Scalability of cancer SurvivorLink™: A cluster randomized trial among pediatric cancer clinics.

BACKGROUND: Children diagnosed with cancer are living longer and the survivor population is growing. However, most survivors develop late effects of radiation and chemotherapy shortly to years after completion of therapy, and the receipt of follow-up visits that are recommended by the Children's Oncology Group (COG) is suboptimal nationally. AIMS: The aims of this study are to: 1) evaluate the impact of a patient-controlled electronic personal health record (ePHR) and system (SurvivorLink) on care visit attendance, risk-based surveillance, and other secondary outcomes (i.e., patient activation, quality of life (QOL)); 2) measure the use, acceptability, and perceived usefulness of, and satisfaction with SurvivorLink; and 3) assess facilitators and barriers to implementation. METHODS: This hybrid effectiveness-implementation, clustered randomized control trial (RCT) evaluates the effect of SurvivorLink among pediatric cancer survivors and their parents on receipt of follow-up cancer care. We will recruit 20 pediatric survivor clinics with half receiving the intervention and half acting as a waitlist control. Parents of survivors and survivors will complete baseline, 3 and 12 month surveys that assess SurvivorLink use, patient self-efficacy, and intentions to return for follow-up. We will use mixed methods and multi-informant assessment to assess implementation outcomes (i.e., acceptability, feasibility, appropriateness). DISCUSSION: New approaches are needed to facilitate the receipt of long-term follow-up care among pediatric cancer survivors. This study will assess whether SurvivorLink is effective in increasing receipt of follow-up cancer care. Moreover, it will explore the influences of context and other moderators of clinical practice change in pediatric cancer survivorship.

A scoping study of frameworks for adapting public health evidence-based interventions.

Evidence-based public health translation of research to practice is essential to improve the public's health. Dissemination and implementation researchers have explored what happens once practitioners adopt evidence-based interventions (EBIs) and have developed models and frameworks to describe the adaptation process. This scoping study identified and summarized adaptation frameworks in published reports and grey literature. We followed the recommended steps of a scoping study: (a) identifying the research question; (b) identifying relevant studies; (c) selecting studies; (d) charting the data; (e) collating, summarizing, and reporting the results; and (f) consulting with experts. We searched PubMed, PsycINFO, PsycNET, and CINAHL databases for articles referencing adaptation frameworks for public health interventions in the published and gray literature, and from reference lists of framework articles. Two reviewers independently coded the frameworks and their steps and identified common steps. We found 13 adaptation frameworks with 11 program adaptation steps: (a) assess community, (b) understand the EBI(s), (c) select the EBI, (d) consult with experts, (e) consult with stakeholders, (f) decide on needed adaptations, (g) adapt the original EBI, (h) train staff, (i) test the adapted materials, (j) implement the adapted EBI, and (k) evaluate. Eight of these steps were recommended by more than five frameworks: #1-3, 6-7, and 9-11. This study is the first to systematically identify, review, describe, and summarize frameworks for adapting EBIs. It contributes to the literature by consolidating key steps in program adaptation of EBIs and describing the associated tasks in each step.

An early sex difference in the relation between mental rotation and object preference.

Accumulating evidence suggests that males outperform females on mental rotation tasks as early as infancy. Sex differences in object preference have also been shown to emerge early in development and precede sex-typed play in childhood. Although research with adults and older children is suggestive of a relationship between play preferences and visuospatial abilities, including mental rotation, little is known about the developmental origins of this relationship. The present study compared mental rotation ability and object preference in 6- to 13-month-old infants. We used a novel paradigm to examine individual differences in infants' mental rotation abilities as well as their differential preference for one of two sex-typed objects. A sex difference was found on both tasks, with boys showing an advantage in performance on the mental rotation task and exhibiting greater visual attention to the male-typed object (i.e., a toy truck) than to the female-typed object (i.e., a doll) in comparison to girls. Moreover, we found a relation between mental rotation and object preference that varied by sex. Greater visual interest in the male-typed object was related to greater mental rotation performance in boys, but not in girls. Possible explanations related to perceptual biases, prenatal androgen exposure, and experiential influences for this sex difference are discussed.