Search

Radboud Universiteit Nijmegen, 7 februari 2014, Promotores : Kremer, J.A.M., Samsom, M. Co-promotores : Faber, M.J., Schoonhoven, L., Contains fulltext : 123511.pdf (publisher's version ) (Open Access), Goed communiceren is een van de belangrijkste voorwaarden voor het leveren van goede zorg. In het huidige internettijdperk bestaan nieuwe communicatiemogelijkheden, bijvoorbeeld sociale media. Dit proefschrift beschrijft studies over het gebruik van sociale media en wiki’s in de zorg, en geeft inzicht in het gebruik van de verschillende toepassingen, inclusief bijbehorende kansen en bedreigingen. Deel één beschrijft de huidige situatie. Nederlandse ziekenhuizen zijn koploper als het gaat om gebruik van sociale media als Twitter, Facebook en LinkedIn. Daarnaast wil een kwart van alle Nederlanders met zijn of haar zorgverlener communiceren via sociale media. In het tweede deel ligt de focus op wiki’s. Dit zijn online documenten die door meerdere gebruikers bewerkt kunnen worden. Het zijn veelbelovende tools om de participatie van patiënten te verbeteren. Zo blijkt het haalbaar om zorgverleners en patiënten door middel van wiki’s samen aan digitale informatiefolders te laten werken. De rol van sociale media in de zorg wordt groter. Ze faciliteren een actieve en meer gelijkwaardige (partner-) rol van patiënten. Zorgverleners dienen zich hierop voor te bereiden en bekend te worden met verschillende typen en toepassingen sociale media.

Contains fulltext : 127307.pdf (publisher's version ) (Open Access), BACKGROUND: Health care is increasingly featured by the use of Web 2.0 communication and collaborative technologies that are reshaping the way patients and professionals interact. These technologies or tools can be used for a variety of purposes: to instantly debate issues, discover news, analyze research, network with peers, crowd-source information, seek support, and provide advice. Not all tools are implemented successfully; in many cases, the nonusage attrition rates are high. Little is known about the preferences of the Dutch general population regarding the use of the Internet and social media in health care. OBJECTIVE: To determine the preferences of the general population in the Netherlands regarding the use of the Internet and social media in health care. METHODS: A cross-sectional survey was disseminated via a popular Dutch online social network. Respondents were asked where they searched for health-related information, how they qualified the value of different sources, and their preferences regarding online communication with health care providers. Results were weighed for the Dutch population based on gender, age, and level of education using official statistics. Numbers and percentages or means and standard deviations were presented for different subgroups. One-way ANOVA was used to test for statistical differences. RESULTS: The survey was completed by 635 respondents. The Internet was found to be the number one source for health-related information (82.7%), closely followed by information provided by health care professionals (71.1%). Approximately one-third (32.3%) of the Dutch population search for ratings of health care providers. The most popular information topics were side effects of medication (62.5%) and symptoms (59.7%). Approximately one-quarter of the Dutch population prefer to communicate with a health care provider via social media (25.4%), and 21.2% would like to communicate via a webcam. CONCLUSIONS: The Internet is the main source of he

Contains fulltext : 108978.pdf (Publisher’s version ) (Closed access), BACKGROUND: Insight into patient adherence is needed to enable an effect evaluation of medication for dyspepsia. OBJECTIVES: Adherence was explored by investigating two adherence outcome measures (completeness and intake fidelity) using data from the DIAMOND-study. METHODS: The DIAMOND-study is a pragmatic RCT comparing a 'step-up' with a 'step-down' treatment strategy. In step 1 participants (n =653) were instructed to use five pills/day for maximally 30 days: an antacid 4dd plus a placebo 1dd ('step-up') or a proton pump inhibitor 1dd plus a placebo 4dd ('step-down'). If the complaints persisted, step 2 was started (H(2)-receptor antagonist 2dd), and subsequently step 3 (five pills/day, placebo and verum vice versa from step 1). Completeness was assessed by pill counts, intake fidelity by patient questionnaires measuring the degree to which patients adhered to specific instructions concerning timing, frequency, dose and way of intake. RESULTS: In step 1, patients used on average 3.9 pills/day (78% of the prescribed doses), in step 2, 1.7 pills/day (85%) and in step 3, 3.6 pills/day (72%). For the four times daily pills, half of the patients used less than 80% of the prescribed pills per day. This was one third of the patients for the twice daily pills and one quarter for the once daily pills. There were no completeness differences between active or placebo medication and no differences between the study arms. As regards intake fidelity, 70% of the patients made one or more errors in the medication intake. CONCLUSION: There is room for improvement in adherence rates for dyspepsia medication.

Contains fulltext : 110124.pdf (publisher's version ) (Open Access), BACKGROUND: Patients increasingly use social media to communicate. Their stories could support quality improvements in participatory health care and could support patient-centered care. Active use of social media by health care institutions could also speed up communication and information provision to patients and their families, thus increasing quality even more. Hospitals seem to be becoming aware of the benefits social media could offer. Data from the United States show that hospitals increasingly use social media, but it is unknown whether and how Western European hospitals use social media. OBJECTIVE: To identify to what extent Western European hospitals use social media. METHODS: In this longitudinal study, we explored the use of social media by hospitals in 12 Western European countries through an Internet search. We collected data for each country during the following three time periods: April to August 2009, August to December 2010, and April to July 2011. RESULTS: We included 873 hospitals from 12 Western European countries, of which 732 were general hospitals and 141 were university hospitals. The number of included hospitals per country ranged from 6 in Luxembourg to 347 in Germany. We found hospitals using social media in all countries. The use of social media increased significantly over time, especially for YouTube (n = 19, 2% to n = 172, 19.7%), LinkedIn (n =179, 20.5% to n = 278, 31.8%), and Facebook (n = 85, 10% to n = 585, 67.0%). Differences in social media usage between the included countries were significant. CONCLUSIONS: Social media awareness in Western European hospitals is growing, as well as its use. Social media usage differs significantly between countries. Except for the Netherlands and the United Kingdom, the group of hospitals that is using social media remains small. Usage of LinkedIn for recruitment shows the awareness of the potential of social media. Future research is needed to investigate how social media lead to improved healt

Contains fulltext : 96333.pdf (publisher's version ) (Open Access)

Item does not contain fulltext

Item does not contain fulltext

Item does not contain fulltext

Item does not contain fulltext, BACKGROUND AND AIMS: To detect precancerous dysplasia or asymptomatic cancer, patients suffering from inflammatory bowel disease often undergo colonoscopic surveillance based on American or British guidelines. It is recommended that surveillance is initiated after 8-10 years of extensive colitis, or after 15-20 years for left-sided disease. These starting points, however, are not based on solid scientific evidence. Our aim was to assess the time interval between onset of inflammatory bowel disease (IBD) and colorectal carcinoma (CRC), and subsequently evaluate how many patients developed cancer before their surveillance was recommended to commence. METHODS: A nationwide automated pathology database (PALGA) was consulted to identify patients with IBD-associated colorectal carcinoma in seven university medical centres in The Netherlands between January 1990 and June 2006. Data were collected retrospectively from patient charts. Time intervals between onset of disease and cancer diagnosis were calculated in months. RESULTS: 149 patients were identified with confirmed diagnoses of IBD and CRC (ulcerative colitis n = 89/Crohn's disease n = 59/indeterminate colitis n = 1). Taking date of diagnosis as the entry point, 22% of patients developed cancer before the 8 or 15 year starting points of surveillance, and 28% if surveillance was commenced 10 or 20 years after diagnosis for extensive or left-sided disease, respectively. Using onset of symptoms to calculate the time interval, 17-22% of patients would present with cancer prior to the surveillance starting points. CONCLUSIONS: These results show that the diagnosis of colorectal cancer is delayed or missed in a substantial number of patients (17-28%) when conducting surveillance strictly according to formal guidelines.

Contains fulltext : 51512.pdf (publisher's version ) (Open Access), BACKGROUND: Pragmatic randomised controlled trials are often used in primary care to evaluate the effect of a treatment strategy. In these trials it is difficult to achieve both high internal validity and high generalisability. This article will discuss several methodological challenges in designing and conducting a pragmatic primary care based randomised controlled trial, based on our experiences in the DIAMOND-study and will discuss the rationale behind the choices we made. From the successes as well as the problems we experienced the quality of future pragmatic trials may benefit. DISCUSSION: The first challenge concerned choosing the clinically most relevant interventions to compare and enable blinded comparison, since two interventions had very different appearances. By adding treatment steps to one treatment arm and adding placebo to both treatment arms both internal and external validity were optimized. Nevertheless, although blinding is essential for a high internal validity, it should be warily considered in a pragmatic trial because it decreases external validity. Choosing and recruiting a representative selection of participants was the second challenge. We succeeded in retrieving a representative relatively large patient sample by carefully choosing (few) inclusion and exclusion criteria, by random selection, by paying much attention to participant recruitment and taking the participant's reasons to participate into account. Good and regular contact with the GPs and patients was to our opinion essential. The third challenge was to choose the primary outcome, which needed to reflect effectiveness of the treatment in every day practice. We also designed our protocol to follow every day practice as much as possible, although standardized treatment is usually preferred in trials. The aim of this was our fourth challenge: to limit the number of protocol deviations and increase external validity. SUMMARY: It is challenging to design and conduct a pragmatic tri

Oesophageal emptying can be assessed by radiographic and scintigraphic tests with radiation exposure or by multichannel intraluminal impedance monitoring (MII). The aim of this study was to evaluate the applicability of MII for the assessment of oesophageal emptying in achalasia patients. In 10 achalasia patients, impedance tracings were scored independently by three observers after ingestion of a 100-mL barium bolus. Bolus clearance time (BCT) and height of barium column were scored using fluoroscopic images acquired at 20-s intervals. All patients showed a low baseline impedance level in the distal oesophagus. Air trapping in the proximal oesophagus was detected in nine patients. BCT on MII was similar to that on fluoroscopy in 40-70% of the patients. Correlations between height of barium on fluoroscopy and fluid level on MII were poor to moderate at different time intervals. Concordance (Kendall's coefficient) between the three observers for assessment of fluid level on MII was 0.31 (P = 0.04) at 1 and 5 min, 0.26 (P = 0.08) at 10 and 0.44 (P = 0.01) at 15 min. We conclude that in achalasia patients, low baseline impedance levels and air entrapment in the proximal oesophagus limit the value of intraluminal impedance monitoring as a test of oesophageal emptying.

Background: The antisecretory effect of omeprazole on intragastric pH is decreased in the absence of Helicobacter pylori. Aim: To investigate the effect of H. pylori eradication on intragastric pH during lansoprazole or ranitidine dosing in 41 asymptomatic H. pylori-positive subjects. Method: Two groups of healthy H. pylori-positive volunteers were investigated. One group was dosed with lansoprazole 30 mg at 08.00 hours for at least 8 days, before and after 2 weeks of placebo-controlled double-blind eradication therapy using ranitidine bismuth citrate 400 mg b.d. and clarithromycin 500 mg b.d. The other group was dosed with ranitidine 300 mg at 23.00 hours for at least 8 days using the same trial design. An upper endoscopy was performed to establish H. pylori status by rapid urease test, culture and histology before both periods of dosing. Twenty-four hour intragastric pH recording was performed on the final day of all periods of dosing. Results: H. pylori eradication significantly decreased the intragastric pH reached during lansoprazole treatment throughout all periods of the day. Intragastric pH during ranitidine treatment was not affected by H. pylori eradication, except for the late-night period. Conclusion: H. pylori eradication has a more pronounced effect on the acid-inhibiting properties of lansoprazole than on those of ranitidine.

CXCR4 is the receptor for the CXC chemokine SDF1 that has essential functions on embryo organogenesis, immunological functions and T lymphocyte trafficking. Recently, CXCR4 has drawn unexpected attention as it was recently identified as a co-factor required for entry of lymphotropic HIV isolates in CD4+ T lymphocytes. CXCR4 is the only SDF1 receptor identified so far. This suggests that CXCR4 expression is critical for the biological effects of SDF1. To investigate the mechanisms controlling both the constitutive and induced expression of CXCR4 receptors we have isolated and characterized the promoter region and determined the genomic structure of the human gene. The CXCR4 gene contains two exons separated by an intronic sequence. A 2.6 kb 5'-flanking region located upstream the CXCR4 open reading frame contains a TATA box and the transcription start site characteristic of a functional promoter. This region also contains putative consensus binding sequences for different transcription factors, some of them associated with the hemopoiesis and lymphocyte development., Journal Article, Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't, info:eu-repo/semantics/published