Nurse, Provider, and Emergency Department Technician: Perceptions and Experiences of Violence and Aggression in the Emergency Department.

INTRODUCTION: Patient/visitor violence and aggression (V&A) in the emergency department occurs daily. Few interventions exist to decrease V&A. Research describing prevalence, severity, and perceived safety among ED clinicians is limited. METHODS: A descriptive survey explored V&A against ED clinicians in one urban emergency department. A sample of nurses, ED technicians, physicians and advanced practice providers participated. Participants completed a demographic survey, Personal Workplace Safety Instrument for Emergency Nurses (PWSI-EN), and ENA V&A frequency checklist. Analysis of Variance (ANOVA) for unadjusted and Analysis of Covariance (ANCOVA) for adjusted associations were used to assess differences in the PWSI-EN survey composite score and "feeling safe in the ED" among ED roles. ANCOVA was adjusted for potential confounders: sex, race, years working in emergency department, and shift worked. RESULTS: Sixty-five (46.4%) of the 140 ED clinicians returned surveys, which were almost evenly distributed between ED clinician roles and sex. Mean age was 37.2 (range: 21-64) years. All (100%) nurses and providers reported being verbally abused. More nurses reported physical violence (n = 21, 87.5%) than providers (n = 7, 36.8%) and ED technicians (n = 11, 55%). Nurses and ED technicians reported experiencing greater prevalence of physical violence than providers (P < .05). Nurses (mean 3.29, range 2.95 to 3.63) were more fearful for their personal safety than ED technicians (mean 3.88, range 3.48 to 4.28) (P < .03). DISCUSSION: V&A are common creating a fearful environment. However, little research regarding clinician perceptions exists. Our study aids in identifying areas for clinician-targeted strategies to prevent ED V&A.

Opportunities and challenges of delivering digital clinical trials: lessons learned from a randomised controlled trial of an online behavioural intervention for children and young people.

BACKGROUND: Despite being the gold standard of research to determine effectiveness, randomised controlled trials (RCTs) often struggle with participant recruitment, engagement and retention. These issues may be exacerbated when recruiting vulnerable populations, such as participants with mental health issues. We aimed to update understanding of the scope of these problems in trials of health technology and identify possible solutions through reflecting on experiences from an exemplar trial (Online Remote Behavioural Intervention for Tics; ORBIT). METHOD: We extracted anonymised data on recruitment, retention and requests for more funding and time from trials funded by the largest funder of health technology trials in the UK (the National Institute of Health Research Health Technology Assessment) between 2010 and 2020, and compared these with data from a recent, successful trial (ORBIT). ORBIT aimed to assess the clinical- and cost-effectiveness of blended online and human behavioural therapy for tics in young people. Many of the trial procedures, including recruitment, the intervention and data collection, were undertaken online. RESULTS: Data were extracted on 51 trials conducted between 2010 and 2020. Sixty per cent of trials failed to reach their original recruitment target and only 44% achieved their follow-up in the specified time frame. In contrast, ORBIT recruited to target and achieved 90% follow-up. We posit that these achievements are related to (a) judicious use of digital technology for trial procedures and (b) adequate numbers of highly trained and motivated trial staff. We provide details of both these to help other research teams plan and cost for successful trials. CONCLUSION: An approach combining human and online methods may be advantageous in facilitating trial delivery, particularly in paediatric mental health services. Given the importance of successful clinical trials in advancing healthcare delivery and the waste of human and economic resources associated with unsuccessfully delivered trials, it is imperative that trials are appropriately costed and future research focusses on improving trial design and delivery. TRIAL REGISTRATION: The ORBIT trial is registered with ISRTCN ( ISRCTN70758207 ) Registered on March 20, 2018. and ClinicalTrials.gov ( NCT03483493 ). Registered on March 30, 2018.

Phytoremediation potential of switchgrass (Panicum virgatum), two United States native varieties, to remove bisphenol-A (BPA) from aqueous media.

Plastic wastes burdening Earth's water and accumulating on land, releasing toxic leachates, are one of the greatest global threats of our time. Bisphenol-A (BPA), a potent endocrine disrupting compound, is a synthetic ingredient of the polycarbonate plastics and epoxy resins used in food containers, cans, and water bottles. Bisphenol-A's rising concentrations in the environment require a sustainable alternative to current removal practices, which are expensive and/or ecologically unsafe. Switchgrass offers a safe alternative. To investigate its potential for BPA removal, two United States native switchgrass varieties where tested in hydroponic media. Results show minimal hydrolysis and photolysis of BPA over 55 days, confirming its persistence. Both generic and heavy metal switchgrass exhibited statistically significant (p < 0.0001) BPA removal (40% and 46%, respectively) over approximately 3 months, underscoring switchgrass's effectiveness for BPA removal. Significantly higher (p < 0.005) BPA accumulation in roots than shoots and nonsignificant variances in biomass, chlorophyll (p > 0.19), and peroxidase between BPA-treated and untreated plants indicates substantial BPA tolerance in both varieties. Kinetic parameters of BPA removal and translocation factors were also determined, which will inform the design of BPA removal phytotechnologies for a variety of soil conditions, including landfills where BPA accumulation is greatest.

New frontiers in competition for pollination.

BACKGROUND: Co-flowering plant species frequently share pollinators. Pollinator sharing is often detrimental to one or more of these species, leading to competition for pollination. Perhaps because it offers an intriguing juxtaposition of ecological opposites - mutualism and competition - within one relatively tractable system, competition for pollination has captured the interest of ecologists for over a century. SCOPE: Our intent is to contemplate exciting areas for further work on competition for pollination, rather than to exhaustively review past studies. After a brief historical summary, we present a conceptual framework that incorporates many aspects of competition for pollination, involving both the quantity and quality of pollination services, and both female and male sex functions of flowers. Using this framework, we contemplate a relatively subtle mechanism of competition involving pollen loss, and consider how competition might affect plant mating systems, overall reproductive success and multi-species interactions. We next consider how competition for pollination might be altered by several emerging consequences of a changing planet, including the spread of alien species, climate change and pollinator declines. Most of these topics represent new frontiers whose exploration has just begun. CONCLUSIONS: Competition for pollination has served as a model for the integration of ecological and evolutionary perspectives in the study of species interactions. Its study has elucidated both obvious and more subtle mechanisms, and has documented a range of outcomes. However, the potential for this interaction to inform our understanding of both pure and applied aspects of pollination biology has only begun to be realized.

Prehospital rounds. Hypertension after having a baby.

Peripartum cardiomyopathy is an infrequent form of congestive heart failure. It occurs in one out of every 3,000-15,000 live births. Since there are approximately four million deliveries in the U.S. each year, 250 to 1,350 women will be affected annually.

Competition for pollination: effects of pollen of an invasive plant on seed set of a native congener.

Competition for pollination can be an important factor in plant reproduction, but little attention has been given to the effect of the growing number of invasive plant species on pollination of native species. As a first step in understanding this threat, we used hand pollination to investigate the effects of pollen from an invasive species (Lythrum salicaria) on seed set in a sympatric and co-flowering native congener (L. alatum). Dispersal of fluorescent dyes in the field confirms that pollinators (bumble bees and honey bees) transfer pollen between species. To determine the potential effect of such interspecific pollen transfer on seed set of the native, we pollinated 773 flowers on 20 plants with one of three treatments: legitimate conspecific pollen, a mixture of conspecific and foreign pollen, and foreign pollen. The mixed-pollen treatment resulted in 28.8% lower seed set relative to conspecific pollination. Foreign crosses resulted in extremely low seed set. Observations of pollen germination indicate that events at the stigmatic surface contribute to the reduction in seed set for mixed pollination. Our results indicate that the impacts of invasive species may extend beyond vegetative competition to include competition for pollination.