A major challenge for nurses in hospital care is supporting chronically ill patients in selfmanaging their chronic condition. Self-management support requires a broad range of competencies and is often regarded as difficult to implement in daily practice. So far, we have no insight in nurses’ behavior in …

Background: There is an increasing number of patients with a chronic illness demanding primary care services. This demands for effective self-management support, including collaborative goal setting. Despite the fact that primary care professionals seem to have difficulties implementing goal setting, …

Objective To develop, implement and evaluate a personalized patient discharge letter (PPDL) to improve the quality of handoff communication from hospital to home. Design From the end of 2006–09 we conducted a quality improvement project; consisting of a before–after evaluation design, and a process evaluation. …

Background: The number of people with multiple chronic conditions demanding primary care services is increasing. To deal with the complex health care demands of these people, professionals from different disciplines collaborate. This study aims to explore influential factors regarding interprofessional …

Purpose: To evaluate the long-term effects of a multidisciplinary transition intervention compared to the impact of patient-related intrinsic factors on the improvement in medical and psychosocial outcome.

Introduction. Despite the high number of inactive patients with COPD, not all inactive patients are referred to physical therapy, unlike recommendations of general practitioner (GP) guidelines. It is likely that GPs take other factors into account, determining a subpopulation that is treated by a physical …

Introduction: Major Adverse Events (MAE) following Cervical Spinal Manipulations (CSM) have been described anecdotally and are frequently discussed. Until now, exact incidence rates are unknown. Furthermore, there are doubts concerning the factors which may play a role in the occurrence of MAE. Objectives: …

BACKGROUND: Over 30 % of older patients experience hospitalization-associated disability (HAD) (i.e., loss of independence in Activities of Daily Living (ADLs)) after an acute hospitalization. Despite its high prevalence, the mechanisms that underlie HAD remain elusive. This paper describes the protocol …

Background: In patients with burns, an early accurate diagnosis of burn depth facilitates optimal treatment. Laser Doppler imaging combined with clinical assessment leads to an accurate estimate of burn depth. However, the actual effects of the introduction of laser Doppler imaging on therapeutic decisions, …

Major resections for esophageal, gastric, hepatic, pancreatic, and colorectal cancer continue to be associated with a high peri-operative morbidity of up to 30%–40%. To a large extent, this morbidity is caused by infectious complications that add up to a considerable burden to patients and hospital costs. …