BACKGROUND Multimorbidity is one of the most important and challenging aspects in public health. Multimorbid people are associated with more hospital admissions, a large number of drug prescriptions and higher risks of mortality. As there is evidence that multimorbidity varies with age and socioeconomic disparity, the main objective aimed at determining age-specific prevalence rates as well as ...

Our first column introduced readers to the emergence of new research-related content in nursing and medical curricula: the teaching of skills necessary for health care professionals to practice from an evidential base. We intend to address in upcoming columns the ongoing dialogue among educators and researchers about how best to teach evidence-based practice (EBP). Each column will focus on one...

As part of the National Clinical Programme on healthcare-associated infection prevention, a Royal College of Surgeons in Ireland (RCSI) and Royal College of Physicians of Ireland (RCPI) working group developed a quality improvement tool for prevention of surgical site infection (SS). We aimed to validate the effectiveness of an educational campaign, which utilises this quality improvement tool ...

BACKGROUND The basic administrative structures at most academic institutions were implemented more than 50 years ago and have remained largely unchanged. Since the surgical specialties were in nascent stages during that time, they were clubbed together within the department of surgery. There has been extensive growth in the breadth and depth of plastic surgery over the past few decades and curr...

Malaria remains one of the most serious public health problems in Africa, causing high morbidity and mortality. In highly endemic areas, malaria is responsible for about 30-50% of fever cases, 30% of outpatient consultations, and 10-15% of hospital admissions. Globally, about 1.5-2.7 million persons die from malaria yearly. Children under 5 years and pregnant women are the most vulnerable gr...

1Vesalius Research Center (VRC), Vlaams Instituut voor Biotechnologie (VIB), Leuven, Belgium; 2VRC, K.U.Leuven, Leuven, Belgium; 3Department of Pathology, Cardiovascular Research Institute Maastricht, University of Maastricht, Maastricht, The Netherlands; 4Institute for Molecular Cardiovascular Research (IMCAR), University Hospital Aachen, Medical Faculty, Rheinisch-Westfälische Technische Hoch...

Introduction / objectives Hand hygiene (HH) compliance reduces the incidence of nosocomial infection, however, little research has been conducted on factors that influence healthcare students’ HH practices. The study aims were to examine the relationships between healthcare students’ HH knowledge, beliefs and practices, the ways they were educated and assessed on HH, and their perceptions of th...

INTRODUCTION No consent for health and medical research is appropriate when the criteria for a waiver of consent are met, yet some ethics committees and data custodians still require informed consent. METHODS A single-blind parallel-group randomised controlled trial: 1129 families of children born at a South Australian hospital were sent information explaining data linkage of childhood immuni...

OBJECTIVE The study objective was to assess the effects of an interorganisational educational intervention called the 'Meeting Point' on patient safety culture among staff in hospital and nursing home wards. DESIGN The study employs a quasi-experimental, non-randomised design with a hospital and nursing home intervention group and a hospital and nursing home control group. The study uses one ...

UNLABELLED QUALITY ISSUE: The vast majority of health system capacity-building efforts have focused on enhancing medical and public health skills; less attention has been directed at developing hospital managers despite their central role in improving the functioning and quality of health-care systems. Initial ASSESSMENT AND CHOICE OF INTERVENTION: Initial assessment of hospital management syst...