Adapting the Interpersonal Quality in Family Planning care scale to assess patient perspectives on abortion care.

BACKGROUND: Women value receiving quality interpersonal care during abortion services, yet no measure exists to assess this outcome from patients' perspectives. We sought to adapt the Interpersonal Quality in Family Planning care scale (Dehlendorf et al., American Journal of Obstetrics Gynaecology 10.1016/j.ajog.2016.01.173, 2016) for use in abortion care. METHODS: We adapted items from the original scale for the abortion context, and conducted cognitive interviews to explore the acceptability, understandability, and importance of the adapted items. Adults who spoke English and/or Spanish, had an abortion in the past year, and lived in the US were eligible to participate. Interview memos were analyzed concurrently with data collection to refine the measure in stages. RESULTS: We interviewed 26 participants. Items were tested over seven stages and led to four main changes. First, we revised three items to reflect concepts perceived as important to the specific decision-making context of abortion. Second, we removed two items that emerged as potentially inappropriate for this context. Third, we modified language in four items to improve their appropriateness for this context (e.g., 'telling me' to 'explaining'; 'letting me say' to 'listening to'). Fourth, we modified language in three items to improve their clarity. Three items remained unchanged, as there was consistent agreement on their importance, understandability, and relevance. CONCLUSIONS: The resulting 10-item measure, the Interpersonal Quality in Abortion Care scale, was perceived to be highly important, understandable, and feasible to complete. Future psychometric evaluation can prepare it for use in clinical practice to ensure women feel adequately informed and supported during abortion care.

Investigation of factors influencing the implementation of two shared decision-making interventions in contraceptive care: a qualitative interview study among clinical and administrative staff.

BACKGROUND: There is limited evidence on how to implement shared decision-making (SDM) interventions in routine practice. We conducted a qualitative study, embedded within a 2 × 2 factorial cluster randomized controlled trial, to assess the acceptability and feasibility of two interventions for facilitating SDM about contraceptive methods in primary care and family planning clinics. The two SDM interventions comprised a patient-targeted intervention (video and prompt card) and a provider-targeted intervention (encounter decision aids and training). METHODS: Participants were clinical and administrative staff aged 18 years or older who worked in one of the 12 clinics in the intervention arm, had email access, and consented to being audio-recorded. Semi-structured telephone interviews were conducted upon completion of the trial. Audio recordings were transcribed verbatim. Data collection and thematic analysis were informed by the 14 domains of the Theoretical Domains Framework, which are relevant to the successful implementation of provider behaviour change interventions. RESULTS: Interviews (n = 29) indicated that the interventions were not systematically implemented in the majority of clinics. Participants felt the interventions were aligned with their role and they had confidence in their skills to use the decision aids. However, the novelty of the interventions, especially a need to modify workflows and change behavior to use them with patients, were implementation challenges. The interventions were not deeply embedded in clinic routines and their use was threatened by lack of understanding of their purpose and effect, and staff absence or turnover. Participants from clinics that had an enthusiastic study champion or team-based organizational culture found these social supports had a positive role in implementing the interventions. CONCLUSIONS: Variation in capabilities and motivation among clinical and administrative staff, coupled with inconsistent use of the interventions in routine workflow contributed to suboptimal implementation of the interventions. Future trials may benefit by using implementation strategies that embed SDM in the organizational culture of clinical settings.

Right For Me: protocol for a cluster randomised trial of two interventions for facilitating shared decision-making about contraceptive methods.

INTRODUCTION: Despite the observed and theoretical advantages of shared decision-making in a range of clinical contexts, including contraceptive care, there remains a paucity of evidence on how to facilitate its adoption. This paper describes the protocol for a study to assess the comparative effectiveness of patient-targeted and provider-targeted interventions for facilitating shared decision-making about contraceptive methods. METHODS AND ANALYSIS: We will conduct a 2×2 factorial cluster randomised controlled trial with four arms: (1) video+prompt card, (2) decision aids+training, (3) video+prompt card and decision aids+training and (4) usual care. The clusters will be clinics in USA that deliver contraceptive care. The participants will be people who have completed a healthcare visit at a participating clinic, were assigned female sex at birth, are aged 15-49 years, are able to read and write English or Spanish and have not previously participated in the study. The primary outcome will be shared decision-making about contraceptive methods. Secondary outcomes will be the occurrence of a conversation about contraception in the healthcare visit, satisfaction with the conversation about contraception, intended contraceptive method(s), intention to use a highly effective method, values concordance of the intended method(s), decision regret, contraceptive method(s) used, use of a highly effective method, use of the intended method(s), adherence, satisfaction with the method(s) used, unintended pregnancy and unwelcome pregnancy. We will collect study data via longitudinal patient surveys administered immediately after the healthcare visit, four weeks later and six months later. ETHICS AND DISSEMINATION: We will disseminate results via presentations at scientific and professional conferences, papers published in peer-reviewed, open-access journals and scientific and lay reports. We will also make an anonymised copy of the final participant-level dataset available to others for research purposes. TRIAL REGISTRATION NUMBER: ClinicalTrials.gov Identifier: NCT02759939.

Calidad de vida en pacientes portadores de cardiopatías congénitas / Quality of life in patients with congenital heart disease

Antecedentes: La corrección de las Cardiopatías Congénitas (CC) tiene como fin mejorar la calidad de vida de los pacientes portadores de ellas, pero no existen en nuestro medio estudios sobre ésta, ni su comparación con niños sanos. Objetivos: Estudiarla calidad de vida de los CC, objetivando tres áreas, en tres grupos de pacientes de complejidad diferente, y compararlos con un grupo sano. Método: Se escogieron 4 grupos de niños del área sur oriente de Santiago; 3 grupos de CC: comunicación interventricular (CIV), Tetralogía de Fallot(T4F), Ventrículo único (VU), y un grupo de niños sanos (S). Se sometieron a encuesta de calidad de vida ellos y sus padres, se evaluaron tres áreas especificas; actividad escolar, actividades cotidianas (actividad física y generales) y vida familiar. Se objetivó capacidad física con Test de Esfuerzo (TE), con protocolo de Bruce modificado, en todos. El análisis estadístico incluyó análisis de varianza y chi cuadrado. Resultados: Se seleccionaron 65 niños, 12 con CIV, 18 con T4F, 15 con VU,y 20 sanos. Treinta y cuatro de ellos son hombres (52 por ciento). En escolaridad no existen diferencias significativas en edad/curso, promedio de notas (5.7), repetición (24.8 por ciento), en percepción de notas y rendimiento escolar los pacientes con VU tanto ellos como sus padres perciben peor rendimiento que sus pares. Con relación a actividades físicas generales el TE reveló concordancia con percepción cualitativa y diferencias de rendimientos de acuerdo a la gravedad de la patología, estadísticamente significativa sólo VU en esfuerzos mayores (S: 11:75min CIV: 12:2min, T4F:10min y VU: 7:3min). Con relación a actividades cotidianas, no perciben limitación de la vida diaria en forma significativa, excepto en algunas actividades, los pacientes con VU. Los padres de niños con CC tienen percepción de mayor limitación. Con relación a la vida familiar no hay diferencias significativas entre los 4 grupos...

Background: Surgical correction of congenital heart diseases (CHD) intends to improve quality of life (QL) in affected patients. In Chile this aspect has not been objectively evaluated, especially through comparison with normal children. Aim: to compare the quality of life in three groups of CHD patients with that of normal controls. Three aspects of QL were evaluated. Methods: three groups of patients with CHD (Ventricular septal defect, Tetralogy of Fallot, Single Ventricle) were compared to a group of healthy children from the south east area of Santiago. A standard QL questionnaire was used to evaluate school performance, physical and general daily activities and family life . A treadmill test with a modified Bruce protocol was used to evaluate physical capacity Results: There were 12 patients in the VSD, 12 in the Fallot, 15 in the Single Ventricle and 20 in the normal groups. 52 percent were males. Age at each school level, school performance (grades and failure rates) were similar across groups except for a lower performance in patients with Single Ventricle. Physical capacity (duration of stress test) was lower in patients with Single Ventricle (7.3 min average) compared to normal (11.75min), VSD (12.2min) and Tetralogy of Fallot (10.0 min). The results of these test correlated with subjective performance of physical capacity. Similarly patients with Single Ventricle perceived a greater limitation for daily activities (60 percent) compared to VSD (100 percent), Fallot's (89 percent) and healthy controls (89 percent). In general, parents of CHD patients perceived a greater limitation compared to their children. Family life was not different among groups. Conclusions: The perception of QL in these patients with corrected CHD did not differ compared to healthy controls. Objective evaluation showed a lower physical capacity in patients with a more severe type of CHD.