Young people with an intellectual disability: risk and resilience.

There is a large body of literature about personal risk and resilience among children and adolescents from a variety of subpopulations. However, in intellectual disability research, resilience has almost exclusively been investigated and reported at the level of family stress and coping rather than an individual child's capacity to function adaptively despite severe risk. In this study young people with an intellectual disability, family members and non-family members (carers, teachers and family friends) were interviewed and asked about the young people’s relationships, coping styles, behaviour patterns and resilience. The main features placing these young people at risk included having autism or inflexible patterns of behaviour, displaying some forms of challenging behaviour, difficulty with receptive and expressive communication, living in families with high competing demands for time and living in a relatively unaccommodating community environment. The main factors leading to resilience were an attractive appearance/disposition, ability to get one’s message across, ability to adapt behaviour to changing contexts, low family stress levels and high sense of competence, stable relationships with supportive others and an accommodating/accepting community environment (both school and social).

Self-perceived quality of life of children and adolescents with physical disabilities in Hong Kong

Although illnesses and diseases are thought to adversely affect quality of life (QoL), whether children who have physical disabilities (PD) from a young age adapt to the effect of developmental disabilities has rarely been investigated. This study attempted to assess the subjective wellbeing, and examine the correlation between objective and subjective QoL, of children with PD. Using a self-reported non-disease-specific questionnaire, the QoL of 72 young persons (13.5 ± 2.0 years) with PD was contrasted with those who do not have disabilities (n = 510; age-matched). MANOVA analyses revealed that the PD group had lower objective QoL score (63.0 ± 7.4 vs. 66.8 ± 5.7, p < 0.001) but the two groups were not significantly different in subjective QoL score (70.9 ± 11.4 vs. 69.6 ± 13.6, p = 0.466). No correlation was found between objective and subjective QoL in the PD group (r ranged from 0.06 to 0.19), while weak to medium correlations (r ranged from 0.03 to 0.41) were observed for the controls. The apparent detachment of subjective feeling and objective circumstances in the PD group may reflect adjustment to developmental disabilities.

Patient engagement and coaching for health: the PEACH study- a cluster randomised controlled trial using the telephone to coach people with type 2 diabetes to engage with their GPs to improve diabetes care: a study protocol.

Background
The PEACH study is based on an innovative 'telephone coaching' program that has been used effectively in a post cardiac event trial. This intervention will be tested in a General Practice setting in a pragmatic trial using existing Practice Nurses (PN) as coaches for people with type 2 diabetes (T2D). Actual clinical care often fails to achieve standards, that are based on evidence that self-management interventions (educational and psychological) and intensive pharmacotherapy improve diabetes control. Telephone coaching in our study focuses on both. This paper describes our study protocol, which aims to test whether goal focused telephone coaching in T2D can improve diabetes control and reduce the treatment gap between guideline based standards and actual clinical practice.
Methods/design
In a cluster randomised controlled trial, general practices employing Practice Nurses (PNs) are randomly allocated to an intervention or control group. We aim to recruit 546 patients with poorly controlled T2D (HbA1c >7.5%) from 42 General Practices that employ PNs in Melbourne, Australia. PNs from General Practices allocated to the intervention group will be trained in diabetes telephone coaching focusing on biochemical targets addressing both patient self-management and engaging patients to work with their General Practitioners (GPs) to intensify pharmacological treatment according to the study clinical protocol. Patients of intervention group practices will receive 8 telephone coaching sessions and one face-to-face coaching session from existing PNs over 18 months plus usual care and outcomes will be compared to the control group, who will only receive only usual care from their GPs. The primary outcome is HbA1c levels and secondary outcomes include cardiovascular disease risk factors, behavioral risk factors and process of care measures.
Discussion
Understanding how to achieve comprehensive treatment of T2D in a General Practice setting is the focus of the PEACH study. This study explores the potential role for PNs to help reduce the treatment and outcomes gap in people with T2D by using telephone coaching. The intervention, if found to be effective, has potential to be sustained and embedded within real world General Practice.

Health professionals' attitudes toward caring for people with hepatitis C

An estimated 170 million people worldwide have hepatitis C, which is a significant cause of morbidity and mortality. Therefore, health professionals (HPs) are likely to care for people with hepatitis C at some stage in their careers. However, little is known about HPs' attitudes towards treating people with hepatitis C. An analytical, cross-sectional survey was conducted to explore the inter-relationship among HPs' hepatitis C knowledge and attitudes towards treating people with hepatitis C and their self-reported clinical behaviour: Self-administered questionnaires were distributed to 3675 complementary therapists, dentists, medical practitioners, nurses, pharmacists, undergraduate medical and nursing students and people with hepatitis C in Victoria, Australia. Forty-six per cent responded (n = 1510). Only HP (complementary therapists, dentists, medical practitioners, nurses and pharmacists) data is presented (n = 1347).

Most HPs demonstrated adequate hepatitis C knowledge, but some displayed intolerant attitudes toward people with hepatitis C. Their self-reported compliance with infection control practices indicated that they frequently treated people with hepatitis C differently from other patients by using additional infection control precautions while treating patients with hepatitis C. In addition, fear of contagion and disapproval of injecting drug use emerged as barriers to their willingness to treat people with hepatitis C.

The results suggest that focusing education strategies on changing HPs' attitudes toward people with hepatitis C, injecting drug users, and infection control guidelines rather than concentrating solely on medical information might ultimately improve patient care.

Work and recreational changes among people with neurological illness and their caregivers

Background. Progressive neurological illnesses alter the health and well-being of people who experience them, and frequently lead to changes in the activities of both patients and their carers.

Purpose. The current study investigated changes in work and recreational activities among people with four of these illnesses.

Method. In total, the following numbers of people with neurological illnesses and their carers participated in the study: 28 with multiple sclerosis; 27 with motor neurone disease; 31 with Parkinson's; and 24 with Huntingtons disease. In addition, 28 professionals who worked with these populations participated in the study. Individual interviews were conducted with each of the above respondents to determine the impact of the neurological illness.

Results. The results demonstrated a high level of agreement from each of the participants. Most of the people with the illnesses and many of the carers had reduced their level of paid work. Generally, all groups of respondents perceived these changes as being negative. Changes in recreational activities were also seen to be primarily negative.

Conclusions. These results are discussed in terms of proposed prevention and intervention programmes to prepare patients and their carers for the changes that result from the neurological illness, strategies to stay at work longer and to help them develop alternative strategies to assist them in filling the gap left in their lives that was previously occupied by paid work.

Effectiveness of staff training programs for behavioral problems among older people with dementia

This paper reviewed studies on staff training programs to address the behavioral problems associated with dementia among older people in residential care. The papers were classified according to whether or not the studies included a control group in the research design. The results of the review demonstrate that there has been a wide range of psychosocial and educational interventions to reduce behavioral problems among older people with dementia, with inconsistent results being obtained. However, many of these studies suffer from problems in their research design that make it difficult to evaluate their effectiveness. Problems in conducting research in the nursing home setting are highlighted, and suggestions for future research in this area are discussed.

Perceptions of relationship and sexual satisfaction among people with multiple sclerosis and their partners

The study evaluated relationships and sexuality among people with multiple sclerosis (MS) and their partners. The results were compared to findings among couples in the general population. Participants were 45 heterosexual people with MS and their partners and 32 heterosexual people from the general population and their partners. There was a high level of concordance between the views of couples from the general population, but not among couples where one partner had MS. Partners of people with MS were more likely than people with MS to feel that MS had a negative impact on the physical and emotional support in their relationship. People with MS also experienced more problems in their relationship and sexual functioning, but not their sexual satisfaction, than people from the general population. The implications of these results in terms of support programs for people with MS and their partners are discussed.

Cardiovascular risk factors for people with mental illness

The objective of this study was to document the prevalence of risk factors for cardiovascular disease among people with chronic mental illness.