Putting patients first

Reconciling duty: a theory and typology of professionalism

BACKGROUND

Professionalism is expected of health professionals and advocated by professional regulators in the United Kingdom (UK). Concepts of professionalism have evolved in sociological discourse and its meaning for dentistry is unclear. It is, none-the-less, considered a core domain of dental education and professional practice by the United Kingdom regulator, the General Dental Council. This paper reports the sense-making process, or social process, of professionalism in practice within England.

AIM

To explore the research question 'What does dental professionalism mean in practice?

METHODS

Taking a constructivist grounded theory approach, involving purposive and theoretical sampling, 24 dental professionals were recruited to participate in this qualitative study. In-depth, semi-structured interviews were conducted by one interviewer (AT). Interviews were recorded, transcribed verbatim, and analysed leading to the development of a theory grounded in the data.

RESULTS

A focus on the social-professional constructs used by participants to make sense of their experiences, resulted in a grounded theory where Reconciling Duty emerged as the core category. This represents a process of meeting professional duties to different parties that are often mutually exclusive. It is comprised of three supporting categories: Applying order to the system, where individuals attempt to identify what constitutes professional attitudes and behaviours, Rationalising what is fair, where individuals make judgements on how the conflict between duties should be resolved, and finally Responding to the System, where individuals attempt to actualise these desired resolutions in the context of the complex social system in which they practice. Three dentist archetypes (typologies) emerged, which involved a personal (Type 1), patient (Type 2), or a societal (Type 3) compromise.

CONCLUSION

Professionalism can be conceptualised as process of reconciling multiple, competing, legitimate duties to different parties, in seeking a fair solution. Once this has been identified, individuals need to work within the complex system of dentistry to make their identified outcome a reality. The findings suggest that using the theory of Reconciling Duty helps us to engage with the meaning that the participants drew from the term 'professionalism', and anchors it in the lived, everyday professional experiences and challenges faced. A novel typology is proposed, commensurate with calls for a systems approach to the topic.

Training and delivery of a novel fatigue intervention: a qualitative study of rheumatology health-care professionals' experiences

Objectives

Successful, non-pharmacological research interventions are challenging to implement in clinical practice. The aim of the study was to understand the experiences of rheumatology nurses and occupational therapists (tutors) delivering a novel fatigue intervention in a trial setting, and their views on requirements for clinical implementation. After training, tutors delivered courses of a manualized group cognitive-behavioural intervention to patients with RA in a seven-centre randomized controlled trial [Reducing Arthritis Fatigue by clinical Teams using cognitive-behavioural approaches (RAFT)], which demonstrated reduced fatigue impact at 2 years.

Methods

Fourteen tutors participated in interviews, and eight tutors also participated in a focus group. Data were audio-recorded, transcribed and analysed using inductive thematic analysis.

Results

The following five main themes were identified: 'exciting but daunting' reflected the mixture of excitement and anxiety in intervention training and delivery; 'skills practice and demonstrations were essential' captured the value of learning and practising together, even though the process could be uncomfortable; 'an individual approach to a standardized intervention' showed how tutors negotiated adherence to the manual with delivery using their own words; 'becoming a better practitioner' described how participation enhanced tutors' wider clinical practice; and 'pragmatic and flexible' highlighted practical adaptations to facilitate training and intervention roll out.

Conclusion

These insights inform strategies for clinical implementation of an evidence-based intervention that addresses a patient priority, with implications for other successful research interventions. Tutors believed that the skills acquired during RAFT enhanced their wider clinical practice, which highlights the benefits of upskilling members of clinical teams to provide self-management support to patients.

"It all needs to be a full jigsaw, not just bits": exploration of healthcare professionals' beliefs towards supported self-management for long-term conditions

BACKGROUND

Long-Term Conditions are physical health issues which profoundly impact physical and psychological outcomes and have reached epidemic worldwide levels. An increasing evidence-base has developed for utilizing Supported Self-Management to ensure Health, Social Care & Voluntary staff are knowledgeable, skilled, and experienced to enable patients to have the confidence and capability to self-manage their conditions. However, despite Health Psychology theories underpinning chronic care models demonstrating beliefs are crucially associated with intention and behaviour, staff beliefs towards Supported Self-Management have received little attention. Therefore, the study aimed to explore healthcare professionals' beliefs towards Supported Self-Management for Long-Term Conditions using the Theory of Planned Behaviour.

METHODS

A mixed-methods approach was conducted within a single UK local government authority region in 2 phases: (1) Qualitative focus group of existing Supported Self-Management project staff (N = 6); (2) Quantitative online questionnaire of general Long-Term Conditions staff (N = 58).

RESULTS

(1) Eighty two utterances over 20 theme sub-codes demonstrated beliefs that Supported Self-Management improves healthcare outcomes, but requires enhancements to patient and senior stakeholder buy-in, healthcare culture-specific tailoring, and organizational policy and resources; (2) Mean scores indicated moderate-strength beliefs that Supported Self-Management achieves positive healthcare outcomes, but weak-strength intentions to implement Supported Self-Management and beliefs it is socially normative and perceived control over implementing it. Crucially, regression analyses demonstrated intentions to implement Supported Self-Management were only associated with beliefs that important others supported it and perceived control over, or by whether it was socially encouraged.

CONCLUSIONS

Healthcare professionals demonstrated positive attitudes towards Supported Self-Management improving healthcare outcomes. However, intentions towards implementing this approach were low with staff only slightly believing important others (including patients and clinicians) supported it and that they had control over using it. Future Supported Self-Management projects should seek to enhance intention (and consequently behaviour) through targeting beliefs that important others do indeed actually support this approach and that staff have control over implementing it, as well as enhancing social encouragement.

A prospective 52-week randomized controlled trial of patient-initiated care consultations for patients with psoriasis

BACKGROUND

Treatment and care of moderate-to-severe psoriasis require lifelong consultations with a dermatologist with close monitoring of systemic treatment.

OBJECTIVES

To investigate the effect of patient-initiated care consultation (PICC) for patients with psoriasis in a dermatology outpatient clinic.

METHODS

A prospective randomized controlled trial with patients on well-controlled systemic treatment randomized to either (i) the PICC group, where they participated in one annual consultation with a dermatologist but were able to initiate consultations when needed; or (ii) routine care, where they participated in a consultation every 12-16 weeks. The primary outcome was the Dermatology Life Quality Index (DLQI). Other outcomes were safety, patient adherence and satisfaction with healthcare assessed at baseline and after 52 weeks. The study was registered with clinical trials number NCT02382081.

RESULTS

In total 150 patients were included, with 58·0% treated with biologics, 37·3% with methotrexate and 4·7% with acitretin. At week 52 no statistically significant mean difference between groups was detected in DLQI (0·28, 95% confidence interval -0·35 to 0·9) or Psoriasis Area and Severity Index (-0·24, 95% confidence interval -0·84 to 0·36). Patients in the PICC group requested 63% fewer consultations with a dermatologist: mean 2·5 ± 0·1 vs. 5·1 ± 0·6 (P = 0·001). Patient adherence and safety with treatment monitoring were equal between groups, but the PICC group was significantly better at attending consultations than the control group (P = 0·003).

CONCLUSIONS

PICC offers additional clinical benefits over routine care, making patients less dependent on clinical visits. The intervention adds no harm to monitoring systemic treatment, and patients report high quality of life and satisfaction with healthcare.

Quantifying benefit-risk preferences for new medicines in rare disease patients and caregivers

Background

Rare disease patients and caregivers face uncommon, serious, debilitating conditions often characterised by poor prognosis and limited treatment options. This study aimed to explore what they consider of value when choosing between hypothetical therapeutic options and to quantify both their benefit-risk preferences and the influence of disease context.

Methods

A mixed-methods survey with patients and caregivers was conducted in the United Kingdom across a range of rare diseases. Discrete-choice experiments that compared hypothetical treatment profiles of benefits and risks were used to measure respondent preferences across a set of seven attributes related to health outcomes, safety, and process of care. Bespoke questions on current disease management and the joint use of the 12-item WHODAS 2.0 questionnaire and of two Likert scales capturing self- and proxy-assessed disease-induced threat to life and impairment were implemented to describe disease context. Additionally, qualitative insights on the definitions of value and risk were collected from respondents.

Results

Final study sample included 721 patients and 152 informal caregivers, across 52 rare diseases. When choosing between hypothetical novel treatments for rare diseases, respondents attributed most importance to drug response, risk of serious side effects, and the ability to conduct usual activities while on treatment. In contrast, attributes related to treatment modalities were the least important. Respondents expressed a willingness to accept risks in hopes of finding some benefit, such as a higher chance of drug response or greater health improvement potential. Increasing disease severity, impairment or disability, and the lack of effective therapeutic options were shown to raise significantly the willingness to gain benefit through increased risk.

Conclusions

This is the first study performing a quantitative discrete choice experiment amongst patients and caregivers across 52 rare conditions. It enables a more detailed understanding of the relationship between disease context, treatment attributes and the degree of risk respondents are willing to take to gain a specific degree of benefit. Researchers of novel therapeutics for rare diseases should be encouraged to invest in preference elicitation studies to generate rigorous patient evidence and specific regulatory guidance should be issued to acknowledge their importance and their use in marketing authorisations.

Electronic supplementary material

The online version of this article (doi:10.1186/s13023-016-0444-9) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.

A qualitative study of patients' perspectives on collaboration to support self-management in routine rheumatology consultations

BACKGROUND

Self-management of inflammatory arthritis (IA) requires patients to address the impact of symptoms, treatment, and the psychosocial consequences of a long term condition. There are several possible mechanisms for facilitating self-management, including patient-clinician interactions in routine consultations. This requires patients to collaborate in their healthcare, and clinicians to specifically encourage and help patients to do so. To design training that enables clinicians to support patients to be actively involved and self-manage requires understanding both patients' and clinicians' perspectives about what is important and feasible. Previous research explored the perspectives of clinicians who had undertaken brief training which they were putting into practice in their routine consultations. This study explored the perspectives of patients attending those routine consultations to identify aspects of the interaction that influenced collaboration and self-management.

METHODS

Nineteen patients with IA who had attended a routine consultation with a rheumatology clinician at one of four hospitals in England took part in semi-structured interviews. Interviews were transcribed, anonymised and analysed using inductive thematic analysis.

RESULTS

Three themes encompass participants' thoughts about interactions that facilitated collaboration in consultations and their ability to self-manage their IA: first, patients and clinicians viewing care as a shared endeavour, including patients responding actively to their IA and clinicians exploring and negotiating with patients; second, the need for clinicians to understand the challenges faced by patients, appreciate the impact of IA and focus on patients' priorities; and third, clinicians using an open communication style, including the use of non-didactic, patient-centred approaches. A fourth theme was perceived benefits of actively engaging in consultations, including increased confidence to deal with the impact of IA and greater acceptance of a long term condition.

CONCLUSIONS

Patients perceive that self-management can be facilitated when clinicians and patients view healthcare as a shared responsibility, underpinned by clinicians as experts in the disease and patients as experts in living with it. Clinicians can support patients' self-management by using non-didactic communication skills to identify patients' priorities, and to prompt patients to problem-solve and share in setting the consultation agenda. This should inform skills-training for rheumatology clinicians.

A survey of psychological support provision for people with inflammatory arthritis in secondary care in England

Objectives

The consequences of inflammatory arthritis can include depression, anxiety and low mood, reducing patients’ quality of life and increasing pressure on the healthcare system. Treatment guidelines recommend psychological support, but data are lacking on the provision available.

Methods

A postal survey concerning psychological support provision was sent to rheumatology units in 143 acute trusts across England. Nurses from 73 rheumatology units (51%) responded.

Results

Overall, 73% rated their unit's psychological support provision as ‘inadequate’ and only 4% rated it as ‘good’. Few units believed that psychological support did not fall within their remit (12%), yet only 8% had a psychologist in the team. Most units (68%) did not routinely screen patients to identify psychological difficulties. Referral to other service providers was reported in 42% of units, with 3% very satisfied with this provision. Within units, services containing elements of psychological support ranged from occupational therapy (81%) to psychology/counselling (14%). Psychological approaches used by team members ranged from shared decision making (77%) to cognitive–behavioural approaches (26%). The current barriers to providing psychological support were lack of clinical time and available training (86% and 74%, respectively), and delivery costs (74%). Future facilitators included management support (74%) and availability of skills training (74%).

Conclusions

Rheumatology units viewed psychological support provision as part of their remit but rated their overall provision as inadequate, despite some team members using psychological skills. To improve provision, clinicians’ training needs must be addressed and organizational support generated, and further research needs to define adequate psychological support provision from the patient perspective. © 2014 The Authors. Musculoskeletal Care published by John Wiley & Sons Ltd.

Rheumatology clinicians' experiences of brief training and implementation of skills to support patient self-management

BACKGROUND

Self-management of arthritis requires informed, activated patients to manage its physical and psychosocial consequences. Patient activation and self-management can be enhanced through the use of cognitive-behavioural approaches, which have a strong evidence base and provide insight into the variation in outcome of patients with ostensibly the same degree of disease activity. However, training for rheumatology health professionals in theory and skills underpinning the facilitation of self-management is not widely available. To develop such training, this study explored rheumatology clinicians' experiences of a variety of brief skills training courses to understand which aspects were helpful or unhelpful, and to identify the barriers and facilitators of applying the skills in clinical practice.

METHODS

16 clinicians who had previously attended communication and self-management skills training participated in semi-structured interviews: 3 physicians, 3 physiotherapists, 4 nurses, 6 occupational therapists. Transcripts were analysed (ED) using a hybrid inductive and deductive thematic approach, with a subset independently analysed (SH, RG-H, RJ).

RESULTS

3 overarching themes captured views about training undertaken and subsequent use of approaches to facilitate self-management. In 'putting theory into practice', clinicians felt that generic training was not as relevant as rheumatology-specific training. They wanted a balance between theory and skills practice, and identified the importance of access to ongoing support. In 'challenging professional identity', models of care and working cultures influenced learning and implementation. Training often challenged a tendency to problem-solve on behalf of patients and broadened clinicians' remit from a primary focus on physical symptoms to the mind and body interaction. In 'enhanced practice', clinicians viewed consultations as enhanced after training. Focus had shifted from clinicians' agendas to those of patients, and clinicians reported eliciting patients' priorities and the use of theoretically-driven strategies such as goal-setting.

CONCLUSIONS

To varying extents, clinicians were able to learn and implement new approaches to support patient self-management after brief training. They believed that cognitive behavioural and communication skills to facilitate self-management enhanced their practice. To optimise self-management support in routine care brief, skills-based, rheumatology-specific training needs to be developed, alongside ongoing clinical supervision. Further research should examine patients' perspectives of care based on these approaches.

Defining the content of an opportunistic osteoarthritis consultation with primary health care professionals: a Delphi consensus study

OBJECTIVE

To define the core content for an opportunistic consultation between a health care professional (HCP) and a patient with osteoarthritis (OA) in primary care.

METHODS

An ideas generation round and a 2-round Delphi postal consensus study allowed participants to rank the importance of tasks for an opportunistic consultation. The study was conducted with a lay group (n = 18) and 3 groups of HCPs (n = 30 for general practitioners, n = 19 for practice nurses, and n = 37 for allied health professionals).

RESULTS

The ideas generation round formulated 35 consultation tasks. There was a 50% response rate to the 2-round postal exercise (n = 52). Consensus was reached on 12 tasks for an opportunistic OA consultation using a >80% level of agreement across all groups. Three of these consultation tasks were defined at 100%. The 3 tasks were questions asked by the HCP about how things are going with the condition, the type and amount of pain the patient has, and whether the patient is taking regular analgesia.

CONCLUSION

In a Delphi study to define the content of an opportunistic primary care OA consultation, 12 consultation tasks provided the content of a comprehensive consultation. Three of these tasks with 100% agreement could be adopted in any multidisciplinary consultation for OA in primary care. Inquiring about the condition, the type and amount of pain the patient has, and whether analgesia is being taken forms a core set of questions that are considered important by both lay and health professional groups in an opportunistic consultation.

Salivary diagnostics for periodontal diseases

BACKGROUND

and Overview The use of salivary diagnostics continues to develop and advance the field of risk determination for periodontal diseases. Researchers are investigating genetic, microbial and protein biomarkers with the objective of translating findings to such aspects of clinical care as broad patient screening, monitoring and treatment planning.

METHODS

/st> In this review, the author briefly explores currently available salivary diagnostics used to identify bacteria prevalent in periodontal disease, and focuses on the future development and use of a variety of rapid disease detection platforms, such as lab-on-a-chip, as a point-of-care device for identification of patients' risk.

CONCLUSIONS

and

CLINICAL IMPLICATIONS

/st> Several diagnostic tests are commercially available, and point-of-care tests are under development. However, challenges remain regarding the introduction of these technologies to clinical practice and adoption by dental practitioners for promotion of personalized oral health care.

Care planning for long-term conditions – a concept mapping

OBJECTIVE

This article focuses on approaches within clinical practice that seek to actively involve patients with long-term conditions (LTCs) and how professionals may understand and implement them. Personalized care planning is one such approach, but its current lack of conceptual clarity might have impeded its widespread implementation to date. A variety of overlapping concepts coexist in the literature, which have the potential to impair both clinical and research agendas. The aim of this article is therefore to explore the meaning of the concept of care planning in relation to other overlapping concepts and how this translates into clinical practice implementation.

METHODS

Searches were conducted in the Cochrane database for systematic reviews, CINHAL and MEDLINE. A staged approach to conducting the concept mapping was undertaken, by (i) an examination of the literature on care planning in LTCs; (ii) identification of related terms; (iii) locating reviews of those terms. Retrieved articles were subjected to a content analysis, which formed the basis of our concept maps. (iv) We then appraised these against knowledge and experience of the implementation of care planning in clinical practice.

RESULTS AND CONCLUSIONS

Thirteen articles were retrieved, in which the core importance of patient-centredness, shared decision making and self-management was highlighted. Literature searches on these terms retrieved a further 24 articles. Our concept mapping exercise shows that whilst there are common themes across the concepts, the differences between them reflect the context and intended outcomes within clinical practice. We argue that this clarification exercise will allow for further development of both research and clinical implementation agendas.