Occurrence of the term evidence as it relates specifically to "evidence-based practice" ranged from 0 (pharmacy, dentistry and occupational therapy) to 8 (physiotherapy) in the accreditation documents. Overall, there were 77 occasions when terms relating to any of the 5 steps of evidence-based practice were used across all 11 accreditation documents. All 5 steps were included in the physiotherapy and psychology documents; 4 steps in medicine and optometry; 3 steps in pharmacy; 2 steps each in documents for chiropractic, osteopathy, and podiatry; and 1 step for nursing. There was no inclusion of terms relating to any of the 5 steps in the dentistry and occupational therapy documents. Insights: Terminology relating explicitly to evidence-based practice and to the 5 steps of evidence-based practice appears to be lacking in the accreditation documents for health professions registered in Australia. This is not necessarily reflective of the curricular content or quality, or dedication to evidence-based practice teaching. However, recognition and demand by accreditation bodies for skills in evidence-based practice may act as a driver for education providers to give greater priority to embedding this training in entry-level programs. Consequently, accreditation bodies are powerfully positioned to shape future directions, focus, and boundaries within and across professions. Future international audits of accreditation documents could provide insight into the global breadth of this phenomenon and contribute to closer scrutiny of the representation of evidence-based practice in future iterations of accreditation documents.
The prevalence of mental disorder symptoms did not differ by probation status. However, the type and distribution of symptoms were significantly different in the two groups. These are important considerations when planning for service connection with mental health providers.
BackgroundMultimorbidity, the co-existence of two or more health conditions, is a growing challenge. It has been measured using health service administrative data via the emerging consensus measure by Barnett (containing 40 health conditions). However,this was developed using Scottish-specific primary care coding, which restricts its application in other health systems.
ObjectivesThe aim was to create International Classification of Disease (ICD) coding algorithms for all Barnett conditions, and evaluate the new measure by assessing the prevalence of multimorbidity and its association with mortality in the AberdeenChildren of the 1950s (ACONF) cohort.
MethodWe combined results of a coding literature review with codes used commonly by the Scottish National Health Service, to identify ICD codes to each condition.
Participants of the ACONF were linked to their secondary care healthcare records and mortality records. Multimorbidity was defined as the presence of two or more of the 40 conditions. The association between multimorbidity and mortalitywas assessed using Cox proportional hazards regression with adjustment for key covariates (age, gender, social class at birth, cognition at age 7, secondary school type and educational attainment).
FindingsThe ACONF were aged 45 to 51 years in 2001. Of 8,094 ACONF members linked to administrative data, 246 (3%) had multimorbidity. Relative to those without multimorbidity, those with multimorbidity had a mortality hazard ratio (HR) of 5.9 (95% CI 4.6-7.4) over 15 years follow-up. This was unchanged when adjusted for covariates (HR 6.2, 95% CI 4.4-8.5).
ConclusionWe have created a new version of the influential Barnett measure using ICD codes, which allows for its wider application across health systems. This measure of multimorbidity was associated with increased mortality, indicating it could helppredict poor outcome using administrative records.
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