Practice and community nurses' views and experiences of helping people manage risk factors for recurrent lower limb cellulitis: A qualitative interview study.

Background: Cellulitis is a painful infection of the skin and underlying tissues, commonly affecting the lower leg. Approximately one-third of people experience recurrence. Nurses who work in general practice (practice nurses) and see people at home (community or district nurses) could have an important role in managing risk factors for cellulitis, such as long-term leg swelling, wound care and skin care. Objective: To explore practice and community nurses' views and experiences of helping people to manage risk factors for recurrent lower limb cellulitis. Methods: Semi-structured, telephone interviews with 21 practice and community nurses in England from October 2020 to March 2021. Interviews were transcribed verbatim and analysed using reflexive thematic analysis. Results: Nurses face multiple challenges when supporting people to manage risk factors for recurrent lower limb cellulitis. Key challenges include limited time and access to resources such as Doppler equipment, and the physical and psychosocial capabilities of patients to self-manage. Nurses identified potential strategies to overcome these challenges, such as placing greater emphasis on prevention and supporting self-management by providing resources for patients and support networks (paid and unpaid carers) to reinforce knowledge post-consultation and develop skills to self-care. Conclusions: We identified a need to develop and evaluate resources, such as support materials, for nurses to use to help patients reduce their risk of recurrent cellulitis.

An interview study to determine the experiences of cellulitis diagnosis amongst health care professionals in the UK.

OBJECTIVES: To explore healthcare professionals (HCPs) experiences and challenges in diagnosing suspected lower limb cellulitis. SETTING: UK nationwide. PARTICIPANTS: 20 qualified HCPs, who had a minimum of 2 years clinical experience as an HCP in the national health service and had managed a clinical case of suspected cellulitis of the lower limb in the UK. HCPs were recruited from departments of dermatology (including a specialist cellulitis clinic), general practice, tissue viability, lymphoedema services, general surgery, emergency care and acute medicine. Purposive sampling was employed to ensure that participants included consultant doctors, trainee doctors and nurses across the specialties listed above. Participants were recruited through national networks, HCPs who contributed to the cellulitis priority setting partnership, UK Dermatology Clinical Trials Network, snowball sampling where participants helped recruit other participants and personal networks of the authors. PRIMARY AND SECONDARY OUTCOMES: Primary outcome was to describe the key clinical features which inform the diagnosis of lower limb cellulitis. Secondary outcome was to explore the difficulties in making a diagnosis of lower limb cellulitis. RESULTS: The presentation of lower limb cellulitis changes as the episode runs its course. Therefore, different specialties see clinical features at varying stages of cellulitis. Clinical experience is essential to being confident in making a diagnosis, but even among experienced HCPs, there were differences in the clinical rationale of diagnosis. A group of core clinical features were suggested, many of which overlapped with alternative diagnoses. This emphasises how the diagnosis is challenging, with objective aids and a greater understanding of the mimics of cellulitis required. CONCLUSION: Cellulitis is a complex diagnosis and has a variable clinical presentation at different stages. Although cellulitis is a common diagnosis to make, HCPs need to be mindful of alternative diagnoses.

Confidence of recurrent cellulitis self-diagnosis among people with lymphoedema: a qualitative interview study.

BACKGROUND: Cellulitis can sometimes be challenging for healthcare professionals to diagnose, with no validated diagnostic criteria available. Supporting healthcare professionals to make a more accurate diagnosis of cellulitis in different groups, such as those with lymphoedema, is a cellulitis research priority. However, to the authors knowledge, no previous studies have looked at the involvement of non-healthcare professionals in the diagnostic process. AIM: To explore the experience of people with lymphoedema and recurrent cellulitis in the diagnosis of lower-limb cellulitis. DESIGN AND SETTING: Single, semi-structured, qualitative interviews carried out between 29 October and 19 December 2018. METHOD: Adults with a suspected episode of cellulitis who had been diagnosed in the last 12 months or had a history of recurrent cellulitis were interviewed. RESULTS: Three key themes emerged: the recurrent nature of cellulitis symptoms, participants' experience of getting a cellulitis diagnosis, and participants' suggestions of how cellulitis diagnosis might be improved. Generally, people with lymphoedema experienced similar clinical features during each of their own recurrent cellulitis episodes and were confident that they could make a self-diagnosis of cellulitis. This is also reflected in the participants' perceived trust from the healthcare professional in being able to make a self-diagnosis. A diagnostic checklist and educational resources were suggested as methods to improve diagnosis. CONCLUSION: Selected people with lymphoedema who have recurrent cellulitis are confident in self-diagnosing their own recurrent cellulitis episodes. There may be a role for greater involvement of people with lymphoedema in their cellulitis diagnosis.

Patients' understanding of cellulitis and their information needs: a mixed-methods study in primary and secondary care.

BACKGROUND: Cellulitis is a painful infection of the skin and underlying tissues, commonly affecting the lower leg. Approximately one-third of people experience recurrence. Patients' ability to recover from cellulitis or prevent recurrence is likely to be influenced by their understanding of the condition. AIM: To explore patients' perceptions of cellulitis, and their information needs. DESIGN AND SETTING: Mixed-methods study comprising semi-structured, face-to-face interviews and a cross-sectional survey, recruiting through primary and secondary care, and advertising. METHOD: Adults aged ≥18 years with a history of cellulitis were invited to take part in a survey, qualitative interview, or both. RESULTS: In all, 30 interviews were conducted between August 2016 and July 2017. Qualitative data highlighted a low awareness of cellulitis before the first episode, uncertainty about when it had been diagnosed, concern/surprise at the severity of cellulitis, and a perceived insufficient information provision. People were surprised that they had never heard of cellulitis and that they had not received advice or leaflets giving self-care information. Some sought information from the internet and found this confusing.A total of 240 surveys were completed (response rate 17%). These showed that, although many participants had received information on the treatment of cellulitis (60.0%, n = 144), they often reported receiving no information about causes (60.8%, n = 146) or prevention of recurrence (73.3%, n = 176). CONCLUSION: There is a need to provide information for people with cellulitis, particularly in regard to naming their condition, the management of acute episodes, and how to reduce the risk of recurrences.

Duodenal perforation secondary to migration of endobiliary prosthesis.

A 27-year-old woman presented to the emergency department with abdominal pain, four days post endoscopic retrograde cholangiopancreatography (ERCP) and insertion of an endobiliary stent. A plain abdominal film highlighted the stent in an atypical position within the abdomen. As such, the patient progressed to a CT scan, confirming a retroperitoneal perforation of the duodenum by the stent. Laparotomy returned the stent to the duodenum with a primary duodenal repair. This case highlights the high index of suspicion required in patients who present with acute abdominal pain post-ERCP.

Wet periods in northeastern Brazil over the past 210 kyr linked to distant climate anomalies.

The tropics are the main source of the atmosphere's sensible and latent heat, and water vapour, and are therefore important for reconstructions of past climate. But long, accurately dated records of southern tropical palaeoclimate, which would allow the establishment of climatic connections to distant regions, have not been available. Here we present a 210,000-year (210-kyr) record of wet periods in tropical northeastern Brazil--a region that is currently semi-arid. The record is obtained from speleothems and travertine deposits that are accurately dated using the U/Th method. We find wet periods that are synchronous with periods of weak East Asian summer monsoons, cold periods in Greenland, Heinrich events in the North Atlantic and periods of decreased river runoff to the Cariaco basin. We infer that the wet periods may be explained with a southward displacement of the Intertropical Convergence Zone. This widespread synchroneity of climate anomalies suggests a relatively rapid global reorganization of the ocean-atmosphere system. We conclude that the wet periods probably affected rainforest distribution, as plant fossils show that forest expansion occurred during these intermittent wet intervals, and opened a forest corridor between the Amazonian and Atlantic rainforests.