View clinical trials related to Communication.
Filter by:The purpose of the study is to improve patient-physician communication and clinical decisions in the context of serious illness that may affect important clinical outcomes. The investigators will examine how variations in communication patterns and clinical decisions are affected by patient demographics (e.g age, sex), patient interactional style (e.g. communication behaviors) and physician characteristics (e.g. attitudes, background, training).
An Implantable Cardioverter-Defibrillator (ICD) is a device implanted in a patient's chest to monitor the heart rhythm and deliver shocks to terminate potentially lethal arrhythmias when necessary. While ICDs reduce sudden cardiac death, patients with ICDs eventually die of heart failure or other diseases. As patients near the end of life, physiologic changes (intrinsic and extrinsic to the heart) may affect the cardiac conduction system, leading to more arrhythmias and increasing the frequency of shocks. Because ICD shocks can cause pain and anxiety and may not prolong a life of acceptable quality, it is appropriate to consider deactivating the shocking function of ICDs as patients' clinical status worsens and death is near. This will be a randomized controlled trial of a physician centered counseling and education intervention to improve clinician-patient communication about the management of ICDs.
Purpose: -To evaluate the peri-operative communication between families and the pediatric cardiac surgery team. Method: -In this study the investigators plan to utilize structured interview and survey of parents/legal guardians and health care providers of children undergoing cardiac surgery in the United States of America.
This study intends to evaluate consultation in the Emergency Department. The purpose is to demonstrate that standardizing communication in the Emergency Department may lead to improved consultation.
BACKGROUND: This document outlines the study design and procedures to be used to evaluate a series of corrective statements to augment consumer knowledge and beliefs about smoking as related to past actions of tobacco companies. The statements were ordered by a U.S. Federal Court in U.S. v. Philip Morris USA, Inc., and are intended to target potential misperceptions resultant of past marketing and promotion practices undertaken by the tobacco industry. OBJECTIVES: The U.S. Department of Justice has asked NCI to take the lead on developing and testing corrective statements with adult and youth audiences to ensure both message comprehension and avoidance of unintended consequences of message exposure, such as boomerang effects, smoking triggers, or knowledge gaps. The court has identified five areas that the statements shall address: 1. The adverse health effects of smoking; 2. The addictiveness of smoking and nicotine; 3. The lack of any significant health benefit from smoking low tar, light, ultra light, mild, and natural cigarettes; 4. The tobacco industry s manipulation of cigarette design and composition to ensure optimum nicotine delivery; 5. The adverse health effects of secondhand smoke. ELIGIBILITY: Message testing will be undertaken with the following audiences: - Current smokers (with an oversample of low socioeconomic status individuals) - General population nonsmokers and former smokers (with an oversample of low socioeconomic status individuals) - Spanish-speaking Hispanics - Youth age 14-17 DESIGN: Both qualitative and quantitative methods (focus groups and post-test comparison group Web-enabled surveys) will be used to develop and test a range of corrective statements in the five areas outlined by the court. - Focus group participants: 48-64 - Survey participants: 2500
Study to determine if pulmonary/critical care fellows will demonstrate increased competency in the behavioral skills necessary to facilitate family meetings focused on discussions of goals of care in the ICU from pre- to post-communication skills training.
Objective: To assess whether the anxiety caused by a task considered anxiogenic, Simulated Public Speaking (SPS) test, would change the responses of healthy individuals regarding physiological and vocal parameters. Method: The sample comprised 30 participants of both genders, 19-42 years old, with no history of psychiatric disorders. The score in the STAI-Trait enabled investigators to assign participants to two groups: LOW ANXIETY (LA) and HIGH ANXIETY (HA). The investigators evaluated physiological parameters (heart rate, skin conductance, temperature in the extremities, electromyogram of the frontal muscle and salivary cortisol) and vocal parameters (vocal self-evaluation, quality of life in voice and vocal symptoms and signs) BEFORE, DURING and AFTER the SPS.
Despite the recognized health benefits of a physically active lifestyle, mid-life and older low-income and ethnic minority adults, including Hispanic Americans, are among the least active and understudied groups in the U.S. This research aims to develop and evaluate a bi-lingual physical activity promotion program, applying easy to use state-of-the-art computer technology, which is tailored to the preferences and needs of mid-life and older Latino adults. Such computer-based programs represent a potentially low-cost means for reaching the large proportion of low-income and ethnic minority Americans who are under-active.
Objectives: (1) To check music or voice message influence on vital signs, facial expressions or muscular tonus of coma, vegetative or sedated patients; (2) To connect the existence of patient's responsiveness with the Glasgow Coma Scale or with the Ramsay Sedation Scale; (3)To evaluate the relation between the response and the score of Glasgow Outcome Scale.
The aim of this project is to develop and validate a simple, flexible, reliable, real-time observation tool to evaluate hand-off practices. The Hand-off CEX is a paper-based instrument that can be used to evaluate either the sender or the receiver of hand-off communication. This tool is based on a previously-validated, widely-used, real-time educational evaluation tool (the Mini-CEX); published expert opinion; and our prior research . The investigators' tool incorporates unique role-based anchors for both senders and receivers that refer to verbal communication, professionalism and environment, hand-off domains informed by preliminary work and expert opinion. The Hand-off CEX(Clinical Evaluation Exercise) will be used by academic hospitalists and house-staff physicians to assess feasibility. We, the investigators, will also assess the construct validity and inter-rater reliability of the tool through the use of standardized, videotaped hand-off scenarios depicting various levels of performance of a hand-off scenario. We hypothesize that the Hand-off CEX will arm educators with an innovative, necessary, valid and feasible method for training health professionals to conduct safe and effective hand-offs. Finally, the Hand-off CEX will be a useful tool to assist hospitals in improving patient safety.