A Tailored Approach for Justice Involved Youth With an Intellectual Disability: The Suitability of a Small-Scale Community-Integrated Approach.

Youngsters with intellectual disabilities are overinvolved within the youth justice system. The aim of this study was to explore the suitability of a small-scale community-integrated approach for justice involved youngsters with intellectual disabilities. This study compared the numbers of transfers, the number, type, and rate of change in incidents, and the possible mediating effect of resilience thereon, between 40 youngsters with and 19 youngsters without intellectual disabilities, placed in a small-scale facility. There were no differences in the number of transfers, the number, type, and rate of change in incidents, and no mediating effect of resilience was found. A small-scale community integrated approach for youth justice facilities can be suited to provide tailored placement for youngsters with intellectual disabilities, given the presence of protective factors and motivation. Both youngsters with and without intellectual disabilities showed a low number of incidents and were able to continue or initiate structural daytime activities.

Quality of pharmaceutical care at the pharmacy counter: patients' experiences versus video observation.

INTRODUCTION: Consumer Quality Index questionnaires are used to assess quality of care from patients' experiences. OBJECTIVE: To provide insight into the agreement about quality of pharmaceutical care, measured both by a patient questionnaire and video observations. METHODS: Pharmaceutical encounters in four pharmacies were video-recorded. Patients completed a questionnaire based upon the Consumer Quality Index Pharmaceutical Care after the encounter containing questions about patients' experiences regarding information provision, medication counseling, and pharmacy staff's communication style. An observation protocol was used to code the recorded encounters. Agreement between video observation and patients' experiences was calculated. RESULTS: In total, 109 encounters were included for analysis. For the domains "medication counseling" and "communication style", agreement between patients' experiences and observations was very high (>90%). Less agreement (45%) was found for "information provision", which was rated more positive by patients compared to the observations, especially for the topic, encouragement of patients' questioning behavior. CONCLUSION: A questionnaire is useful to assess the quality of medication counseling and pharmacy staff's communication style, but might be less suitable to evaluate information provision and pharmacy staff's encouragement of patients' questioning behavior. Although patients may believe that they have received all necessary information to use their new medicine, some information on specific instructions was not addressed during the encounter. When using questionnaires to get insight into information provision, observations of encounters are very informative to validate the patient questionnaires and make necessary adjustments.

Patient-provider communication about medication use at the community pharmacy counter.

OBJECTIVE: The objectives of this study were to, first, describe the information exchanged between pharmacy staff and patients about prescribed medication at the community pharmacy counter, and second, to investigate to what extent this met professional medication counselling guidelines. METHODS: Pharmaceutical encounters were videotaped in four community pharmacies in the Netherlands. Patients were included if they collected a prescription for their own use. An observation protocol, including the MEDICODE checklist, was used to analyse the video recordings. A distinction was made between first and repeat prescriptions. KEY FINDINGS: One hundred fifty-three encounters were videotaped. When dispensing first prescriptions, pharmacy staff provided most information on instructions how to use the medication (83.3%), form of the medication (71.4%) and treatment duration (42.9%). Topics for repeat prescriptions (such as the effects of the medication and the incidence of observed adverse effects) were rarely discussed. Pharmacy staff rarely encouraged patients to ask questions. CONCLUSIONS: Pharmacy staff members provided little medication-related information at the counter, especially for repeat prescriptions, did not encourage active patient participation, and thereby did not adhere to the guidelines of their professional organisation. Further research is needed to understand the reasons for this.

A prenotification letter increased initial response, whereas sender did not affect response rates.

OBJECTIVE: To find ways to improve response rates of medical and health surveys. We investigated whether a prenotification letter instead of a second reminder and varying senders of the questionnaires would affect response rates. STUDY DESIGN AND SETTING: We present the results of two studies. In the first study, four groups were compared that either received a prenotification letter (group 1 and 2) or a second reminder letter (group 3 and 4); received the questionnaire from either a research institute (group 1 and 3) or a health insurance company (HIC; group 2 and 4). In the second study, we compared two groups that received the questionnaire sent by either a HIC or a hospital. Response rates, response speed, respondent characteristics, item nonresponse, and mean scores on quality aspects and global ratings were compared. RESULTS: Response rates did not differ significantly between groups. Prenotification groups returned their questionnaires faster. No other significant differences were found for response speed, respondent characteristics, item nonresponse, or mean scores. CONCLUSION: A prenotification letter does only increase initial response speed and does not increase total response rates. A prenotification letter should be considered when quick response is desirable. Varying senders had no effect on response rates.

A comparison of a postal survey and mixed-mode survey using a questionnaire on patients' experiences with breast care.

BACKGROUND: The Internet is increasingly considered to be an efficient medium for assessing the quality of health care seen from the patients' perspective. Potential benefits of Internet surveys such as time efficiency, reduced effort, and lower costs should be balanced against potential weaknesses such as low response rates and accessibility for only a subset of potential participants. Combining an Internet questionnaire with a traditional paper follow-up questionnaire (mixed-mode survey) can possibly compensate for these weaknesses and provide an alternative to a postal survey. OBJECTIVE: To examine whether there are differences between a mixed-mode survey and a postal survey in terms of respondent characteristics, response rate and time, quality of data, costs, and global ratings of health care or health care providers (general practitioner, hospital care in the diagnostic phase, surgeon, nurses, radiotherapy, chemotherapy, and hospital care in general). METHODS: Differences between the two surveys were examined in a sample of breast care patients using the Consumer Quality Index Breast Care questionnaire. We selected 800 breast care patients from the reimbursement files of Dutch health insurance companies. We asked 400 patients to fill out the questionnaire online followed by a paper reminder (mixed-mode survey) and 400 patients, matched by age and gender, received the questionnaire by mail only (postal survey). Both groups received three reminders. RESULTS: The respondents to the two surveys did not differ in age, gender, level of education, or self-reported physical and psychological health (all Ps > .05). In the postal survey, the questionnaires were returned 20 days earlier than in the mixed-mode survey (median 12 and 32 days, respectively; P < .001), whereas the response rate did not differ significantly (256/400, 64.0% versus 242/400, 60.5%, respectively; P = .30). The costs were lower for the mixed-mode survey (€2 per questionnaire). Moreover, there were fewer missing items (3.4% versus 4.4%, P = .002) and fewer invalid answers (3.2% versus 6.2%, P < .001) in the mixed-mode survey than in the postal survey. The answers of the two respondent groups on the global ratings did not differ. Within the mixed-mode survey, 52.9% (128/242) of the respondents filled out the questionnaire online. Respondents who filled out the questionnaire online were significantly younger (P < .001), were more often highly educated (P = .002), and reported better psychological health (P = .02) than respondents who filled out the paper questionnaire. Respondents to the paper questionnaire rated the nurses significantly more positively than respondents to the online questionnaire (score 9.2 versus 8.4, respectively; χ²1 = 5.6). CONCLUSIONS: Mixed-mode surveys are an alternative method to postal surveys that yield comparable response rates and groups of respondents, at lower costs. Moreover, quality of health care was not rated differently by respondents to the mixed-mode or postal survey. Researchers should consider using mixed-mode surveys instead of postal surveys, especially when investigating younger or more highly educated populations.

Empirical comparison of subgroup effects in conventional and individual patient data meta-analyses.

OBJECTIVES: Individual patient data (IPD) meta-analyses have been proposed as a major improvement in meta-analytic methods to study subgroup effects. Subgroup effects of conventional and IPD meta-analyses using identical data have not been compared. Our objective is to compare such subgroup effects using the data of six trials (n = 1,643) on the effectiveness of antibiotics in children with acute otitis media (AOM). METHODS: Effects (relative risks, risk differences [RD], and their confidence intervals [CI]) of antibiotics in subgroups of children with AOM resulting from (i) conventional meta-analysis using summary statistics derived from published data (CMA), (ii) two-stage approach to IPD meta-analysis using summary statistics derived from IPD (IPDMA-2), and (iii) one-stage approach to IPD meta-analysis where IPD is pooled into a single data set (IPDMA-1) were compared. RESULTS: In the conventional meta-analysis, only two of the six studies were included, because only these reported on relevant subgroup effects. The conventional meta-analysis showed larger (age < 2 years) or smaller (age > or = 2 years) subgroup effects and wider CIs than both IPD meta-analyses (age < 2 years: RDCMA -21 percent, RDIPDMA-1 -16 percent, RDIPDMA-2 -15 percent; age > or =2 years: RDCMA -5 percent, RDIPDMA-1 -11 percent, RDIPDMA-2 -11 percent). The most important reason for these discrepant results is that the two studies included in the conventional meta-analysis reported outcomes that were different both from each other and from the IPD meta-analyses. CONCLUSIONS: This empirical example shows that conventional meta-analyses do not allow proper subgroup analyses, whereas IPD meta-analyses produce more accurate subgroup effects. We also found no differences between the one- and two-stage meta-analytic approaches.

Antibiotic therapy to prevent the development of asymptomatic middle ear effusion in children with acute otitis media: a meta-analysis of individual patient data.

OBJECTIVES: To determine predictors of the development of asymptomatic middle ear effusion (MEE) in children with acute otitis media (AOM) and to assess the effect of antibiotic therapy in preventing the development of MEE in these children. DATA SOURCES: A systematic literature search was performed using PubMed, EMBASE, the Cochrane databases, and the proceedings of international otitis media symposia. STUDY SELECTION: A trial was selected if the allocation of participants to treatment was randomized, children aged 0 to 12 years with AOM were included, the comparison was between antibiotic therapy and placebo or no (antibiotic) treatment, and MEE at 1 month was measured. DATA EXTRACTION: Data from 5 randomized controlled trials were included in the meta-analysis of individual patient data (1328 children aged 6 months to 12 years). We identified independent predictors of the development of asymptomatic MEE and studied whether these children benefited more from antibiotic therapy than children with a lower risk. The primary outcome was MEE (defined as a type B tympanogram) at 1 month. DATA SYNTHESIS: The overall relative risk of antibiotic therapy in preventing the development of asymptomatic MEE after 1 month was 0.9 (95% confidence interval, 0.8-1.0; P =.19). Independent predictors of the development of asymptomatic MEE were age younger than 2 years and recurrent AOM. No statistically significant interaction effects with treatment were found. CONCLUSION: Because of a marginal effect of antibiotic therapy on the development of asymptomatic MEE and the known negative effects of prescribing antibiotics, including the development of antibiotic resistance and adverse effects, we do not recommend prescribing antibiotics to prevent MEE.

Comparison of methods of handling missing data in individual patient data meta-analyses: an empirical example on antibiotics in children with acute otitis media.

What is the influence of various methods of handling missing data (complete case analyses, single imputation within and over trials, and multiple imputations within and over trials) on the subgroup effects of individual patient data meta-analyses? An empirical data set was used to compare these five methods regarding the subgroup results. Logistic regression analyses were used to determine interaction effects (regression coefficients, standard errors, and p values) between subgrouping variables and treatment. Stratified analyses were performed to determine the effects in subgroups (rate ratios, rate differences, and their 95% confidence intervals). Imputation over trials resulted in different regression coefficients and standard errors of the interaction term as compared with imputation within trials and complete case analyses. Significant interaction effects were found for complete case analyses and imputation within trials, whereas imputation over trials often showed no significant interaction effect. Imputation of missing data over trials might lead to bias, because association of covariates might differ across the included studies. Therefore, despite the gain in statistical power, imputation over trials is not recommended. In the authors' empirical example, imputation within trials appears to be the most appropriate approach of handling missing data in individual patient data meta-analyses.

A systematic review of analytical methods used to study subgroups in (individual patient data) meta-analyses.

OBJECTIVES: To determine whether individual patient data meta-analyses (IPDMA) are used to perform subgroup analyses and to study whether the analytical methods regarding subgroup analyses differ between IPDMA and conventional meta-analyses (CMA). STUDY DESIGN AND SETTING: IPDMA were identified with a comprehensive literature search, subsequently, CMA on similar research questions were traced. Methods for studying subgroups were compared for IPDMA and CMA that were matched with respect to domain, type of treatment, and outcome measure. RESULTS: Of all 171 identified IPDMA and 102 CMA, 80% and 45% presented subgroup analyses, respectively. For 35 IPDMA and 37 "matched" CMA, subgroup analytic methods could be compared. The number of performed subgroup analyses did not differ between IPDMA and CMA. Both IPDMA and CMA often do not report adequate information on methods of analyses. Interaction tests were often not performed in IPDMA (69%) and individual patient data was often not directly modelled (74%). CONCLUSION: Many IPDMA performed subgroup analyses, but overall treatment effects were more emphasized than subgroup effects. To study subgroups, a wide variety of analytical methods was used in both IPDMA and CMA. In general, the use and reporting of appropriate methods for subgroup analyses should be promoted. Recommendations for improvement of methods of analyses are provided.