BackgroundEvaluating different approaches to identifying frail home care clients at heightened risk for adverse health outcomes is an important but understudied area. Our objectives were to determine the prevalence and correlates of frailty (as operationally defined by three measures) in a home care cohort, the agreement between these measures, and their predictive validity for several outcomes assessed over one year.MethodsWe conducted a retrospective cohort study with linked population-based administrative and clinical (Resident Assessment Instrument [RAI]) data for all long-stay home care clients (aged 66+) assessed between April 2010–2013 in Ontario, Canada (n = 234,552). We examined two versions of a frailty index (FI), a full and modified FI, and the CHESS scale, compared their baseline characteristics and their predictive accuracy (by calculating the area under the ROC curve [AUC]) for death, long-term care (LTC) admission, and hospitalization endpoints in models adjusted for age, sex and comorbidity.ResultsFrailty prevalence varied by measure (19.5, 24.4 and 44.1 %, for full FI, modified FI and CHESS, respectively) and was similar among female and male clients. All three measures were associated with a significantly increased risk of death, LTC admission and hospitalization endpoints in adjusted analyses but their addition to base models resulted in modest improvement for most AUC estimates. There were significant differences between measures in predictive accuracy, with the full FI demonstrating a higher AUC for LTC admission and CHESS a higher AUC for hospitalization - although none of the measures performed well for the hospitalization endpoints.ConclusionsThe different approaches to detecting vulnerability resulted in different estimates of frailty prevalence among home care clients in Ontario. Although all three measures were significant predictors of the health outcomes examined, the gains in predictive accuracy were often modest with the exception of the full FI in predicting LTC admission. Our findings provide some support for the clinical utility of a comprehensive FI measure and also illustrate that it is feasible to derive such a measure at the population level using routinely collected data. This may facilitate further research on frailty in this setting, including the development and evaluation of interventions for frailty.Electronic supplementary materialThe online version of this article (doi:10.1186/s12877-016-0309-z) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.

SummaryBackgroundThe mortality burden in children aged 5–14 years in the WHO European Region has not been comprehensively studied. We assessed the distribution and trends of the main causes of death among children aged 5–9 years and 10–14 years from 1990 to 2016, for 51 countries in the WHO European Region.MethodsWe used data from vital registration systems, cancer registries, and police records from 1980 to 2016 to estimate cause-specific mortality using the Cause of Death Ensemble model.FindingsFor children aged 5–9 years, all-cause mortality rates (per 100 000 population) were estimated to be 46·3 (95% uncertainty interval [UI] 45·1–47·5) in 1990 and 19·5 (18·1–20·9) in 2016, reflecting a 58·0% (54·7–61·1) decline. For children aged 10–14 years, all-cause mortality rates (per 100 000 population) were 37·9 (37·3–38·6) in 1990 and 20·1 (18·8–21·3) in 2016, reflecting a 47·1% (43·8–50·4) decline. In 2016, we estimated 10 740 deaths (95% UI 9970–11 542) in children aged 5–9 years and 10 279 deaths (9652–10 897) in those aged 10–14 years in the WHO European Region. Injuries (road injuries, drowning, and other injuries) caused 4163 deaths (3820–4540; 38·7% of total deaths) in children aged 5–9 years and 4468 deaths (4162–4812; 43·5% of total) in those aged 10–14 years in 2016. Neoplasms caused 2161 deaths (1872–2406; 20·1% of total deaths) in children aged 5–9 years and 1943 deaths (1749–2101; 18·9% of total deaths) in those aged 10–14 years in 2016. Notable differences existed in cause-specific mortality rates between the European subregions, from a two-times difference for leukaemia to a 20-times difference for lower respiratory infections between the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS) and EU15 (the 15 member states that had joined the European Union before May, 2004).InterpretationMarked progress has been made in reducing the mortality burden in children aged 5–14 years over the past 26 years in the WHO European Region. More deaths could be prevented, especially in CIS countries, through intervention and prevention efforts focusing on the leading causes of death, which are road injuries, drowning, and lower respiratory infections. The findings of our study could be used as a baseline to assess the effect of implementation of programmes and policies on child mortality burden.FundingWHO and Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.

The likelihood of discontinuing ChEI therapy was high in this real-world sample of AD patients. Significant predictors included clinical, socioeconomic, and practice factors.

SummaryBackground and objectives Accurate and complete documentation of patient characteristics and comorbidities in renal registers is essential to control bias in the comparison of outcomes across groups of patients or dialysis facilities. The objectives of this study were to assess the quality of data collected in the Canadian Organ Replacement Register (CORR) compared with the patient's medical charts. Design, setting, participants, & measurementsThis cohort study of a representative sample of adult, incident patients registered in CORR in 2005 to 2006 examined the prevalence, sensitivity, specificity, positive and negative predictive values, and of comorbid conditions and agreement in coding of patient demographics and primary renal disease between CORR and the patient's medical record. The effect of coding variation on patient survival was evaluated.Results Medical records on 1125 patients were reviewed. Agreement exceeded 97% for health card number, date of birth, and sex and 71% (range 46.6 to 89.1%) for the primary renal disease. Comorbid conditions were under-reported in CORR. Sensitivities ranged from 0.89 (95% confidence interval 0.80, 0.92) for hypertension to 0.47 (0.38, 0.55) for peripheral vascular disease. Specificity was Ͼ0.93 for all comorbidities except hypertension. Hazard ratios for death were similar whether calculated using data from CORR or the medical record.Conclusions Comorbid conditions are under-reported in CORR; however, the associated risks of mortality were similar whether using the CORR data or the medical record data, suggesting that CORR data can be used in clinical research with minimal concern for bias.

We sought to estimate the incidence of long-term care (LTC) placement and to identify resident- and facility-level predictors of placement among older residents of designated assisted living (AL) facilities in Alberta, Canada. Included were 1,086 AL residents from 59 facilities. Research nurses completed interRAI-AL resident assessments and interviewed family caregivers and administrators. Predictors of placement were identified with multivariable Cox proportional hazards models. The cumulative incidence of LTC admission was 18.3 per cent by 12 months. Significantly increased risk for placement was evident for older residents and those with poor social relationships, little involvement in activities, cognitive and/or functional impairment, health instability, recent falls and hospitalizations/emergency department visits, and severe bladder incontinence. Residents from larger facilities, with an LPN and/or RN on-site 24/7 and with an affiliated primary care physician, showed lower risk of placement. Our findings highlight clinical and policy areas where targeted interventions may delay LTC admissions.

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DAL residents with dementia had a hospitalization rate almost 4-fold higher than LTC residents with dementia. Our findings raise questions about the ability of some AL facilities to adequately address the needs of cognitively impaired residents and highlight potential clinical, social, and policy areas for targeted interventions to reduce hospitalization risk.

Introduction This population-based study aimed to fill the knowledge gap on Human Papillomavirus (HPV) prevalence and associated sociodemographic risk factors of the general population in the North Tongu District, Ghana. These results are needed to guide cervical cancer prevention efforts, as the leading type of female cancers. Methods A cross-sectional study including 2002 women in the North Tongu District, Ghana investigated HPV prevalence and associated sociodemographic risk factors. Women were recruited by geographical distribution through the local community-based health system and samples collected using a self-sampling device. For HPV genotyping BSGP5+/6+-PCR with Luminex-MPG readout was used. Multivariate logistic regression analyzed sociodemographic risk factors for HPV positivity. Results Of 2002 self-collected samples, 1943 were eligible, contained sufficient DNA and provided valid HPV genotyping results. Prevalence of single high risk HPV types was 32.3% and of multiple high risk types 9.7%. The five most common detected HPV types were HPV16 (7.4%; 95%CI: 6.3–8.7), HPV52 (7.2%; 95%CI: 6.1–8.5), HPV35 (4.8%; 95%CI: 3.9–5.8), HPV59 (4.7%; 95%CI: 3.8–5.8), HPV56 (3.9%; 95%CI: 3.1–4.8). Highest prevalence was observed among women aged 18–24 years, while age 25–54 years was inversely associated with high risk HPV positivity in multivariate analysis. Sociodemographic risk factors identified were i) having any sexual partner, ii) more partners increased the odds for high risk HPV positivity, iii) independently from this marital status, in particular not being married. Discussion & conclusion Most importantly, the high risk HPV prevalence detected from this study is higher than estimates reported for Western Africa. This needs be considered, when deciding on the cervical cancer screening algorithms introduced on a wider scale. Follow-up and triage, depending on the methods chosen, can easily overburden the health system. Self-sampling worked well and provided adequate samples for HPV-based screening. Women with increasing number of sexual partners and not being married were found to have higher odds of being high risk HPV positive, therefore could be a higher prioritized screening target group.