Acute respiratory distress syndrome (ARDS) is a major public health problem, accounting for 23% of intubated patients and associated with high mortality rates. Although lifesaving, invasive mechanical ventilation can worsen lung injury when ventilator settings are poorly adjusted to lung physiology. We hypothesise that individualising ventilator settings via (1) the bedside assessment of lung recruitability using a one-breath derecruitment manoeuvre and measurement of airway opening pressure to set positive end-expiratory pressure (PEEP), (2) controlling the distending pressure and (3) controlling respiratory drive improves ARDS outcomes.
The CAreful Ventilation In ARDS trial is an investigator-led multicentre (33 centres in eight countries), open-label, randomised controlled basket trial comparing two ventilation strategies in two subpopulations of moderate-to-severe ARDS: induced or not by COVID-19. A total of 740 patients will be randomised (370 in each substudy) in a 1:1 ratio to individualised ventilator settings or to using traditional PEEP to inspired fraction of oxygen tables for PEEP setting. Indications for proning and weaning strategies are similar in both arms. The primary outcome is all-cause mortality at day 60. Secondary outcomes include duration of mechanical ventilation, duration of intensive care unit (ICU) and hospital stay, organ dysfunction, barotrauma and mortality in ICU, at day 28 and in hospital.
Ethics approval has been obtained for all participating centres: Unity Health Toronto Research Ethics Board (for three centres: St Michael’s Hospital, Toronto General Hospital and Toronto Western Hospital); Comité de Ética de Investigación con Medicamentos del Hospital Universitari Vall d’Hebron; Comité de protection des personnes Ile de France III; Comité d'Ética de la Investigatción con Medicamentos de la Fundació de Gestió Sanitària del Hospital de la Santa Creu i Sant Pau; Comitato Etico—Fondazione Policlinico Gemelli; Comitato Etico di Area Vasta Emilia Centro; NYU Langone Health Institutional Review Board; Comité Ético Científico de Ciencias de la Salud; Il Comitato Etico Area 1 dell’Azienda Ospedaliero-Universitaria ‘Ospedali Riuniti’ di Foggia; HIGA ‘Eva Perón’ Comité de Bioética; Comité de Revisión Institucional del Hospital Británico Comité de Ética en Investigación; Complejo Médico Churruca-Visca Comité de Ética Biomédica; Comité de Ética SATI Comité de Ética en Investigación; Comité de Ética en Investigación del CEMIC; Comité de Ética SATI Comité de Ética en Investigación; Medical Research Ethics Committees United. Findings will be disseminated in peer review journals and conference presentations.
To explore the key knowledge, skills, attributes and organisational support that nurses require to optimise their scope of practice when providing care to people experiencing homelessness.
A qualitative descriptive study exploring nurses' scope of practice for addressing health needs of people experiencing homelessness.
Interviews and focus groups were conducted from 2022 to 2024 with 42 people with lived experience of homelessness across two Australian cities. Thematic analysis identified essential skills, attributes and approaches to improve access to care and eliminate stigma. Findings were then presented in focus groups with 11 registered nurses in specialist homeless health services to elicit views on optimising scope of practice. The study follows COREQ reporting guidelines for qualitative research.
Lived-experience participants—ranging from 18 to 84 years, a third living in cars or tents—identified key nursing attributes and practices, including approachability, compassion, non-judgement, flexibility, community embeddedness, trauma-informed and culturally safe practice, plus skills in physical and mental health assessment, medication management and service navigation. Nurse participants agreed with lived-experience participants, and highlighted organisational support needs, including information sharing, clinical supervision, assertive outreach, nurse prescribing and long-term funding for nurse-led programs.
With rising housing instability, preparing nurses to optimise access to care for people experiencing homelessness is critical. Optimal scope of practice includes personal attributes to build rapport and reduce stigma alongside clinical skills. Co-developing educational programs in partnership with people with lived experience of homelessness and homeless health nurses offers a promising approach.
This research informs the scope of practice definitions and the future development of a co-developed nursing education pathway and organisational framework to improve access to care for people experiencing homelessness in Australia.
Limited patient and public involvement was incorporated and focused on providing feedback on interview guides.
by Andrés Castellanos-Chacón, Daniela Arias-Otero, Valeria Uribe-Jaramillo, Juan David Leongómez, Milena Vásquez-Amézquita
The attentional system tends to prioritize negative stimuli in the early stages of processing, favoring threat detection. However, it is unclear whether this bias is maintained or reversed toward positive stimuli at later stages. In this study, we used a free-viewing paradigm with eye tracking to examine early and late attentional biases toward negative, positive, and neutral stimuli (humans in emotionally unloaded activities) versus control stimuli (inanimate objects) in 122 participants without affective disorders (64 men, 58 women). We fitted generalized linear mixed models with random intercepts for stimuli and random intercepts and slopes for participants, and used non-parametric bootstrap resampling to obtain robust estimates and confidence intervals. Additionally, the number of first fixations was analyzed with a COM-Poisson. Results showed that participants fixated faster (χ2(3) = 97.55, p 2(3) = 337.45, p χ2(3) = 200.24, p χ2(3) = 207.02, pPolysubstance use (PSU), particularly opioid-involved and stimulant-involved PSU, is a growing issue in the USA. PSU increases the risk of negative health consequences, including infectious diseases, worsening physical and mental health conditions, and overdose-related deaths. These consequences occur in the context of varying health risk behaviours, substance-related preferences, and treatment engagements among people with PSU. To inform improvements in prevention, harm reduction, and substance use disorder (SUD) treatment, additional research is needed to comprehensively understand the current context and drivers of PSU preferences, motivations, and behaviours.
Herein, we describe the protocol for a prospective cohort study designed to capture detailed patterns, profiles, and trajectories of PSU, with the aim of comprehensively examining the drivers of PSU behaviours and SUD treatment utilisation. Adults (ages 18–75; n=400) who engage in PSU will be recruited from healthcare institutions, an established participant database maintained by an adjacent SUD research team, and online advertisements. Study assessments will capture dynamic patterns, choice preferences, and motivators of PSU via behavioural economic (BE) measures, detailed Timeline Follow-Back (TLFB) interviews, and self-administered surveys. The assessment timeline will include a baseline survey and TLFB interview, weekly TLFB interviews for 4 weeks post-baseline, and follow-up surveys and TLFB interviews at 4-, 8-, and 12-months post-baseline.
The study is funded through the National Institutes of Health Helping to End Addiction Long-term (HEAL) initiative and was approved by the University of Michigan Medical Institutional Review Board. Findings will be disseminated to academic, clinical, and community partners through the Michigan Innovations in Addiction Care through Research and Education programme. Results from this study will inform actionable and practical insights relevant to the delivery of personalised care in the context of PSU.
Few studies have quantified the vulnerability of people experiencing homelessness and its association with emergency department (ED) reattendances. The study objectives were to identify the health and social-related vulnerability, comorbidities and reattendance to an ED within 28 days, of people experiencing homelessness and people living in stable housing.
Prospective cohort study, 28 September 2023 to 12 October 2023.
Metropolitan ED in an inner-city public hospital.
Eligible participants were those who attended the ED between 8am and 5pm during the 2 week study period (2023), those aged 18 years and over and able to provide informed consent, and those deemed well enough to participate.
The homeless health access to care tool (HHACT) assesses a person’s unmet needs and quantifies their level of health and social-related vulnerability (low, moderate, high). The HHACT was applied to each participant. Routinely collected administrative data was used to identify participant demographics and ED usage on the day of study enrolment and any ED reattendance within 28 days.
Outcome measures were the identification of participants’ level of health and social-related vulnerability and its relationship to ED reattendance.
Of the 300 ED participants, 38 (12.6%) were experiencing homelessness. There was a greater than twofold increase in odds of 28-day ED reattendance for participants experiencing homelessness (OR=2.93, CI 1.29 to 6.36; p=0.008) or had moderate to high vulnerability scores (participants living in stable housing and participants homeless) (OR=2.67, CI 1.29 to 5.36; p=0.007). Compared with participants in stable housing, prevalence of comorbidities among participants experiencing homelessness was greater regarding mental health challenges (65.8% vs 21.8%); three or more physical health conditions (36.8% vs 13%) and greater alcohol and other drug use (36.8% vs 17.2%).
The high ED reattendance suggests that people experiencing homelessness are not being adequately screened for unmet needs on their first presentation. Comprehensive screening using the HHACT may enhance the identification of the risk of reattendance and provide opportunities to intervene through targeted responses, such as integrated care pathways. While EDs are not designed to address the multifaceted needs of people experiencing homelessness, there is an urgent need to consider how to optimise this population’s access to appropriate care.
Dietary (poly)phenols have beneficial properties that may play a relevant role in the management of overweight/obesity and cardiometabolic risk factors, modulating physiological and molecular pathways involved in energy metabolism, adiposity and gut microbiota-derived metabolites.
The Prevention/Precision Diet in Araucanía (PREDIET-ARAC) trial is a randomised, single-blind, parallel arm, placebo-controlled, clinical trial designed to assess the potential health benefits of (poly)phenol intake through either diet or supplementation. The study will evaluate the effectiveness of a healthy plant-based diet (PBD) rich in (poly)phenols compared with (poly)phenol supplementation during a caloric restriction intervention.
A total of 99 adults (aged 25–45 years) with overweight or obesity (body mass index: 25–35 kg/m²) and cardiovascular risk factors will be recruited from primary health centres in Temuco, Araucanía Region, Chile. Participants will be randomised (stratified by age:
Dietary data will be collected using dedicated software through three 24-hour dietary recalls at baseline and post-intervention. (Poly)phenol intake will be estimated using the Phenol-Explorer database. The main data collection will include general and lifestyle questionnaires, anthropometric and bioimpedance measurements, blood pressure assessments using sphygmomanometers, physical activity monitoring through accelerometers and strength evaluations via dynamometry. Blood samples will be collected at both baseline and after 12 weeks. For the analysis of plasma metabolites, a large-scale targeted metabolomics approach will be employed, specifically utilising ultra-high performance liquid chromatography coupled to tandem mass spectrometry. The healthy PBD will be primarily supplied by the food industry, encompassing a selection of regional and Latin American foods: blueberries, apple, nuts, olive oil and coffee. A descriptive and inferential statistical plan will be conducted, based on comparison tests, regression models and machine-learning algorithms.
This trial adheres to the Declaration of Helsinki and the CONSORT statement. Signed informed consent will be obtained from all participants. Ethical approval has been granted by the Ethical-Scientific Committee of the Health Service of Araucanía Sur, Chile (Approval No 11250095–58) and the Biosafety Committee of the Catholic University of Temuco. Findings will be disseminated through peer-reviewed publications, conference presentations and engagement with healthcare professionals and policymakers.
Introducción: Algunas prácticas ambientales arraigadas culturalmente ocasionan enfermedades infantiles como: diarreas, neumonías, dermatitis, lesiones domésticas no intencionales, etc. Objetivos: Describir las prácticas culturales y ambientales del ámbito rural de Perú que influyen en la salud infantil. Metodología: Investigación cualitativa, descriptiva, el escenario fueron los hogares de 15 madres de familia, residentes rurales de la costa norte de Perú; la muestra fue delimitada por saturación y redundancia, el muestreo no probabilístico por conveniencia. Los datos se recolectaron mediante entrevista semiestructurada y procesados según el análisis de contenido. Resultados: A) Riesgo en la salud infantil por práctica cultural y ambiental de cocina a fuego abierto, B) Práctica cultural y ambiental en la eliminación de excretas, C) Costumbre de quema de residuos sólidos. Conclusiones: La mayoría de las madres de la zona rural cocinan a fuego abierto, usan leña, esto es un riesgo para los niños que permanecen con ellas. Eliminan las excretas en pozos ciegos, debido a la falta de saneamiento. Además, manifiestan un inadecuado manejo de residuos sólidos, eliminados en espacios abiertos que favorecen la proliferación de vectores, para posteriormente ser quemados.
Objetivo principal: Clarificar el significado de estrés de aculturación del inmigrante hispano, además de conocer cada una de las dimensiones y características propias del concepto, con la finalidad de comprender mejor las necesidades de la persona inmigrante que vive en los Estados Unidos. Metodología: El análisis de concepto se hizo a través de los ocho pasos propuestos por Walker y Avant. Resultados principales: Se identificaron tres dimensiones del concepto estrés de aculturación: (1) estresores personales, (2) estresores del entorno y (3) estresores sociales. Como antecedentes del concepto se identificó el arrepentimiento, la culpa y negación. En general, las consecuencias se reflejan en la salud mental del inmigrante hispano. Además, se reconoció los instrumentos de medi-ción que evalúan el estrés de aculturación. Conclusión principal: Se obtuvo una definición clara del concepto estrés de aculturación desde la perspectiva del inmigrante hispano, que ayudará a estimar la validez de constructo de las mediciones de este concepto. Las dimensiones reportadas con mayor frecuencia son consideradas en el inventario de estrés en hispanos, sin embargo, se recomienda analizar la validez de constructo del concepto. Sería importante considerar las consecuencias derivadas del estrés de aculturación en la prevención y tratamiento de la salud mental.
Objetivo: identificar los elementos teóricos y metodológicos del cuidado que aplican los profesionales de enfermería en dos instituciones de salud del Departamento del Atlántico. Metodología: estudio descriptivo, transversal, la muestra estuvo conformada por 60 enfermeras de dos instituciones de salud. La obtención de datos se realizó a través de un cuestionario, consignándose las variables significativas, el análisis de los datos se calcularon en frecuencias absolutas y porcentajes. Resultados: predominó el grupo etario de 23 a 27 años: 43%, el género femenino: 100%, el 76% señalaron dificultades en la aplicación; Modelos de Enfermería orientadores de la práctica: Dorotea Orem: 78%; en la Aplicación de teorías Florence Nightingale: 73%, entre otros. Conclusión: Las enfermeras señalan que sí recibieron en el pregrado conocimientos sobre el tema, pero en la práctica algunas no los aplican; situación preocupante, debida a que no se reconoce la importancia de los principios científicos y filosóficos que orientan la profesión.