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As the use of guided digitally-delivered cognitive-behavioral therapy (GdCBT) grows, pragmatic analytic tools are needed to evaluate coaches’ implementation fidelity.
Aims
We evaluated how natural language processing (NLP) and machine learning (ML) methods might automate the monitoring of coaches’ implementation fidelity to GdCBT delivered as part of a randomized controlled trial.
Method
Coaches served as guides to 6-month GdCBT with 3,381 assigned users with or at risk for anxiety, depression, or eating disorders. CBT-trained and supervised human coders used a rubric to rate the implementation fidelity of 13,529 coach-to-user messages. NLP methods abstracted data from text-based coach-to-user messages, and 11 ML models predicting coach implementation fidelity were evaluated.
Results
Inter-rater agreement by human coders was excellent (intra-class correlation coefficient = .980–.992). Coaches achieved behavioral targets at the start of the GdCBT and maintained strong fidelity throughout most subsequent messages. Coaches also avoided prohibited actions (e.g. reinforcing users’ avoidance). Sentiment analyses generally indicated a higher frequency of coach-delivered positive than negative sentiment words and predicted coach implementation fidelity with acceptable performance metrics (e.g. area under the receiver operating characteristic curve [AUC] = 74.48%). The final best-performing ML algorithms that included a more comprehensive set of NLP features performed well (e.g. AUC = 76.06%).
Conclusions
NLP and ML tools could help clinical supervisors automate monitoring of coaches’ implementation fidelity to GdCBT. These tools could maximize allocation of scarce resources by reducing the personnel time needed to measure fidelity, potentially freeing up more time for high-quality clinical care.
Lexical Multidimensional Analysis (LMDA), an extension of Biber's (1988) Multidimensional Analysis, seeks to identify dimensions (correlated lexical features across texts in a corpus) unveiling underlying patterns of lexical co-occurrence and variation within texts that are operationalized as a variety of latent, macro-level discursive constructs. Initially developed in the 2010s, LMDA has been applied to diverse domains, including education policy, national representations, applied linguistics, music, the infodemic, religion, sustainability, and literary style. This Element introduces LMDA for the identification and analysis of discourses and ideologies, offering insights into how lexis marks discourse formations and ideological alignments. Two case studies demonstrate the application of LMDA: uncovering discourses on climate change within conservative social media and analyzing ideological discourses in migrant education.
Labelling specific psychiatric concerns as ‘niche’ topics relegated to specialty journals obstructs high-quality research and clinical care for these issues. Despite their severity, eating disorders are under-represented in high-impact journals, underfunded, and under-addressed in psychiatric training. We provide recommendations to stimulate broad knowledge dissemination for under-acknowledged, yet severe, psychiatric disorders.
Background: The FIRST Trial is a 5-year study funded by the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality. Our investigation is situated within a more extensive study to restrict fluoroquinolone antibiotics by requiring providers to obtain authorization from an infectious disease physician before prescribing fluoroquinolones. Our research team is performing a systematic evaluation to identify organizational characteristics and influencers of the fluoroquinolone preprescription authorization implementation process to understand variables that may facilitate or hinder implementation success. Methods: To address this critical gap, we present a qualitative analysis from our ongoing, multisite research project aimed at systematically assessing the adoption of an antimicrobial stewardship intervention in the form of an EHR-integrated best-practice alert (BPA) at each site to identify work system factors that impact uptake and variability in the implementation of the BPA at each location. The evaluation provides a detailed explanation of activities through the implementation process (eg, before implementation, during implementation, and after implementation) to assess how an organization effectively negotiates the phases and transitions, ultimately influencing the impact of the intervention. We have used a contextual determinant framework (CFIR) that has enabled us to perform a systematic and comprehensive exploration and identification of potential explanatory themes or variables to shed light on the complex social phenomenon of implementation. Results: Participants who will be a part of our poster presentation will learn about implementing a BPA, the potential barriers to implementation, and strategies for overcoming these barriers. Stakeholders within our study include site coordinators, medical doctors, nurses, pharmacists, and clinical informaticists. Our analysis synthesizes their experiences implementing and sustaining this evidence-based antimicrobial stewardship intervention. It includes (1) a detailed description of the process of change, (2) work-system factors (eg, inner setting and outer setting) that they believe influenced the success of the intervention, (3) barriers and facilitators (eg, CFIR constructs) within the implementation process; and (4) description of how these could have influenced the outcomes of interest (eg, implementation and intervention effectiveness). Conclusions: Our research is expected to advance patient safety research and initiatives by providing a more robust approach to performing systematic intervention evaluations. By outlining stakeholders’ experiences within our study, implementation leaders within healthcare systems will utilize our findings to aid them in their design and implementation process when designing and implementing similar types of healthcare interventions.
Farmers and food entrepreneurs are encouraged to enter direct and intermediated markets for value-added food products, but do not have information that they need to determine whether the markets are financially feasible for their operations. We conduct timed trials in a state-of-the-art regional shared-use food processing facility in the Northeast, and test production costs for two high-quality, safe, value-added frozen products: blueberries and spinach. We combine this with research on capital costs, field research on distribution costs and baseline per-unit revenues, and published research on potential market returns, and assess the conditions under which frozen produce sales can be a good business choice for farmers and food businesses in local and regional food markets. We develop a roadmap and a calculator tool that potential market entrants, extension agents, regional food business centers and other agricultural support providers can modify to reflect local and regional market conditions. The tool can help determine whether entering the frozen produce market is a good fit for a farm or food business. In general, we find that frozen regional blueberries have potential to generate a profitable return for medium-scale farmers with access to a shared-use facility, or farmer aggregators with the ability to invest in their own facilities. Frozen regional spinach is unlikely to generate a profitable return at the regional scale. Our results provide critical information to policy makers regarding the scale of production necessary to justify investments in regional shared-used kitchens. Results also suggest that policy makers should be cautious when encouraging farmers and food businesses to enter value-added markets, as there is significant potential for these markets to under-perform.
Many individuals with first-episode psychosis experience severe and persistent social disability despite receiving specialist early intervention. The SUPEREDEN3 trial assessed whether augmenting early intervention in psychosis services with Social Recovery Therapy (SRT) would lead to better social recovery.
Aims:
A qualitative process evaluation was conducted to explore implementation and mechanisms of SRT impact from the perspective of SUPEREDEN3 participants.
Method:
A subsample of SUPEREDEN3 trial participants (n = 19) took part in semi-structured interviews, which were transcribed verbatim and analysed thematically. Trial participants were early intervention service users aged 16–35 years with severe and persistent social disability. Both SRT plus early intervention and early intervention alone arm participants were interviewed to facilitate better understanding of the context in which SRT was delivered and to aid identification of mechanisms specific to SRT.
Results:
The six themes identified were used to generate an explanatory model of SRT’s enhancement of social recovery. Participant experiences highlight the importance of the therapist cultivating increased self-understanding and assertively encouraging clients to face feared situations in a way that is perceived as supportive, while managing ongoing symptoms. The sense of achievement generated by reaching targets linked to personally meaningful goals promotes increased self-agency, and generates hope and optimism.
Conclusions:
The findings suggest potentially important processes through which social recovery was enhanced in this trial, which will be valuable in ensuring the benefits observed can be replicated. Participant accounts provide hope that, with the right support, even clients who have persistent symptoms and the most severe disability can make a good social recovery.
This research note seeks to offer some resolution to the theoretical disagreements over how democratization affects civil society, specifically in a transition toward democracy that occurs through pacted settlements of an armed internal conflict. Using a comparative study over time of the labor movement in El Salvador, the authors demonstrate that while unions of the political center and left have weakened since the signing of the Salvadoran Peace Accords, independent labor groups show higher levels of organizing and right-leaning unions have maintained nearly constant levels of organizing. But the labor movement has become atomized because unions have been unable to redefine their once-common political goals to adopt other unified stances in the postwar period. The data show that the unions that have relinquished excessively politicized stances or never claimed them are the ones that survive and sometimes grow in the postwar environment. These findings have implications for the nature of the emerging Salvadoran democracy and the economic well-being of its citizens.
If you are in a professional psychology training program, it is likely that you will be asked to be a clinical supervisor at some point in your career. In fact, based on an extensive survey of the members of the American Psychological Association (APA) division that represents clinical psychologists (Division 12; Society of Clinical Psychology), it was determined that clinical supervision is provided by 55 percent of university professors, 71 percent of hospital psychologists, and 36 percent of independent practitioners (Norcross et al., 2005). For many of you, this is an eagerly anticipated activity, and for others, it may be a source of some uncertainty or even anxiety. The purpose of this chapter is to demystify the idea of becoming a supervisor by providing broad theoretical models for conceptualizing the practice of supervision and practical suggestions to guide you through the process of learning to be a supervisor.
An estimated 25% of blood tests are unnecessary with an annual cost to the trust of approx. £26.5 million. Aside from the huge financial impact, patients are undergoing unnecessary invasive procedures with detrimental impact on lab flow processes and inappropriate use of Doctor and Nursing Staff time. Some young people have multiple admissions to Beechcroft in a short space of time or bloods checked in A + E prior to transfer are missed and replicated. Longstanding use of blood template terms “Admission bloods” or “Eating Disorder Bloods” has added to the problem. Initial scoping exercise found one young person had 40 blood tests during their admission. AIM STATEMENT: Reduce baseline blood testing of Glucose, Lipids and TFTs by 10% by June 2021
Methods
QI project commenced December 2019 using the IHI Model for Improvement Methodology was promoted by the project team through conversations with staff, unit meetings, email and posters.
Outcome Measure: Total glucose, lipid and TFT blood tests recorded fortnightly for the unit over 18 months
Process Measures: Training as part of new nursing staff induction, reminders in daily nursing handover, number of staff attending Biochemistry liaison meetings
Balance Measures: Reduced blood test costs, reduced unnecessary staff workload
Change Ideas
6 PDSA cycles were implemented
• Separate Bloods Diary for each ward – January 2020
• Blood diary brought into weekly care planning meetings – July 2020
• Education Posters displayed in ward clinical rooms – September 2020
• MDT meeting with Clinical Biochemistry – April 2021
• Junior Doctor to update bloods diary post weekly care-planning – May 2021
• Bloods diary brought to daily nursing handover & dissemination of new monitoring guidelines – June 2021
Results
Glucose tests reduced by 68% with new median of 2.2 instead of 7. Lipids and TFTs median of 10 remains unchanged.
Conclusion
COVID-19 has disrupted monitoring. Fundamental changes made within our service by stopping blood glucose monitoring and using BMs instead has led to significant improvements. We will continue to monitor results following 2 recent change ideas. We hope to include patient feedback moving forward.
This chapter explores cultural practices of reenacting the past in the present. How have understandings of reenactment, embodiment, and lived experience shaped, constrained, and misdirected interpretations of people’s actions in the present that purposefully reference the past? What is the state of this scholarship? What are the principal critiques and new directions?
Only a small area of the Australian mainland was glaciated during the Pleistocene, whereas periglacial deposits are far more common, indicating that cold environments were extensive and a major influence on landscape evolution. Here we identify representative low-elevation examples of scree slopes and frost action, together with fans and valley fills, indicating pronounced erosion cycles during the Pleistocene. To date the deposits, we explore approaches using radiocarbon, optically stimulated luminescence, and profile dating using the cosmogenic nuclide 10Be. The radiocarbon and optical ages show that screes, alluvial valley fill, and fans were deposited between 66–13 ka during the coldest part of the last glacial cycle, and within the previous glacial cycle. Exposure dating indicates further landscape erosion cycles back to the mid Pleistocene. Together, the deposits indicate the frost cracking limit was ~1300 m lower at 680 ± 10 m and mean winter temperature was 8.2 ± 0.5°C colder than present. Periglacial conditions probably affected much of southeastern Australia. The treeless and dry conditions resulted in widespread erosion and increased run off. Combined with increased snow storage within catchments, rivers were paradoxically larger, with high seasonal discharge and sediment loads.
Poor connectivity between diverse resource users and complex wider governance networks is a challenge in environmental governance. Organizations that ‘broker’ interactions among these relationships are expected to improve governance outcomes. Here, we used semi-structured interviews and social network analysis to identify actors in positions to broker coral reef-related information to and from resource users and to assess the performance of these brokers. Representatives (n = 262) of actor groups were interviewed, including local and national government, non-governmental organizations (NGOs), community organizations and resource user groups from 12 communities across four Caribbean countries, to map information-sharing networks and to identify brokers. Broker performance was assessed through separate interviews with coral reef resource users (n = 545). The findings show that marine NGOs were the highest-functioning brokers. Where such local-level organizations were absent, government agencies in reef management roles acted as brokers, but their performance was lower. Actors in brokerage positions did not always effectively share information, with broker performance being positively correlated with network brokerage scores. The results further our understanding of the roles of brokers in different governance contexts. Identifying those in brokerage positions and supporting their roles in connecting local resource users to wider governance networks could encourage functional brokerage and enhance reef management outcomes.
OBJECTIVES/GOALS: Aims 1&2: Develop (1) and implement (2) online, guided self-help intervention for ED psychopathology and weight reduction. Aim 3: Follow-up to track remission of ED psychopathology and symptoms and WL maintenance at end of treatment and 6-months. METHODS/STUDY POPULATION: N = 60 college students meeting criteria (clinical/sub-clinical binge-type ED with BMI > 25) will complete a baseline survey and then will be randomized into a condition. Students in the intervention group (n = 30) will be offered 8 weeks of an online, guided self-help intervention for ED and WL. Students in the control group (n = 30) will receive an email message to seek support from Student Health Services. All participants will receive follow-ups 9 weeks and 6 months after baseline. Data analysis will compare Eating Disorder Examination Questionnaire (EDE-Q) scores and WL (change in BMI) at all three time-points. Group comparisons will be assessed via two-way mixed-model ANOVA. RESULTS/ANTICIPATED RESULTS: Recruitment is still ongoing. Data collected by the time of the conference will be presented on the poster. DISCUSSION/SIGNIFICANCE OF IMPACT: Online, guided self-help interventions have been used for WL, as well as for treatment of EDs separately, but no program exists to manage these commonly comorbid conditions concurrently. Thus, this pilot study will examine the effectiveness of combined programs to breach this treatment gap.
The prevalence of mental health conditions and national suicide rates are increasing in many countries. Lithium is widely and effectively used in pharmacological doses for the treatment and prevention of manic/depressive episodes, stabilising mood and reducing the risk of suicide. Since the 1990s, several ecological studies have tested the hypothesis that trace doses of naturally occurring lithium in drinking water may have a protective effect against suicide in the general population.
Aims
To synthesise the global evidence on the association between lithium levels in drinking water and suicide mortality rates.
Method
The MEDLINE, Embase, Web of Science and PsycINFO databases were searched to identify eligible ecological studies published between 1 January 1946 and 10 September 2018. Standardised regression coefficients for total (i.e. both genders combined), male and female suicide mortality rates were extracted and pooled using random-effects meta-analysis. The study was registered with PROSPERO (CRD42016041375).
Results
The literature search identified 415 articles; of these, 15 ecological studies were included in the synthesis. The random-effects meta-analysis showed a consistent protective (or inverse) association between lithium levels/concentration in publicly available drinking water and total (pooled β = −0.27, 95% CI −0.47 to −0.08; P = 0.006, I2 = 83.3%), male (pooled β = −0.26, 95% CI −0.56 to 0.03; P = 0.08, I2 = 91.9%) and female (pooled β = −0.13, 95% CI −0.24 to −0.02; P = 0.03, I2 = 28.5%) suicide mortality rates. A similar protective association was observed in the six studies included in the narrative synthesis, and subgroup meta-analyses based on the higher/lower suicide mortality rates and lithium levels/concentration.
Conclusions
This synthesis of ecological studies, which are subject to the ecological fallacy/bias, supports the hypothesis that there is a protective (or inverse) association between lithium intakes from public drinking water and suicide mortality at the population level. Naturally occurring lithium in drinking water may have the potential to reduce the risk of suicide and may possibly help in mood stabilisation, particularly in populations with relatively high suicide rates and geographical areas with a greater range of lithium concentration in the drinking water. All the available evidence suggests that randomised community trials of lithium supplementation of the water supply might be a means of testing the hypothesis, particularly in communities (or settings) with demonstrated high prevalence of mental health conditions, violent criminal behaviour, chronic substance misuse and risk of suicide.
The early intervention service (EIS) approach is based on therapeutic interactions, which promote service user recovery from first episode psychosis. Collaborative therapeutic work between the service user and case manager depends on good communication. This can be a challenge for people with psychosis as the process of thought can be disrupted or stimulus misinterpreted leading to communication errors.
Objective
The objective is to develop an interactive tool that can assist service user's communication of distress, whilst employing a psychoeducational approach to the use of an informal therapeutic measurement scale; subjective units of distress (SUDs) and early warning signs (EWS). The ApTiC mobile intervention will include ten numerically graded emoticons from low to extreme distress. Each emoticon is associated with specific individualised service user descriptors and linked to an individually agreed action plan and level of response to be offered by a staff member.
Aim
The aim of the present study will be to examine the feasibility and acceptability of the ApTic mobile intervention in preparation for a larger randomised controlled trial.
Methods
Phase one: qualitative research to inform the development of the complimentary tool and mobile app (qualitative). Phase two: a 12-week rater-blinded randomized control trial of ApTiC compared to routine EIS case management (quantitative).
Results
The qualitative data will be presented.
Conclusions
It is expected that once validated, the SUDs based ApTiC will enhance rapport and understanding thus improving the recovery approach to well-being and hopefully preventing relapse or the involvement of the crisis team or hospital admissions.
Disclosure of interest
The authors have not supplied their declaration of competing interest.
We Are All Treaty People is a Canadian play for young audiences (ages eight to twelve) that addresses difficult knowledge, Elders’ story sharing, and contemporary and historical Indigenous–settler relations. This article discusses the contemporary and historical political context of the play and its production, the creation process and its narrative anchors. It argues that through a respectful, Indigenous-led creation process, and structural techniques, the play has the potential to offer hope and healing, and encourage relationships based on knowledge.