Background
Many young people are involved in caring for parents, siblings, or other relatives who have an illness or disability. The aim of this study was to estimate the prevalence of caring by ...young people in England.
Method
A national survey of 925 English young people was conducted using the 18‐item survey version of the Multidimensional Assessment of Caring Activities Checklist for Young Carers.
Results
Around 7% of young people were identified as doing at least a high amount of caring activity and 3% a very high amount. Most frequently, caring by a young person is for a mother or a sibling, with a physical disability. Caring activity consisted mostly of domestic activities, household management, and emotional care.
Conclusion
This study provides the most up to date and methodologically sophisticated survey data on the prevalence of young caring in England, with implications for policy and practice.
In this work, the infrared (IR) spectra of living neural cells in suspension, native brain tissue, and native brain tumor tissue were investigated. Methods were developed to overcome the strong IR ...signal of liquid water so that the signal from the cellular biochemicals could be seen. Measurements could be performed during surgeries, within minutes after resection. Comparison between normal tissue, different cell lineages in suspension, and tumors allowed preliminary assignments of IR bands to be made. The most dramatic difference between tissues and cells was found to be in weaker IR absorbances usually assigned to the triple helix of collagens. Triple helix domains are common in larger structural proteins, and are typically found in the extracellular matrix (ECM) of tissues. An algorithm to correct offsets and calculate the band heights and positions of these bands was developed, so the variance between identical measurements could be assessed. The initial results indicate the triple helix signal is surprisingly consistent between different individuals, and is altered in tumor tissues. Taken together, these preliminary investigations indicate this triple helix signal may be a reliable biomarker for a tumor-like microenvironment. Thus, this signal has potential to aid in the intra-operational delineation of brain tumor borders.
Celotno besedilo
Dostopno za:
DOBA, IZUM, KILJ, NUK, PILJ, PNG, SAZU, SIK, UILJ, UKNU, UL, UM, UPUK
Help! Is my sample big enough? Toher, Deirdre
Significance,
August 2017, 2017-08-01, 20170801, Letnik:
14, Številka:
4
Journal Article
Odprti dostop
Anne Beeston writes: I am planning a study to evaluate the efficacy of a treatment to reduce the microbial load in dried flowers, and need some advice on sample size to allow the determination of ...statistically significant differences in two groups
Help! Is my sample big enough?
Journalists ask a lot of questions of statisticians, but some are more bizarre than others. Statistical ambassador Deirdre Toher recounts one such experience
Journalists ask a lot of questions of ...statisticians, but some are more bizarre than others. Statistical ambassador Deirdre Toher recounts one such experience
Samples that include both independent and paired observations cause a dilemma for researchers that covers the full breadth of empirical research. Parametric approaches for the comparison of two ...samples using all available observations are considered, under normality and non-normality. These approaches are compared to naive and newly proposed non-parametric alternatives.
In practice, the required sample size for a two-arm randomised controlled trial cannot always be determined pre-study with great accuracy. This lack of accuracy has economic, ethical and scientific ...implications. The sample size for a pilot study is an important consideration in helping the decision making for the sample size of a follow-on trial. Consideration of under- and over-estimation of the sample size results in the idea of a Just-About-Right (JAR) sample size. For studies involving a minimally clinical important difference (MCID) we present the pilot sample sizes to meet investigator desired JAR considerations.
The police service in England and Wales has developed a new approach to police leadership where individuals from outside of the police service can now enter directly to leadership ranks. Previous ...research identified that officers place great value on being led by someone who has experience of being a police officer. Adopting a social identity perspective, the current paper reports on quantitative and qualitative data about police officer views on direct entry and existing police leadership captured as part of a wider national survey (
N
= 12,549) of police officers in England and Wales. The paper identifies the importance that shared identity and credibility play in police follower/leadership relationships. It argues that direct-entry police leaders face credibility issues linked to their lack of shared police identity but also that serving officers perceive existing leaders to be poor because they believe they have forgotten what it is like to be a police officer. This paper develops a new theoretical and empirical approach to police leadership utilizing social and organizational psychology theory and research. The paper suggests that if police leaders understand police identity, then they can create propitious conditions within which police officers will follow their leaders.
Using data obtained from a pilot study, Browne (1995) proposed a procedure for estimating the sample size needed for a definitive two-arm randomised controlled trial when the minimal important ...difference is specified. Simulations confirm these findings. The results attributable to Browne are extended to consider the degree of error attached to sample size estimation using this procedure. A consideration of the error provides a simple mechanism to estimate the sample size needed for a pilot study so as to control the degree of error in the follow-on substantive trial. Keywords sample size, estimation, pilot study
Celotno besedilo
Dostopno za:
DOBA, IZUM, KILJ, NUK, PILJ, PNG, SAZU, UILJ, UKNU, UL, UM, UPUK
Background:
safe placement and securement of feeding tubes are essential to establishing early enteral nutrition. Nasogastric or nasojejunal feeding tubes are often inadvertently removed, and using a ...nasal bridle can reduce the number of tube replacements required.
Aim:
to review current nasal bridle practices on one intensive care unit. Over a 3-month period, nasal bridle use was recorded to measure unintentional tube loss and tube duration (the time a tube remained in situ).
Method:
an observational service evaluation.
Findings:
109 patients were recruited; 205 tubes were passed and 77 bridles were inserted, with 42% (n=46) of the bridles placed on day 1. Tubes secured with tape were more likely to be dislodged than tubes secured with a bridle, P=0.0001. Duration of tubes remaining in situ was significantly longer in patients who had a bridle fitted on day 1, P=0.0001 compared with tubes secured with tape.
Conclusion:
securing a tube with a nasal bridle from day 1 is independently associated with reduced tube loss, increased duration of tube use, and likelihood that the tube would reach redundancy when it was no longer required.
Background:
Blind (unguided) feeding tube placement results in 0.5% of patients suffering major complications mainly due to lung misplacement detected prior to feeding. Electromagnet-guided (Cortrak) ...tube placement could pre-empt such complications but undetected misplacements still occur due to incorrect trace interpretation. By identifying gastrointestinal (GI) flexures from the trace, ‘the GI flexure system’, it has been proposed that tube position can be interpreted.
Aims:
To audit agreement between standards of interpreting tube position: the Cortrak ‘GI flexure’ system versus X-ray.
Methods:
In 185 primary nasointestinal tube placements tube position determined by Cortrak trace interpretation (GI flexure) was retrospectively compared with radiological position in a blinded study.
Findings:
Radiological and Cortrak interpretation agreed in 92.2–98.3% of placements at different GI flexures. Discrepancy mainly occurred because some radiological images were unclear or did not cover all anatomical points.
Conclusion:
The GI flexure method of Cortrak interpretation appears safe but would necessitate prospective radiological investigation to definitively test equivalence.
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