Hind M

The incidence and severity of postoperative nausea and vomiting in patients exposed to positive intra-operative suggestions.

In a double‐blind study, the effects of positive intra‐operative suggestions on the incidence and severity of postoperative nausea and vomiting were studied in 60 patients randomly selected to undergo routine major gynaecological surgery. Patients who received positive suggestions suffered significantly less nausea and vomiting in the 24 h after surgery.

The conceptual and practical ethical dilemmas of using health discussion board posts as research data.

Background Increasing numbers of people living with a long-term health condition are putting personal health information online, including on discussion boards. Many discussion boards contain material of potential use to researchers; however, it is unclear how this information can and should be used by researchers. To date there has been no evaluation of the views of those individuals sharing health information online regarding the use of their shared information for research purposes. Objective To explore the views of contributors to online diabetes discussion boards with regards to if (and how) they feel their contributions to boards should be used by health researchers. Methods A qualitative approach was employed using online semistructured asynchronous (email) interviews. Interpretative description methodology was used to assess the interview transcripts, and quotations were extracted and anonymized to support each theme. Results 26 interviews were carried out. Participants agreed that forum posts are in the public domain and that aggregated information could be freely used by researchers. This was agreed to be a good way of ensuring that the view of people living with diabetes is being heard in research. There was no consensus on the need for permission to use individual information, such as quotations, with some people happy for this to be freely used and others feeling that permission is necessary. Conclusions Participants acknowledged the dichotomy of having placed information into the public domain in an unrestricted way, with some interviewees also wanting to retain control of its use. The Internet is a new research location, and rather than trying to apply traditional ethical norms to this new genre, a new modus operandi is required. The authors propose introducing new norms for presenting research carried out with online discussion boards.

Interprofessional working and learning in a UK operating department.

Developing a seamless team of operating department staff is an ideal to which most departments aspire. Matching skills and knowledge, however, does not necessarily create an efficient or cohesive team who work happily together. Speculation about what makes for successful interprofessional working and learning will not provide answers. In this research study, Martin Hind and his colleagues explore some of the issues and offer some suggestions for a better integrated workforce, working and learning together.

Implications for research methods when conducting studies with the users of online health communities.

Online communities are present for almost every health condition, with these online spaces allowing people to connect with each other. Increasingly, health researchers are exploring these communities in order to study the rich information contained on these Web sites and to observe how people are using these communities. This article was created as a consequence of the research team’s experiences with conducting e-mail interviews with users of online diabetes communities. A fuller report of the research and findings is available, while this article explores the challenges and successes that we experienced as researchers.

Healthcare support workers and the scrubbed role.

The scrub role during surgery is clearly important and is currently dominated by nurses and operating department practitioners (ODPs). Recently, there has been discussion about whether this role could be undertaken by healthcare support workers (HCSWs). This article by Martin Hind reports on a survey of operating theatre nurses, where little support was found for allowing HCSWs to develop into a scrubbed role. The professional and legal issues to role boundaries are also discussed and the article illustrates that, despite the lack of nursing support for such a development, the issue is far from resolved. Recommendations are made for further discussion and deliberation as well as a review of all roles within the operating department.

Influence of faith-based organisations on HIV prevention strategies in Africa: a systematic review

Background The HIV/AIDS epidemic remains of global significance and there is a need to target sub-Saharan Africa since it is the hardest hit region worldwide. Religion and more specifically faith-based organisations can have an effect on socio-cultural factors that increase or decrease the risk of infection; and offer preventative interventions to the wider community. Objective To understand the influence of faith-based organisations on HIV prevention in Africa. Method The main search engine of a British university ‘mysearch’ was used as this incorporates all relevant databases. Studies were also retrieved by searches within Google scholar, PubMed and reference lists of included papers were hand searched. The authors assessed the relevance of each article separately against the inclusion criteria. The data extraction form was piloted by the first author and cross-checked by the other authors. Results Seven studies met all inclusion criteria and were reviewed. Seven individual themes were identified. However, for the purposes of focus within this paper only two themes were focused on. Conclusion Given the accessibility of faith-based organisations (FBOs) and the coverage of religion among the population, FBOs are potentially important players in HIV prevention. Therefore, more resources and support should be given to support their health promotion strategies.