Prior Surveys Research Articles

Positive Reinforcement: Balancing Negative and Positive Feedback for Comprehensive Improvement.

Patient feedback plays a vital role in healthcare, offering insights into the quality of care and promoting professional development. Despite the emphasis on feedback collection from regulatory bodies, institutional policies appear to focus on processing complaints and negative feedback over positive feedback. The aim of this study is to investigate the processes relevant to the systematic logging of patient feedback in the dental hospitals across the UK and the Republic of Ireland. A cross-sectional survey study was conducted with a prior local survey serving as a pilot. Of the 22 hospitals of the ADH, 13 responded to the questionnaire (59%). Descriptive statistics including frequencies and percentages were produced to summarise the sample and data. Qualitative data were analysed using Braun and Clark's thematic analysis [1] following an inductive approach. We found that the institutions of the ADH perceive that most negative feedback is logged, whereas most positive feedback is missed. It is evident that positive patient feedback is collected and logged less systematically than negative feedback, and most institutions acknowledge the need for improvement in this area. This discrepancy likely stems from a lack of structured procedures for encouraging and recording positive feedback. Promoting positive feedback is crucial, as both positive and negative feedback offer valuable insights. To enhance feedback collection and utilisation, research should expand to include the perspectives of patients and individual clinicians. Furthermore, exploring the development of a universal feedback system could simplify and improve the collection and use of patient feedback across institutions.

HIV and viremia prevalence in non-migrating members of migrant households in southern Uganda: A cross-sectional population-based study.

In Africa, migrants are more likely to be living with HIV and HIV viremic than non-migrants but less is known about HIV outcomes among non-migrants living in households with migrants. We compared HIV outcomes in non-migrating persons in households with and without migration. We analyzed cross-sectional data collected between August 2016-May 2018 from non-migrating participants aged 15-49 in the Rakai Community Cohort Study in Uganda. Migrant households were classified as those reporting ≥1 member moving into or out of the household since the prior survey. HIV serostatus was determined using a validated testing algorithm, and viremia defined as >1,000 copies/mL. Modified Poisson regression was used to estimate prevalence ratios (PR) between household migration and HIV outcomes. Analyses were stratified by gender, direction of migration (into/out of household), and relationship between non-migrants and migrants (e.g., spouse). There were 14,599 non-migrants (52% women) and 4,415 (30%) lived in a household with ≥1 migrant. Of these, 972 (22%) had migrant spouses, 1,102 (25%) migrant children, and 875 (20%) migrant siblings. Overall, HIV prevalence and viremia did not differ between non-migrants in households with and without migration. However, in stratified analyses, non-migrant women with migrant spouses were significantly more likely to be HIV seropositive compared to non-migrant women with non-migrant spouses (adjPR:1.44, 95%CI:1.21-1.71). Conversely, non-migrant mothers living with HIV who had migrant children were less likely to be viremic (adjPR:0.34, 95%CI:0.13-0.86). Non-migrating women with migrating spouses are more likely be living with HIV, and may benefit from additional HIV support services.

Healthcare Access for Patients With Inflammatory Bowel Disease in the United States: A Survey by the Crohn's & Colitis Foundation.

A prior survey disseminated in 2017 identified that healthcare access barriers exist and significantly affect patients with inflammatory bowel disease (IBD). We sought to identify, through an updated survey, the healthcare access barriers that patients continue to face, with a focus on socioeconomic factors and patient awareness of resources to navigate existing barriers. A 52-question online survey evaluating (1) access to healthcare professionals, medications, and procedures; (2) associated financial challenges; and (3) patient awareness of education and advocacy tools to navigate IBD care barriers, was disseminated through multiple channels to IBD patients and their caregivers. Of the 2281 completed responses, patients on advanced specialty medications, younger than 65 years of age, or on employer insurance experienced significantly greater issues with insurance barriers to accessing medications and coverage of medically necessary tests/treatments. Patients who live in areas of concentrated poverty were more likely to experience poor health outcomes when subjected to step therapy compared to patients who did not. Additionally, patients were more likely to experience one or more financial barriers or trade-offs if the patient used an advanced specialty medicine or lived in an area with concentrated poverty. While there have been significant and numerous advancements in IBD treatments, patients with IBD continue to experience barriers to healthcare access and treatment and financial struggles. Ongoing awareness and advocacy efforts focused on healthcare system reform and related policies to further minimize care disparities and barriers remain vital.

Manipulating Recommender Systems: A Survey of Poisoning Attacks and Countermeasures

Recommender systems have become an integral part of online services due to their ability to help users locate specific information in a sea of data. However, existing studies show that some recommender systems are vulnerable to poisoning attacks, particularly those that involve learning schemes. A poisoning attack is where an adversary injects carefully crafted data into the process of training a model with the goal of manipulating the system’s final recommendations. Based on recent advancements in artificial intelligence (AI), such attacks have gained importance recently. At present, we do not have a full and clear picture of why adversaries mount such attacks, nor do we have comprehensive knowledge of the full capacity to which such attacks can undermine a model or the impacts that might have. While numerous countermeasures to poisoning attacks have been developed, they have not yet been systematically linked to the properties of the attacks. Consequently, assessing the respective risks and potential success of mitigation strategies is difficult, if not impossible. This survey aims to fill this gap by primarily focusing on poisoning attacks and their countermeasures. This is in contrast to prior surveys that mainly focus on attacks and their detection methods. Through an exhaustive literature review, we provide a novel taxonomy for poisoning attacks, formalise its dimensions, and accordingly organise 31 attacks described in the literature. Further, we review 43 countermeasures to detect and/or prevent poisoning attacks, evaluating their effectiveness against specific types of attacks. This comprehensive survey should serve as a point of reference for protecting recommender systems against poisoning attacks. The article concludes with a discussion on open issues in the field and impactful directions for future research. A rich repository of resources associated with poisoning attacks is available at https://github.com/tamlhp/awesome-recsys-poisoning .

Four new Geosmithia species from bark beetles infesting indigenous South African trees

Over the past two decades, numerous Geosmithia fungi have been isolated from the bodies and galleries of wood–boring beetles. However, this genus of asexual Sordariomycetes remains taxonomically and ecologically understudied, especially in the Southern Hemisphere. In South Africa, two prior surveys reported Geosmithia species from bark beetles, but neither thoroughly investigated species identities. In this study, we collected bark beetles from native trees in the Western Cape Province of South Africa and isolated, identified and described their associated Geosmithia species. Geosmithia spp. previously collected in South Africa were also re-examined. The ITS sequences of Geosmithia isolates from 13 beetle taxa infesting 10 host species were considered. Additional gene regions, BT, EF1a and RPB2, were sequenced for a subset of isolates. Four previously described species, G. flava, G. langdonii, G. omnicola and G. pumila were identified by phylogenetic analyses. Additionally, four novel taxa were identified and are here described as G. capensis, G. multisociorum, G. oroboidis and G. stellenboschiana. Geosmithia multisociorum appears to be a generalist associated with multiple beetle–host combinations in the Northern and Southern Hemisphere, whereas G. oroboidis is currently known only from a single beetle and tree host in South Africa. South African isolates of G. capensis and G. stellenboschiana appeared to be restricted to Lanurgus spp. and Hypothenemus sp. beetles, respectively, but both species are also known from beetles and hosts in other countries.

Police interviewing in Taiwan: A self-report survey of practices and beliefs

ABSTRACT Following upon a prior survey of 631 North American law enforcement officers, and in light of heightened concerns about false confessions, we assessed the interrogation practices and beliefs of 551 police investigators in Taiwan. Overall, participants estimated that they were 66% accurate at truth and lie detection, that 48% of suspects waived their rights, that they elicited self-incriminating statements from 75% of all suspects, and that 27% of suspects confessed in the presence of their attorney. Of particular note is the self-report by participants that 72% of their interrogation sessions were fully recorded. With regard to the use of various interrogation techniques, participants estimated that they often identified contradictions in the suspect’s story, confronted the suspect with actual evidence, appealed to the suspect’s self-interests, and isolated the suspect from family and friends. We discussed the consistency of our findings with prior research, addressed potential shortcomings, and made recommendations to future directions.

Investigating current clinical practice in assessment and diagnosis of voice disorders: A cross-sectional multidisciplinary global web survey.

Published best-practice guidelines and standardized protocols for voice assessment recommend multidisciplinary evaluation utilizing a comprehensive range of clinical measures. Previous studies report variations in assessment practices when compared with these guidelines. To provide an up-to-date evaluation of current global multidisciplinary practice patterns and the opinions of otolaryngologist, ear, nose and throat (ENT) and speech-language pathology (SLP) clinicians on initial assessment and differential diagnosis of adults with voice disorders (VDs). ENTs and SLPs worldwide who had worked with VDs within the last 10 years completed an anonymous online survey. Themes explored demographic information about the clinical practice, information about diagnostic assessment pathways, clinical assessments routinely used for initial voice evaluation and clinician perceived value of clinical assessments important for diagnosis. Patterns in the clinical practice of 88 SLPs and 21 ENTs from 18 countries with 1 to more than 25 years' experience were analysed. Clinicians provided services across a range of locations, and a range of assessment pathways was available for initial evaluation. Case history, laryngoscopy and auditory-perceptual measures were the most frequently selected assessments. Most clinicians favoured formal assessment measures for auditory-perceptual evaluation. Clinicians placed equal weighting on ENT and SLP assessment to aid diagnosis for muscle tension VDs and functional neurological voice disorders (FVDs). Practice patterns for initial diagnostic voice assessment are largely consistent with the currently published guidelines. Decisions for the selection of assessment tools vary according to VD classification, and assessment decisions appear to be guided by case history. Clinicians are not always following established protocols for obtaining reliable standardized measures. Further research is needed to understand the barriers to adhering to standardized protocols and to develop evidence for the use of case history in the process of VD diagnosis. What is already known on the subject Best-practice guidelines recommend a multidisciplinary and multidimensional assessment of adults with vocal symptoms. Prior uni-disciplinary survey studies have reported a divergence in clinical practice with the recommended guidelines. No previous studies have examined otolaryngologists and SLPs concurrently to investigate the multidisciplinary approach clinicians' use in a diagnostic voice assessment. What this paper adds to the existing knowledge This study highlights new insights into multidisciplinary voice evaluation practice patterns with an emphasis on diagnostic assessment from a global perspective. The findings build on prior research exploring clinical assessment pathways, service utilization and clinicians' preferences when selecting clinical tools to inform a differential diagnosis. What are the potential or actual clinical implications of this work? This paper provides insights to inform future service and resource planning to ensure the delivery of evidenced-based diagnostic assessment pathways. This study also makes recommendations for areas of future research to understand barriers to clinicians following recommended best-practice guidelines.

Dynamic BIM Adoption Impact on Contract Cost Variance Factors Using PLS-SEM Techniques

This paper investigates the Building Information Modeling (BIM) adoption impact on the factors of Contract Cost Variance (CCV) over time. The study considers qualitative and quantitative data to identify the most common causes of CCV through pre-tendering. A partial least square-structure model (PLS-SEM) procedure was used to develop a causal model and rank CCV factors based on their effect, partially based on prior survey raw data conducted in 2022 and the data from 94 projects. Construction industry experts assessed the prior five-year rate of BIM adoption on construction projects to infer the expected trend in BIM adoption in the future (until 2037). Based on the causal model of CCV factors and the future rates of BIM adoption, the dynamic impact of BIM on CCV factors over time was modeled and analyzed. The analysis shows that BIM reduces CCV over time by improving Estimator Performance (EP), Information Quality (IQ), and contractual procedure (CP). The results showed that the CP, EP, and EF have directly impacted CCV, and the PC and IQ indirectly affect the CCV. This paper considers the temporal aspect, examining how the impact of BIM on CCV factors evolves. This dynamic analysis is crucial for long-term strategic planning in construction management.

Deep learning approaches to lexical simplification: A survey

AbstractLexical Simplification (LS) is the task of substituting complex words within a sentence for simpler alternatives while maintaining the sentence’s original meaning. LS is the lexical component of Text Simplification (TS) systems with the aim of improving accessibility to various target populations such as individuals with low literacy or reading disabilities. Prior surveys have been published several years before the introduction of transformers, transformer-based large language models (LLMs), and prompt learning that have drastically changed the field of NLP. The high performance of these models has sparked renewed interest in LS. To reflect these recent advances, we present a comprehensive survey of papers published since 2017 on LS and its sub-tasks focusing on deep learning. Finally, we describe available benchmark datasets for the future development of LS systems.

Taking a Closer Look at the AMA’s New Prior Auth Survey Results

The title of the new AMA report says it all: “Exhausted by prior auth, many patients abandon care: AMA survey.” But what can payers and providers do to cure patient exhaustion?

Antibiotic practice and stewardship in the management of neutropenic fever: a survey of US institutions.

To describe neutropenic fever management practices among healthcare institutions. Survey. Members of the Society for Healthcare Epidemiology of America Research Network (SRN) representing healthcare institutions within the United States. An electronic survey was distributed to SRN representatives, with questions pertaining to demographics, antimicrobial prophylaxis, supportive care, and neutropenic fever management. The survey was distributed from fall 2022 through spring 2023. 40 complete responses were recorded (54.8% response rate), with respondent institutions accounting for approximately 15.7% of 2021 US hematologic malignancy hospitalizations and 14.9% of 2020 US bone marrow transplantations. Most entities have institutional guidelines for neutropenic fever management (35, 87.5%) and prophylaxis (31, 77.5%), and first-line treatment included IV antipseudomonal antibiotics (35, 87.5% cephalosporin; 5, 12.5% penicillin; 0, 0% carbapenem).We observed significant heterogeneity in treatment course decisions, with roughly half (18, 45.0%) of respondents continuing antibiotics until neutrophil recovery, while the remainder having criteria for de-escalation prior to neutrophil recovery. Respondents were more willing to de-escalate prior to neutrophil recovery in patients with identified clinical (27, 67.5% with pneumonia) or microbiological (30, 75.0% with bacteremia) sources after dedicated treatment courses. We found substantial variation in the practice of de-escalation of empiric antibiotics relative to neutrophil recovery, highlighting a need for more robust evidence for and adoption of this practice. No respondents use carbapenems as first-line therapy, comparing favorably to prior survey studies conducted in other countries.

Antibiotic use by clinical presentation across all healthcare providers in rural Burkina Faso: a healthcare visit exit survey.

To guide antibiotic stewardship interventions, understanding for what indications antibiotics are used is essential. In rural Burkina Faso, we measured antibiotic dispensing across all healthcare providers. From October 2021 to February 2022, we surveyed patients in Nanoro district, Burkina Faso, following visits to health centres (3), pharmacies (2), informal medicine vendors (5) and inpatients in health centres. We estimated prevalence of antibiotic use and the proportion of Watch group antibiotics by provider type and by clinical presentation, assessing compliance with WHO's AWaRe Antibiotic Book. We estimated per capita antibiotic use by multiplying prevalence of antibiotic use, mean DDD per adult treatment course, and the rate of healthcare visits per 1000 inhabitants per day, estimated from a prior household survey. Outpatient antibiotic use was more frequent after health centre visits (54.8%, of which 16.5% Watch, n = 1249) than after visits to pharmacies (26.2%, 16.3% Watch, n = 328) and informal medicine vendors (26.9%, 50.0% Watch, n = 349). The frequency of antibiotic use was highest for bronchitis (79.9% antibiotic use, of which 12.6% Watch), malaria (31.9%, 23.1% Watch), gastroenteritis (76.0%, 31.7% Watch), rhinopharyngitis (40.4%, 8.3% Watch) and undifferentiated fever (77.0%, 44.8% Watch). Compliance with WHO AWaRe guidance could have averted at least 68.4% of all Watch antibiotic use in outpatients at health centres. Community-wide, 2.9 DDD (95% CI 1.9-3.9) were used per 1000 adult inhabitants per day. Most Watch antibiotic use at community level or primary care deviated from WHO guidance. Antibiotic stewardship should focus on key clinical presentations and include primary care and self-medication.

Exploring barriers and solutions to consumer involvement in health service research using a nominal group technique

BackgroundConsumer involvement in health research is when patients, their families and caregivers work with researchers on research projects. Despite the growing expectation for health services to facilitate the involvement of consumers in research, the practical integration of this approach is an ongoing process, with limited research conducted into how Australian health services can support this practice. This study explored consumer perspectives on the barriers and solutions to enabling consumer involvement in research within an Australian tertiary hospital and health service, and staff perspectives on the solutions to facilitating consumer involvement. A prior survey had identified barriers to consumer involvement from the staff perspective. The broad aim was to inform the development of a framework to help promote consumer involvement in research within the health service.MethodsA Nominal Group Technique (NGT) was utilised with groups comprised of health service consumers and staff. Three health consumers were co-researchers in the full life-cycle of this study and are included as authors.ResultsTen consumers and 14 staff participated across three sessions ranging from one to three hours. For consumers, barriers to their involvement were grouped into seven domains: (1) lack of connection with researchers/research projects, (2) low research literacy, (3) structural barriers, (4) lack of acknowledgement, (5) implementation challenges, (6) inadequate information provision, and (7) representation concerns. Solutions to enabling involvement were grouped into five domains: (1) support to connect with researchers/research projects, (2) adequate information provision, (3) incentive for involvement, (4) acknowledgement, and (5) balanced representation. Staff ideas for solutions were grouped into five domains: (1) support to connect with consumers, (2) support to involve consumers, (3) access to funds to remunerate consumers, (4) more time to involve consumers, and (5) staff training.ConclusionThrough an NGT methodology, this study delivered a nuanced comprehension of perspectives on involving consumers in research from both health service consumers and staff. These findings serve as a foundation for identifying strategies that foster enhanced and refined relationships between consumers and researchers, advancing the collaborative landscape in health research. The findings from this project offer valuable strategies for researchers to better engage consumers in research and for consumer groups to enhance their involvement. Additionally, these insights could be used by other health services to advocate for essential resources.

Long-term impact of 10-valent pneumococcal conjugate vaccine in Kenya: Nasopharyngeal carriage among children in a rural and an urban site six years after introduction

BackgroundKenya introduced Synflorix™ (GlaxoSmithKline, PCV10-GSK), a 10-valent pneumococcal conjugate vaccine, in 2011, using three primary doses and, in select areas, catch-up campaigns. Surveys conducted 1–2 years post-introduction showed a stable prevalence of pneumococcal colonization, with declines in vaccine-type carriage. However, little is known about the long-term impact of PCV10-GSK in Kenya. MethodsWe conducted a cross-sectional survey of pneumococcal carriage among children aged <5 years in November–December 2017 in Kibera (Nairobi informal settlement, no catch-up) and Asembo (rural western Kenya, 2-dose catch-up for children 1–4 years), using the same methods and settings as prior annual surveys from 2009 to 2013. Participants were randomly selected from an ongoing population-based surveillance platform. Nasopharyngeal swabs were frozen in skim milk-tryptone-glucose-glycerin media within 4 h and underwent culture with broth enrichment for pneumococcus. Isolates were serotyped by polymerase chain reaction and Quellung. ResultsWe enrolled 504 children, including 252 from each site; >90 % of participants had received 3 doses of PCV10-GSK. Pneumococcal colonization was detected in 210 (83.3 %) participants in Kibera and 149 (59.1 %) in Asembo, which was significantly lower than the prevalence observed in 2013 (92.9 % and 85.7 %, respectively). PCV10-GSK serotypes were detected in 35/252 (13.9 %) participants in Kibera and 23/252 (9.1 %) in Asembo, respectively; these prevalences were lower, but not statistically different, from vaccine-type carriage prevalences in 2013 (17.3 % and 13.3 %, respectively). In 2017 in both sites, serotypes 3, 6A, 19A, 19F, and 35B were among the most common serotypes. ConclusionSix years post-PCV10-GSK introduction, the prevalence of pneumococcal carriage among children has decreased, and the impact of PCV10-GSK on vaccine-type carriage has plateaued. Kenya recently changed from PCV10-GSK to Pneumosil™ (Serum Institute of India), a 10-valent PCV that includes serotypes 6A and 19A; these data provide historical context for interpreting changes in vaccine-type carriage following the PCV formulation switch.

Crumbling Cookie Categories: Deconstructing Common Cookie Categories to Create Categories that People Understand

Users of online services often encounter cookie banners that ask them to consent to different categories of cookies. Frequently, these categories are labelled using the four categories defined by the 2012 Cookie Guide from the UK's International Chamber of Commerce (ICC). However, prior research suggests that users have difficulty understanding what these category labels actually mean. We conducted a four-part study to identify labels that more intuitively convey the four cookie categories. First, we crowd sourced new category labels. We then evaluated users' comprehension and sentiment towards the labels in a series of surveys focused on definitions and hypothetical scenarios. Finally, we selected a new slate of category labels based on the results of the prior surveys, and conducted a between-subjects, online behavioral experiment to compare the new slate with the original labels. We ultimately recommend that the industry adopt the category label ``anonymous analytics cookies'' in lieu of the term ``performance cookies'' and ``extra functionality cookies'' instead of ``functional cookies.'' Adopting our recommended terms would both improve the usability of current cookie consent interfaces and any future privacy consent mechanisms that use the same categorization. We also recommend revisiting the categories themselves as the distinctions between these categories do not seem to be well understood and may not reflect useful distinctions for privacy decision making.

Improved Patient Adherence to Family-Based Helicobacter pylori Infection Control and Management Strategy in Central China and Its Influencing Factors.

Patient adherence status to the newly introduced family-based Helicobacter pylori (H. pylori) infection control and management strategy remains unclear, so are its influencing factors. We aim to investigate family members' adherence and its influencing factors during the family-based H. pylori infection management practice for related disease prevention. Based on our previously family-based H. pylori survey in 2021, 282 families including 772 individuals were followed up 2 years after the initial survey to compare if the investigation and education might improve family member's adherence. The participant's adherence to H. pylori infection awareness, retest, treatment, publicity, gastroscopy, and hygiene habits were followed up, and their influencing factors were also analyzed. The overall participant's adherence to recommendations on H. pylori awareness, retest, treatment, publicity, gastroscopy, and hygiene habits were 77% (187/243), 67.3% (138/205), 60.1% (211/351), 46.5% (107/230), 45.6% (159/349), and 39.1% (213/545), respectively; and all showed improvements compared with their prior survey stages. The top reasons for rejection to treatment, retest, and gastroscopy were forgetting or unaware of H. pylori infection (30.3%), busy (32.8%), and asymptomatic (67.9%), respectively. Independent risk factor for low adherence to treatment was occupation (e.g., staff: OR 4.49, 95% CI 1.34-15.10). Independent favorable factors for treatment adherence were individuals at the ages of 18-44 years (OR 0.19, 95% CI 0.04-0.89) and had a large family size (e.g., four family members: OR 0.15, 95% CI 0.06-0.41); for retest adherence, it was individuals at the ages of 60-69 years (OR 0.23, 95% CI 0.06-0.97); for gastroscopy adherence, it was individuals at the age of 60-69 years (OR 0.46, 95% CI 0.28-0.75), and with gastrointestinal symptoms (OR 0.57, 95% CI 0.36-0.90). Family-based H. pylori management increases individual adherence to treatment, retest, and awareness, and there are also improved adherence to gastroscopy, publicity, and personal hygiene recommendations; further efforts are required to enhance the individual adherence rate for related disease prevention.

Robust and privacy-preserving collaborative training: a comprehensive survey

Increasing numbers of artificial intelligence systems are employing collaborative machine learning techniques, such as federated learning, to build a shared powerful deep model among participants, while keeping their training data locally. However, concerns about integrity and privacy in such systems have significantly hindered the use of collaborative learning systems. Therefore, numerous efforts have been presented to preserve the model’s integrity and reduce the privacy leakage of training data throughout the training phase of various collaborative learning systems. This survey seeks to provide a systematic and comprehensive evaluation of security and privacy studies in collaborative training, in contrast to prior surveys that only focus on one single collaborative learning system. Our survey begins with an overview of collaborative learning systems from various perspectives. Then, we systematically summarize the integrity and privacy risks of collaborative learning systems. In particular, we describe state-of-the-art integrity attacks (e.g., Byzantine, backdoor, and adversarial attacks) and privacy attacks (e.g., membership, property, and sample inference attacks), as well as the associated countermeasures. We additionally provide an analysis of open problems to motivate possible future studies.

A method for updating variable radius plot surveys

Variable radius plot surveys can require updated estimates when the quality of previous estimates have declined over time. We developed a statistical estimator for this purpose that is the product of two estimators, one estimator is for the updated volume-to-basal-area ratio and the other estimator is for the updated basal area. Our estimator relies only on the surveyor identifying previously measured trees and does not require the identification of ingrowth, which simplifies its application. We also propose a variance estimator that relies on the bootstrap method. We investigate the point and variance estimators under repeated sampling of stem-mapped populations that include five measurements over a period of approximately 20 years. Based on 144 sampling scenarios, our estimator demonstrated relative biases ranging between −0.3% and 0.8%. The bootstrap variance estimator tended to be deflated, with relative absolute biases ranging between −8% and 4%. When revisiting one third of the initially installed plots, our estimator obtained relative root mean square errors within 1.6% of an independent resurvey effort that does not use the prior survey. This implies that our estimator can substantially reduce field work while producing surveys of approximately the same quality when updating prior surveys.

Cannabidiol (CBD) Products: Use Patterns and Perceptions Within a Sample of Anxious Users

Introduction Cannabidiol (CBD) shows promise for a variety of indications, including anxiety. Prior survey work indicates anxiety ranks as a top reason for which people use cannabidiol (CBD), but no work has evaluated individuals using CBD specifically for anxiety. Method The current study evaluated CBD product use patterns and perceptions within a sample of 81 participants (Mage = 32.63, SDage = 12.99) who reported using CBD products for anxiety-related concerns within the past 30 days. Results Family and friends, followed by popular and scientific literature, were the most common sources informing participants’ decision to use CBD products to target anxiety. On average, participants reported using CBD products daily for at least a year and indicated it was very effective in targeting anxiety-related symptoms. The top three ranked symptoms improved by CBD products were subjective anxiety, difficulty falling asleep, and irritability. These findings were despite the fact that the most frequent dosing levels (∼50mg) were well below those empirically observed to yield anxiolytic effects. Most participants denied side effects, adding to the literature supporting CBD products’ safety and tolerability. Finally, participants were generally poorly informed about the nature of CBD products (e.g., distinction from THC), suggesting a need for consumer education. Conclusion Collectively, the current study extends prior survey work suggesting powerful expectancies about CBD products, particularly in terms of anxiety reduction, including among those using it to target anxiety-related symptoms. Findings also highlight the importance of addressing the gap between scientific and consumer knowledge.

Development of Consensus-Based Best Practice Guidelines for the Perioperative and Postoperative Care of Pediatric Patients With Spinal Deformity and Programmable Implanted Devices.

Modified Delphi consensus study. To develop consensus-based best practices for the care of pediatric patients who have implanted programmable devices (IPDs) and require spinal deformity surgery. Implanted programmable devices (IPDs) are often present in patients with neuromuscular or syndromic scoliosis who require spine surgery. Guidelines for monitoring and interrogating these devices during the perioperative period are not available. A panel was assembled consisting of 25 experts (i.e., spinal deformity surgeons, neurosurgeons, neuroelectrophysiologists, cardiologists, and otolaryngologists). Initial postulates were based on a literature review and results from a prior survey. Postulates addressed the following IPDs: vagal nerve stimulators (VNS), programmable ventriculoperitoneal shunts (VPS), intrathecal baclofen pumps (ITBP), cardiac pacemakers and implantable cardioverter-defibrillators (ICD), deep brain stimulators (DBS), and cochlear implants. Cardiologist and otolaryngologist participants responded only to postulates on cardiac pacemakers or cochlear implants, respectively. Consensus was defined as ≥80% agreement, items that did not reach consensus were revised and included in subsequent rounds. A total of 3 survey rounds and 1 virtual meeting were conducted. Consensus was reached on 39 total postulates across 6 IPD types. Postulates addressed general spine surgery considerations, the use of intraoperative monitoring and cautery, the use of magnetically controlled growing rods (MCGRs), and the use of an external remote controller to lengthen MCGRs. Across IPD types, consensus for the final postulates ranged from 94.4% to 100%. Overall, experts agreed that MCGRs can be surgically inserted and lengthened in patients with a variety of IPDs and provided guidance for the use of intraoperative monitoring and cautery, which varied between IPD types. Spinal deformity correction surgery often benefits from the use of intraoperative monitoring, monopolar and bipolar cautery, and MCGRs. The final postulates from this study can inform the perioperative and postoperative practices of spinal deformity surgeons who treat patients with both scoliosis and IPDs. V-Expert opinion.