Introduction: There is a lack of effective interventions available for Pediatric Physical Therapists (PPTs) to promote a physically active lifestyle in children with physical disabilities. Participatory design methods (co-design) may be helpful in generating insights and developing intervention prototypes for facilitating a physically active lifestyle in children with physical disabilities (6–12 years). Materials and methods: A multidisciplinary development team of designers, developers, and researchers engaged in a co-design process–together with parents, PPTs, and other relevant stakeholders (such as the Dutch Association of PPTs and care sports connectors). In this design process, the team developed prototypes for interventions during three co-creation sessions, four one-week design sprint, living-lab testing and two triangulation sessions. All available co-design data was structured and analyzed by three researchers independently resulting in themes for facilitating physical activity. Results: The data rendered two specific outcomes, (1) knowledge cards containing the insights collected during the co-design process, and (2) eleven intervention prototypes. Based on the generated insights, the following factors seem important when facilitating a physically active lifestyle: a) stimulating self-efficacy; b) stimulating autonomy; c) focusing on possibilities; d) focusing on the needs of the individual child; e) collaborating with stakeholders; f) connecting with a child's environment; and g) meaningful goal setting. Conclusion: This study shows how a co-design process can be successfully applied to generate insights and develop interventions in pediatric rehabilitation. The designed prototypes facilitate the incorporation of behavioral change techniques into pediatric rehabilitation and offer new opportunities to facilitate a physically active lifestyle in children with physical disabilities by PPTs. While promising, further studies should examine the feasibility and effectivity of these prototypes.
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In this study, a data feedback program to improve teachers’ science and technology (S&T) teaching skills was designed and tested. The aim was to understand whether and how the four design principles underlying this program stimulated the intended teacher support. We examined how teachers in different phases of their career applied and experienced the employed design principles’ key aspects. Eight in-service teachers and eight pre-service teachers attended the data feedback program and kept a logbook in the meantime. Group interviews were held afterwards. Findings show that applying the four employed design principles’ key aspects did support and stimulate in- and pre-service teachers in carrying out data feedback for improving their S&T teaching. However, some key aspects were not applied and/or experienced as intended by all attending teachers. The findings provide possible implications for the development and implementation of professional development programs to support in - and pre-service teachers’ S&T teaching using data feedback.
Drug consumption estimates are of relevance because of public health effects as well as associated criminal activities. Wastewater analysis of drug residues enables the estimation of drug consumption and drug markets. Short-term and long-term trends of cocaine, MDMA (ecstasy), amphetamine (speed) and methamphetamine (crystal meth), were studied for the city of Amsterdam. MDMA (+41%) and cocaine (+26%) showed significantly higher weekend vs. week consumption, while no differences were observed for the other drugs. The consumption of MDMA, cocaine, amphetamine and methamphetamine significantly increased between 2011 and 2019. Weekly trends emerging from wastewater analyses were supported by qualitative and quantitative data from a recreational drug use monitoring scheme. However, information collected in panel interviews within nightlife networks and surveys among visitors of pubs, clubs and festivals only partially reflected the long term increase in consumption as registered from wastewater analysis. Furthermore, methamphetamine use was not well presented in survey data, panel studies and test service samples, but could be monitored trough wastewater analysis. This illustrates that wastewater analysis can function as an early warning if use and user groups are small or difficult to reach trough other forms of research. All in all, this study illustrates that wastewater-based epidemiology is complementary to research among user groups, and vice versa. These different types of information enable to connect observed trends in total drug consumption to behaviour of users and the social context in which the use takes place as well as validate qualitative signals about (increased) consumption of psychoactive substances. Such a multi angular approach to map the illicit drug situation on local or regional scale can provide valuable information for public health.
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