A neglected area of patient safety research is how the characteristics of mental health staff and teams may influence incidents, specifically, through unintended and harmful consequences of clinical care. While the research literature into patient safety has increased, there is still a need to further consider safety on mental health wards, for example, the role of the staff team in containment and conflict. This review aims to explore the question, ‘How do staff and team characteristics relate to safety incidents in adult inpatient mental health settings?’.

The review will follow Whittemore and Knafl’s integrative review framework. CINAHL, Cochrane, Embase, MEDLINE, PsycINFO, Web of Science will be searched. Literature published after 1999, that includes extractable quantitative, qualitative and mixed methods data exploring the relationship between staff and team characteristics on incidents in adult inpatient mental health settings, will be suitable for inclusion. The Mixed Methods Appraisal Tool will be used for quality appraisal and data analysis and will comprise data reduction, display and comparison.

No new data or access to participants will be involved in this review. As such, ethical review will not be required. Dissemination will include publication in peer-reviewed journals and presentations at national and international conferences.

This review has been registered on PROSPERO (ref. CRD420251119981; https://www.crd.york.ac.uk/PROSPERO/view/CRD420251119981).

We hypothesise that women with type 2 diabetes and hypertension are less likely than comparable men to receive renin–angiotensin system (RAS)-inhibiting antihypertensive treatment, particularly as first-line therapy. This study’s main aim is to investigate the delivery of RAS inhibitor treatments by sex and number of antihypertensive treatments used.

Cross-sectional study in a cohort.

Constances cohort, France, 2012–2019.

2541 participants with type 2 diabetes among the 196 477 individuals aged 18–69 included in the Constances cohort.

Proportion of individuals treated with RAS inhibitors by sex and number of antihypertensive treatments dispensed. Factors associated with the use of RAS inhibitors.

Among 2541 diabetics, 1742 (68.6%) had received at least one antihypertensive treatment during the year preceding inclusion—a percentage that did not differ significantly between men and women (p=0.07). In analyses stratified by the number of antihypertensive classes, RAS inhibitors were delivered significantly less often to women than men for single-drug therapy (OR 0.46, 95% CI 0.25 to 0.81; p=0.008) and two-drug therapy (0.35, 95% CI 0.16 to 0.75, p=0.007) but not in regimens of three or more drugs (0.29, 95% CI 0.05 to 1.56; p=0.15). In the multivariate analysis, women received RAS inhibitors significantly less often than men (0.41, 95% CI 0.27 to 0.62; p

Women with type 2 diabetes are less likely than men to receive a prescription for RAS inhibitors, although this drug class is recommended as first-line therapy in this population.

A key part of the patient safety system is how it responds to and learns from safety incidents. To date, there is limited research on understanding system-based approaches to investigating incidents that occur within this complex interacting system.

The aims of this study were to qualitatively explore mental health professionals’ perceptions of patient safety incident investigations; to understand the impact of the transition to systems-based approaches and to explore the influence of different elements of the system on the goals of patient safety.

The qualitative study involved 19 semi-structured interviews with professionals working within the patient safety system across two mental health National Health Service trusts. The data were analysed using thematic analysis.

Those interviewed identified that a change in approach to incident investigation, from root cause analysis to systems-based, would lead to rigorous investigations that are effectively linked to learning. Over time, this was described as a contributory factor to reducing feelings of blame and positively influencing safety culture. There were considerations of potential negative effects from a systems-based approach, such as the shifting rather than elimination of blame, and the possibility of missing individual poor practice. The findings identify the presence of several interdependencies across the system that could have a positive or negative influence on the outcomes of incident responses.

This study demonstrates that the interdependencies within the system and our limited understanding of safety in mental healthcare introduces complexity and uncertainty to incident investigation outcomes. This is likely to impact on safety incident responses and learning, where acknowledging and evaluating this complexity is likely to reduce any potential negative outcomes that exist.

Delirium is one of the most common forms of acute cerebral dysfunction in critically ill children, leading to increased morbidity and mortality. The aim was to identify studies describing or evaluating non-pharmacological interventions to prevent or treat paediatric delirium.

Scoping review.

Searches were performed in Medline, CINAHL, Cochrane Library, Ovid (Journals), EMBASE and Web of Science from January 2000 to April 2023. A hand search and update were conducted on 01 June 2024.

We included studies involving critically ill children (0–18 years) in intensive care settings that examined non-pharmacological interventions for the prevention or treatment of paediatric delirium. Only empirical studies and reviews with transparent methodology were considered.

Title and abstract screening and full-text review of articles were conducted by two reviewers based on prespecified inclusion criteria. Two reviewers extracted relevant information from the included studies in tabular form. Extracted variables included publication year, title, author(s), country, setting, population and age, design, sample size, intervention components, outcome(s) and findings.

Nine studies were included. In total, 16 different intervention components were identified. The most frequently reported components for preventing and treating paediatric delirium were promoting mobilisation, encouraging family presence and involvement, improving sleep, and standardised instruments or checklists for underlying aetiology. Most intervention studies were before-and-after studies; overall, seven different outcomes were used. Study results regarding the effects of delirium were inconsistent.

Various non-pharmacological interventions are currently described to mitigate paediatric delirium, but the underlying evidence is limited. High-quality intervention research using relevant and comparable outcomes is needed to evaluate the effect of non-pharmacological interventions. Despite employing a comprehensive search strategy, we must consider the possibility that relevant articles were overlooked.

The prevalence of food allergies, particularly IgE-mediated allergies, is rising in developed countries, with cashew nut allergy emerging as a significant public health concern due to its potential for severe anaphylaxis and frequent association with atopic disorders. Cashew nuts are among the most common allergens in Europe and Australia, often involving cosensitisation with pistachios, hazelnuts and other allergens. Diagnosis relies on clinical history, measurement of specific IgE (sIgE) levels, skin prick tests (SPT) and oral food challenges (OFCs). Current management strategies focus on allergen avoidance and emergency interventions, whereas oral immunotherapy (OIT) represents a promising approach to desensitisation. Recent studies, including the NUT CRACKER trial, have reported high desensitisation rates with cashew OIT, although these are associated with a risk of adverse events. This study introduces a novel randomised controlled trial aimed at evaluating the efficacy and safety of cashew immunotherapy in children.

This randomised, open-label, parallel-group trial, with a 2:1 allocation ratio, will be conducted at the Department of Paediatric Pneumology and Allergology, Medical University of Warsaw, Poland. Thirty-nine children, aged 4–17 years, with confirmed IgE-mediated cashew allergy via open OFC will be enrolled. Participants in the experimental group will undergo OIT, which involves gradually increasing doses of cashew protein up to a maintenance dose of 1200 mg. The duration of OIT will range from 12 to 60 weeks, depending on individual baseline tolerance. The control group will receive standard management, including strict cashew avoidance and emergency response strategies to accidental exposure, for 1 year.

The primary endpoint is to determine the proportion of participants tolerating a 4043 mg dose of cashew protein at the study’s end in the OIT group compared with the control group. Secondary outcomes include evaluating the safety profile of OIT, assessing changes in laboratory markers such as sIgE and IgG4 levels for cashew and the major cashew allergen Ana o 3, analysing basophil activation test responses and measuring changes in SPT wheal diameter at baseline and study completion.

The study has been approved by the Ethics Committee of the Medical University of Warsaw (approval number: KB/267/2023). Study findings will be published in peer-reviewed journals and presented at international conferences.

NCT06328504.