A rapid assessment randomized-controlled trial of improved cook stoves in rural Ghana

2013 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jason Burwin ◽  
David I. Levine
2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sarah Neil-Sztramko ◽  
Jenna Smith-Turchyn ◽  
Julie Richardson ◽  
Maureen Dobbins

BACKGROUND The McMaster Optimal Aging Portal (the Portal) was launched in 2014 as a knowledge translation (KT) tool to increase access to evidence-based health information. OBJECTIVE The purpose of this study was to understand if and how dissemination of mobility information through the Portal impacts physical activity (PA) in older adults. METHODS In this randomized controlled trial, participants (n=510) were assigned to a 12-week mobility-focused KT intervention or self-serve control group. The intervention included weekly email alerts and a study-specific social media hashtag linking to mobility-focused Portal materials. The control group was able to access the Portal on their own but did not receive targeted KT strategies. Participants completed questionnaires (including the Rapid Assessment of Physical Activity to quantify PA) at baseline, end of the study, and 3-month follow-up. RESULTS Participants were predominantly female (430/510, 84.3%), mean age 64.7 years, with no baseline differences between groups. Over half (277/510, 54.3%) of the participants were classified as “active” at baseline. There was no significant between-group difference in the PA category. Overall, both groups increased their PA with improvements maintained at 3-month follow-up (<i>P</i>&lt;.001). In planned subgroup analyses, the KT intervention had a significant effect for those with poor or fair baseline self-rated health (<i>P</i>=.03). CONCLUSIONS No differences were found between those who received the targeted intervention and a control group with self-serve access to the Portal, except in subgroups with low self-rated health. Both groups did report increases in PA that were sustained beyond participation in a research study. Findings suggest that different KT strategies may be needed for different types of users, with more intense interventions being most impactful for certain groups (ie, those with lower self-rated health). CLINICALTRIAL ClinicalTrials.gov NCT02947230; https://clinicaltrials.gov/ct2/show/NCT02947230


10.2196/15125 ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 22 (2) ◽  
pp. e15125
Author(s):  
Sarah Neil-Sztramko ◽  
Jenna Smith-Turchyn ◽  
Julie Richardson ◽  
Maureen Dobbins

Background The McMaster Optimal Aging Portal (the Portal) was launched in 2014 as a knowledge translation (KT) tool to increase access to evidence-based health information. Objective The purpose of this study was to understand if and how dissemination of mobility information through the Portal impacts physical activity (PA) in older adults. Methods In this randomized controlled trial, participants (n=510) were assigned to a 12-week mobility-focused KT intervention or self-serve control group. The intervention included weekly email alerts and a study-specific social media hashtag linking to mobility-focused Portal materials. The control group was able to access the Portal on their own but did not receive targeted KT strategies. Participants completed questionnaires (including the Rapid Assessment of Physical Activity to quantify PA) at baseline, end of the study, and 3-month follow-up. Results Participants were predominantly female (430/510, 84.3%), mean age 64.7 years, with no baseline differences between groups. Over half (277/510, 54.3%) of the participants were classified as “active” at baseline. There was no significant between-group difference in the PA category. Overall, both groups increased their PA with improvements maintained at 3-month follow-up (P<.001). In planned subgroup analyses, the KT intervention had a significant effect for those with poor or fair baseline self-rated health (P=.03). Conclusions No differences were found between those who received the targeted intervention and a control group with self-serve access to the Portal, except in subgroups with low self-rated health. Both groups did report increases in PA that were sustained beyond participation in a research study. Findings suggest that different KT strategies may be needed for different types of users, with more intense interventions being most impactful for certain groups (ie, those with lower self-rated health). Trial Registration ClinicalTrials.gov NCT02947230; https://clinicaltrials.gov/ct2/show/NCT02947230


2020 ◽  
Vol 29 (1S) ◽  
pp. 412-424
Author(s):  
Elissa L. Conlon ◽  
Emily J. Braun ◽  
Edna M. Babbitt ◽  
Leora R. Cherney

Purpose This study reports on the treatment fidelity procedures implemented during a 5-year randomized controlled trial comparing intensive and distributed comprehensive aphasia therapy. Specifically, the results of 1 treatment, verb network strengthening treatment (VNeST), are examined. Method Eight participants were recruited for each of 7 consecutive cohorts for a total of 56 participants. Participants completed 60 hr of aphasia therapy, including 15 hr of VNeST. Two experienced speech-language pathologists delivered the treatment. To promote treatment fidelity, the study team developed a detailed manual of procedures and fidelity checklists, completed role plays to standardize treatment administration, and video-recorded all treatment sessions for review. To assess protocol adherence during treatment delivery, trained research assistants not involved in the treatment reviewed video recordings of a subset of randomly selected VNeST treatment sessions and completed the fidelity checklists. This process was completed for 32 participants representing 2 early cohorts and 2 later cohorts, which allowed for measurement of protocol adherence over time. Percent accuracy of protocol adherence was calculated across clinicians, cohorts, and study condition (intensive vs. distributed therapy). Results The fidelity procedures were sufficient to promote and verify a high level of adherence to the treatment protocol across clinicians, cohorts, and study condition. Conclusion Treatment fidelity strategies and monitoring are feasible when incorporated into the study design. Treatment fidelity monitoring should be completed at regular intervals during the course of a study to ensure that high levels of protocol adherence are maintained over time and across conditions.


2019 ◽  
Vol 62 (12) ◽  
pp. 4464-4482 ◽  
Author(s):  
Diane L. Kendall ◽  
Megan Oelke Moldestad ◽  
Wesley Allen ◽  
Janaki Torrence ◽  
Stephen E. Nadeau

Purpose The ultimate goal of anomia treatment should be to achieve gains in exemplars trained in the therapy session, as well as generalization to untrained exemplars and contexts. The purpose of this study was to test the efficacy of phonomotor treatment, a treatment focusing on enhancement of phonological sequence knowledge, against semantic feature analysis (SFA), a lexical-semantic therapy that focuses on enhancement of semantic knowledge and is well known and commonly used to treat anomia in aphasia. Method In a between-groups randomized controlled trial, 58 persons with aphasia characterized by anomia and phonological dysfunction were randomized to receive 56–60 hr of intensively delivered treatment over 6 weeks with testing pretreatment, posttreatment, and 3 months posttreatment termination. Results There was no significant between-groups difference on the primary outcome measure (untrained nouns phonologically and semantically unrelated to each treatment) at 3 months posttreatment. Significant within-group immediately posttreatment acquisition effects for confrontation naming and response latency were observed for both groups. Treatment-specific generalization effects for confrontation naming were observed for both groups immediately and 3 months posttreatment; a significant decrease in response latency was observed at both time points for the SFA group only. Finally, significant within-group differences on the Comprehensive Aphasia Test–Disability Questionnaire ( Swinburn, Porter, & Howard, 2004 ) were observed both immediately and 3 months posttreatment for the SFA group, and significant within-group differences on the Functional Outcome Questionnaire ( Glueckauf et al., 2003 ) were found for both treatment groups 3 months posttreatment. Discussion Our results are consistent with those of prior studies that have shown that SFA treatment and phonomotor treatment generalize to untrained words that share features (semantic or phonological sequence, respectively) with the training set. However, they show that there is no significant generalization to untrained words that do not share semantic features or phonological sequence features.


2001 ◽  
Vol 26 (1) ◽  
pp. 67-71 ◽  
Author(s):  
S. A. Ahmadi-Abhari ◽  
S. Akhondzadeh ◽  
S. M. Assadi ◽  
O. L. Shabestari ◽  
Z. M. Farzanehgan ◽  
...  

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