Focus group interviews:a guide for palliative care researchers and clinicians

The focus group interview is an increasingly common qualitative research method used by health professionals. General approaches to conducting focus groups have been published. There has, however, been minimal exploration of issues regarding the use of focus groups with palliative care populations and data analysis procedures have been underreported. The aim of this paper is to provide a guide for conducting focus groups drawing on palliative care examples. A succinct outline of why, when and how to use focus groups is offered. Key ethical and practical issues are explored as well as considerations for data analysis. This guide offers researchers and clinicians fundamental strategies for the use of focus groups within the palliative care context.

Guide to Inclined Plate Settlers

Innovation voucher report on behalf

Exchange systems and style in the Central Mediterranean. 4500-1700 b.c..:Unpublished PhD. Cambridge University Library

Malone, C.A.T., 1986, Unpublished PhD, Cambridge University, Cambridge.

Evaluation of an algorithm to guide patients with type 1 diabetes treated with continuous subcutaneous insulin infusion on how to respond to real-time continuous glucose levels:A randomized controlled trial

OBJECTIVE - To evaluate an algorithm guiding responses of continuous subcutaneous insulin infusion (CSII)-treated type 1 diabetic patients using real-time continuous glucose monitoring (RT-CGM). RESEARCH DESIGN AND METHODS - Sixty CSII-treated type 1 diabetic participants (aged 13-70 years, including adult and adolescent subgroups, with A1C =9.5%) were randomized in age-, sex-, and A1C-matched pairs. Phase 1 was an open 16-week multicenter randomized controlled trial. Group A was treated with CSII/RT-CGM with the algorithm, and group B was treated with CSII/RT-CGM without the algorithm. The primary outcome was the difference in time in target (4-10 mmol/l) glucose range on 6-day masked CGM. Secondary outcomes were differences in A1C, low (=3.9 mmol/l) glucose CGM time, and glycemic variability. Phase 2 was the week 16-32 follow-up. Group A was returned to usual care, and group B was provided with the algorithm. Glycemia parameters were as above. Comparisons were made between baseline and 16 weeks and 32 weeks. RESULTS - In phase 1, after withdrawals 29 of 30 subjects were left in group A and 28 of 30 subjects were left in group B. The change in target glucose time did not differ between groups. A1C fell (mean 7.9% [95% CI 7.7-8.2to 7.6% [7.2-8.0]; P <0.03) in group A but not in group B (7.8% [7.5-8.1] to 7.7 [7.3-8.0]; NS) with no difference between groups. More subjects in group A achieved A1C =7% than those in group B (2 of 29 to 14 of 29 vs. 4 of 28 to 7 of 28; P = 0.015). In phase 2, one participant was lost from each group. In group A, A1C returned to baseline with RT-CGM discontinuation but did not change in group B, who continued RT-CGM with addition of the algorithm. CONCLUSIONS - Early but not late algorithm provision to type 1 diabetic patients using CSII/RT-CGM did not increase the target glucose time but increased achievement of A1C =7%. Upon RT-CGM cessation, A1C returned to baseline. © 2010 by the American Diabetes Association.

K-Contagion: Sound, Space and Speed in Psy's 'Gangnam Style'

Park Jae-Sang’s (otherwise known as PSY) bewilderingly successful pop contagion ‘Gangnam Style’ needs no introduction. As of January 2013, it has become the most watched video in YouTube’s history and has garnered over 1.23 billion hits since. ‘Gangnam Style’ has also become a rapid global pop phenomenon with multiple parodic reproductions, imitations and adaptations; Rapper PSY himself has become an international name and styled as the ‘anti-hero’ of the glamour-driven K-pop scene. His fame has transcended the social sphere and permeated the political stratosphere with politicians such as Barrack Obama and David Cameron being among the many whom PSY has exchanged pleasantries with. Apart from breaking ground and creating social and media history in many ways, ‘Gangnam Style’ has even been purported by UN Secretary-General Ban Ki Moon to be a “force for world peace” – cultural barriers are demolished as the world dances. Underlying this sentiment is the video’s almost universal appeal that assumes a supracultural yet equally paradoxical translatability: Korea’s neoteric ‘K-Wave’ phenomenon is at once local yet global, and where the latter is predicated on the former quality. The paper’s concern is thus two-fold. It will consider the dromological aspects of this musical contagion as it exemplifies and performs quite literally Paul Virilio’s thesis that the modern condition is driven by speed yet arrested to a dictatorship of movement. While many theories have been put forward for this astounding pop peculiarity, this paper would also examine the intercultural currents that advocate such a global (pop) cultural response. Through an analysis of sonic qualities – digital techno-beat rhythms, synth-based musicality, cyclical lyrics, horse-galloping movements – and acoustic receptions, it will consider the simultaneous and dichotomous currents of glocalisation and globalisation as it relates to the ways in which sonic ‘hyper-links’ establish new concepts of global-cultural identities even as these seem to be interrogated in the borderless worlds of hyper-mediatised realities and cultural technologies.