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There is a lack of highly reliable tools evaluating healthcare professionals' competences on Pediatric Palliative Care (PPC) and Pain Therapy (PT). The aim of this study is to document the development of an online questionnaire to assess Perceived, Wished and Actual Knowledge of healthcare workers on PPC/PT. The tool was built on the basis of the Italian Society for Palliative Care PPC Core Curriculum (CC) for physicians, nurses and psychologists. Face validity, internal consistency and the underlying structure were evaluated after a field testing in a referral hospital, Friuli-Venezia Giulia, Italy. One hundred five respondents completed the questionnaire. High internal consistency for both scales of Perceived and Wished Knowledge was found (α = 0.95 and α = 0.94, respectively). Psychologists reported higher levels of self-Perceived skills on the psychosocial needs of the child and family at the end of life (p = 0.006), mourning (p = 0.003) and ethics and deontology in PT/PC (p = 0.049). Moreover, when Actual Knowledge was tested, they also provided the highest number of correct answers (p = 0.022). No differences were found by profession for Wished Knowledge. The questionnaire showed promising psychometric properties. Our findings suggest the need of continuous training in this field and identify contents to be addressed in future training programs. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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The molecular recognition of R- and T- states of human adult hemoglobin by a paramagnetic Gd(III) complex by means of the measurement of solvent water proton relaxation rate indicate that the stereo-chemical and NMR properties of suitable lanthanide complexes provides a useful means for assessing changes in the protein structure. The inclusion of small amounts of a paramagnetic complex in red blood cells provide useful insights for novel functional imaging experiments.

Thermal stress can influence the recovery of fish released after capture. Vitality assessments using reflex and behavioural responses require that responses can be observed reliably, independent of temperature. Here, we tested whether reflex and behavioural impairment and survival of beam-trawled and discarded European plaice ( Pleuronectes platessa ) are independent from seasonal air and water temperature deviations. In total, 324 beam-trawled plaice ( n  = 196 in summer and n  = 128 in winter) were exposed to two air temperature treatments and two water treatments (i.e. modified and ambient temperatures for both). The modified treatments (i.e. cooled in summer, warmed in winter) represent the thermal shock a fish may experience when being returned to the water. All reflexes and tested behaviours were affected by ambient temperature, with high impairment noted in summer. None of the reflexes were affected by temperature shocks alone, only body flex was. Body flex was highly impaired under every exposure combination. Fish size and duration of air exposure further influenced impairment of reflexes such as head complex and tail grab. More generally, post-release survival was assessed as 21% [95% CI: 16-28%] in summer and 99% [97-100%] in winter. Beam trawling in summer is likely to induce high reflex impairment and mortality in discarded plaice, and therefore spatial-temporal mitigation approaches should be prioritized over control of on-board temperatures., (© The Author(s) 2024. Published by Oxford University Press and the Society for Experimental Biology.)

Summary: Background. Disability Management (DM) was born to improve workers' health and to optimize return to work for people with disabilities. Objectives. The objective of this study was to elaborate a review of reviews published in literature on the use of Disability Management in international contexts and the strategies used to facilitate the return to work for individuals with cronic disabilities or post injury. Methods. The present review was carried out by consulting the Pubmed and Scopus database from 1994 to January 2021, according to the PRISMA guidelines. Initially, the duplicates were removed. Then, the eligible studies were selected through a multistep approach (title evaluation, abstract and full-text). The systematic reviews were evaluated using the AMSTAR method, while for the narrative reviews the INSA scale was used. Results. The research produced 186 results. Following the removal of the duplicates and articles with no available or not pertinent full text, 51 reviews were included: 17 systematic and 34 narrative. The analyzed studies were related to the DM policies of the United States, Canada and UK. Ten topics emerged, the most frequent ones including: possible solutions to adopt in the event of workers with musculo-skeletal diseases (50% of the studies); legal matters regarding issues of mental health and stress (41.2%). The quality of the articles was generally high. Discussion. The systematic review showed that the research activity on DM is conducted mainly in the Anglo-Saxon world. This review can give some interesting insights for the full implementation of DM at the national level., Competing Interests: The authors of this article have no conflict of interests to disclose., (Copyright© by GIMLE.)

Background: Hypertension is the leading cause of death in developed countries and reduction of salt intake is recommended as a key preventive measure., Objective: To assess the dietary sodium and potassium intakes in a national sample of Italian children and adolescents and to examine their relationships with BMI and blood pressure (BP) in the framework of the MINISAL survey, a program supported by the Italian Ministry of Health., Population and Methods: The study population included 1424 healthy subjects (766 boys, 658 girls) aged 6-18 years (mean age: 10.1±2.9) who were consecutively recruited in participating National Health Service centers in 10 Italian regions. Electrolyte intake was estimated from 24 hour urine collections tested for completeness by the concomitant measurement of creatinine content. Anthropometric indices and BP were measured with standardized procedures., Results: The average estimated sodium intake was 129 mmol (7.4 g of salt) per day among boys and 117 mmol (6.7 g of salt) among girls. Ninety-three percent of the boys and 89% of the girls had a consumption higher than the recommended age-specific standard dietary target. The estimated average daily potassium intakes were 39 mmol (1.53 g) and 36 mmol (1.40 g), respectively, over 96% of the boys and 98% of the girls having a potassium intake lower than the recommended adequate intake. The mean sodium/potassium ratio was similar among boys and girls (3.5 and 3.4, respectively) and over 3-fold greater than the desirable level. Sodium intake was directly related to age, body mass and BP in the whole population., Conclusions: The Italian pediatric population is characterized by excessive sodium and deficient potassium intake. These data suggest that future campaigns should focus on children and adolescents as a major target in the framework of a population strategy of cardiovascular prevention.