Treatment 'cultures', sexually transmitted infections and the rise of antimicrobial resistance.

In this article, we examine the current management of sexually transmitted infections (STIs), in the context of rising antimicrobial resistance (AMR), through the lens of 'treatment cultures'. Prevailing treatment cultures-including the prominence of syndromic care for STIs-foster certain possibilities and foreclose others, with important consequences for countering AMR. Drawing on qualitative interviews with STI professionals, experts and industry representatives, we unpack these stakeholders' accounts of STI treatment cultures, drawing out the importance of socio-historical (i.e. taboo and stigma), political-economic (i.e. perceptions of significance, profit-making and prioritisation) and subjective (i.e. patient contexts and reflexivity) dimensions therein. In developing this critical account of how treatment cultures are formed, reproduced and indeed resisted, we reveal how such discourses and practices render the reining in of AMR and shifting antibiotic use difficult, and yet, how productive engagement remains key to any proposed solutions. As such, the article contributes to our understanding of AMR as a highly diversified field, through our exploration of the bio-social dimensions of resistance as they relate to the case of STIs.

Determining a future policy focus to support antimicrobial stewardship in community pharmacy: A modified Delphi study.

Background: Over the past decade, the pharmacy sector's policy, academic and professional spheres have increasingly drawn attention to the opportunities to better leverage the untapped potential of the community pharmacy sector in contributing to global efforts to reduce antimicrobial resistance (AMR). While efforts are in train, progress is slow. Objective: To draw insights from global experts in the field to identify a broad range of potential future policy directions to support community pharmacists' involvement in antimicrobial stewardship (AMS). Methods: A modified Delphi technique, comprising two survey rounds to build consensus amongst global community pharmacy sector stakeholders and opinion leaders. In Round 1, participants rated their level of agreement with 28 statements across the three domains of policy design, implementation design, and monitoring and evaluation. Participants were also invited to contribute feedback in Round 1, which was reflected as new statements (n = 10) in Round 2. In Round 2, participants were asked to re-assess Round 1 statements in view of the group consensus and to rate the new statements. Results: 289 participants were invited to participate. 48/289 (17% response rate) completed Round 1, and 25/42 (60% response rate) completed Round 2. Consensus (defined as >70% agreement) was achieved for 79% (n = 30) of the statements across the three domains. Conclusion: Pharmacy sector experts agreed that acknowledging community pharmacists in AMS national action plans is an important component, signalling a recognition of the sector's contribution to whole-of-nation AMS efforts. Implementation components that achieved consensus reflect the profession's evolution to a professional service driven model, particularly in complementary AMS initiatives including infection prevention and control measures. Context-specific adjustments to support implementing these AMS measures will be required, in addition to striking the appropriate balance to support the pace of increased community pharmacists'involvement in AMS with building whole-of-profession buy-in.

Disruption, discontinuity and a licence to live: Responding to cancer diagnoses.

Although a diagnosis of a life-limiting cancer is likely to evoke emotions, such as fear, panic and anxiety, for some people it can also provide an opportunity to live life differently. This article is based on research undertaken in Aotearoa New Zealand on the topic of exceptional cancer trajectories. Eighty-one participants who had been identified as living with a cancer diagnosis longer than clinically expected were interviewed, along with 25 people identified by some of the participants as supporters in their journey. For some participants the diagnosis provided the opportunity to rethink their lives, to undertake lifestyle and consumption changes, to be culturally adventurous, to take up new skills, to quit work and to change relationships with others. The concepts of biographical disruption and posttraumatic growth are considered in relation to these accounts, and it is argued that the event of a cancer diagnosis can give license for people to breach social norms.

Regulating antimicrobial use within hospitals: A qualitative study.

OBJECTIVES: To examine how regulatory structures and processes focused on antimicrobial stewardship and antimicrobial resistance are experienced by hospital managers and clinicians. METHODS: Forty-two hospital managers and clinicians working within accreditation and antimicrobial stewardship teams in three Australian hospitals participated in individual in-depth interviews. Thematic analysis was performed. RESULTS: Thematic analysis revealed participants' experiences of hospital antimicrobial regulation and their perceptions of what would be required for meaningful antimicrobial optimisation. Theme 1: Experience of regulation of antimicrobials within hospitals: Participants described an increased profile of antimicrobial resistance with inclusion in regulatory requirements, but also the risks of bureaucratic manoeuvring to meet standards rather than governance-inducing systemic changes. Theme 2: Growth of accreditation processes and hospitals over time: Both regulatory requirements and hospitals were described as evolving over time, each manoeuvring in response to each other (e.g. development of short notice accreditation). Theme 3: Perceived requirements for change: Participants perceived a need for top-down buy-in, resource prioritisation, complex understanding of power and influence on clinician behaviour, and a critical need for medical engagement. CONCLUSIONS: This study around antimicrobials shows the tension and dynamic relationship between regulatory processes and hospital responses, bringing to light the enduring balance of a system that positions itself to meet regulatory requirements and emerging "demands", without necessarily addressing the key underlying concerns. Antimicrobial resistance-related solutions are perceived as likely to require further resourcing and buy-in across multiple levels, engagement across professional streams and require strategies that consider complex systems change in order for regulatory structures to have potency.

To swab or not to swab? A qualitative study of pathology testing, interpretation, and value in diabetes-related foot ulceration.

BACKGROUND: Diagnostic testing has been proposed as a key strategy to tackle escalating antimicrobial resistance (AMR). However, effectiveness of testing is limited by the complexities of the hospital environment, including human factors. OBJECTIVES: To examine swab-testing in diabetes-related foot infections as a case study of the factors impacting microbiology testing use, efficacy, and antimicrobial resistance. METHODS: Seventeen clinicians involved in the management of diabetes-related foot infections, including podiatrists, nurses, and doctors, participated in in-depth individual interviews conducted by a qualitative researcher on the investigation and management of diabetes-related foot infections. Thematic analysis was performed. RESULTS: The multilayered and evolving features of the human-diagnostic interface were described by participants as potential barriers to effective swab-testing in clinical care, including diagnostic training and interpretation deficits; communication difficulties; interpretation deficits and diagnostic assumptions; the influence of inter-professional dynamics; and flow-on consequences for patient decisions and care. CONCLUSIONS: Swab-testing has been used for over 100 years, and yet there remain substantial factors that limit their effective use in clinical practice as demonstrated by this study. A focus on upscaling diagnostic testing, particularly with escalating AMR, without considering complex implementation and human factors is likely to have limited impact on practice improvement. This study identified vulnerability points in the human-diagnostic interaction which should be considered in the implementation of other microbiological tests. This study on the simple wound swab has implications for future diagnostic upscaling and investment, including its role in address antimicrobial resistance.

Patient-reported outcome measurement in palliative care: A hermeneutic narrative review.

OBJECTIVES: Recent years have witnessed the rise of patient-reported outcome measures (PROMs) in palliative care (PC), particularly those focused on the standardized measurement of symptom burden. These measures seek to evaluate the quality of PC through the quantification of various aspects of potential suffering (e.g., sleeplessness, loss of appetite, and pain). Further, drawing on patient experience, they provide a framework for evaluating the effectiveness of, and at times expanding, PC services. The aim of this paper is to provide a theoretically informed normative critique of PROMS-PC through a critical engagement with heterogeneous literatures. METHODS: A hermeneutic narrative review underpinned by a view of "knowing" as an ongoing social accomplishment and inspired by complexity theory. RESULTS: This narrative review highlights some limitations to the development of PROMs, including the use of proxies to complete them, and how the outcomes may not always reflect either the character of PC or the key aspects of practice and experience therein. SIGNIFICANCE OF RESULTS: In their current form, PROMs have the potential to skew understandings of service quality, for example, by privileging one aspect of quality, that is, physical symptoms over other aspects of quality such as communication with care providers.

Consumer perceptions of community pharmacists' involvement in antimicrobial stewardship: A quantitative study.

Background Community pharmacist involvement in antimicrobial stewardship (AMS) within primary care is underutilised. Despite this view being consistently held across the pharmacy sector's policy, academic and professional spheres, there is limited understanding of how this positioning aligns with consumers' perceptions and expectations. Objective To explore participants' experience using antibiotics and their engagement with pharmacists to support their use. Methods Online survey of Australian adults recruited via Dynata's research panel in November 2022. Questions were organised into three sections: 1) understanding the participant's use of antibiotics, including their information needs; 2) exploring engagement with pharmacists on a cold and flu enquiry using a vignette question; and 3) demographic information. Results Doctors (42.0%), pharmacists (29.8%) and the internet including general searches (14.3%) were the top three sources for antibiotic information. Information about side effects and anticipated time to effect were more broadly sought from pharmacists than what was provided. Over 50% of respondents indicated alignment between the best practice example of a pharmacist providing cold and flu management advice with their own experience. 17% of respondents indicated that they would seek doctor's advice when considering cold and flu management options compared to 10% seeking pharmacist's advice. No statistically significant results between age groups or gender were observed. Conclusion Better visibility of community pharmacists' involvement in managing minor ailments in primary care, including more explicit linkage of pharmacist-administered vaccination services as an AMS strategy can support optimal antimicrobial use.

Hope in the era of precision oncology: a qualitative study of informal caregivers' experiences.

OBJECTIVES: To explore informal caregivers' perspectives on precision medicine in cancer care. DESIGN: Semi-structured interviews with the informal caregivers of people living with cancer and receiving targeted/immunotherapies. Interview transcripts were analysed thematically using a framework approach. SETTING: Recruitment was facilitated by two hospitals and five Australian cancer community groups. PARTICIPANTS: Informal caregivers (n=28; 16 men, 12 women; aged 18-80) of people living with cancer and receiving targeted/immunotherapies. RESULTS: Thematic analysis identified three findings, centred largely on the pervasive theme of hope in relation to precision therapies including: (1) precision as a key component of caregivers' hope; (2) hope as a collective practice between patients, caregivers, clinicians and others, which entailed work and obligation for caregivers; and (3) hope as linked to expectations of further scientific progress, even if there may be no personal, immediate benefit. CONCLUSIONS: Innovation and change in precision oncology are rapidly reconfiguring the parameters of hope for patients and caregivers, creating new and difficult relational moments and experiences in everyday life and in clinical encounters. In the context of a shifting therapeutic landscape, caregivers' experiences illustrate the need to understand hope as collectively produced, as emotional and moral labour, and as entangled in broader cultural expectations of medical advances. Such understandings may help clinicians as they guide patients and caregivers through the complexities of diagnosis, treatment, emerging evidence and possible futures in the precision era. Developing a better understanding of informal caregivers' experiences of caring for patients receiving precision therapies is important for improving support to patients and their caregivers.

The Enduring Effects of COVID for Cancer Care: Learning from Real-Life Clinical Practice.

For three years, COVID-19 has circulated among our communities and around the world, fundamentally changing social interactions, health care systems, and service delivery. For people living with (and receiving treatment for) cancer, pandemic conditions presented significant additional hurdles in an already unstable and shifting environment, including disrupted personal contact with care providers, interrupted access to clinical trials, distanced therapeutic encounters, multiple immune vulnerabilities, and new forms of financial precarity. In a 2020 perspective in this journal, we examined how COVID-19 was reshaping cancer care in the early stages of the pandemic and how these changes might endure into the future. Three years later, and in light of a series of interviews with patients and their caregivers from the United States and Australia conducted during the pandemic, we return to consider the potential legacy effects of the pandemic on cancer care. While some challenges to care provision and survivorship were unforeseen, others accentuated and amplified existing problems experienced by patients, caregivers, and health care providers. Both are likely to have enduring effects in the "post-pandemic" world, raising the importance of focusing on lessons that can be learned for the future.

Multidisciplinary team meetings in prosthetic joint infection management: A qualitative study.

BACKGROUND: Prosthetic joint infections (PJIs) cause substantial morbidity to patients and are extremely challenging for clinicians. Their management can include multiple operations, antibiotics, and prolonged hospital admissions. Multidisciplinary team meetings (MDTM) are increasingly used for collaborative decision-making around the management of PJIs, but thus far there has been no examination of the role of MDTM in decisions and management. This study aimed to examine interactions in a PJI MDTM to identify the dynamics in decision-making, and inter-specialty relationships more broadly. METHODS: Twelve MDTMs over 7 months at an Australian tertiary referral hospital were video recorded, transcribed, and thematic analysis was performed. RESULTS: Thematic analysis revealed four key areas of collaborative discussion 1. Achieving Inter-specialty Balance: The role of the multidisciplinary team discussion in providing balance between specialty views, and traversing the barriers between specialty interactions. 2. Negotiating Grey zones: there was frequent discussion of the limits of tests, interpretation of symptoms, and the limits of proposed operative strategies, and the resultant tensions of balancing ideal care vs pragmatic decision-making, and divergent goals of care. 3. Tailoring Treatment: identification of individual patient factors (both physiological and behavioural) and risks into collaborative decision-making. 4. Affording Failure: creating affordances in communication to openly discuss 'failure' to eliminate infection and likely negative outcomes. CONCLUSIONS: MDTM in the management of prosthetic joint infections serve multiple functions including: achieving interdisciplinary balance; effective grey zone management, tailoring reconfigured care; and most critically, recognition of 'failure' to eliminate infection, a communicative affordance most likely leading to better care.

Entanglements and imagined futures: The subject(s) of precision in oncology.

Precision oncology holds an increasingly powerful social function. In the era of precision, how people encounter, live with, and experience cancer, how they imagine their lives, how they navigate treatment regimens, and experience side effects, have been radically transformed. Innovations in oncology - in this case precision-related - are always more-than-clinical; their circulation exceeds the laboratory and the hospital, but what this 'circulation of innovation' produces has been thus far opaque. To begin to comprehend what is emergent at the cancer-precision nexus in people's everyday lives, we draw on qualitative interviews with twenty people diagnosed with metastatic non-small cell lung cancer undergoing immunotherapy and/or targeted therapy and we discuss how precision inflects survivorship, entangles subjects in chronic living, and induces novel temporalities. Through such inflections of survivorship, precision innovation re-shapes expectations and possibilities, and sometimes enacts new, unexpected (or, for some, unwanted) futures. Such illness and survivorship narratives indicate the importance of orientating the social science scholarship toward considerations of temporality and entanglements for comprehending precision innovation in oncology. And in doing so, provide a nuanced account of how innovations unsettle and recast, rather than unravel, the normative scene of cancer.

Community pharmacists as antimicrobial guardians and gatekeepers - A qualitative study of the perspectives of pharmacy sector stakeholders.

Background: Community pharmacists, as primary care providers, are an underutilised resource in antimicrobial stewardship (AMS). Primary care plays an important role in tackling antimicrobial resistance (AMR) as the principle of balancing access to antimicrobials while ensuring optimal use is agnostic to health setting. Understanding the sector's perceptions and practices towards AMS involvement is a continuing focus area of research. However, there is an opportunity to understand the sociological factors which influence the profession's contribution to stewardship practice, particularly across a broader spectrum of sector stakeholders at the individual, practice, system, and policy levels. Objective: To explore stakeholders' perceptions of the Australian community pharmacy sector's AMS involvement. Methods: Semi-structured interviews were conducted with fifteen key informants from the Australian community pharmacy sector. Participants' insights were invited across three broad areas: (1) understanding of AMR and AMS; and the (2) current and (3) future state of community pharmacy's AMS involvement. Interviews were audio-recorded, transcribed verbatim and analyzed using a combined method of inductive (informed by the Theoretical Domains Framework) and deductive thematic analysis. Results: Perceptions on promoting community pharmacists' AMS involvement within their existing role in promoting the quality use of medicines were heard. Adopting an antimicrobial guardian or gatekeeper role was perceived as influenced by the timing of their interaction with a patient either prior to, or post-consultation with a general practitioner (GP). Suggestions that the profession's potential and actual role in AMS could be challenged or even delimited due to lack of access to completeness of clinical information, and perceived consequences from a clinical and professional engagement perspective were also heard. Conclusion: Collaborative partnerships between GPs and community pharmacists, framing stewardship within a quality use of medicines agenda, and highlighting connections between pharmacists' professional services such as minor ailments are key elements enabling community pharmacist's antimicrobial gatekeeper and guardian role.

Masculinities and men's emotions in and after intimate partner relationships.

Men's emotions in intimate partner relationships have received little research attention. The current interpretive descriptive study included 30 Canadian-based men to address the research question: What are the connections between masculinities and men's emotions in and after intimate partner relationships? Three inductively derived themes included emergent distressing emotions wherein participants' predominance for holding in abeyance their concerns about the relationship manifested varying levels of emotional stoicism. Within this context most men denied or downplayed and did not express their emotions. When the relationship broke, men were overwhelmed by mixed and weighty break-up emotions comprising diverse and often-times discordant emotions, including sadness, shame, anger, regret and guilt, calling into question men's rationality for deciphering and expressing what was concurrently but inexplicably felt. Shame and anger were prominent emotions demanding the participant's attention to all that happened in and at the end of the relationship. In the third theme, understanding and transitioning after-burn emotions, participant's grief levered their efforts, including soliciting professional help for deconstructing, reframing and expressing their emotions in the aftermath of the partnership ending. The findings contextualise and in some instances counter claims about the utility of men's emotional stoicism by mapping participants' feelings in and after intimate partner relationships.

Review of position statements on antimicrobial resistance and stewardship from professional pharmacy organisations.

INTRODUCTION: Pharmacists play a key role in tackling the global public health threat of antimicrobial resistance (AMR) through contributing to antimicrobial stewardship (AMS) practices. Professional pharmacy organisations describe this AMS role in position statements. Understanding how this role is described, including the why and potential impact is a first step to understanding how this issue is described to the profession, and framed in advocacy. OBJECTIVE: To examine how pharmacy's role in optimising antimicrobial use is articulated in pharmacy professional organisations' position statements. METHODS: Publicly available AMR position statements were sourced between February 2021 and May 2021 from the available websites of all International Pharmaceutical Federation (FIP) member organisations, supplemented by a general engine search. Descriptive analysis was conducted with a focus on four key themes of interest: 1) rationale for pharmacists' involvement in AMS) 2) characterisation of pharmacists' AMS role; 3) perceived impact of pharmacists' involvement in AMS; and 4) perceived enablers and/or barriers to AMS involvement. RESULTS: 17 position statements were sourced and analysed. Professional pharmacy organisations appear to focus on characterising pharmacists as advisors and educators as their primary role in AMS, with this function supported by their medication knowledge and accessibility as a health service. Specific settings, such as hospital or community pharmacy, were often highlighted in the documents, and were associated with the framing of the capacity and nature of pharmacists' involvement in AMS. However, the limitations of pharmacists and their positions were not discussed. CONCLUSIONS: There is an opportunity for future research to explore the concordance between the expectation of pharmacists' involvement in AMS as outlined in these position statements, with the reality of their involvement. This is of importance in the primary care setting, as a key access point to antimicrobials globally.

Paradoxes of pandemic infection control: Proximity, pace and care within and beyond SARS-CoV-2.

From the adoption of mask-wearing in public settings to the omnipresence of hand-sanitising, the SARS-CoV-2 pandemic has brought unprecedented cultural attention to infection prevention and control (IPC) in everyday life. At the same time, the pandemic threat has enlivened and unsettled hospital IPC processes, fracturing confidence, demanding new forms of evidence, and ultimately involving a rapid reassembling of what constitutes safe care. Here, drawing on semi-structured interviews with 63 frontline healthcare workers from two states in Australia, interviewed between September 2020 and March 2021, we illuminate some of the affective dimensions of IPC at a time of rapid change and evolving uncertainty. We track how a collective sense of risk and safety is relationally produced, redefining attitudes and practices around infective risk, and transforming accepted paradigms of care and self-protection. Drawing on Puig de la Bellacasa's formulation, we propose the notion of IPC as a multidimensional matter of care. Highlighting the complex negotiation of space and time in relation to infection control and care illustrates a series of paradoxes, the understanding of which helps illuminate not only how IPC works, in practice, but also what it means to those working on the frontline of the pandemic.

A qualitative study of barriers to antimicrobial stewardship in Indonesian hospitals: governance, competing interests, cost, and structural vulnerability.

BACKGROUND: Antimicrobial resistance (AMR) is one of the leading global public health threats of the 21st Century. Antimicrobial stewardship (AMS) programmes have been shown to improve antibiotic use and clinical outcomes in high-income settings, but context-specific evidence is lacking on the value and effectiveness of current AMS programmes in low-resource settings. This study sought to explore context-specific underlying barriers to AMS implementation in Indonesian hospitals with a focus on governance practices and structural vulnerabilities. METHODS: We conducted semi-structured interviews with physicians, surgeons, clinical microbiologists, pharmacists, AMS team leaders, hospital managers, medical students, and national AMR stakeholders, and performed a thematic analysis. RESULTS: Based on 51 interviews conducted between January and October 2020, four main barriers to AMS implementation were evident in the participants' experiences: (1) Ineffective resourcing and institutional buy-in regarding mandatory AMS under hospital accreditation; (2) Entangled priorities to generate profits and interprofessional relationships between doctors and hospital managers or AMS leaders; (3) Cost-prohibitive bacterial culture testing and thresholds of national health insurance coverage; (4) Unreliable infrastructures, including microbiology laboratory and surgical facilities, ensuring high antibiotic usage to cover structural vulnerabilities. CONCLUSIONS: Limited progress will be made with implementing AMS in Indonesian hospitals, and in settings with similar structural features, without addressing concerns around governance, competing interests, cost and structural vulnerabilities.

'We're welcomed into people's homes every day' versus 'we're the people that come and arrest you': The relational production of masculinities and vulnerabilities among male first responders.

Encouraging men to open-up about their feelings is a new cultural directive, yet little is known about how this works in practice, including to promote mental health. Ideals of hegemonic masculinity may be increasingly tolerating expressions of vulnerability in some areas of social life. However, the expression of vulnerability in paid work and/or career situations is regulated by organisational ideals and circumstances that may also produce distress. To address uncertainty in the literature, we investigated the experiences of men in traditionally male dominated professions, namely first responders (police, paramedics, and firefighters/rescue). Twenty-one UK based men of diverse ranks and experience currently working within first responder services participated in semi-structured telephone interviews. Distress was positioned as an inevitable part of the work. Yet, striking differences in institutionalised ways of expressing vulnerabilities differentiated the experiences of frontline workers, contributing to a wide spectrum of men's silence right through to relative openness about vulnerability, both in the workplace and domestic spheres. The findings provide importanat insights into how vulnerability is institutionally regulated, illuminating and contrasting how the possibilities for male vulnerabilities are socially produced.

Perceptions, views and practices regarding antibiotic prescribing and stewardship among hospital physicians in Jakarta, Indonesia: a questionnaire-based survey.

OBJECTIVES: Antibiotic overuse is one of the main drivers of antimicrobial resistance (AMR), especially in low-income and middle-income countries. This study aimed to understand the perceptions and views towards AMR, antibiotic prescribing practice and antimicrobial stewardship (AMS) among hospital physicians in Jakarta, Indonesia. DESIGN: Cross-sectional, self-administered questionnaire-based survey, with descriptive statistics, exploratory factor analysis (EFA) to identify distinct underlying constructs in the dataset, and multivariable linear regression of factor scores to analyse physician subgroups. SETTING: Six public and private acute-care hospitals in Jakarta in 2019. PARTICIPANTS: 1007 of 1896 (53.1% response rate) antibiotic prescribing physicians. RESULTS: Physicians acknowledged the significance of AMR and contributing factors, rational antibiotic prescribing, and purpose and usefulness of AMS. However, this conflicted with reported suboptimal local hospital practices, such as room cleaning, hand hygiene and staff education, and views regarding antibiotic decision making. These included insufficiently applying AMS principles and utilising microbiology, lack of confidence in prescribing decisions and defensive prescribing due to pervasive diagnostic uncertainty, fear of patient deterioration or because patients insisted. EFA identified six latent factors (overall Crohnbach's α=0.85): awareness of AMS activities; awareness of AMS purpose; views regarding rational antibiotic prescribing; confidence in antibiotic prescribing decisions; perception of AMR as a significant problem; and immediate actions to contain AMR. Factor scores differed across hospitals, departments, work experience and medical hierarchy. CONCLUSIONS: AMS implementation in Indonesian hospitals is challenged by institutional, contextual and diagnostic vulnerabilities, resulting in externalising AMR instead of recognising it as a local problem. Appropriate recognition of the contextual determinants of antibiotic prescribing decision making will be critical to change physicians' attitudes and develop context-specific AMS interventions.

Processes underpinning survival in gay men living with HIV and a history of suicidality.

Gay men living with HIV represent a particularly high risk group for suicide; however, little is known about suicidality, specifically, resiliencies in the context of suicidality among this particular group of men. The current study draws on photovoice and grounded theory methods to examine the processes that underpin survival for gay men living with HIV who have experienced suicidality. Twenty-two Canadian-based gay men participated, taking photographs to depict and discuss their perspectives on resiliencies. Analyses revealed three processes that supported men's survival: (1) connecting to key supports, (2) finding sanctity in the outdoors, and (3) giving help as purposeful value-adding. Connecting to key supports highlighted the utility of connection and therapeutic communication, listening and support provided by friends, family and professionals. Finding sanctity in the outdoors emphasised the healing capacity of outdoor green spaces, and giving help as purposeful value-adding illustrated the meaning and purpose men derived from supporting others. These findings can inform public health and primary care interventions to foster gay men's resilience and coping, and ultimately suicide prevention efforts.

What is the healthcare utilisation and out-of-pocket expenditure associated with osteoarthritis? A cross-sectional study.

OBJECTIVE: To examine the use and out-of-pocket expenses resulting from consultations, products and practices across conventional, self-care, and complementary medicine (CM) treatments for osteoarthritis (OA) among Australian women. DESIGN, SETTING AND PARTICIPANTS: A cross-sectional survey of 800 women from the 45 and Up Study who had reported a clinical diagnosis of OA. OUTCOME MEASURES: Women's use of conventional, CM and self-prescribed treatments for OA and the associated out-of-pocket cost. RESULTS: Completed questionnaires were returned by 403 women (50.4%). Their average time since the first diagnosis of OA was 15.4 years, and self-rated severity of OA was 5.1 (out of 10) over the past 12 months. During the previous year, 67.0% of the women consulted a doctor, 39.2% consulted an allied health practitioner and 34.7% consulted a CM practitioner for their OA. Some women (19%) consulted with practitioner(s) from all three practitioner groups, 27% consulted with practitioner(s) from two of the three practitioner groups, while 6% consulted with a CM practitioner only. Women with a greater time since diagnosis had more consultations, as did women who rated their OA as more severe. Women's average combined out-of-pocket expenditure for OA-related healthcare consultations, prescription medications, products, and practices was $673 per annum. Extrapolated to all Australian women with OA, aged 50 years and over, the total out-of-pocket expenditure for this condition is estimated to be $873 million per annum. CONCLUSIONS: Australian women with OA use a range of conventional and CM consultations, self-care, products and practices to manage their condition, incurring significant out-of-pocket expenses. Given the high individual and societal burden of OA, there is a need for further research into the concurrent use of different healthcare resources with a view to providing safe, cost-effective management of OA across the healthcare system and the wider community.