RSS 1.0University of Limerick
Browse by
Recent Submissions
-
Children and young people's experiences of living with developmental coordination disorder/dyspraxia: study protocol for a qualitative evidence synthesis.Background Children with developmental coordination disorder (DCD) face significant challenges to deal with everyday activities due to underlying motor proficiency difficulties. These challenges affect children and young people's participation; that is, involvement in daily life situations. Recent years have seen a growing body of qualitative research examining children's experiences of living with DCD. Meta-ethnographic synthesis offers a rigorous approach to bring together the findings of discrete qualitative studies to be synthesised in order to advance the conceptual understanding of living with DCD, which is not well conceptualised in the literature to date. Conducting a meta-ethnographic synthesis will help to illuminate the meaning of children and young people's experiences of DCD regarding their involvement in everyday activities and situations. Aim This study aims to systematically review and synthesise qualitative literature regarding children and young people's experiences and views of everyday life and living with DCD. Methods The method of qualitative evidence synthesis that will be followed in this review is a meta-ethnography. The eMERGe and PRISMA reporting guidelines will be adhered to. Ten databases will be searched; Academic Search Complete, AMED, CINAHL, ERIC, MEDLINE, PsychArticles, PsychInfo, EMBASE, SPORTDiscus, and Web of Science. The Joanna Briggs Institute Checklist will be used by two independent reviewers to appraise all included papers. PROSPERO registration number CRD42019129178 Discussion The findings of this meta-ethnography will endeavour to inform future research, policy and practice. In particular, the results will help to inform the design of future complex interventions to meet the needs of children and young people with DCD. Dissemination will involve the publication of the results in a peer-reviewed journal. Increasingly researchers and policymakers are calling for services to be informed by the perspective and voice of children with DCD. Therefore, a policy brief will be published so that the findings are widely available.
-
Synthesis, Characterization, and Studies of an Reactive Oxygen Species (ROS)-Responsive Methoxy Polyethylene Glycol-Thioketal-Melphalan Prodrug for Glioblastoma Treatment.Glioblastoma (GBM) is the most frequent and aggressive primary tumor of the brain and averages a life expectancy in diagnosed patients of only 15 months. Hence, more effective therapies against this malignancy are urgently needed. Several diseases, including cancer, are featured by high levels of reactive oxygen species (ROS), which are possible GBM hallmarks to target or benefit from. Therefore, the covalent linkage of drugs to ROS-responsive molecules can be exploited aiming for a selective drug release within relevant pathological environments. In this work, we designed a new ROS-responsive prodrug by using Melphalan (MPH) covalently coupled with methoxy polyethylene glycol (mPEG) through a ROS-cleavable group thioketal (TK), demonstrating the capacity to self-assembly into nanosized micelles. Full chemical-physical characterization was conducted on the polymeric-prodrug and proper controls, along with in vitro cytotoxicity assayed on different GBM cell lines and "healthy" astrocyte cells confirming the absence of any cytotoxicity of the prodrug on healthy cells (i.e. astrocytes). These results were compared with the non-ROS responsive counterpart, underlining the anti-tumoral activity of ROS-responsive compared to the non-ROS-responsive prodrug on GBM cells expressing high levels of ROS. On the other hand, the combination treatment with this ROS-responsive prodrug and X-ray irradiation on human GBM cells resulted in an increase of the antitumoral effect, and this might be connected to radiotherapy. Hence, these results represent a starting point for a rationale design of innovative and tailored ROS-responsive prodrugs to be used in GBM therapy and in combination with radiotherapy.
-
Comparison of novel tools with traditional cognitive tests in detecting delirium in elderly medical patients.Neurocognitive diagnoses were delirium (n = 44), dementia (n = 30), comorbid delirium-dementia (n = 60) and no neurocognitive disorder (n = 46). All conventional tests had sensitivity of > 70% for delirium, with best overall accuracy for the Vigilance-B (78.3%), Vigilance-A (77.8%) and MBT (76.7%) tests. The sustained attention component of the Lighthouse test was the most distinguishing of delirium (sensitivity 84.6%; overall accuracy 75.6%). The LSD-4 had sensitivity of 74.0% and overall accuracy 74.4% for delirium identification. Combining tests allowed for enhanced sensitivity (> 90%) and overall accuracy (≥ 75%) with the highest overall accuracy for the combination of MBT-Vigilance A and the combined Vigilance A and B tests (both 78.3%). When analyses were repeated for those with dementia, there were similar findings with the MBT-Vigilance A the most accurate overall combination (80.0%). Combining the Lighthouse-SA with the LSD-4, a fail in either test had sensitivity for delirium of 91.4 with overall accuracy of 74.4%.
-
The Effects of Workplace Nature-Based Interventions on the Mental Health and Well-Being of Employees: A Systematic Review.Mental health in the workplace is a societal challenge with serious economical and human costs. Most prevalent mental disorders in the workforce (e.g., depression), however, are preventable. There is widespread agreement about the favorable effects of nature exposure and consequently, nature-based interventions (NBI) in the workplace have been proposed as a cost-effective approach to promote good health among employees. The objective of the present study was to systematically review scientific evidence on the effectiveness of NBI to promote mental health and well-being among actual employees in actual workplace settings. The review was conducted and presented in accordance with the PRISMA guidelines. The literature search was performed on five databases (PubMed, Embase, CENTRAL, CINHAL, and PsycINFO), hand-searching of field-specific journals, and the reference lists of retrieved papers over the past 5 years up to November (13th, 2018). Studies were eligible for inclusion if they (i) were randomized or nonrandomized controlled trials; (ii) comprised samples of actual employees; (iii) implemented a workplace-based intervention with exposure to nature; (iv) included comparison conditions that displayed a clear contrast to NBIs; and (v) investigated the quantitative effects on mental health or well-being. No restrictions on type of employees or workplace, publication period, or language of the publication were set. Risk of bias was assessed using the Cochrane's RoB2 tool. Narrative synthesis was performed due to large heterogeneity in outcome variables. Of the 510 articles identified, 10 NBIs (nine papers) met the eligibility criteria. The outcomes were grouped in five categories: (i) mental health indices, (ii) cognitive ability, (iii) recovery and restoration, (iv) work and life satisfaction, and (v) psychophysiological indicators. Narrative synthesis indicates consistently positive effects on mental health indices and cognitive ability, while mixed results were found for the other outcome categories. Caution must be given when interpreting the current evidence in this emerging research field because of the diversity of NBIs and the overall high risk of bias in the individual studies. Although in this field often researchers have to balance scientific rigor and ecological validity, there is a need for large, well-designed and rigorously conducted trials grounded in contemporary theories.
