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Purpose: Children sometimes wait 12 months or longer to access speech-language pathology services. Information on websites may support families' active waiting for speech-language pathology; however, there are few user-friendly, evidence-based websites specifically designed for children and families for this purpose. The current study aimed to: (1) ascertain appropriate website content, format, features and functions; (2) evaluate the quality of existing speech and language sites and (3) obtain feedback on a prototype website. Method: A three-stage explanatory sequential mixed-methods design was employed. Stage 1 involved 119 participants completing an online questionnaire recommending website content, format, features and functions. Stage 2 involved evaluating the quality of 25 online sites about children's speech and language. Stage 3 involved focus groups with 16 participants to explore aspirations and feedback on a website to support active waiting. Result: Participants wanted information about typical development and services to access while waiting; strategies to stimulate children's speech and language development; simple web architecture; and high readability. High scoring sites contained evidence-based information from trustworthy sources. Strategies from the theory of preparative waiting arose in the focus groups. Conclusion: Participants considered easily identifiable, trustworthy sources of information, and user-friendly strategies and resources to be important on a website to support active waiting for speech-language pathology. The theory of preparative waiting may be a viable framework informing waiting for speech-language pathology for children with speech and language difficulties. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Objectives:To identify caregiver profiles of persons with mild to moderate dementia and to investigate differences between identified caregiver profiles, using baseline data of the international prospective cohort study Actifcare. Methods:A latent class analysis was used to discover different caregiver profiles based on disease related characteristics of 453 persons with dementia and their 453 informal caregivers. These profiles were compared with regard to quality of life (CarerQoL score), depressive symptoms (HADS-D score) and perseverance time. Results:A 5-class model was identified, with the best Bayesian Information Criterion value, significant likelihood ratio test (p< 0.001), high entropy score (0.88) and substantive interpretability. The classes could be differentiated on two axes: (i) caregivers' age, relationship with persons with dementia, severity of dementia, and (ii) tendency towards stress and difficulty adapting to stress. Classes showed significant differences with all dependent variables, and were labelled ‘older low strain’, ‘older intermediate strain’, ‘older high strain’, ‘younger low strain’ and ‘younger high strain’. Conclusion:Differences exist between types of caregivers that explain variability in quality of life, depressive symptoms and perseverance time. Our findings may give direction for tailored interventions for caregivers of persons with dementia, which may improve social health and reduce health care costs. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Objective:To (1) examine the opinions of medical staff working in spinal cord injury (SCI) centres (SCICs); (2) evaluate their knowledge, attitudes and practices towards obesity prevention and management; (3) report the number of beds and dietitians available at each SCIC.Methods:A 37-item questionnaire was sent to 23 SCICs in the UK, the Netherlands, Belgium and the Republic of Ireland between September 2012 and January 2013.Results:Eighteen SCICs returned the questionnaires for analysis. All respondents stated that they had an interest in obesity treatment but only 2.3% of the respondents received training in obesity management. Sixty-one percent of staff did not consider body mass index (BMI) to be appropriate for use in SCI patients and subsequently less than half of the respondents use BMI routinely. The majority of respondents reported that they are confident in dealing with overweight (74.5%) and obese (66.1%) SCI adults, less than half (44.1%) are confident in treating overweight and obese SCI children. Respondents also indicated the need for nationally adopted guidelines and a lack of physical activity provision. There were 17.5 whole-time equivalent (WTE) dietitians recorded in 22 SCICs, equivalent to 47.8 beds per WTE dietitians (range 10-420). Non-UK SCIC dietitians are significantly better resourced than in UK SCICs (beds per WTE dietitian: 36 vs 124, P=0.035).Conclusion:Medical staff expressed the need to participate in obesity prevention and management. Appropriate training should be considered for all medical staff and the development of specific weight management guidelines and dietetic provision should be considered. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]