Challenges for nurses in caring for patients with acute encephalitis: lack of knowledge, time and rehabilitation.

AIM: To explore the experiences of registered nurses providing care to adult patients affected by encephalitis, from admission into hospital through to discharge. STUDY DESIGN: A qualitative phenomenological methodology was used. Sample and setting: Eight registered nurses in a city centre teaching hospital. METHODS: Data collection took place using in-depth, semi-structured interviews. Data were analysed and themes identified using framework analysis. FINDINGS: Three key findings were identified: nurses felt that they lacked knowledge of encephalitis, lacked time to give these patients the care they needed, and they lacked access to rehabilitation for patients with encephalitis. CONCLUSION: This study provides the first evidence on nurses' experiences of providing care to patients affected by encephalitis. It has shown that they often lack the knowledge and time to give adequate support to patients. They also lack access to rehabilitation for these patients.

Multicentre study of 4626 patients assesses the effectiveness, safety and burden of two categories of treatments for central retinal vein occlusion: intravitreal anti-vascular endothelial growth factor injections and intravitreal Ozurdex injections.

BACKGROUND/AIMS: To assess the effectiveness, burden and safety of two categories of treatment for central retinal vein occlusion (CRVO): intravitreal injections of anti-vascular endothelial growth factor (anti-VEGF) and dexamethasone (Ozurdex). METHODS: A retrospective analysis of Medisoft electronic medical record (EMR) data from 27 National Health Service sites in the UK identified 4626 treatment-naive patients with a single mode of treatment for macular oedema secondary to CRVO. Statistics describing the overall CRVO patient cohort and individual patient subpopulations stratified by treatment type were generated. Mean age at baseline, gender, ethnicity, social deprivation and visual acuity (VA) follow-up was reported. Absolute and change in VA using ETDRS are used to describe treatment effectiveness, the number of injections and visits used to describe treatment burden and endophthalmitis rates as a marker of treatment safety. RESULTS: Mean VA was 47.9 and 45.3 EDTRS letters in the anti-VEGF and Ozurdex groups, respectively. This changed to 57.9/53.7 at 12 months, 58.3/46.9 at 18 months and 59.4/51.0 at 36 months. Mean number of injections were 5.6/1.6 at 12 months, 6.0/1.7 at 18 months and 7.0/1.8 at 36 months. Endophthalmitis rates were 0.003% (n=4) for the anti-VEGF group and 0.09% (n=1) for the Ozurdex group. CONCLUSIONS: VA improvements were greater and more sustained with anti-VEGF treatment. Lower starting acuity resulted in bigger gains in both groups, while higher starting acuity resulted in higher VA at 36 months. Although treatment burden was greater with anti-VEGF, Ozurdex was associated with higher rates of endophthalmitis.

Demographic and Clinical Factors that Influence the Visual Response to Anti-Vascular Endothelial Growth Factor Therapy in Patients with Neovascular Age-Related Macular Degeneration: A Systematic Review.

BACKGROUND: Neovascular age-related macular degeneration (nAMD) is a leading cause of blind registrations in the developed world. Standard therapy includes the use of anti-vascular endothelial growth factor (anti-VEGF) drugs, and whilst the clinical efficacy is well established, there is variability in the clinical effect of visual outcome. The purpose of this systematic review is to identify whether there is evidence for the influence of demographic and clinical factors on the effectiveness of anti-VEGF therapy in patients with nAMD, in settings comparable to the National Health Service (NHS). METHODS: This systematic review followed the PRISMA guidelines for systematic reviews. Electronic databases Medline, EMBASE, Web of Science, CINAHL and the Cochrane Library were searched for studies dated from 2005 onwards. Studies were appraised using the Newcastle-Ottawa Score, and a narrative synthesis was used. ELIGIBILITY CRITERIA: Population: Patients with nAMD being treated with anti-VEGF therapy. Comparator: Presence or absence of potential predictive demographic and clinical factors. SETTINGS: Comparable settings to NHS hospitals. OUTCOMES: Predicting demographic and clinical factors. STUDY DESIGNS: Randomised controlled trials, prospective cohort studies, retrospective cohort studies and case series dated from 2005. RESULTS: Thirty papers were identified in this review. The evidence suggests that the number of anti-VEGF injections that patients receive, age and lesion size at baseline are factors that influence how effective anti-VEGF therapy is in the short and long term. There was also evidence that suggested that baseline visual acuity influenced the effectiveness of anti-VEGF therapy at longer time points of more than 2 years. Due to a lack of standardised statistical reporting among the included studies, it was not possible to undertake a meaningful statistical synthesis or meta-analysis. CONCLUSIONS: This review has demonstrated that there is some evidence of clinical and demographic factors that affect the effectiveness of anti-VEGF therapy and hence variation in visual acuity (VA) outcome. However, this review was unable to identify as wide a range of factors as was hoped. The findings of this review are important because some of the factors, such as VA and lesion size at diagnosis and the number of injections, are potentially modifiable through improvements in early diagnosis and service provision. Future work also needs to focus on the importance of this variation, such as the effect on patients' quality of life, and how variation can be minimised. SYSTEMATIC REVIEW REGISTRATION: This review has been registered with PROSPERO (Registration number CRD42018094191).