Within the UK there are 33 deaths every day from prostate cancer, second only to lung cancer as the most common cause of cancer death in males in the UK. Of the 55 000 new cases each year, up to 50% of these patients will receive radiotherapy either alone or after prostatectomy. Although there have been significant improvements in the accuracy of radiotherapy delivery leading to better tumour targeting and a reduction in dose to normal tissues, significant permanent genito-urinary or gastrointestinal-related side effects are all too common. With nearly 80% of patients with prostate cancer surviving for 10 years or more, minimising life-limiting radiation damage to normal tissues is vitally important. However, at present, it is not possible to identify which patients will suffer a poorer outcome after radiotherapy. The aim of this study, improving radiotherapy in PROState cancer using EleCtronic population-based healthCAre data (PROSECCA), is to do this by using the existing information in a patient’s digital healthcare record. By linking primary, secondary and tertiary clinical data, including digital image information, with radiotherapy treatment plans and outcome data, the PROSECCA study will identify de novo predictive biomarkers of radiation response and provide clinicians with a tool to individualise a radiotherapy dose and plan to maximise cure and minimise toxicity.

The PROSECCA study is a large multidisciplinary project, the purpose of which is to analyse healthcare records from up to 15 000 patients with prostate cancer who underwent radiotherapy in the treatment of their cancer in Scotland between 2010 and 2022. Through the linkage of data obtained specifically for radiotherapy and data held within each patient’s unique electronic health record (EHR), the factors that indicate why some patients have a poor response to treatment, or an increased risk of side effects from radiation, will be identified. This will be made possible by the use of artificial intelligence and machine learning (AL/ML), which will help to identify at-risk patients earlier and allow adaptation of their treatment accordingly.

The study is being conducted in accordance with the ethical principles set out in the Declaration of Helsinki and Good Clinical Practice that respects and protects the rights, and maintains confidentiality, of all trial participants. The study protocol (V.1.0) was reviewed by the South Central Oxford A Research Ethics Committee (REC) on 13 December 2021 and received a favourable opinion subject to each National Health Service (NHS) organisation confirming permission for patients treated within their area. Approval for the use of unconsented healthcare record data for patients included in the study and treated at one of the five Scottish Cancer Centres required an application to the NHS Scotland Public Benefit and Privacy Panel for Health and Social Care (HSC-PBPP). Full approval from the HSC-PBPP panel was received on 1 July 2024, which covered the use of pseudoanonymised EHR data for all patients participating in the study. The study is publicly listed on the NHS Health Research Authority site, with IRAS ID 306245 and REC reference 21/SC/0402. Dissemination of the study findings will take place through field-leading cancer, radiation oncology and medical physics journals. All manuscripts will be approved by the main study team and authorship determined by mutual agreement.

NCT06714630.

This paper aims to describe the development of an inventory of chronic ambulatory care sensitive conditions (ACSCs) relevant to the Malaysian context and identify potentially preventable hospitalisations in the Malaysian Ministry of Health (MOH) facilities based on the developed list.

Consultative panel discussion, multi-panel modified Delphi and secondary health data analysis.

Setting: Malaysian MOH healthcare facilities.

42 experts from the family medicine and internal medicine specialties (modified Delphi), and 2022 inpatient data from MOH hospitals (secondary health data analysis).

A list of chronic ACSCs tailored to the Malaysian context and the proportion of potentially preventable hospitalisation in MOH hospitals.

10 conditions were identified as chronic ACSCs for Malaysia, namely angina, asthma, chronic kidney disease, convulsions and epilepsy, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, diabetes mellitus, heart failure, hypertension, iron deficiency anaemia and ischaemic heart disease. In 2022, these conditions accounted for 8.6% of potentially preventable hospitalisations among the total hospitalisations in MOH hospitals.

This study provides a base list of chronic ACSCs tailored to the Malaysian context, which enables monitoring of potentially preventable hospitalisations due to chronic conditions. The findings underscore a proportion of hospital admissions that could potentially be avoided through interventions that enhance outpatient care. The conditions identified as ambulatory care sensitive provide specific targets for policy action and resource allocation to optimise outpatient health services and thus reduce the burden of hospitalisations in the country.

Malaysian National Medical Research Register, NMRR ID-23–02149-TBZ (https://nmrr.gov.my/research-directory/45c901d6-f121-4e79-9f38-dd7d283ec9a6).

Hospital data can inform decision-makers with real-time evidence, yet it remains underutilised. This study aims to compare international health technology assessment (HTA) and regulatory real-world evidence (RWE) guidance, focusing on their applicability to hospital data.

We used a two-step sequential qualitative design: a scoping review and semi-structured interviews with HTA experts. We searched for RWE guidance for HTA in 12 countries: the UK, Germany, Italy, Spain, France, Finland, the Netherlands, Portugal, Denmark, Canada, the US and Australia, along with the European Medicines Agency and Food and Drug Administration. The expert interviews aimed to validate document selection and assess their applicability to hospital data. We analysed the interviews thematically.

We identified 19 guidance documents providing recommendations for RWE. Of these, four documents explicitly provided recommendations tailored to hospital data, while two others did so implicitly. The scope, definition and applications of RWE vary among guidance. Recommendations across all agencies mainly address the clinical-effectiveness domain, with limited guidance on quality-of-life and patient-reported outcomes, and none on real-world cost. The interviews identified seven themes playing a role in using hospital data: data-related, generalisability, ethical/legal, organisational, communication, governance and technology-related. Barriers included data availability, access, timeliness, quality, validation and heterogeneity. HTA experts emphasised the need for standardised policies.

There is a lack of harmonisation in assessing RWE among HTA and regulatory agencies. The available RWE guidance documents provide limited guidance on real-world hospital data. Considering their unique nature and to unlock their potential for HTA, we emphasise the need for more in-depth guidance tailored to the hospital context.

Interstitial lung diseases (ILD) associated with an underlying connective tissue disease (CTD), also known as a systemic autoimmune rheumatic disease or SARD, are chronic conditions with a tendency to progress. CTD-ILDs are increasingly diagnosed and pose an important global health challenge. This systematic review aims to provide an overarching evaluation of their epidemiology and disease burden in Asia. In this review, the term CTD-ILD will be used to denote all major forms of ILD arising in the context of a SARD.

This systematic review will adhere to the standards of the Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses (PRISMA) guidelines, including a flow diagram to depict the process by four independent reviewers that will assess titles and abstracts against the following predetermined criteria. A systematic review of the literature search published from 2000 to 2024 will be conducted using five electronic databases including PubMed/MEDLINE, Scopus, EMBASE, Cochrane Library and Web of Science. Publications that meet the inclusion criteria of this review will be subjected to a full-text review to extract relevant data. Collated data will be analysed and organised into categories based on the expected outcome and objectives. The quality of published evidence, including heterogeneity across studies, will be checked against PRISMA checklists and assessed by Newcastle-Ottawa Scale.

Ethics approval is not applicable for this study since no original data will be collected. The findings of this review will be disseminated through a peer-reviewed publication in a scientific journal and conference communications, with the aim of contributing insights to the field by identifying research gaps and informing clinical practice.

The protocol of this systematic review is registered with the National Medical & Research Register (ID-24–03600-GUB) and International Prospective Register of Systematic Reviews PROSPERO (CRD420251037095).

A quality management system (QMS) in healthcare organisations encompasses not only policies, processes and necessary procedures but also the quality, safety and risk management of medical technology. Tactical and operational decision-making levels should be closely interconnected. Previous studies have shown that nurses at the operational level do have good awareness of patient safety, but especially in teams with a strong degree of self-organisation, interaction with tactical levels is an issue. The tactical level is regarded as crucial for linking top-down policy with bottom-up experiences.

To explore the perspectives of homecare employees working at a tactical level regarding (1) the quality frameworks used within their organisation according to these employees, (2) the extent to which these employees are aware of the procedures for the safe use of advanced medical technologies (AMTs), such as infusion pumps, within their organisation and (3) how these employees perceive the patient safety culture related to the use of AMTs within their organisation.

A qualitative descriptive research design was employed.

15 semistructured interviews were conducted online with purposively sampled participants from homecare organisations across the Netherlands that had previously participated in related studies. The participants were employees at the tactical level within these homecare organisations, responsible for the quality and safety of AMTs.

All participating organisations possess a QMS; however, only seven indicated that there is a dedicated plan for ensuring the quality and safety of AMTs. National protocols for the use of AMTs and the supplier’s maintenance protocols are commonly followed. Although some participants say that their organisation has no formal procedure for resolving malfunctions with AMTs, all participants know pathways for solving problems. Tailored training programmes for nurses on AMTs are provided, but often without testing knowledge and skills or formal registration of nurses’ competence. Professionals report an incident on a separate form in the electronic client file or via a separate reporting system. However, there is no uniformity within organisations about handling incidents. Most interviewees state that, in any case, incidents are discussed within the team. On the dimension ‘reporting, evaluating and learning from incidents’ of the ‘Instrument for Self-Evaluation of Patient Safety Culture’, the prevailing patient safety culture is, on average, characterised as ‘proactive’.

There is a lack of uniformity regarding quality and safety procedures for the use of AMTs in homecare organisations, and structured policies for the implementation, use and maintenance of AMTs are needed. This study identified additional risk factors regarding individual competencies in the use of AMTs at home. Employees at the tactical level seem to be more positive about the patient safety culture with AMTs in their organisations than nurses at the operational level are.

Hospital patients are at an increased risk of falls, which are a significant safety concern within healthcare settings.¹ Understanding how the COVID-19 pandemic has influenced fall risks is essential for identifying key factors that could inform future fall prevention strategies.² This scoping review aims to explore the barriers and challenges associated with preventing inpatient falls in the context of the post-COVID-19 environment.

The methodology for this scoping review follows the framework established by Arksey and O’Malley. A comprehensive literature search will be conducted using specific keywords to identify relevant published studies. Searches will be performed across selected electronic databases, including PubMed/MEDLINE, CINAHL, Scopus, ProQuest and Web of Science, covering publications from 2014 to 2024. This review will focus on a global perspective. Two authors will independently screen titles and abstracts to identify potential studies for inclusion. Studies meeting the inclusion criteria will be retrieved for full-text review, and their references will be assessed for relevance using the same criteria. The PRISMA flow diagram will guide the review process. Data will be extracted, analysed and charted according to categories from the selected publications.

This scoping review will provide a comprehensive overview of the barriers and challenges in preventing inpatient falls in the post-pandemic context. The findings will be disseminated through submission for publication in a scientific journal.

This scoping review protocol is registered with Open Science Framework (OSF) available at https://osf.io/.

To assess the comparative effectiveness of educational interventions in neurological disease for healthcare workers and students.

Systematic review.

Medline, Embase and Cochrane through to 1 June 2025.

Studies evaluating neurological disease educational interventions with a comparator group (observational cohort/randomised controlled trial (RCT)) were included.

A Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses-compliant systematic review was conducted (PROSPERO: CRD42023461838). Knowledge acquisition and educational methodologies were collected from each study. Study outcomes were classified using the Kirkpatrick and Kirkpatrick four-level model (learner reaction, knowledge acquisition, behavioural change, clinical outcome).¹ Risk of bias was assessed using the Newcastle-Ottawa scale for non-randomised studies and the Cochrane Risk of Bias tool for RCTs.^{2 3}

A total of 67 studies involving 4728 participants were included. Of these, 36 were RCTs, and 31 were observational studies. Virtual interventions were the most common (67.2%, n=45 studies), primarily targeting either medical students (46.3%, n=31 studies) or specialists (40.3%, n=27 studies). Overall, 70.1% (n=47) of studies demonstrated outcomes in favour of the intervention. However, few studies used K&K level 3/4 outcomes, with two studies evaluating behaviour change (level 3) and three assessing clinical outcomes (level 4 combined with other levels). No study exclusively assessed level 4 outcomes. Meta-analysis of 22 RCTs with calculable standardised mean differences (SMDs) (n=1748) showed a significant benefit of interventions (SMD 0.75, 95% CI 0.22 to 1.27, p=0.0056).

This review highlights a growing body of research particularly focusing on virtual techniques, specialist audiences and treatment-oriented content. Few studies assessed changes in practice or patient care. Non-specialists remain underrepresented. Future studies should prioritise assessing the clinical impact of educational interventions within non-specialist audiences.

Falls are highly prevalent among individuals with dementia, largely due to the cognitive and physical impairments associated with the condition. Understanding the barriers and challenges to fall prevention in community-dwelling individuals with dementia is essential for developing tailored strategies that address their unique risks. Despite the existing evidence on fall prevention in older adults, few reviews specifically examine the obstacles faced by persons with dementia and their caregivers in community settings. This scoping review, therefore, aims to map the barriers and challenges to preventing falls among community-dwelling individuals with dementia.

This review will follow Arksey and O’Malley’s five-stage framework and be reported in accordance with the Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses—Extension for Scoping Reviews checklist. Six electronic databases (PsycINFO, PubMed, Web of Science, Cumulative Index to Nursing and Allied Health Literature, Scopus and Embase) will be searched for relevant studies published between 2014 and 2024. Grey literature sources, including dissertations and conference proceedings, will also be included. Data will be charted and synthesised thematically to provide an overview of barriers and contextual factors influencing fall prevention. The study commenced in August 2025 and is expected to be completed by February 2026.

As this review involves the analysis of existing literature, ethical approval is not required. Findings will be disseminated through peer-reviewed publications, conference presentations and summaries tailored for healthcare providers and caregiver groups.

The protocol is registered with the Open Science Framework: https://osf.io/gnw47/(dataset).

Cancer has impacted patients’ quality of life (QoL). Qigong, a type of mind-body exercise, has been adopted by some patients with cancer to improve their QoL. However, various lengthy questionnaires were used to assess Qigong’s effects which made data synthesis difficult. Therefore, a simplified Qigong QoL Questionnaire (3Q instrument) has been developed to assess cancer patients’ QoL when they practise Qigong. This study aims to validate this instrument and contribute to the standardisation and simplification of the outcome measures for the studies on Qigong.

A total of 173 patients with cancer practising Qigong in Australia and China will be recruited to evaluate QoL using the 3Q instrument and Functional Assessment of Cancer Therapy–General (FACT-G) questionnaire. SPSS Statistics V.29 software will be used for data analyses. Exploratory factor analysis will be conducted to identify the factor structures of the 3Q instrument. The internal consistency of the 3Q instrument will be evaluated by Cronbach’s alpha. Test–retest reliabilities will be confirmed by intraclass correlations. Content validity will be assessed by the Spearman’s correlation coefficient. Construct validity will be established through confirmatory factor analysis. Criterion validity will be assessed against FACT-G, and Spearman’s correlation coefficient will be adopted to calculate their correlations.

This study has been approved by the RMIT University Human Research Ethics Committee (HREC26229). The findings from the present study will be submitted to peer-reviewed journals for publication and/or presented at conferences.

Mental health issues such as depression and anxiety are highly and disproportionally prevalent among university students. Beyond the academic rigour, stressors imposed by a new environment result in them being vulnerable to the onset and manifestation of mental health symptomatology. Leveraging smartphones and wearables for digital phenotyping capabilities is an innovative approach for monitoring and intervening in the mental health conditions of university students. This provides a unique opportunity to collect and identify digital and behavioural biomarkers, subsequently enabling the development of predictive models to identify university students at risk.

This study—Brightline—will employ an observational study design over a 6-month period, recruiting 500 students from a major public university in Singapore. Passive data collection will occur continuously throughout the monitoring period through a wearable device (Fitbit Charge 6) and smartphone sensors via the Brightline app, which uses a digital phenotyping data collection platform. Active data collection will consist of self-report questionnaires to be completed at the beginning of the study and follow-up assessments at 1, 3 and 6 months after. The passive and active data collected will be analysed to identify the digital biomarkers associated with depression, anxiety, stress, loneliness and affect among university students. Predictive models of these mental health issues will also be developed.

This study was approved by the Nanyang Technological University Institutional Review Board (IRB-2023-894). Findings from this study will be published in peer-reviewed journals and presented at academic conferences.

NCT06770075.

The development of simple tools to identify individuals at high risk of coronary heart disease (CHD) would enable rapid implementation of preventive measures. This study was designed to construct predictive models and scoring systems for CHD using monocyte count and its ratio to high-density lipoprotein cholesterol (HDL-C) (MHR).

Population-based prospective cohort study.

The Shanghai Suburban Adult Cohort and Biobank (SSACB).

This prospective study included 44 013 CHD-free participants of the SSACB. The Songjiang subcohort served as the training set, in which three predictive models and corresponding scoring systems were developed with monocyte count or MHR using stepwise Cox regression. The models and algorithms were tested internally using 10-fold cross-validation and externally in the Jiading subcohort. Discriminations were assessed based on area under the curve (AUC) values, while calibrations were evaluated using the Hosmer-Lemeshow goodness-of-fit test.

During a mean follow-up period of 4.8 years, 883 CHD events occurred, with an incidence of 415.7/100 000. Monocyte count and MHR were significantly associated with the risk of CHD. The constructed model incorporating monocyte count (Model 2) achieved AUC values of 0.746 (0.726, 0.766) for 4-year CHD prediction in the training set, 0.746 (0.690, 0.796) in the cross-validation, and 0.717 (0.674, 0.761) in the external validation, comparable to the models including HDL-C (model 1) or MHR (model 3). Calibration plots demonstrated good agreement between predicted and actual probabilities. Similar results were observed for the corresponding scoring algorithms.

The monocyte-based model is a simple, low-cost and well-calibrated risk-stratification tool for CHD. However, the declined discrimination in external validation indicates limited generalisability. Prospective multicentre validation and recalibration are therefore warranted before clinical adoption.

Although lung cancer in never smokers (LCNSs) accounts for an estimated 25% of all lung cancer cases, the temporal trends in LCNS incidence and its broader epidemiological patterns remain poorly understood. Our study examines the temporal trends in LCNS incidence and analyses key epidemiological characteristics, specifically, the trends in mortality rates, survival rates and changes in age at onset to illuminate the reasons for temporal trends in LCNS incidence.

Retrospective population-based cohort study.

Regional electronic health record (EHR) database linked to the cancer registry in eastern China.

A total of 1 080 317 adults who have never smoked were included, among whom 4061 incident lung cancer cases were identified between 1 January 2009 and 31 December 2020.

The temporal trends in LCNS incidence in a large population-based dynamic cohort were estimated, overall and separately by sex, age group and histological types. The broader epidemiological patterns of LCNS, such as trends in mortality rates, survival rates and changes in age at onset, were analysed.

From 2009 through 2020, the incidence of LCNS among men increased significantly from 9.51 to 43.4 per 100 000 (average annual percentage change (AAPC) 10.51%; 95% CI (6.88% to 14.26%)) whereas a sharper increase was observed among women from 3.57 to 51.68 per 100 000 (AAPC 22.39%; 95% CI (18.36% to 26.55%)). The 2-year survival of LCNS improved from 39% in 2010 to 64% in 2018 for men, and from 57% in 2009 to 86% in 2020 for women, while the mortality from LCNS remained stable from 2014 through 2020 (men: AAPC –1.77%; 95% CI (–8.95% to 5.97%); women: AAPC 2.19%; 95% CI (–4.09% to 8.89%)). The increasing trend in LCNS incidence was observed across most of the age groups except the elderly population aged ≥85 years in both sexes and the men aged 45–54 years, but the increase was most evident in the younger population aged

There is a substantial increase in LCNS incidence, especially among women and young populations. However, the reason for these observed trends remains unclear and warrants investigation.

This study aimed to examine the reproductive concerns and their influencing factors among adolescents and young adults with acute leukaemia and to explore the relationship between reproductive concerns and patients’ quality of life.

A cross-sectional study.

The haematology departments of four tertiary-level hospitals in Hunan province, China.

Convenience sampling method was used to recruit 233 adolescents and young adults with acute leukaemia, from June 2024 to December 2024.

The primary outcome was assessed using the Chinese version of the Reproductive Concerns After Cancer and the secondary outcome was measured by the 12-item Short Form Health Survey.

Adolescents and young adults with acute leukaemia had a mean reproductive concerns score of 55.57±7.57, a quality of life physical component summary (PCS) score of 38.54±8.58 and a mental component summary (MCS) score of 39.84±8.78. Univariate analysis showed significant differences in reproductive concerns based on fertility status, place of residence, education level, fertility counselling and family history of acute leukaemia (p

Adolescents and young adults with acute leukaemia exhibited moderately high levels of reproductive concerns, particularly those who had no children, had a low education level, resided in rural areas, had a family history of acute leukaemia or had received fertility counselling. Therefore, we suggest that healthcare providers prioritise addressing reproductive concerns in high-risk patients by offering tailored, high-quality and continuous fertility counselling and psychological support. Strengthening these strategies can help alleviate reproductive concerns and improve both mental health and overall quality of life in this population.

To enhance nursing students’ critical thinking abilities, numerous educators have explored alternative teaching methods. While meta-analyses have confirmed that various approaches are effective in developing critical thinking, consensus regarding their comparative effectiveness remains elusive. Furthermore, few investigations have directly contrasted the outcomes across these methods, highlighting the necessity to undertake a comprehensive evaluation of their impact on nursing students’ critical thinking skills. Accordingly, this study aims to assess the effects of six teaching methods on nursing students’ critical thinking abilities.

A comprehensive literature search will be carried out up to May 2025 across various databases, such as PubMed, Embase, The Cochrane Library, Web of Science, OVID, CNKI, Wanfang Database and the China Biological Literature Database (CBM). The search strategy will specifically target randomised controlled trials meeting predefined inclusion criteria. Two independent reviewers will screen the selected studies and extract pertinent data. The methodological quality of the included studies will be assessed using the Cochrane risk of bias tool. A network meta-analysis will then be performed using Stata software, incorporating the following analytical components: heterogeneity, network evidence diagrams, publication bias plots, league tables, forest plots, subgroup analyses or meta-regression and sensitivity analyses. The Grading of Recommendations Assessment, Development and Evaluation (GRADE) system will be leveraged to appraise the overall quality of evidence related to critical thinking abilities across all compared interventions.

No formal research ethics approval is required. The results will be submitted to a peer-reviewed journal for publication.

CRD42024618735.

Cohort studies of ageing and cognitive decline typically do not begin fielding comprehensive cognitive assessments until older adulthood. However, for identifying preventable dementia risk factors, there is strong value in beginning at earlier ages. The case is especially compelling in sub-Saharan Africa, where the number of older individuals is expected to triple in the next three decades, and where risk factors may operate more intensively at earlier ages. This study reports on the adaptation and validity of the Harmonised Cognitive Assessment Protocol (HCAP) approach in the Kenya Life Panel Survey (KLPS), collected among middle-aged respondents.

To evaluate the validity of the HCAP approach in Kenya, this study assesses model fit statistics from confirmatory factor analyses (CFA) and tests measurement invariance by respondent characteristics.

Both rural and urban areas in Kenya.

A sample of n=5878 individuals from the KLPS, who have been surveyed regularly since they were schoolchildren in the 1990s. The HCAP assessment was administered in 2023 at an average age of 37 years (10–90 range 34 to 41).

For each individual, the CFA generates a general cognitive performance score, and cognitive performance scores for five distinct domains, including memory, executive functioning, language, orientation to time and place, and visuospatial functioning.

Fit of the models to the data was adequate for general cognitive performance (root mean squared error of approximation (RMSEA)=0.03; comparative fit index (CFI)=0.94; standardised root mean residual (SRMR)=0.05), language (RMSEA=0.02; CFI=0.95; SRMR=0.05) and good for memory (RMSEA=0.05; CFI=0.99; SRMR=0.02) and executive functioning (RMSEA=0.03; CFI=0.98; SRMR=0.03). The CFA indicate that the factor structure is consistent with findings from other countries and that reliability for the general cognitive performance score was high. Statistical models also suggest invariance at the scalar level for leading demographic (gender, age) and socioeconomic (education, occupational complexity) characteristics.

This study demonstrates that the cognitive functioning of mid-age Kenyans appears to be well captured by the adapted protocol. While there is a moderate decline in cognitive performance among older individuals, this relationship appears to be mediated by education, indicating that this KLPS HCAP provides a valuable baseline for studying future cognitive decline.