Trainee's Preparedness for Paediatric Work.

Aim Compare the opinion of paediatric consultants to paediatric Senior House Officers (SHOs) with regards their perceived level of preparedness for starting work in paediatrics. Methods A 5-point Likert scale questionnaire was administered to paediatric consultants and SHOs investigating how well they considered the SHO was performing and how well prepared the SHO perceived themselves for work in clinical paediatrics, respectively. Questions related to procedures, clinical examination, teamwork, history taking and OPD related activity. Results 50 Consultants and 75 SHOs completed the questionnaire. Using a Mann-Whitney U test, both groups answered similarly to questions relating to clinical examination and history taking (p=0.51 and p=0.15). However, there were significant differences in their responses to questions relating to procedures, teamwork and OPD related activity (p<0.05). Conclusion There is a significant disparity between consultant opinion of ability and SHOs perception of preparedness for some of the same skills. More work, focusing on these specific aspects of undergraduate paediatric education needs to be carried out to improve graduate preparedness for this role.

The impact of a specialized inpatient and day patient group programme on clinical outcome in older adolescents and young adults with mental illness.

Introduction Effective transition from child and adolescent mental health services (CAMHS) to adult services is one of the main challenges currently facing child psychiatry today The Young Adult 1Programme (YAP) based at St. Patrick's University Hospital Dublin, is a group based day programme especially designed to meet the needs of younger people aged 18-25 and support them through this difficult period. Aims To examine the effectiveness of participation in YAP for young adults with mental illness. To determine whether participation in particular aspects of the programme prove more beneficial and what factors might be associated with outcome. METHOD: All patients enrolled in YAP between 1 September 2011 and 31 August 2012 were included in the study. Each patient was assessed using the Health of the Nation Outcome Scales (HONOS) and Global Assessment of Functioning (GAF) rating scale before beginning the programme and after discharge in order to evaluate improvement. The frequency of attendance at individual group sessions was recorded. Patient and illness variables were also recorded, for example demographics, diagnosis. RESULTS: A total of 101 service users were in enrolled in YAP during this 12-month period. Eight service users could not be used for analysis, as they did not have a complete data set, mostly due to failure to attend for discharge HONOS/GAF ratings Using a paired sample t-test, there is a significant reduction in HONOS: Mean df=1.3, s.d.=1.09 (95% CI=1.08-1.53), p<0.001 Using a paired sample t-test, there is a significant increase in GAF: Mean df=9.25, s.d.=7.69 (95% CI=7.66-10.83), p<0.001 Improvements in HONOS and GAF scores are significantly correlated with better attendance at the programme (p<0.04, <0.00 respectively). CONCLUSION: More attendance at YAP sessions correlates with better improvement in both HONOS and GAF rating scores.

Retrospective review of administration of childhood primary vaccination schedule in an Irish tertiary neonatal intensive care unit.

AIMS: Quantify and evaluate administration of the routine childhood primary vaccination schedule in a tertiary neonatal intensive care unit (NICU). STUDY DESIGN: Retrospective review of paper record of vaccinations administered to inpatients in the NICU from 01/01/2001-30/11/2013. METHODS: Data were extracted from hospital records and institutional databases and analysed using SPSS for Mac version 21. Analysis was made based on gestational age, chronological age at time of administration of vaccine, corrected gestational age at time of vaccine administration and type of vaccine received. RESULTS: For all preterm (gestation < 37 weeks) babies that received the first '6in1' vaccination while an inpatient (n = 344): mean gestational age = 27.3 weeks (sd = 2.6 weeks); mean chronological age at time of vaccination = 9.4 weeks. For all preterm patients that received the second '6in1' vaccination while an inpatient (n = 19): mean gestational age = 25.6 weeks (sd = 1.63); mean chronological age at time of vaccination = 18.4 weeks. For all term (gestation ≥ 37 weeks) patients that received the first '6in1' vaccination while an inpatient (n = 9): mean gestational age = 40.1 weeks (sd = 1.9); mean chronological age at time of vaccination = 9.8 weeks. There were no reported adverse events to any of the vaccinations administered. CONCLUSION: It is safe for premature infants to receive the routine vaccination schedule in a NICU setting.