Research ethics

Courts have a legal and ethical duty to monitor adult guardianship cases to protect the rights of individuals with guardians. Aging and disability advocates have been recommending improvements to adult guardianship monitoring for decades. The aim of this study is to examine annual guardianship reporting procedures in each state. Using the National Guardianship Association's (NGA) Standards of Practice as a guide, we summarize what is missing from adult guardianship annual report forms in each state. Since 2000, the NGA Standards have been the benchmark for guiding guardianship best practices, making it a valuable tool for guardianship reporting and monitoring...

Although reproducibility is central to the scientific method, its understanding within the research community remains insufficient. We aimed to explore the perceptions of research reproducibility among stakeholders within academia, learn about possible barriers and facilitators to reproducibility-related practices, and gather their suggestions for the Croatian Reproducibility Network website. We conducted four focus groups with researchers, teachers, editors, research managers, and policymakers from Croatia ( n  = 23)...

The perennial problem of author name ambiguity has attracted increasing attention in the academic community. Drawing on the literature, this article first highlights the pervasiveness of the problem and discusses its adverse consequences. It then analyzes the behavioral causes of the problem in the Chinese context and attributes them to personal, cultural, and institutional factors. Informed by this analysis and recognizing ORCID as a promising solution, we propose an ORCID-based "Prevention plus Cure" campaign against author name ambiguity...

INTRODUCTION: Orthognathic surgery can lead to sinus alterations, including sinusitis, attributed to the exposure of maxillary sinuses during Le Fort I osteotomy. Furthermore, being a hospital-based procedure, there is potential risk of complications arising from bacteria prevalent in such environments. This study evaluated maxillary sinusitis occurrence and the presence of multidrug-resistant bacteria in the nasal cavity before and after orthognathic surgery. METHODS: Ten patients with dentofacial deformities underwent Le Fort I osteotomy...

BACKGROUND: Mixed reality offers potential educational advantages in the delivery of clinical teaching. Holographic artefacts can be rendered within a shared learning environment using devices such as the Microsoft HoloLens 2. In addition to facilitating remote access to clinical events, mixed reality may provide a means of sharing mental models, including the vertical and horizontal integration of curricular elements at the bedside. This study aimed to evaluate the feasibility of delivering clinical tutorials using the Microsoft HoloLens 2 and the learning efficacy achieved...

INTRODUCTION: Organ donation is a life-saving intervention that provides hope for patients with end-stage organ failure, improving their longevity and quality of life. However, the demand for organs far exceeds the supply, leading to a significant disparity between patients on transplant waiting lists and the availability of suitable organs. To address this issue, innovative strategies, such as uncontrolled donation after circulatory death (uDCD) programs, have been proposed to expand the donor pool to the prehospital setting...

OBJECTIVE: To evaluate the clinico-pathological determinants of suicidal thoughts and behavior in patients with post-stroke depression (PSD) in a teaching hospital in south-west Nigeria. METHOD: A cross-sectional study was carried out in Lagos State University Teaching Hospital and it involved 89 consecutively selected outpatients with post-stroke depression (diagnosed using the depression module of Mini International Neuropsychiatric Inventory). Socio-demographic and clinical factors questionnaire, Mini-Mental State Examination, National Institute of Health Stroke Scale, and Beck Scale of Suicidal Ideation (BSSI) were administered to the participants...

BACKGROUND: Digital twin technology heralds a transformative era in Otorhinolaryngology (ORL), merging the physical and digital worlds to offer dynamic, virtual models of physical entities or processes. PURPOSE: These models, capable of simulating, predicting, and optimizing real-world counterparts, are evolving from static replicas to intelligent, adaptive systems. METHODS: Fueled by advancements in communication, sensor technology, big data analytics, Internet of Things (IoT), and simulation technologies, artificial intelligence (AI), digital twins in ORL promise personalized treatment planning, virtual experimentation, and therapeutic intervention optimization...

BACKGROUND: Rift Valley fever (RVF) is a zoonotic viral disease of increasing intensity among humans in Africa and the Arabian Peninsula. In Uganda, cases reported prior to 2016 were mild or not fully documented. We report in this paper on the severe morbidity and hospital-based mortality of human cases in Uganda. METHODS: Between November 2017 and March 2020 human cases reported to the Uganda Virus Research Institute (UVRI) were confirmed by polymerase chain reaction (PCR)...

BACKGROUND: Assisted death, including euthanasia and physician-assisted suicide (PAS), is under debate worldwide, and these practices are adopted in many Western countries. Physicians' attitudes toward assisted death vary across the globe, but little is known about physicians' actual reactions when facing a request for assisted death. There is a clear gap in evidence on how physicians act and respond to patients' requests for assisted death in countries where these actions are not legal...

BACKGROUND: Confidentiality is one of the central preconditions for clinical ethics support (CES). CES cases which generate moral questions for CES staff concerning (breaching) confidentiality of what has been discussed during CES can cause moral challenges. Currently, there seems to be no clear policy or guidance regarding how CES staff can or should deal with these moral challenges related to (not) breaching confidentiality within CES. Moral case deliberation is a specific kind of CES...

BACKGROUND: Although pneumonectomy has relatively high mortality and morbidity rates, it remains valid in the surgical treatment of lung cancer. This study aims to evaluate the prognostic significance of postoperative complications after pneumonectomy and demonstrate the risk factors related to early postoperative complications. METHODS: Patients who underwent pneumonectomy for non-small cell lung cancer between January 2008 and May 2021 were included in the study...

Upon a diagnosis, the clinical team faces two main questions: what treatment, and at what dose? Clinical trials' results provide the basis for guidance and support for official protocols that clinicians use to base their decisions. However, individuals do not consistently demonstrate the reported response from relevant clinical trials. The decision complexity increases with combination treatments where drugs administered together can interact with each other, which is often the case. Additionally, the individual's response to the treatment varies with the changes in their condition...

Access to Hepatis C treatment in Sub-Saharan Africa is a clinical, public health and ethical concern. The multi-country open-label trial TAC ANRS 12311 allowed assessing the feasibility, safety, efficacy of a specific care model of HCV treatment and retreatment in patients with hepatitis C in Sub Saharan Africa. Between November 2015 and March 2017, with follow-up until mid 2019, treatment-naïve patients with HCV without decompensated cirrhosis or liver cancer were recruited to receive 12 week-treatment with either sofosbuvir + ribavirin (HCV genotype 2) or sofosbuvir + ledipasvir (genotype 1 or 4) and retreatment with sofosbuvir + velpatasvir + voxilaprevir in case of virological failure...

INTRODUCTION: Fatigue is an important and distressing symptom for many people living with chronic musculoskeletal (MSK) conditions. Many non-pharmacological interventions have been investigated in recent years and some have been demonstrated to be effective in reducing fatigue and fatigue impact, however, there is limited guidance for clinicians to follow regarding the most appropriate management options. The objective of this scoping review is to understand and map the extent of evidence in relation to the factors that relate to the outcome of non-pharmacological interventions on MSK condition-related fatigue across the lifespan...

INTRODUCTION: Paediatricians perform medical assessments for children in cases of suspected child maltreatment. Due to their role with statutory child protection agencies and police, paediatricians may be asked to testify in court about child protection and criminal justice matters. To the authors' knowledge, there has been no previous systematic review of the literature synthesising the evidence on the impacts on paediatricians testifying in cases of child maltreatment. METHODS AND ANALYSIS: A search strategy comprising indexed and key terms will be applied to six electronic reference databases from inception to May 2023: Medline, EMBASE, PsycINFO, CINAHL, Criminal Justice Abstracts and Cochrane Library...

BACKGROUND: The prevalence of physical inactivity among children and adolescents is alarmingly high despite the well-documented and comprehensive benefits of regular physical activity (PA). Therefore, PA promotion should start early in childhood and adolescence. Although reducing recreational screen time in children and adolescents is an urgent concern, digital approaches have the potential to make activity promotion attractive and age appropriate for the target group. KIJANI is a mobile app approach to promote PA in children and adolescents via gamification and augmented reality...

Economics is the primary discipline used to understand supply chain design, scale-up, and management. For example, antibiotics can be compared to other forms of "tragedy of the commons," whereby a common good (effective treatment of infections) is jeopardized by individual consumption and lack of community oversight and stewardship. While economic analysis can explain innovation decline in terms of market failure, one pitfall of an early-stage focus on research and development is a failure to challenge the discovery narrative...

Antimicrobial resistance (AMR) is a looming pandemic whose poor health outcomes are unlikely to be equitably distributed. This article focuses on intersections between AMR and inequities in health care workplaces in the United States and identifies the following as key problems: lack of published data on task-specific occupational health risks related to colonization and infection with antimicrobial-resistant pathogens, limited scientific literature reporting on race and ethnicity, and poor access to infection control educational opportunities for minoritized health care workers...

This paper deals with the ways in which the intellectual and political history of AIDS can assist in the chronological conceptualization of a pandemic such as COVID-19 as it is unfolding. It problematizes the idea of pandemic "beginnings" and "ends" to show that such definitions are shaped by the disciplinary location and thematic foci of relevant scholars. Central to this analysis is the notion that ethical and political contexts affect research on a pandemic in different ways at national and global levels at various points in its trajectory...