The PREP system of nursing interventions, designed to increase preparedness (PR), enrichment (E), and predictability (P) in families providing care to older people, was pilot tested for acceptability and preliminary effectiveness. Eleven family units were assigned to the PREP group and 11 to a standard home health control group. The PREP group scored approximately one SD higher than the control group (p < .05) on the Care Effectiveness Scale, indicating greater preparedness, enrichment, and predictability. Further, on a rating of overall usefulness, the PREP group rated their assistance from PREP nurses (M = 9.75) as significantly higher (p < .01) than the control group rated assistance from the home health nurse or physical therapist (M = 6.57). Although not statistically significant, mean hospital costs for the PREP group ($2,775) were lower than for the control group ($6,929). Results provided support for a full intervention trial.
The purpose of this study is to investigate the utility of a self-report screening instrument, the Health Status Form (HSF), to predict elderly members at risk of frailty in the subsequent year. The predictive ability of self-report HSF data was also compared to the predictive ability of inpatient discharges and pharmacy dispensings from administrative utilization databases. Four HSF variables best predicted elderly members at risk of frailty: (a) age, (b) indicating that health conditions interfered with daily activities, (c) needing or receiving assistance from another person for bathing, and (d) needing or receiving assistance from another person for taking medications. The predictive model yielded sensitivity 50.7%, specificity 97.8%, and correctly classified 90.9% of the population. Self-report population-based screening is a reliable method for predicting elderly members at risk of frailty in the coming year. Further studies should test a new brief instrument composed of portions of validated measures as a stand alone screener to select frail members for care management purposes.
beta-Blockers may have been unjustly associated with depression and their use avoided for that reason. Future studies into the association between depression and beta-blocker use should evaluate whether the association is affected by case definition and study design characteristics, including disease, dose-response, bias, measurement error, or ability to precisely measure the length of the exposure.
scite is a Brooklyn-based organization that helps researchers better discover and understand research articles through Smart Citations–citations that display the context of the citation and describe whether the article provides supporting or contrasting evidence. scite is used by students and researchers from around the world and is funded in part by the National Science Foundation and the National Institute on Drug Abuse of the National Institutes of Health.