Publicaties

The diversity of the palliative care patient population and the gradual transition from curative to palliative care in the current palliative care model both hamper the formulation of a clear and unambiguous definition of a palliative care patient...

Background Care pathways are widely used in hospitals to improve quality. There is a growing interest in extending care pathways into primary care. Little evidence exists on the relationship between care pathways across the primary-hospital care c...

Context: Geneesmiddelen voor acute pijnbestrijding bevatten, naast analgetica als paracetamol of aspirine, vaak cafeïne. Men veronderstelt dat hierdoor het pijnstillend effect toeneemt. Cafeïne is een methylxanthine, stimuleert het centraal ze- ...

INTRODUCTION: Even though fever is a common symptom in childhood, it often worries parents and they may try to reduce discomfort by giving the child paracetamol, which is currently the most commonly sold over-the-counter medicine. The objective of...

An electronic decision support system (the EBMeDS system) was integrated in one of the Electronic Medical Records (EMR) of Belgian family physicians (Feb 2010). User acceptance of the system is considered as a necessary condition for the effective...

OBJECTIVE: Many older patients in general practice have subjective memory complaints (SMC); however, not all share this information with their general practitioner (GP). The association between SMC and future cognitive decline or dementia is not c...

Low birth weight and accelerated infant growth are associated with cardiovascular disease in adulthood. Endothelial dysfunction is regarded as a precursor of atherosclerosis and is also related to infant growth. We aimed to examine whether an asso...

The hypothesis that natriuretic peptides could be used to identify 'pancardiac' damage has been proposed. However, multiple factors are known to influence circulating levels of natriuretic peptides, especially in the very old. Therefore, the impac...

There is an urgent need for potent drugs for the treatment and/or prophylaxis of infections with flaviviruses (such as the dengue fever virus and the yellow fever virus) and alphaviruses (in particular the chikungunya virus). The aim of this thesi...

BACKGROUND: According to recent recommendations, health care professionals in palliative care should be able to perform a spiritual history-taking. Previous findings suggest that the FICA tool is feasible for the clinical assessment of spiritualit...

Introduction: Mostly, it is impossible to establish the type of arrhythmias, based on signs and symptoms only. An ECG device is not always within reach. We presumed the heartscan, a handheld wireless device, to be of value to a GP in emergency sit...

OBJECTIVE: To investigate the basis and added value of clinicians' "gut feeling" that infections in children are more serious than suggested by clinical assessment. DESIGN: Observational study. SETTING: Primary care setting, Flanders, Belgium. PAR...

BACKGROUND: Beside traditional outcomes of safety and (cost-)effectiveness, the Institute of Medicine states patient-centeredness as an independent outcome indicator to evaluate the quality of healthcare. Providing patient-centered care is importa...

Purpose To learn what the the critical factors are for a successful and adequate team concertation (TC) in complex home care patients. Methods After a systematic literature search the procedures for team concertations of the local health organi...

Rationale: Reviews of interventions to improve communication skills of health care workers have been showing that most studies in this field of research are lacking the presentation of a clear theoretical framework to link the content and method...

PURPOSE: In light of the emerging problem with multiresistant microorganisms in nursing homes (NHs), the European Surveillance of Antimicrobial Consumption NH subproject was set up to measure and describe antimicrobial use across Europe. The aim o...

OBJECTIVE: Multimorbidity is known for its negative effects on health related functioning. It remains unclear if these effects are stable over time. The aim was to investigate if the relation between single morbidity/multimorbidity and health rela...