Evaluating population-level interventions to reduce inappropriate antibiotic use in healthcare and community settings: A systematic review protocol.

BACKGROUND: Inappropriate antibiotic use contributes significantly to the global challenge of antimicrobial resistance. While government-initiated population-level interventions are fundamental in addressing this issue, their full potential remains to be explored. This systematic review aims to assess the effectiveness of such interventions in reducing inappropriate antibiotic use among antibiotic providers and users in healthcare and community settings. METHODS: We will conduct a systematic literature search across multiple databases and grey literature sources. We will include studies which evaluate the effectiveness of population-level interventions to reduce inappropriate antibiotic use in healthcare and community settings in both high-income and low- and middle-income countries. This includes government-initiated measures targeting antibiotic use through education, restriction, incentivization, coercion, training, persuasion, context modification, behavior modeling, or barrier reduction. Two reviewers will independently perform screening to select eligible studies, followed by data extraction. The outcomes of interest are various measures of antibiotic prescription and consumption, such as Defined Daily Dose (DDD) or number of prescriptions per year. We anticipate including a broad range of study designs and outcome measures. Therefore, we will narratively synthesize results using the categories of the population-level policy interventions of the Behavior Change Wheel Framework. We will organize outcome data by economic contexts, target populations, and implementation settings. DISCUSSION: This review will strengthen the evidence base for the use of population-level interventions to address inappropriate antibiotic use. Drawing lessons from global experiences, the findings will provide valuable guidance to health policymakers, public health authorities, and researchers on tailoring interventions to specific economic contexts, populations, and settings, thereby enhancing their capacity to drive substantial improvement in appropriate antibiotic use.

Implementation Science Perspectives on Implementing Telemedicine Interventions for Hypertension or Diabetes Management: Scoping Review.

BACKGROUND: Hypertension and diabetes are becoming increasingly prevalent worldwide. Telemedicine is an accessible and cost-effective means of supporting hypertension and diabetes management, especially as the COVID-19 pandemic has accelerated the adoption of technological solutions for care. However, to date, no review has examined the contextual factors that influence the implementation of telemedicine interventions for hypertension or diabetes worldwide. OBJECTIVE: We adopted a comprehensive implementation research perspective to synthesize the barriers to and facilitators of implementing telemedicine interventions for the management of hypertension, diabetes, or both. METHODS: We performed a scoping review involving searches in Ovid MEDLINE, Embase, CINAHL, Cochrane Library, Web of Science, and Google Scholar to identify studies published in English from 2017 to 2022 describing barriers and facilitators related to the implementation of telemedicine interventions for hypertension and diabetes management. The coding and synthesis of barriers and facilitators were guided by the Consolidated Framework for Implementation Research. RESULTS: Of the 17,687 records identified, 35 (0.2%) studies were included in our scoping review. We found that facilitators of and barriers to implementation were dispersed across the constructs of the Consolidated Framework for Implementation Research. Barriers related to cost, patient needs and resources (eg, lack of consideration of language needs, culture, and rural residency), and personal attributes of patients (eg, demographics and priorities) were the most common. Facilitators related to the design and packaging of the intervention (eg, user-friendliness), patient needs and resources (eg, personalized information that leveraged existing strengths), implementation climate (eg, intervention embedded into existing infrastructure), knowledge of and beliefs about the intervention (eg, convenience of telemedicine), and other personal attributes (eg, technical literacy) were the most common. CONCLUSIONS: Our findings suggest that the successful implementation of telemedicine interventions for hypertension and diabetes requires comprehensive efforts at the planning, execution, engagement, and reflection and evaluation stages of intervention implementation to address challenges at the individual, interpersonal, organizational, and environmental levels.

Global prevalence, treatment and outcome of tuberculosis and COVID-19 coinfection: a systematic review and meta-analysis (from November 2019 to March 2021).

INTRODUCTION: The COVID-19 outbreak poses a significant threat to the patients with tuberculosis (TB). TB and COVID-19 (TB-COVID) coinfection means the disease caused by both Mycobacterium tuberculosis and SARS-CoV-2 infection. Currently, the prevalence status, treatment and outcomes of the coinfection are poorly characterised. We aimed to systematically review the evidence on this topic and provide comprehensive information to guide the control and treatment of TB-COVID coinfection. METHODS: An extensive screening was conducted using six electronic databases to search eligible studies from 1 November 2019 to 19 March 2021. Prevalence rate, treatment and outcomes of TB-COVID coinfection were extracted. Random-effects models were used to calculate mean fatality rates of coinfection with 95% CIs. The risks of bias were assessed with the Joanna Briggs Institute (JBI) Critical Appraisal Checklist for Study Reporting Prevalence Data and JBI Critical Appraisal Checklist for Case Report. A meta-analysis was conducted for subgroups on in-hospital fatality rate. RESULTS: Forty-two studies were included into the analysis (35 case reports and 7 retrospective cohort studies). Nineteen countries reported coinfected patients, including high and low TB prevalence countries. The only study revealing prevalence rate came from West Cape Province, South Africa (people aged above 20 years, 0.04% until 1 June 2020 and 0.06% until 9 June 2020). The treatment regimens for coinfected patients were highly heterogeneous. The mean overall and in-hospital fatality rates of coinfection were 13.9% (95% CI: 1.6% to 26.2%) and 17.5% (95% CI: 8.9% to 26.0%). The mean in-hospital fatality rates for high-income countries (Italy and Argentina) and low/middle-income countries (LMICs) (India, Philippines, South Africa) were 6.5% (95% CI: -0.8% to ~13.9%) and 22.5% (95% CI: 19.0% to ~26.0%). CONCLUSION: TB-COVID coinfection is common globally, and the coinfected patients suffer from higher fatality risk than patients with normal COVID-19. Outcomes shared significant differences between high-income countries and LMICs. PROSPERO REGISTRATION NUMBER: CRD42021253660.

The impact of health insurance on poverty among rural older adults: an evidence from nine counties of western China.

BACKGROUND: Older adults are more prone to various diseases. Health insurance becomes effective mechanism to relieve financial burden when the insured is sick. In China, most older adults live in the countryside, and New Rural Cooperative Medical Scheme is a kind of health insurance system in rural areas. The relationship between New Rural Cooperative Medical Scheme and financial burden due to health expenditure of older adults in China was investigated. This paper aims at the impact of New Rural Cooperative Medical Scheme on the poverty among rural older adults. METHODS: This study employs Probit model and Tobit model to assess the impact of New Rural Cooperative Medical Scheme on alleviating poverty among rural older adults based on a survey in nine representative counties in western China. RESULTS: The findings show that diseases have significantly negative impact on rural elderly poverty. New Rural Cooperative Medical Scheme has impact on alleviating of the health-payment poverty due to catastrophic health expenditure, but the impact is limited. The impact of health insurance on poverty alleviation is greater for men, older adults aged between 60 to 69 and households in in economically poorer area than their counterparts. CONCLUSIONS: This study show the relationship between New Rural Cooperative Medical Scheme and catastrophic health expenditure of older adults in China. The results draw policy attention to introduce different reimbursement expense ratios for different groups to alleviate them from poverty based on more comprehensive insurance packages.

A study on satisfaction with publicly financed health services in China.

BACKGROUND: With implementation of Chinese universal healthcare, the performance of urban and rural residents' healthcare and the degree of satisfaction with publicly financed health services have become a hot issue in assessing health reforms in China. An evaluation model of health services in community and evaluation indexes of health-system performance have been put forward in related researches. This study examines variation in satisfaction with publicly financed health services among urban and rural residents in five Chinese cities and assesses their determinants. METHODS: The data are derived from a survey of 1198 urban and rural residents from five nationally representative regions concerning their perceptions of satisfaction with China's publicly financed health services. The respondents assessed their degree of satisfaction with publicly financed health services on a 5-point Likert scale. It is a kind of questionaire scale that features the answers for 1-5 points labeled very unsatisfied, unsatisfied, neither unsatisfied nor satisfied, satisfied and very satisfied linking to each factor or variable, where a score of 1 reflects the lowest degree of satisfaction and a score of 5 represents the highest degree. The logistic regression methods are used to identify the variables into its determining components. RESULTS: The overall satisfaction degree representing satisfaction of all factors (variables) is 3.02, which is at the middle level of a 1-5 Likert scale, inferring respondents' neutral attitude to publicly financed health services. According to the correlation test, the factors with characteristic root greater than 0.5 are chosen to take the factor analysis and 12 extracted factors can explain 77.97% of original 18 variables' total variance. Regression analysis based on the survey data finds that health records, vaccinations, pediatric care, elder care, and mental health management are the main factors accounting for degree of satisfaction with publicly financed health services for both urban and rural residents. CONCLUSIONS: What can be done to increase the degree of satisfaction with health services needs to be considered based on our findings. Regression analysis based on the survey data finds that health records, vaccinations, pediatric care, elder care, and mental health management are the main factors accounting for degree of satisfaction with publicly financed health services for both urban and rural residents. Therefore, with improvements in health records, timely vaccination, elder care for women or elder, pediatric care and major psychosis management, degree of satisfaction with publicly financed health services are likely to grow.

A study on the equality and benefit of China's national health care system.

BACKGROUND: This study is designed to evaluate whether the benefit which the residents received from the national health care system is equal in China. The perceived equality and benefit are used to measure the personal status of health care system, health status. This study examines variations in perceived equality and benefit of the national health care system between urban and rural residents from five cities of China and assessed their determinants. METHODS: One thousand one hundred ninty eight residents were selected from a random survey among five nationally representative cities. The research characterizes perceptions into four population groupings based on a binary assessment of survey scores: high equality & high benefit; low equality & low benefit; high equality & low benefit; and low equality & high benefit. RESULTS: The distribution of the four groups above is 30.4%, 43.0%, 4.6% and 22.0%, respectively. Meanwhile, the type of health insurance, educational background, occupation, geographic regions, changes in health status and other factors have significant impacts on perceived equality and benefit derived from the health care system. CONCLUSION: The findings demonstrate wide variations in perceptions of equality and benefit between urban and rural residents and across population characteristics, leading to a perceived lack of fairness in benefits and accessibility. Opportunities exist for policy interventions that are targeted to eliminate perceived differences and promote greater equality in access to health care.