National Tunisian Study of Cardiac Implantable Electronic Devices: Design and Protocol for a Nationwide Multicenter Prospective Observational Study

BACKGROUND

In Tunisia, the number of cardiac implantable electronic devices (CIEDs) is increasing, owing to the increase in patient life expectancy and expanding indications. Despite their life-saving potential and a significant reduction in population morbidity and mortality, their increased numbers have been associated with the development of multiple early and late complications related to vascular access, pockets, leads, or patient characteristics.

OBJECTIVE

The study aims to identify the rate, type, and predictors of complications occurring within the first year after CIED implantation. It also aims to describe the demographic and epidemiological characteristics of a nationwide sample of patients with CIED in Tunisia. Additionally, the study will evaluate the extent to which Tunisian electrophysiologists follow international guidelines for cardiac pacing and sudden cardiac death prevention.

METHODS

The Tunisian National Study of Cardiac Implantable Electronic Devices (NATURE-CIED) is a national, multicenter, prospectively monitored study that includes consecutive patients who underwent primary CIED implantation, generator replacement, and upgrade procedure. Patients were enrolled between January 18, 2021, and February 18, 2022, at all Tunisian public and private CIED implantation centers that agreed to participate in the study. All enrolled patients entered a 1-year follow-up period, with 4 consecutive visits at 1, 3, 6, and 12 months after CIED implantation. The collected data are recorded electronically on the clinical suite platform (DACIMA Clinical Suite).

RESULTS

The study started on January 18, 2021, and concluded on February 18, 2023. In total, 27 cardiologists actively participated in data collection. Over this period, 1500 patients were enrolled in the study consecutively. The mean age of the patients was 70.1 (SD 15.2) years, with a sex ratio of 1:15. Nine hundred (60%) patients were from the public sector, while 600 (40%) patients were from the private sector. A total of 1298 (86.3%) patients received a conventional pacemaker and 75 (5%) patients received a biventricular pacemaker (CRT-P). Implantable cardioverter defibrillators were implanted in 127 (8.5%) patients. Of these patients, 45 (3%) underwent CRT-D implantation.

CONCLUSIONS

This study will establish the most extensive contemporary longitudinal cohort of patients undergoing CIED implantation in Tunisia, presenting a significant opportunity for real-world clinical epidemiology. It will address a crucial gap in the management of patients during the perioperative phase and follow-up, enabling the identification of individuals at particularly high risk of complications for optimal care.

TRIAL REGISTRATION

ClinicalTrials.gov NCT05361759; https://classic.clinicaltrials.gov/ct2/show/NCT05361759.

INTERNATIONAL REGISTERED REPORT IDENTIFIER (IRRID)

RR1-10.2196/47525.

A qualitative study about critical appraisal of medical literature learning among medical students

INTRODUCTION

Skills in critical appraisal of medical literature are compulsory to achieve in medical practice. This step is the third step of the evidence-based medicine process whose main role is to bridge a gap between scientific evidence and practice. Acquiring skills in critical appraisal of the literature has been reported to be challenging for the trainees with different limits according to their levels, backgrounds or specialties.

AIM

To assess the limits and factors influencing the practice of appraising literature of different students from the same faculty. This faculty included training of biostatistics and preventive medicine in the curriculum during the first 2 years of medical education without linking this learning to the evidence-based medicine practice.

METHODS

The authors performed a qualitative study including volunteers who attended voluntarily the same training about critical appraisal of medical literature. The study was based on a satisfaction questionnaire fulfilled by all the participants at the end of the training and on an individual semi-structured interviews programmed 3 months after the training. The satisfaction questionnaire was rated by the authors. The authors proceeded also to a content analysis of the interviews following 3 steps: pre-analysis, treatment of the results, and interpretation.

RESULTS

All the participants (95) fulfilled the questionnaire. The satisfaction's mean score revealed a general moderate satisfaction. Eleven students agreed to be interviewed: Five students from the third year of medical education, 2 students from the second year of medical education, 2 postgraduate students and 2 family doctors. The main themes discussed by the interviewees consisted of training organization, the assessment, the impact on research and the impact on the care process.

CONCLUSION

To promote EBM learning, medical students first need to actively participate to interactive learning, introduced early and gradually into the curriculum and integrating all specialties including postgraduate students.

Enhancing scholarly discourse in the age of artificial intelligence: A guided approach to effective peer review process

The integrity of the peer-review process (PRP) is paramount in academic publishing and serves as a critical filter for scholarly output. This mini-review centers on the introduction of comprehensive guidelines, presented in tables format, aimed at streamlining the interactions between authors and reviewers during the PRP. These guidelines, derived from an in-depth exploration of the PRP, offer structured and practical advice to ensure constructive, transparent, and effective communication, especially related to the use of artificial intelligence. While this mini-review discusses the strengths and challenges of the current PRP, its primary focus is on providing tangible recommendations to enhance the quality and efficiency of the PRP. By providing explicit guidelines and emphasizing the cooperative essence of peer review, this mini-review aims to improve the PRP, ensuring that it remains a robust mechanism for upholding the highest standards of research and knowledge dissemination in an evolving academic setting.

Is critical thinking potential correlated to critical appraisal skills of medical literature?

INTRODUCTION

Critical appraisal of medical literature is a mandatory skill to practice evidence-based medicine. The relation between the critical appraisal skills and the critical thinking potential has been rarely assessed in the literature.

AIM

To assess the relation of critical thinking potential to critical appraisal of medical literature competencies. Besides, they tried to highlight the variation of the critical thinking potential according to the students' level.

METHODS

The authors conducted a mixed study associating a quantitative and a qualitative approach. The study included second year (SYME), third year (TYME) and postgraduate medical students (CME) and family doctors (FD) from the same faculty of medicine. All the students received the same active training focused on critical appraisal of medical literature. They were asked to fulfil a pre-requisite test and a self-assessment questionnaire before the training session and a final test after the training. The self-assessment questionnaire was conceived by an expert committee and assessed the main characteristics of critical thinking consisting of sensitivity to context, self-correction and search for criteria. Three months after the training, the students were interviewed using a semi-structured interview. The SPSS software 16.0 was used.

RESULTS

In our study, 58.9% of the students presented a high critical thinking potential profile. Their scores varied according to their levels with better scores in SYME and FD and intermediate scores in TYME and CME. The pre-requisite test scores varied according to the critical thinking profile and the level. On the other hand, final test scores didn't differ according to the critical thinking profile or the level.

CONCLUSION

Our results put emphasis on the variation of the critical thinking potential according to the students' levels. The better results of the SYME students in comparison to those in the TYME put emphasis on the necessity of changing curriculum in order to enhance the sensitivity and the inclination of the students.

The Design and Validation of a Self-Assessment Questionnaire of Critical Appraisal of Medical Literature Skills in Medical Students

INTRODUCTION

Critical appraisal of medical literature is a challenging step of the evidence-based medicine practice. Many assessment questionnaires have been published in the literature, but they have mainly focused on all the evidence-based medicine practice process. The authors aimed to develop and validate a questionnaire assessing the critical appraisal skills of medical students from the same Faculty.

METHODS

The questionnaire was developed by item generation through a review of the literature and an expert committee. The questionnaire was validated in terms of content validity and construct validity. Fitness of data for analysis was checked through Kaiser-Meyer-Olkin (KMO) and Bartlett's sphericity. Construct validity was carried out using a principal axis exploratory factor analysis (EFA) with 'varimax' rotation to study the internal structure of the questionnaire and to extract the test major factors. The questionnaire was administrated to a cohort of under and postgraduate medical students (n=84) to evaluate the test reliability and select the best items. The reliability of the questionnaire was assessed by Cronbach's alpha coefficient to evaluate the internal consistency. The correlations between the self-confidence and satisfaction dimension score, the critical thinking dimension score, the learning style dimension score, the Fresno-adapted test scores and the total score were assessed using the Spearman's correlation test.

RESULTS

The questionnaire consisted of 31 items. A factorial analysis grouped the items into 3 dimensions that consisted of the self-confidence and satisfaction dimension, the critical thinking dimension and the learning style dimension. Cronbach's alpha accounted for 0.95, CI95% [0.9-1] for the entire questionnaire. The factor analysis explained 79.51% of the variance. The external validity assessment based on a Spearman's correlation study highlighted a weak correlation between the total scores and the critical thinking dimension and the self-perception and satisfaction dimension.

CONCLUSION

In spite of the limitations of this study, mainly the small number of the students recruited, the questionnaire seems to measure with adequate reliability the competences of under and postgraduate medical students.

COP27 Climate Change Conference: urgent action needed for Africa and the world

COP27 Climate Change Conference: urgent action needed for Africa and the world

Prognostic value of ambulatory blood pressure monitoring in treated hypertensive patients

INTRODUCTION

Ambulatory blood pressure monitoring (AMBP) has become a valuable tool for analyzing patient blood pressure (BP) pro-file to make a more accurate prognosis compared to clinical office BP.

AIM

To identify the prognostic value of different parameters of ABPM and the future course of cardiovascular events (CVE) in treated hypertensive patients.

METHODS

We conducted a prospective, descriptive study, including treated hypertensive patients which had consulted between 2015 and 2016 and had a systematic ABPM during their follow-up. Patients were followed at the outpatient clinics for 4 years, and we searched in the computerized medical file the occurrence of CVE.

RESULTS

A total of 240 patients were included in our study with masculine predominance (57%). The mean age was 57.4±9.5 years. During 4 years of follow-up, 30 patients (12.5%) experienced a CVE. The total number of CVE was 32: acute heart failure (3), acute co-ronary syndrome (15), atrial fibrillation (12), stroke (2). Daytime systolic blood pressure (SBP), night-time SBP, 24-h SBP and 24-h pulse pressure (PP), had similar performances to predict CVE. Only the 24-h PP (OR= 1.072; 95% IC: 1.019-1.128; p= 0.007) was found to be an independent predictor of CVE. A 24-h PP> 55 mmHg increased the risk of CVE by 3.2.

CONCLUSION

SBP and PP were associated with CVE in treated hypertensive patients. the 24-h PP was found to be an independent pre-dictor of CVE so it may serve as a therapeutic target in hypertension therapy.

COP27 Climate Change Conference: Urgent action needed for Africa and the world

The 2022 report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) paints a dark picture of the future of life on earth, characterised by ecosystem collapse, species extinction, and climate hazards such as heatwaves and floods [1]. These are all linked to physical and mental health problems, with direct and indirect consequences of increased morbidity and mortality. To avoid these catastrophic health effects across all regions of the globe, there is broad agreement - as 231 health journals argued together in 2021 - that the rise in global temperature must be limited to less than 1.5oC compared with pre-industrial levels.

COP27 Climate Change Conference: urgent action needed for Africa and the world

No abstract.

COP27 Climate Change Conference: urgent action needed for Africa and the world

The 2022 report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) paints a dark picture of the future of life on earth, characterised by ecosystem collapse, species extinction, and climate hazards such as heatwaves and floods. These are all linked to physical and mental health problems, with direct and indirect consequences of increased morbidity and mortality. To avoid these catastrophic health effects across all regions of the globe, there is broad agreement as 231 health journals argued together in 2021 that the rise in global temperature must be limited to less than 1.5oC compared with pre-industrial levels.