Background: Promotion of a healthy lifestyle for individuals with mild intellectualdisabilities is important. However, the suitability of behaviour change techniques(BCTs) for these individuals is still unclear.Methods: A Delphi study was performed using the Coventry, Aberdeen & LOndon –REfined (CALO‐RE) taxonomy of BCTs (n = 40). Health professionals (professional caregivers, behavioural scientists, health professionals, intellectual disability physicians) participated in an online survey to determine whether BCTs were suitable or unsuitable. Comments from participants were analysed qualitatively.Results: Consensus was reached for 25 BCTs out of 40.The most suitable BCTs were barrier identification (97%), set graded tasks (97%) and reward effort towards behaviour (95%). No significant differences were found for intergroup effects.Conclusion: Regardless of their position and education level, health professionalsreached consensus about the suitability of BCTs for individuals with mild intellectual disabilities. Increased use of these BCTs could result in more effective promotion of a healthy lifestyle.
Malnutrition is a serious and widespread health problem in community-dwelling older adults who receive care in hospital and at home. Hospital and home care nurses and nursing assistants have a key role in the delivery of high-quality multidisciplinary nutritional care. Nursing nutritional care in current practice, however, is still suboptimal, which impacts its quality and continuity. There appear to be at least two reasons for this. First, there is a lack of evidence for nutritional care interventions to be carried out by nurses. Second, there are several factors, that influence nurses’ and nursing assistants’ current behaviour, such as lack of knowledge, moderate awareness of the importance and neutral attitudes. This results in a lack of attention towards nutritional care. Therefore, there is a need to generate more evidence and to focus on targeting the factors that influence nurses’ and nursing assistants’ current behaviour to eventually promote behaviour change. To increase the likelihood of successfully changing their behaviour, an evidence-based educational intervention is appropriate. This might lead to enhancing nutritional care and positively impact nutritional status, health and well-being of community-dwelling older adults. The general objectives of this thesis are: 1) To understand the current state of evidence regarding nutrition-related interventions and factors that influence current behaviour in nutritional care for older adults provided by hospital and home care nurses and nursing assistants to prevent and treat malnutrition. 2) To develop an educational intervention for hospital and home care nurses and nursing assistants to promote behaviour change by affecting factors that influence current behaviour in nutritional care for older adults and to describe the intervention development and feasibility.
(‘Co’-)Designing for healthy behaviour greatly benefits from integrating insights about individual behaviour and systemic influences. This study reports our experiences in using insights about individual and systemic determinants of behaviour to inform a large co-design project. To do so, we used two design tools that encourage focusing on individual determinants (Behavioural Lenses Approach) and social / systemic aspects of behaviour (Socionas). We performed a qualitative analysis to identify 1) when and how the team applied the design tools, and 2) how the tools supported or obstructed the design process. The results show that both tools had their distinctive uses during the process. Both tools improved the co-design process by deepening the conversations and underpinnings of the prototypes. Using the Behavioural Lenses under the guidance of a behavioural expert proved most beneficial. Furthermore, the Socionas showed the most potential when interacting with stakeholders, i.c. parents and PPTs.
MULTIFILE
Environmental nano- and micro-plastics (NMPs) are highly diverse [2]. Accounting for this diversity is one of the main challenges to develop a comprehensive understanding of NMPs detection, quantification, fate, and risks [3]. Two major issues currently limit progresses within this field: (a) validation and broadening the current analytical tools (b) uncertainty with respect to NMPs occurrence and behaviour at small scales (< 20 micron). Tracking NMPs in environmental systems is currently limited to micron size plastics due to the size detection limit of the available analytical techniques. There are currently many uncertainties regarding detecting nanoplastics in real environmental systems, e.g. the inexistence of commercially available NMPs and incompatibility between them and those generated from plastic fragments degradation in the environment. Trying to tackle these problems some research groups synthesized NMPs dopped with metals inside [16]. However, even though elemental analysis techniques (ICP-MS) are rather sensitive, the low volume of these metals encapsulated in the nanoparticles make their detection rather challenging. At the same time, due to Sars-Cov-19 pandemic, nucleic acid identification technologies (LAMP, PCR) experienced a fast evolution and are able to provide detection at very low levels with very compact and reliable equipment. Nuclepar proposes the use of Electrohydrodynamic Atomization (EHDA) to generate NMPs coated with nucleic acids of different polymer types, sizes, and shapes, which can be used as support for detection of such particles using PCR-LAMP technology. If proven possible, Nuclepar might become a first step towards an easy NMPs detection tool. This knowledge will certainly impact current risk assessment tools, efficient interventions to limit emissions and adequate regulations related to NMPs.
