Objective This scoping review aims to identify complex health interventions (CHI’s) to prevent early childhood caries (ECC), explore the level of complexity of the identified CHI’s, and explore the details of their development, evaluation, and implementation. Introduction Many interventions to prevent ECC have multiple interacting components and can be seen as CHI’s. Recent reviews on these interventions have found inconclusive effects, which may be due to differences in the development, evaluation, and implementation of CHI’s. Inclusion criteria This scoping review will consider clinical trials reporting CHI’s to prevent ECC that starts during pregnancy or in the first year of life. Studies in the English language will be included regardless of the country of origin, sociocultural setting, or context. Methods This review will follow the Joanna Briggs Institute methodology for scoping reviews. An initial search of PubMed identified keywords and Medical Subject Headings terms. A second search of PubMed, Embase, Clarivate Analytics/Web of Science Core Collection, ClinicalTrials.gov, and the Wiley/Cochrane Library will follow. Two independent reviewers will perform title and abstract screening, retrieve and review full-text studies, and extract data. The reference lists of all included sources will be screened for additional CHI’s or relevant publications about a specific CHI. Data charting will be utilised based on study characteristics and intervention complexity. A 39-item instrument will be used to explore the details in the description of the CHI’s development, evaluation, and implementation. The results will be presented in tables, visual outputs, and a narrative summary in response to the review questions. Discussion The proposed review will generate evidence which may provide a direction for the future design of studies on CHI’s to prevent ECC and more complete information for those who want to adopt successful interventions to prevent ECC.
LINK
This longitudinal, quantitative study contributes to the debate on technology-based professional development by examining the extent to which a learning (LinkedIn) intervention in a university setting affects an individual’s social media use for professional development, and the extent to which this relates to self-reported employability. In addition, we investigated how this relationship is moderated by an individual’s motivation to communicate through social media (LinkedIn). Based on social capital theory and the conservation of resources theory, we developed a set of hypotheses that were tested based on longitudinal data collected from university employees (N = 101) in middle- and high-level jobs. First, in line with our expectations, social media use for professional development was significantly higher after the learning intervention than before. Second, partially in line with our expectations, social media use for professional development was positively related with the employability dimension anticipation and optimization. Third, contrary to our expectations, motivation to communicate through social media (LinkedIn) did not have a moderating role in this relationship. We concluded that the learning intervention has the potential to foster social media use for professional development, and in turn, can contribute to individuals’ human capital in terms of their employability. Hence, the intervention that forms the core of this empirical research can be a sustainable and promising human resource management (HRM) practice that fits the human capital agenda.
The need for excess weight gain prevention in disadvantaged young children is widely recognised. Early Childhood Education and Care teachers are potential key actors in early interventions to prevent overweight and obesity. This study examines the effects of a preschool-based intervention for teachers in promoting healthy eating and physical activity in young children. A cluster randomised controlled trial was conducted at 41 preschools in a deprived area of Amsterdam, The Netherlands. The intervention consisted of 2 programmes that were applied in succession: A Healthy Start and PLAYgrounds for TODdlers. The study period was 9 months. Primary outcomes were assessed via questionnaires and included teachers’ knowledge, attitude, food/activity-related practices, and level of confidence in promoting healthy behaviours. Secondary outcomes in this study were teachers’ and children’s BMI (z-score), body composition, dietary intake and physical activity level. Intention-to-treat analyses were performed using linear mixed models. In total, 115 teachers and 249 children (mean age 3.0 (0.2) years) were included. A positive effect on teachers’ knowledge about the Dutch dietary guidelines was found after the programme A Healthy Start (difference = 1.38; 1-sided 95% CL = 0.29; p = 0.02). This effect was not sustained at 9 months (difference = 0.34; 1-sided 95% CL = -0.76; p = 0.31). The overall intervention had a positive effect on 3 of the 5 attitude statements regarding a healthy lifestyle (difference ranged from 0.34 to 0.55) and on the practice scale Activity-related-Modelling (difference = 0.16; 1-sided 95% CL = 0.06; p = 0.01). No intervention effects were observed on food-related practice scales and the level of confidence in promoting healthy behaviours. At this stage, no effects were seen on teachers’ and children’s BMI (z-score). This study contributes to the professional development of Early Childhood Education and Care teachers and addresses the call for interventions to prevent overweight/obesity and to minimise health inequalities in young children.
MULTIFILE
-Chatbots are being used at an increasing rate, for instance, for simple Q&A conversations, flight reservations, online shopping and news aggregation. However, users expect to be served as effective and reliable as they were with human-based systems and are unforgiving once the system fails to understand them, engage them or show them human empathy. This problem is more prominent when the technology is used in domains such as health care, where empathy and the ability to give emotional support are most essential during interaction with the person. Empathy, however, is a unique human skill, and conversational agents such as chatbots cannot yet express empathy in nuanced ways to account for its complex nature and quality. This project focuses on designing emotionally supportive conversational agents within the mental health domain. We take a user-centered co-creation approach to focus on the mental health problems of sexual assault victims. This group is chosen specifically, because of the high rate of the sexual assault incidents and its lifetime destructive effects on the victim and the fact that although early intervention and treatment is necessary to prevent future mental health problems, these incidents largely go unreported due to the stigma attached to sexual assault. On the other hand, research shows that people feel more comfortable talking to chatbots about intimate topics since they feel no fear of judgment. We think an emotionally supportive and empathic chatbot specifically designed to encourage self-disclosure among sexual assault victims could help those who remain silent in fear of negative evaluation and empower them to process their experience better and take the necessary steps towards treatment early on.
Public safety is under enormous pressure. Demonstrations regularly result in riots and VIPs are often threatened even at their homes ! Criminal graffiti-gangs are threatening security professionals and costing the Dutch railways (NS), causing a loss of 10 M€ yearly. The safety incidents often escalate quickly, therefore, they require a very quick and correct scaling up of the security professionals. To do so, it is necessary for the security professionals to get very quick and accurate overview of the evolving situation using Mobile Drone intervention unit for quick response (Mobi Dick). The successfully completed project The Beast (9/11) has delivered a universal docking station with an automatic security drone. The drone takes off from a permanently installed docking station. Nest Fly emerged as a startup from this RAAK project, and it has already developed the prototype further to a first product. Based on extensive interaction with security professionals, it has been concluded that a permanently installed docking station is not suitable for all emergency cases. Therefore, a mobile, car-roof top mounted, docking station with a ready-for-take-off drone is required for the more severe and quickly escalating incidents. These situations require a drone taking off from the car-roof top mounted docking station while the vehicles continue to drive towards the incident. In this RAAK KIEM, a feasibility study will be executed by developing a car-roof top docking station. The concept will functionally be designed within the project (task 1). The two required subsystems car roof docking station (task 2) and dynamic take-off & landing (task 3) will technically be developed and integrated (task 4). The outcome of the experiments in this task will show the feasibly of the idea. Task 5 will ensure the results are disseminated in new cooperation’s, publications, and educational products.
In the Netherlands, 125 people suffer a stroke every day, which annually results in 46.000 new stroke patients Stroke patients are confronted with combinations of physical, psychological and social consequences impacting their long term functioning and quality of live. Fortunately many patients recover to their pre-stroke level of functioning, however, almost half of them never will. Consequently, rehabilitation often means that patients need to adapt to a new reality in their lives, requiring not only physical but also psychosocial adjustments. Nurses play a key role during rehabilitation of stroke patients. However, when confronted with psychosocial problems, they often feel insecure about identifying the specific psycho-social needs of the individual patient and providing adequate care. In our project ‘Early Detection of Post-Stroke Depression’, (SIA RAAK; 2010-12-36P), we developed a toolkit focusing on early identification of depression after stroke continued with interventions nurses can use during hospitalisation. During this project it became clear that evidence regarding possible interventions is scarce and inclusive. Moreover feasibility of interventions is often not confirmed. Our project showed that during the period of hospital admission patients and health care providers strongly focus on surviving the stroke and on the physical rehabilitation. Therefore, we concluded that to make one step beyond we first have to go one step back. To strengthen psychosocial care for patients after stroke we have to add, reconsider and shape knowledge in context of health care practices in a systematic way, resulting in evidence based and practice informed stepping stones. With this project we aim to collect these stepping stones and develop a nursing care programme that improves psychosocial well-being of patients after stroke, is tailored to the particular concerns and needs of patients, and is considered feasible for use in the usual care process of nurses in the stroke rehabilitation pathway.
