[Resilience in chronic heart failure]. / Resilienz bei chronischer Herzinsuffizienz.

BACKGROUND AND OBJECTIVE: The study investigated correlates of resilience in chronic heart failure (CHF) patients suffering from a high somatic symptom burden and/or a clinical relevant depression. Furthermore, the resilience of the sample was compared to a representative sample of the German general population. METHODS: 186 patients with CHF and high symptom burden (82 depressed and 104 non depressed) were investigated. Resilience was assessed using the Resilience Scale from Wagnild and Young. For the comparison of resilience, the sample of the general population (372 persons) was matched against the CHF sample regarding the variables age and gender. RESULTS: There was a significant positive association of resilience with age and social support, whereas hopelessness and the inability to understand and describe emotions in the self (alexithymia) correlated negatively with resilience. Comparison with the general population revealed a significantly lower resilience in depressed CHF patients. CONCLUSIONS: Resilience seems to be predominantly associated to psychosocial variables such as age or social support rather than to disease-specific parameters such as left ventricular ejection fraction or NYHA functional class. Our finding that resilience is especially low in depressed CHF patients underscores the clinical relevance of depression in CHF, necessitating further research regarding the improvement of resilience and depression.

[The role of resilience for coping in different age groups]. / Die Rolle von Resilienz für die Bewältigung von Belastungen im Kontext von Altersübergängen.

Personality traits, e.g., resilience, which is defined as emotional strength, have a strong impact on lifespan development. In this paper, a cross-sectional study examining the protective character of resilience in aging is presented. In a sample of persons ranging in age from 30-80 years, a significant negative association between resilience and depression was observed for the oldest group of our sample (age > 70 years). Thus, resilience might serve as a "safe-guard" against depression over the life course that, however, was found to disappear when people are faced with a transition into dependency and being in need of care.

[Patients as partners. Tumor patients and their participation in medical decisions]. / Patienten als Partner in der letzten Lebensphase. Erste Ergebnisse und Perspektiven eines Modellvorhabens.

Between March 2002 and August 2003 as part of the research project "Patients as partners -- tumour patients and their participation in medical decisions" tumour patients undergoing palliative therapy (n=272) were interviewed and asked about their level of information, their desired place to die and whether they had prepared an advance directive. Furthermore, 72 relatives of deceased patients who had been looked after by the project's palliative care team were given a similar questionnaire including questions concerning their knowledge about disease and prognosis, the actual place of death and the relevance of advance directives. According to patients and relatives, information particularly about prognosis is unsatisfactory. Of the inter-viewed patients, 75% said they wanted to die at home and 15% in a hospital. According to their relatives, 36% of the patients looked after by the palliative care team had an advance directive. The survey of the relatives showed a significant relation between the preparation of an advance directive and dying at the desired place. According to the relatives, medical and health reasons, hope for an improvement up to the very end,acute worsening of the condition and deficits in medical care were important reasons for dying in hospital against the patient'swish. In future, advance directives should be used as an aid for communication and the planning of care. Therefore, cooperation between doctors and patients based on a partnership is necessary. The required competence in communication should be improved.

[Development and validation of assessment instruments for shared decision making]. / Entwicklung eines Fragebogens zur Partizipativen Entscheidungsfindung.

The German Ministry for Health and Social Security is funding ten projects to introduce shared decision making into clinical practice. The medical problems the projects are focussing on were chosen from among various diseases (e. g. depression, multiple sclerosis, cancer). The ten projects achieved consensus on a core set of instruments for the measurement of process and outcome of the shared decision making. Instruments developed in German-speaking countries are currently not available. Thus, linguistic and cultural validation had to be performed for the core set instruments. The results of the data analysis as well as patient interviews demonstrate the need for improving these instruments. Therefore, the members of the methodological working group concentrated on the integration of these results in a new instrument. In a first step the construct of "shared decision making" was defined, followed by a definition of the process elements characterising shared decision making. Thereafter, items were developed on the basis of the process elements. The new instrument will now be validated for different diseases.

Structured treatment and teaching of patients with Type 2 diabetes mellitus and impaired cognitive function--the DICOF trial.

BACKGROUND: Patient education is integral part of any diabetes therapy in Germany, but elderly patients are not able to follow the variety of topics comprising standard treatment and teaching programmes (TTP), primarily due to impaired neuropsychological function. This leads to deficits in diabetes knowledge and hindered ability for diabetes self-management. AIM: To evaluate structured TTP for geriatric patients with impaired cognitive function. PATIENTS AND METHODS: A neuropsychological examination was performed on all patients over 54 years [n=102, age 68.6 +/- 8.7 years, diabetes duration 10.3 (0.03-35.4) years, HbA1c 10.3 +/- 1.7% (HPLC, Diamat, NR 4.5-6.3%), cognitive function 87.7 +/- 12.3 IQ points] who took part in TTP for insulin therapy. Patients with impaired cognitive function participated either in the standard TTP of Berger [n = 35, age 67.6 +/- 8.9 years, diabetes duration 9.9 (0.04-35.4) years, HbA1c 10.3 +/- 2.0%] or in the specialized structured geriatric DICOF-TTP [n=33, age 70.4 +/- 8.2 years, diabetes duration 10.4 (0.03-24.9) years, HbA1c 10.7 +/- 1.8%]. RESULTS: After TTP there were no differences in knowledge and ability for diabetes self-management (standard/DICOF: knowledge 11.0 +/- 2.6 vs. 12.2 +/- 2.7 points, P = 0.11; handling 14.9 +/- 3.3 vs. 15.9 +/- 2.5 points, P = 0.18). However, patients who took part in the DICOF programme showed better scores in satisfaction with the education programme [standard/DICOF 44.7 (31-57) vs. 52.5 (45-59) points, P < 0.001]. Six months later the DICOF participants showed better results regarding diabetes self-management (standard/DICOF: handling 12.5 +/- 4.1 vs. 15.9 +/- 3.1 points, P = 0.001). Both groups showed HbA1c decrease (8.3 +/- 1.4 vs. 8.5 +/- 1.3%, P=0.62) and similar incidence of acute complications. CONCLUSIONS: Elderly patients with impaired cognitive function should take part in specialized structured TTP. This leads to both better satisfaction with the education programme and an improved ability for diabetes self-management.

Cognitive function and quality of diabetes care in patients with Type-2-diabetes mellitus in general practitioner practice.

INTRODUCTION/AIMS: The goal of the trial was the assessment of the quality of diabetes control and the cognitive function of all patients with type 2 diabetes mellitus treated in a randomly selected general practitioner practice in Thuringia, Germany. Furthermore possible interactions between patients' quality of diabetes control and their cognitive function should be analysed. PATIENTS AND METHODS: The investigation comprised all 141 patients with type 2 diabetes mellitus (age 67.3 +/- 10.5 years, body-mass index 29.3 +/- 4.5 kg/m2, patients without insulin therapy: n = 102, with insulin therapy: n = 39) who were patients at the general practitioner practice in Wandersleben, Thuringia, Germany, between November 1999 and April 2000. RESULTS: The mean HbA1c of all patients examined was 6.33 +/- 1.1% (normal range 3.5-6.8%). 55 patients were treated with diet (HbA1c 5.7 +/- 0.76%) and 47 patients were given oral antidiabetic drugs (HbA1c 6.5 +/- 0.76 %). 27/47 (57.4%) patients were treated with sulfonylurea, 37/47 (78,7%) with metformin, 3/47 (6,4%) with acarbose and 7/47 (14.9%) patients received glinides. 18/47 (38,3%) patients had combinations out of two or more oral antidiabetic drugs. A total of 39 patients with type 2 diabetes mellitus were treated with insulin (HbA1c 7.0 +/- 1.24%). The premorbide cognitive function of the patients was 97.9 +/- 10.0 IQ-points. It was significantly better than the actual cognitive function (91.8+/-13.5 IQ-points, p<0.001). The actual cognitive function showed a correlation with patient's age (r = -0.28, p = 0.001), educational level (r = -0.25, p = 0.006) and profession (r = -0.29, p = 0.001). Performing multivariate analysis the premorbide cognitive function (b = 0.53, p<0.001) and patient's age (b = -0.32, p<0.001) showed associations with the actual cognitive function (R-square =0.36). Associations with the HbA1c (R-square = 0.37) showed the frequency of blood glucose self monitoring (beta = 0.38, p<0.001), the blood glucose value at the time of examination (beta = 0.34, p<0.001) and the diabetes duration (beta = 0.16, p = 0.03). There were no associations between actual cognitive function and other parameters. CONCLUSIONS: The data from this trial presents evidence which shows that treatment by general practitioners can enable patients both with and without insulin therapy to achieve a high quality of diabetes control. Hence, the results derived from ambulatory evaluations of treatment programmes can not be automatically tansferred to patients treated at hospitals. Regarding inpatient treatment, adapted structured treatment and teaching programmes are mandatory.