Background: COVID-19 infection prevention measures can negatively impact nursing home resi-dents' well-being. Society has been concerned about the imbalance between infection prevention and... Show moreBackground: COVID-19 infection prevention measures can negatively impact nursing home resi-dents' well-being. Society has been concerned about the imbalance between infection prevention and residents' well-being, and about nursing home residents' autonomy in COVID-19 policymaking.Objective: This study explores consensus among nursing home staff about which measures they found to be most important in contributing to preventing infections and to maintaining well-being of residents during COVID-19 outbreaks. In addition, this study explores the decision-making processes regarding COVID-19 measures and the involvement of residents or their representatives.Design: Mixed methods based on an online nominal group technique. Setting(s): Dutch nursing homes, June-November 2020.Participants: Managers, policy advisors, elderly care physicians, psychologists, a spiritual coun-selor, nurses, care assistants, and resident representatives (N = 35).Methods: Four panels from the viewpoint of infection prevention, and four panels from the viewpoint of well-being were performed with 3 to 7 participants per panel. Participants indi-vidually selected the measure they found most important, discussed these measures together in an online conversation, and rated the importance and urgency of these measures during COVID-19 outbreaks on a 5-point Likert scale. The measures that were rated as (very) important and (very) urgent by all members of that panel were defined as 'prioritized in consensus'. Panels also dis-cussed the decision-making process regarding COVID-19 measures and the involvement of resi-dents or their representatives. These conversations were transcribed verbatim and thematically coded using an inductive approach.Results: The infection prevention panels prioritized isolation measures; testing measures; testing and isolation combinations; use of personal protective equipment around (suspected) infected Show less
Suboptimal diet is a major modifiable risk factor in cardiovascular disease. Governments, individuals, educational institutes, healthcare facilities and the industry all share the responsibility to... Show moreSuboptimal diet is a major modifiable risk factor in cardiovascular disease. Governments, individuals, educational institutes, healthcare facilities and the industry all share the responsibility to improve dietary habits. Healthcare facilities in particular present a unique opportunity to convey the importance of healthy nutrition to patients, visitors and staff. Guidelines on cardiovascular disease do include policy suggestions for population-based approaches to diet in a broad list of settings. Regrettably, healthcare facilities are not explicitly included in this list. The authors propose to explicitly include healthcare facilities as a setting for policy suggestions in the current and future ESC Guidelines for cardiovascular disease prevention in clinical practice. (c) 2022 The Author(s). Published by Elsevier Ltd. This is an open access article under the CC BY license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/). Show less
Research on media and politics often conveys an impression that all politics is mediatized. The concept ‘politics’ however delineates many things and not all types of political processes have... Show moreResearch on media and politics often conveys an impression that all politics is mediatized. The concept ‘politics’ however delineates many things and not all types of political processes have been studied to the same extent. The aim of this study is to explore the media’s role in lawmaking. A preliminary investigation suggests that media attention affects the behavior of political actors during legislative processes. To study how that dynamic works three in-depth case studies are conducted in the Netherlands. The comparative analysis of the cases shows that media coverage played a role in the legislative processes, but that it had limited, if any, influence on the final outcomes. Political actors referred to media coverage or asked questions inspired by media attention during the process, and in very exceptional cases introduced an amendment or motion partly because of media reports. The effect of media attention on support for amendments, motions and bills was however negligible. The media’s influence on lawmaking seems to mainly be an emphasizing effect: as a source of information media coverage puts emphasis on issues, arguments or actors, and as a rhetorical instrument it is used by MPs to emphasize the correctness, topicality, or importance of one’s position. Show less
