Biomedical subjects

Caroline Selai

Publications and source records attributed to Caroline Selai.

4 recordsLinked to original sources

PubMed2005

METRO taxonomy - progress report on assessment.

The Medical Education Taxonomy Research Organization (METRO) was formed to map and create terms to comprehensively describe the processes, procedures and concepts of medical education. The terms will be used in a variety of purposes, such as describing content for retrieval from e-learning environments, indexing literature in databases, and extracting and exchanging data for research, such as for BEME systematic reviews. METRO has now completed an extensive set of descriptors for assessment, which are freely available at http://metro2.blogspot.com. The organization welcomes the response and participation of all medical education professionals.

Databases, Factual↗

PubMed2005

Antiepileptic drugs and the regulation of mood and quality of life (QOL): the evidence from epilepsy.

We review the literature on the influence of antiepileptic drugs (AEDs) on mood and quality of life in patients with epilepsy. Although many anecdotal reports cover a spectrum of AEDs, most of the controlled data have come from studies of carbamazepine and lamotrigine. Both of these compounds appear to have positive effects on mood, and these data parallel the effects noted in nonepilepsy populations. AEDs that are gamma-aminobutyric acid (GABA)ergic tend to have negative effects on mood, and an affective disorder is often noted as a treatment-emergent effect. It is speculated that the amygdala is an important anatomic structure in the cerebral circuits that regulate mood in affective disorders but also in epilepsy, and an effect of AEDs on such circuits aids mood stability in both populations of patients.

Affect↗

PubMed2004

Understanding health state valuations: a qualitative analysis of respondents' comments.

Self-completed questionnaires (usually distributed by post) and visual analogue scales (VAS) are common means for collecting valuations for hypothetical EQ-5D health states. Although opportunities for respondents to comment on aspects of the exercise are often included, these data have rarely been the focus of analyses. This paper, therefore, reports on solicited and unsolicited written comments received in a New Zealand survey in 1999 to which 1360 people responded of whom approximately 50% made comments. The comments were systematically analysed via an inductive process that allowed principal themes to emerge with respect to understanding the peculiarities of respondents' valuations, particularly common 'data problems', and their perceptions as to the adequacy or otherwise of the EQ-5D classification system. From our findings we conclude that the valuation exercise imposes a substantial cognitive burden on respondents and many do not understand it (for a variety of reasons documented in the paper). Also, although there is some evidence for expanding the EQ-5D (generic) health-related quality of life dimensions, more research as to whether this holds for a larger sample and across cultural settings is needed. We offer recommendations for future research into understanding respondents' cognitive processes and possible revisions to the design and administration of the EQ-5D.

Adult↗

PubMed2003

Health-related quality of life in patients with progressive supranuclear palsy.

We assessed health-related quality of life (QoL) of patients with progressive supranuclear palsy (PSP), identified the most important QoL issues in patients with this disorder, and assessed the usefulness of existing QoL measures in patients with PSP. Twenty-seven patients in all stages of PSP and their carers underwent a semistructured in-depth interview on the impact of PSP and a neurological examination. They were also asked to complete existing measures of QoL and depression. An item-pool of issues relevant to QoL of patients with PSP was created from the patient and carer interviews. Carers and patients largely agreed on issues relevant for patients' QoL but more carers than patients considered symptoms of frontal lobe dysfunction as problematic for the patients. There was no association of QoL with age and gender, as assessed in interviews and on two QoL instruments. QoL deteriorated with increasing disease duration and severity and greater cognitive impairment and was associated with worse depression scores. While the generic SF-36 was not found to be useful to assess QoL in PSP, feasibility and validity for the PDQ-39 and the EQ-5D were acceptable in this study. However, additional issues relevant to patients with PSP that were not addressed in these instruments included visual disturbances, dysarthria, dysphagia, muddled thinking, confusion, and apathy. The generic EQ-5D and the Parkinson's disease-specific PDQ-39 are useful instruments to assess QoL in patients with PSP. However, they lack questions on important aspects of QoL in PSP that were reported by patients and carers in semistructured interviews. The item pool created in these interviews provides the basis for the development of disease-specific QoL instruments for patients with PSP.

Aged↗