educational material as an advice sheet and a patient information leaflet for the professionals and the patients respectively for the British Orthodontic Society (BOS). Design: Cross-sectional survey. Setting: Primary and secondary care orthodontic providers. Participants: Members of the BOS. Methods: An electronic questionnaire was developed and circulated to members of the BOS to obtain their opinions on the effects of oral piercings on their patients’ orthodontic treatment ‘journey’. In addition, the need for the development of informative material around the management of orthodontic treatment and appliances in patients with oral piercings was explored. Results: A total of 110 responses were received. However, only 88 respondents out of 110 attempted all the questions within the survey. There were 22 respondents who attempted it partially. We did include these partial responses well while analysing the results, since many of these offered personalised comments in the free-text boxes within the survey. Conclusion: The most common general complications associated with oral piercings were inflammation of the surrounding tissue and enamel/dentine wear. Moreover, orthodontic complications, reported commonly, were inadequate oral hygiene maintenance, entanglement with the orthodontic appliance causing damage and interference with retainers. Most respondents expressed the need for the development of a web-based patient information leaflet and an advice sheet as educational tool, both of which have been proposed to and agreed by the BOS before submission of this publication.

Impact of perinatal environmental health education intervention on exposure to endocrine disruptors during pregnancy—PREVED study: study protocol for a randomized controlled trial

Background The suspected or actual effects on health of endocrine-disrupting chemicals (EDC) and their ubiquitous presence in everyday life justify the implementation of health promotion interventions. These interventions should ideally be applied during critical windows like pregnancy. Perinatal environmental health education interventions may help to reduce EDC exposure during pregnancy. Methods/design PREVED (Pregnancy, PreVention, Endocrine Disruptors) is an open-label randomized controlled trial assessing the impact of environmental health education intervention on EDC exposure during pregnancy. Inclusion, consent, and randomization take place during the first trimester. The participants are randomly allocated into three groups: (i) control group (information leaflet on EDCs), (ii) intervention group in neutral location (information leaflet and workshops in a meeting room), and (iii) intervention group in contextualized location (information leaflet and workshops in a real apartment). Workshops are organized between the second and third trimesters of pregnancy. Main outcome is the percentage of participants who reported consuming manufactured/industrial food. Secondary outcomes are as follows: (i) psycho-social dimensions, (ii) EDC concentrations in urine, (iii) EDC concentration in colostrum, and (iv) percentage of participants who reported consuming paraben-free personal care products. Discussion PREVED is a ground-breaking intervention research project dedicated to perinatal environmental health education that aims to identify pollutant sources in daily life and to offer accessible and realistic alternative solutions, by promoting the sharing of know-how and experience in a positive and non-alarmist approach. Trial registration ClinicalTrials.gov: NCT03233984 (current status: ongoing). Retrospectively registered on 31 July 2017 (https://clinicaltrials.gov/ct2/show/NCT03233984) because when the first participant was enrolled in this non-drug intervention, ClinicalTrials.gov was centered in therapeutic trials. The World Health Organization Trial Registration Data Set is in Additional file 1.

Kijksluiters: kijken naar gesprekken tussen apotheker en patiënt

Kijksluiters: watching conversations between pharmacists and patients As of 1975, Dutch patients receive a package insert with their medication. Due to extensive national and EU legal regulation efforts, the insert developed into a mandatory genre par excellence. However, its communicative functionality remained doubtful: the patient information leaflet has always been regarded as lengthy, complex and user-unfriendly. Recently, the Dutch Medicine Board has introduced a new, audiovisual medication instruction, the so-called Kijksluiter, that shows a video animation of a conversation about the medicine between a pharmacist and a patient. After a historical introduction, the second section of the paper surveys empirical studies that shed light on the main design parameters of the new genre: spoken instead of written information, animated speakers, dialogue instead of monologue. In the third part, we report on an observation study in which 16 users answer 9 scenario questions using a Kijksluiter video. The results indicate that Kijksluiters are not without user problems. Overall, two-thirds of the answers are more or less correct. Half of the participants first watched the video in its entirety before attending to the questions. The main problem this group encountered is: insufficient recollection of the relevant information. The other half of the participants navigated the Kijksluiter for each question, using the menu offering twelve small chapters. The main problems in this group was not finding the question-relevant chapter; but even after listening to the relevant information, some answers are incorrect. We conclude that, although Kijksluiter does not immediately solve all medication communication problems, its concise audiovisual format broadens the range of media available for medicine users.

Empowering Patients to Self-Manage Common Infections: Qualitative Study Informing the Development of an Evidence-Based Patient Information Leaflet

Common self-limiting infections can be self-managed by patients, potentially reducing consultations and unnecessary antibiotic use. This qualitative study informed by the Theoretical Domains Framework (TDF) aimed to explore healthcare professionals’ (HCPs) and patients’ needs on provision of self-care and safety-netting advice for common infections. Twenty-seven patients and seven HCPs participated in semi-structured focus groups (FGs) and interviews. An information leaflet was iteratively developed and reviewed by participants in interviews and FGs, and an additional 5 HCPs, and 25 patients (identifying from minority ethnic groups) via online questionnaires. Qualitative data were analysed thematically, double-coded, and mapped to the TDF. Participants required information on symptom duration, safety netting, self-care, and antibiotics. Patients felt confident to self-care and were averse to consulting with HCPs unnecessarily but struggled to assess symptom severity. Patients reported seeking help for children or elderly dependents earlier. HCPs’ concerns included patients’ attitudes and a lack of available monitoring of advice given to patients. Participants believed community pharmacy should be the first place that patients seek advice on common infections. The patient information leaflet on common infections should be used in primary care and community pharmacy to support patients to self-manage symptoms and determine when further help is required.

637 Patients' Perceptions of Complications Following Thyroidectomy

Aim The aim of this study was to assess patients' understanding of the risks of thyroid surgery and to assess whether their understanding of risks improved following the implementation of a pre-operative risk-tool. Method Single centre prospective cohort study between June 2019-August 2019. All patients that underwent thyroid surgery were recruited. Patients had either the standard process of consent or were provided with a pre-operative risk-tool and information leaflet. Post-operatively all patients were provided with a questionnaire to determine their understanding of the risks involved in having thyroid surgery. Data was analysed using GraphPad Prism v6. Results 51 thyroidectomy patients were recruited; 28 patients had a standard process of consent and 23 patients were provided with the risk-tool. Patients undergoing standard consent processes had a poor understanding of the magnitude of post-operative risk; their median score for risk magnitude was 4.5/10 (2-7) versus 8/10 (4-10) in the cohort receiving the risk-tool. The proportion of intervention to non-intervention participants giving the correct answer reached a statistically significant difference in 50% of questions asked (P < 0.001). Conclusions It is imperative thyroidectomy patients are made aware of both rare events but also the frequency of which events occur so that they are properly informed prior to consenting. We have demonstrated that standard processes of consent in thyroidectomy patients leads to poor perception of risks; providing a surgical risk-tool can counteract this. These results warrant development of clear guidelines on the use of pre-operative surgical risk-tools in thyroidectomy patients.

Effect of an information leaflet on breast cancer screening participation: A cluster randomized controlled trial

Objective To evaluate the impact of an information leaflet about the risk-benefit balance of breast cancer screening on women’s participation. Methods This cluster randomized controlled trial was conducted within a population-based breast cancer screening program and included women from the catchment areas of two hospitals in Barcelona, Spain. We evaluated women aged 50–69 years invited to screening between September 2019 and January 2020. The intervention group received an information leaflet on the benefits and harms of mammography screening. The control group received the usual invitation letter. The clusters consisted of the processing days of the invitation letter, assigned to the intervention with a simple random allocation scheme. We compared the participation rate at the individual level between groups, stratified by hospital and by per-protocol and intention-to-treat analyses. Results We included 11,119 women (137 clusters): 5416 in the intervention group (66 clusters) and 5703 in the control group (71 clusters). A total of 36% (1964/5393) of the women in the intervention group and 37% (2135/5694) of those in the control group attended screening, respectively. Overall, we found no differences in participation among groups (difference in participation − 1.1%; 95%CI; − 2.9 to 0.7%). In a hospital attending a population with a low socioeconomic status, attendance was lower in the intervention group (− 1.4, 95%CI: − 5.7% to − 0.03%). Conclusions Overall participation in our program was unaffected by a new information leaflet on the risk-benefit balance of breast cancer screening. However, participation was lower in certain populations with lower socioeconomic status Trial registration Trial registration number ISRCTN13848929.

A Comparative Study to Assess the Level of Stress and Coping Skills among senior Citizens Living with Family V/S Old Age Home. with a view to Develop Information Leaflet on Stress and their coping Skills in Selected area at Raipur Chhattisgarh

The present studyassess the level of stress and coping skills among living with family v/s old age home senior citizens. with a view to develop information leaflet on stress and their coping skills in selected area at Raipur chhattisgarh. To conduct the study 100 senior citizen of family V/S old age home in Raipur.chhattisgarh were selected as sample. Inclusion criteria senior citizen more than 60 age old. The tool was selected Sterilized Perceived Stress scale and BRIEF COPE scale for data collection. Results reveal that after the completion of study that those are living in family are low stress compare of old age.