The current study examined the psychometric properties of the Chinese translation of the Barratt Impulsiveness Scale 11th version in a sample of adolescents from Hunan province, mainland China. During an initial assessment, 396 secondary school students (Grades 10-12) completed the scale and self-report measures assessing problem behaviors and alcohol use. The scale was re-administered 1 mo. later. Analysis gave Cronbach alpha of .80 and test-retest reliability of .70. Confirmatory factor analysis indicated a model containing six first-order factors and two second-order factors best fit the data. Girls reported higher Total scores than boys as well as higher scores on the motor impulsiveness, self-control, and cognitive instability sub-scales. Scores were associated in the predicted direction with a wide variety of self-reported problem behaviors including alcohol use, gambling, and academic misconduct. Current findings indicate that the translated scale is a promising tool with some further development for assessing impulsiveness with Chinese adolescents.

The cost-effectiveness of quality improvement projects: a conceptual framework, checklist and online tool for considering the costs and consequences of implementation based quality improvement. Journal of Evaluation in Clinical Practice, 22 (1 ReuseUnless indicated otherwise, fulltext items are protected by copyright with all rights reserved. The copyright exception in section 29 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988 allows the making of a single copy solely for the purpose of non-commercial research or private study within the limits of fair dealing. The publisher or other rights-holder may allow further reproduction and re-use of this version -refer to the White Rose Research Online record for this item. Where records identify the publisher as the copyright holder, users can verify any specific terms of use on the publisher's website. TakedownIf you consider content in White Rose Research Online to be in breach of UK law, please notify us by emailing eprints@whiterose.ac.uk including the URL of the record and the reason for the withdrawal request. AbstractIn resource constrained systems, decision makers should be concerned with the efficiency of implementing improvement techniques and technologies. Accordingly, they should consider both the costs and effectiveness of implementation as well as the cost-effectiveness of the innovation to be implemented. An approach to doing this effectively is encapsulated in the 'policy cost-effectiveness' approach. This paper outlines some of the theoretical and practical challenges to assessing policy cost-effectiveness (the cost-effectiveness of implementation projects). A checklist and associated (freely available) online application are also presented to help services develop more cost-effective implementation strategies.3

Neonatologists frequently report using opioids to manage procedural pain, however, spontaneously breathing infants are less likely to receive them, and their use varies according to infant and procedure characteristics. These data point to the need to further investigate, in a more controlled design, the pharmacologic effects of opioids in this population to better guide clinicians about their optimal use.

For a test to be considered useful for making treatment decisions, it is necessary that making treatment decisions based on the results of the test be a preferable strategy to making treatment decisions without the test. Decision curve analysis is a framework for assessing when a test would be expected to be useful, which integrates evidence of a test's performance characteristics (sensitivity and specificity), condition prevalence among at-risk patients, and patient preferences for treatment. We describe decision curve analysis generally and illustrate its potential through an application to tests for prodromal psychosis. Clinical psychosis is often preceded by a prodromal phase, but not all those with prodromal symptoms proceed to develop full psychosis. Patients identified as at risk for developing psychosis may be considered for proactive treatment to mitigate development of clinically defined psychosis. Tests exist to help identify those at-risk patients most likely to develop psychosis, but it is uncertain when these tests would be considered useful for making proactive treatment decisions. We apply decision curve analysis to results from a systematic review of studies investigating clinical tests for predicting the development of psychosis in at-risk populations, and present resulting decision curves that illustrate when the tests may be expected to be useful for making proactive treatment decisions.

Aims/hypothesis We aimed to assess whether general practices (GPs) using an electronic disease management program (DMP) with population overviews, including alerts when patients failed to receive guideline-recommended prescription medications, increased prescriptions of lipid-lowering drugs for patients with type 2 diabetes with no history of lipid-lowering treatment. Methods This observational study included 165 GPs that reached a high level of use of the DMP in 2012 and a control group of 135 GPs who reached a high level of use in 2013 and, hence, who were less exposed to the DMP throughout 2012. A binary measure for having been prescribed and filled lipid-lowering drugs at any time within a 12-month exposure period was derived for all patients with type 2 diabetes who did not receive a prescription for lipid-lowering drugs in the baseline year prior to the study period (i.e. 2011). Results were derived using ORs from multivariate logistic regression analyses. Subgroup stratification based on age, sex, diabetes duration, deprivation status and Charlson Comorbidity Index (CCI) score was conducted and assessed. Placebo tests were carried out to assess bias from selection to treatment. Results Patients who did not receive a prescription of lipid-lowering drugs in the year prior to being listed with GPs that used the DMP had statistically significant greater odds of receiving a prescription of lipid-lowering medications when compared with individuals who attended control GPs (OR 1.23 [95% CI 1.09, 1.38]). When the analysis period was shifted back by 2 years, no significant differences in lipid-lowering drug prescription between the two groups were found to occur, which indicates that these results were not driven by selection bias. Subgroup analyses showed that the increase in lipid-lowering drug prescriptions was primarily driven by changes among male participants (OR 1.32 [95% CI 1.12, 1.54]), patients aged 60–70 years (OR 1.40 [95% CI 1.13, 1.74]), patients with a diabetes duration of ≤5 years (OR 1.33 [95% CI 1.13, 1.56]), non-deprived patients (OR 1.25 [95% CI 1.08, 1.45]) and patients without comorbidities (CCI score = 0; OR 1.27 [95% CI 1.11, 1.45]). Conclusions/interpretation Access to population overviews using a DMP with alerts of clinical performance measures with regard to adhering to guideline-recommended prescription of medications can increase GP prescriptions of lipid-lowering drugs. Graphical abstract