Subject(s)
Brain Injuries/complications , Brain Injuries/therapy , Consciousness Disorders/etiology , Consciousness Disorders/therapy , Consciousness , Music Therapy/methods , Adult , Brain Injuries/psychology , Case-Control Studies , Consciousness Disorders/classification , Female , Humans , Male , Middle Aged , Observational Studies as Topic , Treatment OutcomeABSTRACT
The first Italian experiences of HTA are born inside single hospitals and, lately, regional health care systems. In Italy, anyway, no agency had health technology assessment as an institutional duty until 2007, the year of the founding of the Italian Society of Health Technology Assessment (SIHTA). In times of "spending review", the HTA, whose purpose is to make decisions about health technologies rational and consistent with a context of scarce resources, is increasingly emerging as a priority need of the National Health System. The objective of this paper is to analyze if and how the librarian is involved in the process of health technology assessment, analyzing the results of a survey performed at a selection of Italian research organizations. The analysis of the results shows that the Italian situation is still very varied, from the point of view of HTA, and health technologies are often introduced without any preliminary analysis. The librarian is almost never represented within the HTA evaluation group and his/her knowledge of HTA should be improved.
Subject(s)
Librarians , Libraries, Medical , Technology Assessment, Biomedical , Academies and Institutes , Data Collection , Forecasting , Health Priorities , Humans , Italy , Libraries, Medical/trends , National Health Programs/organization & administration , Role , Societies, Scientific/organization & administration , Surveys and Questionnaires , Technology Assessment, Biomedical/organization & administrationABSTRACT
PURPOSE: To describe functioning and disability of patients in vegetative state (VS) according to the biopsychosocial model of the International Classification of Functioning, Disability and Health (ICF). METHOD: Patients in VS admitted to long-stay hospitals were consecutively enrolled, and the ICF checklist was completed by trained professionals. ICF categories utilisation is described. RESULTS: Twenty-one patients (15 males) were enrolled, mean age was 51.9 and mean duration of VS was 22 months. The majority of body functions and structures categories are reported as problems in less than 20% of patients. In the activity and participation domain, majority of ICF categories were not applicable and, among opened categories, performance was usually better than capacity. Among environmental factors, categories are mostly described as facilitators. CONCLUSIONS: This is the first pilot study in which the applicability of the ICF checklist to patients in VS was tested, showing the applicability of ICF categories within A&P domain, and the presence of few but very strong facilitating environmental factors. This study also sets the premises for a study on people in VS and in minimal conscious state both at a national and international level.