JMIR Research Protocols

Dyspnea is a prevalent symptom in individuals with hypermobile Ehlers-Danlos Syndrome (hEDS) and generalized hypermobility spectrum disorder (G-HSD), yet its contributors have not been identified. One known contributor to dyspnea is respiratory muscle weakness. The feasibility and effectiveness of inspiratory muscle training (IMT) in combination with standard-of-care rehabilitation (aerobic, resistance, neuromuscular stabilization, and balance and proprioception exercises) in improving respiratory muscle strength and patient-reported outcomes in patients with hEDS or G-HSD have not been evaluated.

Underage drinking and related risky sexual behavior (RSB) are major public health concerns on United States college campuses. Although technology-delivered personalized feedback interventions (PFIs) are considered a best practice for individual-level campus alcohol prevention, there is room for improving the effectiveness of this approach with regard to alcohol-related RSB.

In competency-based medical education (CBME), “Assessment for learning” or “Formative Assessment” (FA) plays a key role in augmenting student learning. FAs help students to measure their progress over time, enabling them to proactively improve their performance in summative assessments. FAs also encourage students to learn in a way where they address their knowledge gaps and gaps in their conceptualization of the subject matter. The effectiveness of an FA, as a learning and development instrument, relies on the degree of student involvement in the corresponding educational intervention’s design and implementation. The extent of students’ engagement in FA can be evaluated by appraising their perception regarding the educational intervention itself.

The gains made against malaria have stagnated since 2015, threatened further by increasing resistance to insecticides and antimalarials. Improvement in malaria control necessitates a multipronged strategy, which includes the development of novel tools. One such tool is mass drug administration (MDA) with endectocides, primarily ivermectin, which has shown promise in reducing malaria transmission through lethal and sublethal impacts on the mosquito vector.

Malnutrition among older adults with dysphagia is common. Texture-modified foods (TMFs) are an essential part of dysphagia management. In long-term care (LTC) facilities, health professionals have implemented TMFs, but their application has not been fully elucidated, making them heterogeneous.

Anxiety disorders are the most common mental disorders worldwide. In Hong Kong, 7% of adolescents are diagnosed with anxiety disorders, and 1 in every 4 secondary school students reports clinical-level anxiety symptoms. However, 65% of them do not access services. Long waitlists in public services, the high cost of private services, or the fear of being stigmatized can hinder service access. The high prevalence of anxiety and low intervention uptake indicate a pressing need to develop timely, scalable, and potent interventions suitable for adolescents. Single-session interventions (SSIs) have the potential to be scalable interventions for diagnosable or subclinical psychopathology in adolescents. Providing precise and context-adapted intervention is the key to achieving intervention efficacy.

Motivational interviewing (MI) is an evidence-based, patient-centered communication method shown to be effective in helping persons with serious mental illness (SMI) to improve health behaviors. In clinical trials where study staff conducted lifestyle interventions incorporating an MI approach, cardiovascular disease (CVD) risk profiles of participants with SMI showed improvement. Given the disproportionate burden of CVD in this population, practitioners who provide somatic and mental health care to persons with SMI are ideally positioned to deliver patient-centered CVD risk reduction interventions. However, the time for MI training (traditionally 16-24 hours), follow-up feedback, and the coaching required to develop and maintain patient-centered skills are significant barriers to incorporating MI when scaling up these evidence-based practices.

Leading nurse education and research in the higher education (HE) sector has become increasingly challenging over the last decade with many universities in Australia and New Zealand having undergone academic restructuring. The future of HE faces many challenges including recruitment of suitably qualified staff to lead teaching and research and advance professional disciplines. Increasing cultural diversity of the Nursing workforce and the communities’ nurses serve, and the identification of cultural attributes in the context of racial inequities exposed by the pandemic and the climate emergency suggest different forms of leadership may be required in the future by those leading nurse education in the HE sector. Currently, there is a dearth of research evidence that identifies the qualities, behaviors, and characteristics (collectively identified as core attributes) required by nurse academic leaders.

Violence against paramedics has been described as a serious public health problem with the potential for significant physical and psychological harm, but the organizational culture within the profession encourages paramedics to consider violence as just “part of the job.” Therefore, most incidents of violence are never formally documented. This limits the ability of researchers and policy makers to develop strategies that mitigate the risk and enhance paramedic safety.

Anthracycline-based chemotherapy has been mainstay of adjuvant breast cancer therapy for decades. Although effective, anthracyclines place long-term breast cancer survivors at risk of late effects, such as reduced cardiorespiratory fitness and increased risk of cardiovascular disease. Previous research has shown beneficial effects of exercise training on cardiorespiratory fitness, but the effects of exercise on limiting factors for cardiorespiratory fitness, cardiovascular risk factors, and patient-reported outcomes in long-term survivors are less clear. Whether previous exposure to breast cancer therapy modulates the effects of exercise is also unknown.

Extracorporeal membrane oxygenation (ECMO) provides support for the pulmonary or cardiovascular function of children in whom the predicted mortality risk remains very high. The inevitable host inflammatory response and activation of the coagulation cascade due to the extracorporeal circuit contribute to additional morbidity and mortality in these patients. Mixing nitric oxide (NO) into the sweep gas of ECMO circuits may reduce the inflammatory and coagulation cascade activation during ECMO support.

Only 11%-40% of those with a mental disorder in Germany receive treatment. In many cases, face-to-face psychotherapy is not available because of limited resources, such as an insufficient number of therapists in the area. New approaches to improve the German health care system are needed to counter chronification. Web-based interventions have been shown to be effective as stand-alone and add-on treatments to routine practice. Interventions designed for a wide range of mental disorders such as transdiagnostic interventions are needed to make treatment for mental disorders more accessible and thus shorten waiting times and mitigate the chronification of mental health problems. In general, interventions can be differentiated as having either a capitalization (CAP) focus—thus drawing on already existing strengths—or a compensation (COMP) focus—trying to compensate for deficits. Up to now, the effectiveness of transdiagnostic web-based interventions with either a CAP or a COMP focus has not yet been evaluated.