Objective To assess the effect of home based telehealth interventions on the use of secondary healthcare and mortality.Design Pragmatic, multisite, cluster randomised trial comparing telehealth with usual care, using data from routine administrative datasets. General practice was the unit of randomisation. We allocated practices using a minimisation algorithm, and did analyses by intention to treat. Setting 179 general practices in three areas in England.Participants 3230 people with diabetes, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, or heart failure recruited from practices between May 2008 and November 2009. InterventionsTelehealth involved remote exchange of data between patients and healthcare professionals as part of patients' diagnosis and management. Usual care reflected the range of services available in the trial sites, excluding telehealth.Main outcome measure Proportion of patients admitted to hospital during 12 month trial period.Results Patient characteristics were similar at baseline. Compared with controls, the intervention group had a lower admission proportion within 12 month follow-up (odds ratio 0.82, 95% confidence interval 0.70 to 0.97, P=0.017). Mortality at 12 months was also lower for intervention patients than for controls (4.6% v 8.3%; odds ratio 0.54, 0.39 to 0.75, P<0.001). These differences in admissions and mortality remained significant after adjustment. The mean number of emergency admissions per head also differed between groups (crude rates, intervention 0.54 v control 0.68); these changes were significant in unadjusted comparisons (incidence rate ratio 0.81, 0.65 to 1.00, P=0.046) and after adjusting for a predictive risk score, but not after adjusting for baseline characteristics. Length of hospital stay was shorter for intervention patients than for controls (mean bed days per head 4.87 v 5.68; geometric mean difference −0.64 days, −1.14 to −0.10, P=0.023, which remained significant after adjustment). Observed differences in other forms of hospital use, including notional costs, were not significant in general. Differences in emergency admissions were greatest at the beginning of the trial, during which we observed a particularly large increase for the control group. ConclusionsTelehealth is associated with lower mortality and emergency admission rates. The reasons for the short term increases in admissions for the control group are not clear, but the trial recruitment processes could have had an effect. Trial registration number International Standard Randomised ControlledTrial Number Register ISRCTN43002091. IntroductionEfforts worldwide are dealing with the increasing prevalence of chronic disease among an ageing population. The past decade RESEARCHhas seen the growing use of telehealth as one possible approach to this problem. Telehealth involves the remote exchange of data between a patient and healthcare professionals as part of the patient's diagnosis and healthcare management. 1 2 Examples include the monitoring of blood pressure and blood glucose. Telehealth m...

Objective To examine the costs and cost effectiveness of telehealth in addition to standard support and treatment, compared with standard support and treatment.Design Economic evaluation nested in a pragmatic, cluster randomised controlled trial.Setting Community based telehealth intervention in three local authority areas in England.Participants 3230 people with a long term condition (heart failure, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, or diabetes) were recruited into the Whole Systems Demonstrator telehealth trial between May 2008 and December 2009. Of participants taking part in the Whole Systems Demonstrator telehealth questionnaire study examining acceptability, effectiveness, and cost effectiveness, 845 were randomised to telehealth and 728 to usual care.Interventions Intervention participants received a package of telehealth equipment and monitoring services for 12 months, in addition to the standard health and social care services available in their area. Controls received usual health and social care.Main outcome measure Primary outcome for the cost effectiveness analysis was incremental cost per quality adjusted life year (QALY) gained. ResultsWe undertook net benefit analyses of costs and outcomes for 965 patients (534 receiving telehealth; 431 usual care). The adjusted mean difference in QALY gain between groups at 12 months was 0.012. Total health and social care costs (including direct costs of the intervention) for the three months before 12 month interview were £1390 (€1610; $2150) and £1596 for the usual care and telehealth groups, respectively. Cost effectiveness acceptability curves were generated to examine decision uncertainty in the analysis surrounding the value of RESEARCHthe cost effectiveness threshold. The incremental cost per QALY of telehealth when added to usual care was £92 000. With this amount, the probability of cost effectiveness was low (11% at willingness to pay threshold of £30 000; >50% only if the threshold exceeded about £90 000). In sensitivity analyses, telehealth costs remained slightly (non-significantly) higher than usual care costs, even after assuming that equipment prices fell by 80% or telehealth services operated at maximum capacity. However, the most optimistic scenario (combining reduced equipment prices with maximum operating capacity) eliminated this group difference (cost effectiveness ratio £12 000 per QALY). ConclusionsThe QALY gain by patients using telehealth in addition to usual care was similar to that by patients receiving usual care only, and total costs associated with the telehealth intervention were higher. Telehealth does not seem to be a cost effective addition to standard support and treatment.Trial registration ISRCTN43002091.

Effect of telehealth on quality of life and psychological outcomes over 12 months (Whole Systems Demonstrator telehealth questionnaire study): nested study of patient reported outcomes in a pragmatic, cluster randomised controlled trial AbstractObjective To assess the effect of second generation, home based telehealth on health related quality of life, anxiety, and depressive symptoms over 12 months in patients with long term conditions.Design A study of patient reported outcomes (the Whole Systems Demonstrator telehealth questionnaire study; baseline n=1573) was nested in a pragmatic, cluster randomised trial of telehealth (the Whole Systems Demonstrator telehealth trial, n=3230). General practice was the unit of randomisation, and telehealth was compared with usual care. Data were collected at baseline, four months (short term), and 12 months (long term). Primary intention to treat analyses tested treatment effectiveness; multilevel models controlled for clustering by general practice and a range of covariates. Analyses were conducted for 759 participants who completed questionnaire measures at all three time points (complete case cohort) and 1201 who completed the baseline assessment plus at least one other assessment (available case cohort). Secondary per protocol analyses tested treatment efficacy and included 633 and 1108 participants in the complete case and available case cohorts, respectively.Correspondence to: S P Newman stanton.newman.1@city.ac.uk Extra material supplied by the author (see http://www.bmj.com/content/346/bmj.f653?tab=related#webextra)Web appendix 1: Whole Systems Demonstrator (WSD) terminology Web appendix 2: Description of the telehealth intervention Web appendix 3: Per protocol criteria Web figure 1: Provision of peripheral telehealth devices to intervention participants in the WSD Telehealth Questionnaire Study Web figure 2: Early removal of telehealth for reasons other than death across the 12 month trial period Web Main outcome measuresGeneric, health related quality of life (assessed by physical and mental health component scores of the SF-12, and the EQ-5D), anxiety (assessed by the six item Brief State-Trait Anxiety Inventory), and depressive symptoms (assessed by the 10 item Centre for Epidemiological Studies Depression Scale). ResultsIn the intention to treat analyses, differences between treatment groups were small and non-significant for all outcomes in the complete case (0.480≤P≤0.904) or available case (0.181≤P≤0.905) cohorts. The magnitude of differences between trial arms did not reach the trial defined, minimal clinically important difference (0.3 standardised mean difference) for any outcome in either cohort at four or 12 months. Per protocol analyses replicated the primary analyses; the main effect of trial arm (telehealth v usual care) was non-significant for any outcome (complete case cohort 0.273≤P≤0.761; available case cohort 0.145≤P≤0.696).Conclusions Second generation, home based telehealth as implemented in the Whole Systems Demonstrator Evaluation was not e...

(2009) Psychological stress and wound healing in humans: a systematic review and meta-analysis. Journal of Psychosomatic Research, 67 (3). pp. [253][254][255][256][257][258][259][260][261][262][263][264][265][266][267][268][269][270][271] This version is available from Sussex Research Online: http://sro.sussex.ac.uk/2232/ This document is made available in accordance with publisher policies and may differ from the published version or from the version of record. If you wish to cite this item you are advised to consult the publisher's version. Please see the URL above for details on accessing the published version. Copyright and reuse:Sussex Research Online is a digital repository of the research output of the University.Copyright and all moral rights to the version of the paper presented here belong to the individual author(s) and/or other copyright owners. To the extent reasonable and practicable, the material made available in SRO has been checked for eligibility before being made available.Copies of full text items generally can be reproduced, displayed or performed and given to third parties in any format or medium for personal research or study, educational, or not-for-profit purposes without prior permission or charge, provided that the authors, title and full bibliographic details are credited, a hyperlink and/or URL is given for the original metadata page and the content is not changed in any way. Abstract Objective: The current review aims to synthesize existing knowledge about the relationship between psychological stress and wound healing. Methods: A systematic search strategy was conducted using electronic databases to search for published articles up to the end of October 2007. The reference lists of retrieved articles were inspected for further studies and citation searches were conducted. In addition, a meta-analysis of a subset of studies was conducted to provide a quantitative estimation of the influence of stress on wound healing. Results: Twenty-two papers met the inclusion criteria of the systematic review and a subsample of 11 was included in a meta-analysis. The studies assessed the impact of stress on the healing of a variety of wound types in different contexts, including acute and chronic clinical wounds, experimentally created punch biopsy and blister wounds, and minor damage to the skin caused by tape stripping. Seventeen studies in the systematic review reported that stress was associated with impaired healing or dysregulation of a biomarker related to wound healing. The relationship between stress and wound healing estimated by the meta-analysis was r=−0.42 (95% CI=−0.51 to −0.32) (Pb.01). Conclusion: Attention now needs to be directed towards investigating potential moderators of the relationship, mediating mechanisms underpinning the association, as well as the demonstration of a causal link by the development of experimental interventions in healthy populations.

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A different profile of predictive factors emerged for the four cancer types. In addition to optimal symptom management and workplace adaptations, the findings suggest that eliciting and challenging specific cancer and treatment-related perceptions may facilitate RTW.

Introduction: Telehealth (TH) is a potential solution to the increased incidence of chronic illness in an ageing population.The extent to which older people and users with chronic conditions accept and adhere to using assistive technologies is a potential barrier to mainstreaming the service. This study reports the development and validation of the Whole Systems Demonstrator (WSD) Service User Technology Acceptability Questionnaire (SUTAQ). Methods:Questionnaires measuring the acceptability of TH, quality of life, well-being and psychological processes were completed by 478 users of TH. The 22 acceptability items were subject to principal components analysis (PCA) to determine sub-scales. Scale scores, relationships between scales and other patient reported outcome measures (PROMs), and group differences on scales were utilised to check the reliability and validity of the measure.Results: PCAs of SUTAQ items produced 6 TH acceptability scales: enhanced care, increased accessibility, privacy & discomfort, care personnel concerns, kit as substitution, and satisfaction. Scale scores indicated, individuals with long term conditions held beliefs.Significant correlations within these beliefs and between these scales and additional PROMs were coherent and the SUTAQ subscales were able to predict those more likely to refuse TH.2 Discussion: The SUTAQ is an instrument that can be used to measure user beliefs about the acceptability of TH, and has the ability to discriminate and predict individual differences in beliefs and behaviour. Measuring acceptability beliefs of TH users can provide valuable information to direct and target provision of services to increase uptake and maintain use of TH. IntroductionA TH service allows healthcare professionals (HCP) to monitor patients' condition remotely and enables the patient to receive remote care from the comfort of their homes and where appropriate direct healthcare intervention in a timely manner. Patients are provided with kit appropriate to their condition that require users to measure vital signs (e.g. blood pressure, blood glucose, blood oxygen levels). These readings are electronically sent back to HCPs, who via computerised algorithms and professional experience, examine changes in the patients conditions and take action if necessary including direct response to the patient. (1)). The monitoring system defined above has been referred to with different terms within the literature (e.g. telecare, telemonitoring, telemedicine), but we use the term TH as defined within the Whole Systems Demonstrator (WSD) Telehealth study (3).TH aims to reduce the burden upon the healthcare system through reducing the rates of high cost services, reducing travel costs and identifying potential problems early before they become serious medical episodes (2). Furthermore from the patient perspective TH also can be perceived as increasing access to services, a means of reducing health concerns, and a tool enable them be more actively involved in their health care (3).One potential obst...

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