Publications by authors named "Linda Brown"

Aim: The uptake of telehealth, including for clinical trials (teletrials), accelerated during the pandemic and helps address inequity of access for underserved populations. This report discusses the work of experts in Victoria to implement teletrials in cancer clinical trials but has learnings for other jurisdictions and in other disease types.

Methods: Three funded programs in Victoria (the Regional Trials Network Victoria, Trial Hub Alfred, and the Victorian Comprehensive Cancer Centre Alliance), each tasked with improving access to clinical trials for regional patients, formed the Victorian Teletrial Collaborative.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

A nationwide cross-sectional study led by the Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry in collaboration with research and community partners, was designed to investigate health outcomes linked to per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS) exposure among residents of communities with contaminated drinking water. The objective was to describe the study design, methods, participant demographics, and PFAS serum concentrations. From 2019 to 2023, adult (18+) and child (ages 4-17) participants were recruited from communities with past or ongoing PFAS contamination of drinking water across eight sites in California, Colorado, Massachusetts, Michigan, New Hampshire, New York, New Jersey, and Pennsylvania.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Objectives: Emergency medical services (EMS) clinicians infrequently care for infants or children. Simulation allows assessment of EMS at the individual, team, and agency level. Standardized tools to evaluate EMS team performance provides educators and EMS clinicians information on the quality of clinical skills performed in pediatric prehospital scenarios, providing opportunities for reinforcement or relearning.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Background: Accurate capture and reporting of adverse events (AEs) in clinical trials is critical to understanding the potential harms of prospective interventions. Current AE-reporting frameworks are specifically constructed for pharmacological interventions and adaptation of these frameworks imparts the risk of excluding AEs unique to non-pharmacological interventions that have not yet been defined. As a result, clinical trials of non-pharmacological interventions seldom include a systematic method to capturing and reporting AEs, often using no method at all.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Medicinal cannabis clinical trials in palliative medicine present unique and complex challenges encompassing ethical, legal, and feasibility obligations, making consumer input essential. However, little is known about the consumer contribution in the medicinal cannabis research space. We present a case report on consumer contribution in the design and conduct of a Phase I/IIb medicinal cannabis clinical trial for anorexia in people with advanced cancer.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Context: Evaluating medicinal cannabis in clinical trials is important for informing its efficacy and safety in clinical care. Alongside the inherent practical challenges of conducting clinical trials in people receiving palliative care, operationalizing clinical trials with a medicinal cannabis product requires additional consideration of legal, regulatory, ethical, feasibility, pharmacological and product requirements.

Objectives: This manuscript aims to explore these considerations when operationalizing medicinal cannabis clinical trials in people receiving palliative care.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Background And Objectives: Older people with cognitive impairment are unrepresented in clinical research. Our objective was to review evidence for strategies to support their research inclusion and participation.

Research Design And Methods: Systematic review of published reports of inclusion and participation strategies for older people with cognitive impairment in clinical research (PROSPERO CRD42020212092).

View Article and Find Full Text PDF
Article Synopsis
  • Children represent a small percentage of EMS transports but often experience under-treatment of pain; this study examines factors influencing EMS clinicians' ability to provide effective prehospital pain management for pediatric patients.
  • Key enablers identified include longer transport times, the need to stabilize patients, and clinician familiarity with intranasal fentanyl, while barriers include concerns over patient stability, caregiver discomfort with pain medications, and limited pediatric experience among EMS staff.
  • Focus groups with EMS clinicians highlighted perspectives on pain management decision-making, available resources, and patient and family reactions, reaching thematic saturation in the analysis of both facilitators and obstacles in administering analgesia to children.
View Article and Find Full Text PDF
Article Synopsis
  • The study investigates the effectiveness of a mindfulness-based program called MEANING in improving the quality of life and advance care planning for advanced cancer patients and their caregivers, as many tend to avoid these discussions.
  • The trial involved 55 patient-caregiver dyads, with some participating in the mindfulness intervention and others receiving usual care, and outcomes were measured through surveys at multiple points in time.
  • Results indicated that those in the MEANING group experienced significant improvements in existential well-being and self-efficacy related to advance care planning, compared to the usual care group, although other psychological and quality of life measures did not show significant differences.
View Article and Find Full Text PDF

The COVID 19 pandemic has had a tremendous impact on nursing and health care delivery systems. Recent research demonstrates a correlation between the stress of providing complex health care and the decline of nurse well-being. Investing in the well-being of nurses can benefit the entire health care system.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Objective: To assess whether initial epinephrine administration by endotracheal tube (ET) in newly born infants receiving chest compressions and epinephrine in the delivery room (DR) is associated with lower rates of return of spontaneous circulation (ROSC) than newborns receiving initial intravenous (IV) epinephrine.

Study Design: We conducted a retrospective review of neonates receiving chest compressions and epinephrine in the DR from the AHA Get With The Guidelines-Resuscitation registry from October 2013 through July 2020. Neonates were classified according to initial route of epinephrine (ET vs IV).

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

New treatments for ovarian cancer are available that require trade-offs between progression-free survival and quality of life. The aim of this study was to develop a decision aid for patients with homologous recombinant proficient (HRP) tumors, as the benefit-harm ratio of niraparib needs consideration. This decision aid was created with a systematic and iterative development process based on the Ottawa Decision Support Framework.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Sleep disturbances, including insomnia, sleep-disordered breathing, and circadian rhythm disorders with potential consequences including excessive daytime somnolence and worsening fatigue, are prevalent yet largely under-measured and therefore under-managed problems in people receiving palliative care. This has the potential to negatively affect the person's functioning and quality of life. We aimed to review the current practice of assessment and management of sleep disturbances in people with life-limiting illnesses in Australian and New Zealand palliative care settings, and to define areas for improvement in assessment and management of sleep disturbances and further research.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

To describe the harms in all arms of six consecutive multi-site, double-blind, placebo-controlled randomised clinical trials. Controversies surround conduct of phase III clinical trials in palliative care. Concerns include risks to participants' safety, use of placebo arms, participants' burden, and justification when therapies are already widely used.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Introduction: We simulated an on-site, multi-hospital mass casualty incident (MCI) to educate emergency medicine providers in the principles of trauma resuscitation and collaboration with administration and staff during an MCI.

Methods: We implemented high-fidelity manikins, inflatable manikins, and actors to simulate a sarin gas bombing. Learners triaged patients at a decontamination tent using the simple triage and rapid treatment (START) tool, or they participated in a simulation in a resuscitation bay.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Background: Only 5-10% of emergency medical services (EMS) patients are children, and most pediatric encounters are low-acuity. EMS chart review has been used to identify adverse safety events (ASEs) in high-acuity and high-risk pediatric encounters. The objective of this work was to evaluate the frequency, type, and potential harm of ASEs in varied acuity pediatric EMS encounters.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Objectives: To describe the quality of pediatric resuscitative care in general emergency departments (GEDs) and to determine hospital-level factors associated with higher quality.

Methods: Prospective observational study of resuscitative care provided to 3 in situ simulated patients (infant seizure, infant sepsis, and child cardiac arrest) by interprofessional GED teams. A composite quality score (CQS) was measured and the association of this score with modifiable and nonmodifiable hospital-level factors was explored.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Purpose: This study asked consumers (patients, carers) and healthcare professionals (HCPs) to identify the most important symptoms for adults with cancer and potential treatment interventions.

Methods: A modified Delphi study was conducted involving two rounds of electronic surveys based on prevalent cancer symptoms identified from the literature. Round 1 gathered information on participant demographics, opinions and/or experience on cancer symptom frequency and impact, and suggestions for interventions and/or service delivery models for further research to improve management of cancer symptoms.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Background: In Oregon in 2019, only 261 students were eligible for special education under the traumatic brain injury (TBI) category. Many students with TBIs are not treated by a medical provider, so the requirement for a medical statement could prevent eligible youth from receiving special education services.

Objective: This study investigated barriers to using a medical statement to establish special education eligibility for TBI, support for using a guided credible history interview (GCHI), and training needs around GCHI.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Background: Treatment options for patients with COVID-19-related acute respiratory distress syndrome (ARDS) are desperately needed. Allogeneic human umbilical cord derived mesenchymal stromal cells (hCT-MSCs) have potential therapeutic benefits in these critically ill patients, but feasibility and safety data are lacking.

Materials And Methods: In this phase I multisite study, 10 patients with COVID-19-related ARDS were treated with 3 daily intravenous infusions of hCT-MSCs (1 million cells/kg, maximum dose 100 million cells).

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Background: Cancer cachexia (CC) is a debilitating syndrome severely impacting patients' quality of life and survivorship. We aimed to investigate the health care professionals' (HCPs') experiences of dealing with CC.

Methods: Survey questions entailed definitions and guidelines, importance of CC management, clinician confidence and involvement, screening and assessment, interventions, psychosocial and food aspects.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Introduction: Many patients experience unrelieved neuropathic cancer-related pain. Most current analgesic therapies have psychoactive side effects, lack efficacy data for this indication and have potential medication-related harms. The local anaesthetic lidocaine (lignocaine) has the potential to help manage neuropathic cancer-related pain when administered as an extended, continuous subcutaneous infusion.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Introduction: Efficiently locating critical equipment and prompt defibrillator usage are crucial steps when managing a critically ill patient or a code. However, resident experience in this area is limited. This workshop focused on the identification of critical care equipment in the pediatric code cart and transport bag along with timely, appropriate, and effective use of the defibrillator when needed.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF