Organizing implementation in healthcare: Balancing orders of worth.

In this paper we direct attention to unavoidable conflicts between disparate value systems co-existing within organizations. Drawing on John Law's concept of ordering and Boltanski and Thévenot's orders of worth, we understand incompatibilities inherent in implementation and governance as competing orders. In extracting and articulating competing orders from our abductive analysis of semi-structured interviews with primary care managers (n = 32) in a Swedish county council, we hope to enable actors to utilise and address them as they engage in implementation work. The potential of such an approach is exemplified by analysing a regional case of health promotion implementation pursued in 2019, in a Swedish county council. Early approaches to implementation and governance have entailed linear models emphasizing program fidelity. Critics have broadened this view by calling for optimization of multiple values and more room for professional judgment. We seek to add to this development by attending to how healthcare practices often entail different and at times conflicting configurations of patients, professionals and priorities. The county council in our case study attempted to steer primary care providers towards health promotion work. To capture the realities of the organization that primary care managers described, we propose that three competing orders can be discerned in primary care: the order of immediate care, focusing on professional judgments of the most pressing needs of patients; the order of accessible care, in which patients themselves define what needs should be cared for; and the order of future health emphasizing prevention of health in the future population. Each order enacts a specific prioritization between patients and a vision of what is or should be primary in primary care. Organizing implementation, we suggest, requires a balancing of orders of worth.

The effects of educational interventions on suicide: A systematic review and meta-analysis.

BACKGROUND: Suicide is a major public health problem. Educational interventions for preventing suicidal behaviour are widely used, although little is known regarding the collective effectiveness of these interventions. AIM: We evaluated the existing evidence for the effectiveness of education interventions in the prevention of suicidal behaviour. METHODS: In this systematic review and meta-analysis, we searched multiple databases using terms related to suicide prevention. The articles were reviewed by two independent reviewers, and the quality of evidence was rated according to Grading of Recommendations Assessment, Development and Evaluation (GRADE) criteria. Data from individual studies were combined in meta-analyses. RESULTS: We identified 41 studies evaluating two different types of interventions: school-based education interventions and gatekeeper training. Education interventions showed significant gains in terms of knowledge and attitudes, though the effects seem to vary depending on subjects' personal characteristics. School-based education interventions significantly reduced suicidal ideation and suicide attempts in youths. Gatekeeper training showed no significant effect on suicide attempts or gatekeeper skills, though the quality of evidence for the estimate, according to GRADE criteria, was rated as very low. CONCLUSION: The results of this study indicate that school-based education interventions are effective in preventing suicidal ideation and suicide attempts. In clinical practice, as well as in research, the development and implementation of educational interventions should focus on participants' individual characteristics.

An individually tailored behavioral medicine treatment in physical therapy for tension-type headache - two experimental case studies.

AIM: The aim of this study was to describe and evaluate the effect of an individually tailored behavioral medicine treatment in physical therapy, based on a functional behavioral analysis (FBA), for tension-type headache (TTH). PATIENTS AND METHODS: Two case studies with A1-A2-B-A3 design of two patients with TTH was conducted. Outcome variables were headache frequency, headache index (mean intensity), consumption of analgesics, self-efficacy in headache management (Headache Management Self-efficacy Scale [HMSE]), disability, and perceived loss of happiness for activities with family and friends. RESULTS: The results showed that headache frequency and headache index decreased for one of the patients. Self-efficacy in headache management increased markedly for both patients. CONCLUSION: A behavioral medicine treatment in physical therapy based on an FBA can be a way for physical therapists to handle patients with TTH. Future investigations should focus on large group studies with longer observation periods.