Associations between adolescents’ experience of general practitioners and health outcomes in England: a cross-sectional study of national data

BackgroundAdolescence is a key stage of the life course when lifelong health behaviours and attitudes to health care can be established. Poor experience of consultations with a general practitioner (GP) is common among adolescents, but little is known about whether poor experience in this group is associated with worse health status or outcomes. This study aimed to investigate this association with data from the 2014 Health Behaviour in School-Aged Children (HBSC) survey (England).MethodsWe used logistic regression to analyse data for 5335 participants aged 10–17 years in the HBSC survey. Four aspects of recent GP experience were studied: feeling at ease, being treated with respect, quality of GP explanation, and feeling able to talk about personal matters. Five dichotomised measures of health status or outcome were used (ever self-harmed; fair or poor self-reported health; frequent [at least weekly] low mood, sleeping problems, or headaches). We adjusted for participants’ sex, age, ethnicity, and family affluence score. Of 5178 participants, 1187 (23%) had not visited their GP within the past year and were excluded from the analysis.FindingsOf 3991 adolescents, 3632 (91%) felt treated with respect, 2091 (52%) could talk about personal matters, 1600 (40%) were satisfied with explanations, and 1221 (31%) felt at ease. Participants who reported poor experience of GP care were more likely to have poor health outcomes than were those who reported a good experience. For example, adolescents who did not feel at ease with their GP were more likely to report self-harm (adjusted odds ratio [AOR] 2·65, 95% CI 1·69–4·15; fair or poor health 1·64, 1·28–2·10; low mood 1·51, 1·25–1·82) and sleeping problems (1·41, 1·19–1·66). All GP indicators were associated with self-harm (AOR range 1·64–2·70; quality of GP explanation p=0·006, all others p<0·001) and feeling low (1·46–2·11, all p<0·001). The association with GP experience was less consistent for the other three health outcomes.InterpretationThis cross-sectional, observational study demonstrates that young people who report worse health symptoms, typically also report a poor experience of care. Further research is needed to investigate whether GP experience influences health outcomes—suggesting that improving GP experience might improve health outcomes in this group—or whether poor health status leads to more negative perceptions of care.FundingNone.     

A novel framework to guide antibiotic stewardship nursing practice

BackgroundThere is a pervasive view among some nurses and health care disciplines that antibiotic stewardship (AS) is solely a physician or pharmacist responsibility. There is an urgent need to alter this view so that nurses can seize every opportunity to prevent patient harm from antibiotics and optimize antibiotic use. One challenge to achieving full nurse engagement as equal members of the AS team is lack of an organizing framework to illustrate relationships of phenomena and concepts inherent to adoption of AS nursing practices.MethodsWe sought to create a framework derived from the peer-reviewed literature, systematic and scoping reviews, and professional standards, consensus statements and white papers. The emerging framework went through multiple iterations as it was vetted with nurse clinicians, scholars and educators, physicians, pharmacists, infection preventionists and AS subject matter experts.ResultsOur evidence-based Antibiotic Stewardship Nursing Practice SCAN-P Framework provides the much-needed context and clarity to help guide local-level nurses to participate in and lead AS nursing practice.ConclusionsNurses worldwide are ideally situated to provide holistic person-centered care, advocate for judicious use of antibiotics to minimize antibiotic resistance, and be AS educators of their patients, communities and the general public. The Antibiotic Stewardship Nursing Practice SCAN-P Framework provides a tool to do so.     

广州地区健康体检人群睡眠模式及其与糖尿病关系的分析

  目的  了解广州地区成年人睡眠模式的特征，并探讨睡眠模式对糖尿病（diabetes mellitus，DM）患病的影响。  方法  回顾性分析2012年11月至2013年12月在广东省人民医院参加体检的5 666名广州市职工的生活方式调查和体检资料。采用潜在类别分析（latent class analysis，LCA）对人群睡眠的潜在模式及分布特征进行探索性分析，通过多因素Logistic回归模型分析睡眠模式与DM的关系。  结果  LCA识别出5种睡眠模式，分别为“睡眠时间过短伴失眠”（类别1，5.6%）、“睡眠不足伴日间功能轻度减退”（类别2，20.4%）、“睡眠状况良好”（类别3，47.7%）、“睡眠不足伴日间功能障碍”（类别4，4.7%）、“睡眠不足伴夜间睡眠质量差”（类别5，21.6%）。调整相关混杂因素后，与类别3相比，类别1（OR=2.28，95%CI:1.51~3.43，P<0.001）、类别4（OR=2.48，95%CI:1.54~4.00，P<0.001）和类别5（OR=1.31，95%CI:1.01~1.71，P=0.045）人群罹患DM的风险升高。  结论  成年人群的睡眠因素之间存在关联，并表现为不同的睡眠模式；不良睡眠模式可增加DM患病风险。     

Losing the uphill battle? Emergent harm reduction interventions and barriers during the opioid overdose crisis in Canada

Canada continues to experience an escalating opioid overdose crisis that has claimed more than 8000 lives in the country since 2016. The presence of the synthetic opioid fentanyl and its analogues is a central contributor to the increases in preventable opioid-related deaths. However, a number of converging social-structural factors (e.g., the continued criminalisation of drug use, political changes) and political barriers are also complicating and contributing to the current crisis. We briefly outline four harm reduction interventions (i.e., injectable opioid agonist treatment, naloxone distribution programs, overdose prevention sites, and drug checking services) as emerging and rapidly expanding responses to this crisis in Canada. These examples of innovation and expansion are encouraging but also occurring at the same time that the opioid overdose crisis shows few signs of abating. To truly address the crisis, Canada needs political environments at all government levels that are responsive and foster harm reduction innovation and drug policy experimentation.