A framework of research priorities in COVID rehabilitation from the Rehabilitation Science Research Network for COVID: an international consultation involving qualitative and quantitative research.

PURPOSE: To identify research priorities related to COVID rehabilitation from the perspectives of persons with lived experiences, clinicians, researchers, community organization and policy representatives. MATERIALS & METHODS: We conducted five international consultations to identify key issues and research priorities in COVID rehabilitation using (i) web-based questionnaires, (ii) synchronous discussions, and (iii) content analysis of COVID rehabilitation research conference presentations. We collated responses and notes and then analyzed data using content analytical techniques. RESULTS: The Framework of Research Priorities in COVID Rehabilitation includes five priorities that span health and disability across COVID-19 and Long COVID illness trajectories: (1) understanding experiences of episodic disability; (2) assessing episodic disability; (3) identifying and examining safe approaches to rehabilitation; (4) examining the role, implementation, and impact of models of rehabilitation care; and (5) examining access to safe, timely and appropriate rehabilitation and other health care provider services. The Framework identifies target populations, methodological considerations, and highlights the importance of integrated knowledge translation and exchange in advancing scientific evidence, clinical education, practice, and COVID rehabilitation policy. CONCLUSIONS: This Framework provides a foundation to advance COVID, disability and rehabilitation research to advance the health and well-being of persons with COVID-19, Long COVID, and their caregivers.Implications for rehabilitationPersons with COVID-19 or Long COVID and their caregivers may experience multi-dimensional forms of disability spanning physical, cognitive, emotional health challenges, difficulties with daily function, and social inclusion, which individually and/or collectively may be unpredictable, episodic and/or chronic in nature.Rehabilitation has a role in preventing or mitigating disability and enhancing health outcomes for persons with COVID-19, Long COVID and their caregivers.The Framework of Research Priorities COVID Rehabilitation includes five overlapping research priorities spanning health and disability across COVID trajectories: (1) understanding experiences of episodic disability; (2) assessing episodic disability; (3) identifying and examining safe approaches to rehabilitation; (4) examining the role, implementation, and impact of models of rehabilitation care; and (5) examining access to safe, timely and appropriate rehabilitation and other health care provider services.The research priorities in the Framework represent a comprehensive approach to examine disability and rehabilitation across COVID illness trajectories and the broad continuums of rehabilitation care to provide a coordinated and collaborative approach to advancing evidence in COVID disability and rehabilitation.This Framework provides a foundation for international and interdisciplinary collaborations, to advance COVID disability and rehabilitation research to enhance health outcomes of persons with COVID-19, Long COVID, and their caregivers.

Development and impact of a tailored eHealth resource on fibromyalgia patient's self-management and self-efficacy: A mixed methods approach.

Aim: To develop an eHealth resource to support fibromyalgia patients and explore it for usability and impact on their self-management and self-efficacy. Background: Fibromyalgia is a complex, non-progressive chronic condition characterised by a bewildering array of symptoms for patients to self-manage. International guidelines recommend patients receive illness-specific information once diagnosed to promote self-management and improve health-related quality of life. Design: A 3-phase mixed methods exploratory sequential design. Methods: Qualitative interviews explored the information and self-management needs of fibromyalgia patients attending a large tertiary hospital in Dublin. Identified themes together with an extensive review of the literature of interventions proven to be impactful by patients with fibromyalgia were utilised in the design and development of the eHealth resource. The resource was tested for usability and impact using pre and post-intervention outcomes measures. Results: Patient interviews highlighted a lack of easy accessible evidenced information to support self-management implicating the urgent need for a practical solution through development of a tailored eHealth resource. Six themes emerged for inclusion; illness knowledge, primary symptoms, treatment options, self-management strategies, practical support and reliable resources. Forty-five patients who tested the site for usability and impact demonstrated a statistically significant improvement in self-efficacy after 4 weeks access with a medium positive effect size. Patients with the most severe fibromyalgia impact scores pre-intervention demonstrated the most improvement after 4 weeks. Patients gave the resource a System Usability Score A rating, highly recommending it for fellow patients diagnosed with fibromyalgia. Conclusions: The study demonstrated how the development of a novel eHealth resource positively impacted fibromyalgia patients' self-efficacy to cope with this debilitating condition. Impact: This study suggests that access to eHealth can positively impact patients self-efficacy, has the potential to be a template for eHealth development in other chronic conditions, supporting advanced nurse practitioners working in chronic disease management.

Priorities for HIV and chronic pain research: results from a survey of individuals with lived experience.

The Global Task Force on Chronic Pain in HIV published seven research priorities in the field of HIV-associated chronic pain in 2019: (1) causes; (2) management; (3) treatment individualization and integration with addiction treatment; (4) mental and social health factors; (5) prevalence; (6) treatment cost effectiveness; and (7) prevention. The current study used a web-based survey to determine whether the research topics were aligned with the priorities of adults with lived experiences of HIV and chronic pain. We also collected information about respondents' own pain and treatment experiences. We received 311 survey responses from mostly US-based respondents. Most respondents reported longstanding, moderate to severe, multisite pain, commonly accompanied by symptoms of anxiety and/or depression. The median number of pain treatments tried was 10 (IQR = 8, 13), with medications and exercise being the most common modalities, and opioids being viewed as the most helpful. Over 80% of respondents considered all research topics either "extremely important" or "very important". Research topic #2, which focused on optimizing management of pain in people with HIV, was accorded the greatest importance by respondents. These findings suggest good alignment between the priorities of researchers and US-based people with lived experience of HIV-associated chronic pain.

The Brain Economy: Advancing Brain Science to Better Understand the Modern Economy.

The coming years are likely to be turbulent due to a myriad of factors or polycrisis, including an escalation in climate extremes, emerging public health threats, weak productivity, increases in global economic instability and further weakening in the integrity of global democracy. These formidable challenges are not exogenous to the economy but are in some cases generated by the system itself. They can be overcome, but only with far-reaching changes to global economics. Our current socio-economic paradigm is insufficient for addressing these complex challenges, let alone sustaining human development, well-being and happiness. To support the flourishing of the global population in the age of polycrisis, we need a novel, person-centred and collective paradigm. The brain economy leverages insights from neuroscience to provide a novel way of centralising the human contribution to the economy, how the economy in turn shapes our lives and positive feedbacks between the two. The brain economy is primarily based on Brain Capital, an economic asset integrating brain health and brain skills, the social, emotional, and the diversity of cognitive brain resources of individuals and communities. People with healthy brains are essential to navigate increasingly complex systems. Policies and investments that improve brain health and hence citizens' cognitive functions and boost brain performance can increase productivity, stimulate greater creativity and economic dynamism, utilise often underdeveloped intellectual resources, afford social cohesion, and create a more resilient, adaptable and sustainability-engaged population.

Optimizing radiation safety in dentistry: Clinical recommendations and regulatory considerations.

BACKGROUND: The value of dental radiographs to oral health care decision making must be balanced with radiation safety to minimize patient exposure and occupational risk of oral health care providers. This review summarizes recommendations and regulatory guidance regarding dental radiography and cone-beam computed tomography. An expert panel presents recommendations on radiation safety, appropriate imaging practices, and reducing radiation exposure. TYPES OF STUDIES REVIEWED: A systematic search run in Ovid MEDLINE, Embase, and Cochrane Database of Systematic Reviews identified relevant topical systematic reviews, organizational guidelines, and regulatory reviews published in the peer-reviewed literature since 2010. A supplemental search of the gray literature (eg, technical reports, standards, and regulations) identified topical nonindexed publications. Inclusion criteria required relevance to primary oral health care (ie, general or pediatric dentistry). RESULTS: A total of 95 articles, guidance documents, and regulations met the inclusion criteria. Resources were characterized as applicable to all modalities, operator and occupational protection, dose reduction and optimization, and quality assurance and control. PRACTICAL IMPLICATIONS: Understanding factors affecting imaging safety and applying fundamental principles of radiation protection consistent with federal, state, and local requirements are essential for limiting patient ionizing radiation exposure, in conjunction with implementing optimal imaging procedures to support prudent use of dental radiographs and cone-beam computed tomographic imaging. The regulatory guidance and best practice recommendations summarized in this article should be followed by dentists and other oral health care providers.

Episodic disability questionnaire (EDQ) measurement properties among adults living with HIV in Canada, Ireland, United Kingdom, and United States.

BACKGROUND: The Episodic Disability Questionnaire (EDQ) is a generic 35-item patient-reported outcome measure of presence, severity and episodic nature of disability. We assessed the measurement properties of the Episodic Disability Questionnaire (EDQ) with adults living with HIV. METHODS: We conducted a measurement study with adults living with HIV in eight clinical settings in Canada, Ireland, United Kingdom, and United States. We electronically administered the EDQ followed by three reference measures (World Health Organization Disability Assessment Schedule; Patient Health Questionnaire; Social Support Scale) and a demographic questionnaire. We administered the EDQ only 1 week later. We assessed the internal consistency reliability (Cronbach's alpha; > 0.7 acceptable), and test-retest reliability (Intra Class Correlation Coefficient; > 0.7 acceptable). We estimated required change in EDQ domain scores to be 95% certain that a change was not due to measurement error (Minimum Detectable Change (MDC95%)). We evaluated construct validity by assessing 36 primary hypotheses of relationships between EDQ scores and scores on the reference measures (> 75% hypotheses confirmed indicated validity). RESULTS: Three hundred fifty nine participants completed the questionnaires at time point 1, of which 321 (89%) completed the EDQ approximately 1 week later. Cronbach's alpha for internal consistency ranged from 0.84 (social domain) to 0.91 (day domain) for the EDQ severity scale, and 0.72 (uncertainty domain) to 0.88 (day domain) for the EDQ presence scale, and 0.87 (physical, cognitive, mental-emotional domains) to 0.89 (uncertainty domain) for the EDQ episodic scale. ICCs for test-retest reliability ranged from 0.79 (physical domain) to 0.88 (day domain) for the EDQ severity scale and from 0.71 (uncertainty domain) to 0.85 (day domain) for the EDQ presence scale. Highest precision was demonstrated in the severity scale for each domain (MDC95% range: 19-25 out of 100), followed by the presence (MDC95% range: 37-54) and episodic scales (MDC95% range:44-76). Twenty-nine of 36 (81%) construct validity hypotheses were confirmed. CONCLUSIONS: The EDQ possesses internal consistency reliability, construct validity, and test-retest reliability, with limited precision when administered electronically with adults living with HIV across in clinical settings in four countries. Given the measurement properties, the EDQ can be used for group level comparisons for research and program evaluation in adults living with HIV.

Promoting Healthy Aging to Reduce the Risk of Dementia: A Public Health Imperative.

Alzheimer's disease and related dementias place an enormous burden on individuals, families, health and long-term care systems, and governmental budgets. As the burden escalates with rising prevalence, attention has increasingly focused on how the risk of developing dementia can be reduced. Evidence indicates there are ways, from a population perspective, to reduce the risk of cognitive decline and possibly dementia, including through healthier lifestyles. It is imperative that the public health community lead the effort to address modifiable risk factors and social determinants of health for dementia and promote healthy aging through public health action.