Adolescent Healthcare Access: A Qualitative Study of Provider Perspectives.

INTRODUCTION: Adolescent access to quality healthcare is key to prevention and early intervention for health risk behaviors. This paper provides a healthcare provider perspective on barriers and facilitators to youth accessing care. METHODS: Five focus groups were conducted from November to December 2020 with providers from a variety of healthcare settings. Participants were asked to describe their respective adolescent patient populations, adolescent-specific health concerns, and organizational accommodations specific for youth services. Transcripts were analyzed using Inductive Thematic Analysis and themes were grouped using a social-ecological framework. RESULTS: At an individual level, providers noted that an adolescent's knowledge and ability to navigate services varied greatly across settings. Providers identified provider trust and parent/guardian support as key interpersonal factors that support adolescents' access to services. Organizational factors included bureaucratic barriers and the clinic's reputation among youth. Community factors centered on mistrust within healthcare systems and stigmatization of seeking certain types of services. Participants also described how state-level policies influence parent/guardian consent requirements, which can limit adolescents' access to care. CONCLUSION: Adolescent access to and utilization of healthcare in the United States is a complex problem requiring systems-level change. Healthcare organizations and providers have the opportunity and capacity to positively influence adolescents' healthcare access and experiences, however a lack of standardized, clinic-level priorities and guidelines can limit adolescent-centered care.

The Five "Ws" of Frailty Assessment and Chronic Lymphocytic Leukemia: Who, What, Where, Why, and When.

Chronic lymphocytic leukemia (CLL) is a disease of the elderly, but chronological age does not accurately discriminate frailty status at the inter-individual level. Frailty describes a person's overall resilience. Since CLL is a stressful situation, it is relevant to assess the patient´s degree of frailty, especially before starting antineoplastic treatment. We are in the era of targeted therapies, which have helped to control the disease more effectively and avoid the toxicity of chemo (immuno) therapy. However, these drugs are not free of side effects and other aspects arise that should not be neglected, such as interactions, previous comorbidities, or adherence to treatment, since most of these medications are taken continuously. The challenge we face is to balance the risk of toxicity and efficacy in a personalized way and without forgetting that the most frequent cause of death in CLL is related to the disease. For this purpose, comprehensive geriatric assessment (GA) provides us with the opportunity to evaluate multiple domains that may affect tolerance to treatment and that could be improved with appropriate interventions. In this review, we will analyze the state of the art of GA in CLL through the five Ws.

Prevalence, correlates, and sources of women's health information-seeking behaviors in the United States.

OBJECTIVE: To investigate the prevalence, correlates, and sources of women's health information-seeking behaviors in the United States using the Andersen Behavioral Model. METHODS: The 2012-2019 Health Information National Trends Survey data were used to analyze how and where women seek health theoretically. Weighted prevalence, descriptive analysis, and separate multivariable logistic regression models were computed to test the argument. RESULTS: The overall prevalence of seeking health information from any source was (83%, 95% CI: 0.82-0.84). Between 2012 and 2019, the analysis revealed a downward trend in health information seeking from any source (85.2-82.4%), health care provider (19.0-14.8%), family/friends (10.4-6.6%), and traditional channels (5.4-4.8%). Interestingly, there was an increase in Internet usage from 65.4% to 73.8%. CONCLUSIONS: We found statistically significant relationships between the predisposing, enabling, and need factors of the Andersen Behavioral Model. Specifically, age, race/ethnicity, income levels, educational status, perceived health status, having a regular provider, and smoking status predicted women's health information-seeking behaviors. PRACTICE IMPLICATIONS: Our study concludes that several factors influence health information-seeking behaviors, and disparities exist in the channels through which women seek care. The implications for health communication strategies, practitioners, and policymakers are also discussed.

Social-Ecological Barriers to Access to Healthcare for Adolescents: A Scoping Review.

Access to healthcare for adolescents is often overlooked in the United States due to federal and state-sponsored insurance programs such as Medicaid and the Children's Health Insurance Program. While these types of programs provide some relief, the issue of healthcare access goes beyond insurance coverage and includes an array of ecological factors that hinder youths from receiving services. The purpose of this scoping review was to identify social-ecological barriers to adolescents' healthcare access and utilization in the United States. We followed the PRISMA and scoping review methodological framework to conduct a comprehensive literature search in eight electronic databases for peer-reviewed articles published between 2010 and 2020. An inductive content analysis was performed to thematize the categories identified in the data extraction based on the Social-Ecological Model (SEM). Fifty studies were identified. Barriers across the five SEM levels emerged as primary themes within the literature, including intrapersonal-limited knowledge of and poor previous experiences with healthcare services, interpersonal-cultural and linguistic barriers, organizational-structural barriers in healthcare systems, community-social stigma, and policy-inadequate insurance coverage. Healthcare access for adolescents is a systems-level problem requiring a multifaceted approach that considers complex and adaptive behaviors.

Emotional and Behavioral Health Needs in Elementary School Students in an Underserved Hispanic Community.

High rates of mental health problems in adolescents have been well documented; less is known about elementary school children in disadvantaged communities. We examined emotional and behavioral health needs in 202 third and fourth graders enrolled in a charter school in a largely Hispanic community. The child-reported Revised Child Anxiety and Depression Scale-25 and Teacher's Report Form were used to evaluate mental health needs as perceived by these children and their teachers. The prevalence of teacher-reported depression and child self-reported anxiety was 7.0% and 6.67%, respectively. Living in a single parent household was found to be a specific risk factor in that those children had higher rates of emotional and behavioral problems than children living with both parents. Evidence of higher depression and anxiety identified in this sample compared to national representative data suggests the need for development of culturally sensitive early prevention and intervention in this underserved community.

Hispanic Mothers' Experiences with School-Based Emotional Health Curriculum and Perspectives of Their Own Mental Health Needs.

An Emotional Health Curriculum (EHC) was developed to promote positive mental health in primarily Hispanic elementary school-aged children. In order to further expand the EHC, the mothers' experiences with the curriculum were examined. Eighteen mothers participated in two focus groups. Mothers reported that they valued this curriculum as a preventive program. Importantly, all mothers wished to extend their involvement to not only assisting their child in completing the curriculum homework but also attending a proposed parenting program. This study provides preliminary evidence that mothers embraced the EHC as an accessible community mental health service for their children and sought greater involvement.

Feasibility of an emotional health curriculum for elementary school students in an underserved Hispanic community.

PROBLEM: Hispanic children have greater mental health challenges but fewer received mental health services than other ethnic groups. A classroom-based Emotional Health Curriculum (EHC) was developed to address mental health disparities in an underserved Hispanic community. METHODS: A quasi-experimental design with one group pre- and post-intervention was used to test the feasibility of an 8-week EHC for one hundred 3rd and 4th grade children in a dual-immersion Spanish-English elementary school. Limited efficacy was measured by changes in depression and anxiety scores reported by children and teachers. Acceptance was evaluated by a child-reported satisfaction survey and a focus group in which the four teachers shared their experiences. Implementation was measured by participation, retention, and fidelity rates. FINDINGS: The child-reported depression and anxiety and teacher-reported depression were significantly decreased in at-risk children with the effect size ranging from 0.60 to 1.16 (ps < 0.05). The majority of children (89.7%) enjoyed the EHC and teachers observed that children had acquired skills to manage their emotional distress. The participation, retention, and fidelity rates were 98%, 94%, and 99.13%, respectively. CONCLUSIONS: The results provide promising evidence that the EHC has the potential to improve depression and anxiety symptoms in at-risk children.

Valoración de la glicemia al ingreso como factor de riesgo predictivo de mortalidad y morbilidad intrahospitalaria en pacientes con Síndrome Coronario Agudo / Valuation of glycemia in the admission and predictive risk factor for hospital mortality and morbidity in patients with acute coronary syndrome

Objetivos: Evaluar la relación existente entre la magnitud de la glucemia de ingreso y su relación con la mortalidad y morbilidad intrahospitalaria en pacientes con Síndrome Coronario Agudo. Material y métodos: Se realizó un estudio descriptivo, retrospectivo, de cohortes, longitudinal y comparativo en 199 pacientes con hiperglicemia que ingresaron por síndrome coronario agudo al Servicio de Emergencia del Hospital Nacional Dos de Mayo de enero de 2009 a diciembre de 2012. Resultados: el 67.8 por ciento fueron varones y el 32.2 por ciento fueron mujeres. La media de la edad fue de 59.2+/-14.2 años, con una mínima edad de 31 años y una máxima de 93 años. El 26.6 por ciento tuvo angina más de un mes. El 15.6 por ciento tuvo el antecedente de infarto de miocardio previo. El 15.1 por ciento tuvo insuficiencia cardiaca. El 1 por ciento tuvo CABG. El 3.5 por ciento presentó el antecedente de ACV. El 4.5 por ciento insuficiencia renal. El 38.7 por ciento tuvieron el antecedente de tabaco anterior. El 1.5 por ciento tuvo el antecedente de Stent 60.3 por ciento eran hipertensos. El 28.2 por ciento tenían dislipidemia. El 38.7 por ciento eran tabaquistas actuales. El 15.6 por ciento tenían historia familiar de problemas cardiovasculares. El 18.1 por ciento eran obesos. El 20.6 por ciento eran diabéticos. El 33.2 por ciento tuvieron glicemias al ingreso mayores de 140mg por ciento. EI 24.1 por ciento tuvieron glicemias mayores de 140mg por ciento a las 24 horas. EI 41.7 por ciento tuvieron colesterol total mayor de 200mg por ciento. EI 29.1 por ciento tuvieron LDL colesterol mayor de 130mg por ciento. EI 61.3 por ciento tuvieron colesterol HDL menor de 40mg por ciento. EI 48.2 por ciento tuvieron creatinina mayor de 0.9mg por ciento. El 83.9 por ciento de los pacientes tuvieron dolor al ingreso. EI 35.2 por ciento tuvieron elevación del ST. EI 3 por ciento tuvo shock cardiogénico. EI 19.1 por ciento tuvo Killip II. EI 22.6 por ciento tuvo fracción de eyección menor de...