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The insights of people who have experienced mental health issues are at the core of recovery frameworks. The inclusion of peer support workers in clinical care teams is crucial to a recovery-supportive focus. Peer support workers facilitate egalitarian spaces for non-peer staff and consumers to frankly discuss the lived experience of mental illness. This study was part of a larger evaluation study which aimed to explore the implementation of a newly formed community-based mental health team in South-East Queensland, Australia. The paper reports the role of peer support workers and answers two research questions: "How is peer support work constructed in an interprofessional clinical care team?" and (2) "How do interprofessional mental health clinical care teams respond to the inclusion of peer support workers as team members?" Three themes were identified: peer support worker' ability to navigate a legitimate place within care teams, their value to the team once they established legitimacy and their ability to traverse the care landscape. Ultimately, successful integration in interprofessional teams was dependent upon the ability of clinical staff to focus on unique strengths that peer support workers bring, in addition to lived experience with mental illness as a carer or consumer. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background Understanding patients' experiences and preferences for health care is important with respect to informing how to provide best-practice, patient-centred care. The present study aimed to explore the perceptions of patients who have been recently diagnosed with type 2 diabetes regarding nutrition care received from dietitians. Methods Ten individuals recently diagnosed with type 2 diabetes participated in three individual semi-structured qualitative telephone interviews: at baseline, then at 3 and 6 months after recruitment. Data were analysed using content analysis at each time point and meta-synthesis of findings over time. Results Participants' initial interactions with dietitians were challenging and overwhelming as a result of the instructional nature of consultations. Many participants questioned the use of dietary guidelines to inform nutrition care because this was not adapted to the individual. Some participants valued receiving education on topics such as label reading and serving sizes; however, others considered that the nutrition care was rushed and overly directive. Very few participants perceived that an ongoing relationship with a dietitian would be useful, and limited interaction was planned beyond 6 months after diagnosis. Conclusions These findings suggest that there is considerable opportunity for dietitians to enhance the nutrition care provided to patients with type 2 diabetes. Tailoring of dietary guidelines to individuals, utilising supportive counselling styles, and focusing on open communication in consultations that facilitate ongoing, useful care for patients, may help patients with type 2 diabetes achieve and maintain healthy dietary behaviours. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Aim: This descriptive article considers aspects of healthcare complexity and clinical education through the World Health Organisation's International Classification of Functioning, Disability and Health (ICF). The relevance of the ICF for informing healthcare for people with complex health needs is considered and implications for clinical education are suggested. Methods The `core sets' of 22 complex health conditions were extracted from the official ICF internet research database. These core sets, which have been developed with almost 6000 patients and experts globally, define the key dimensions and implications of these complex health conditions using standardised descriptors. Relevant descriptors were summarised as tallies of all categories across the 22 core sets. Results: The categorised tallies indicated that across 22 complex conditions, the ICF domains of `activities and participation', `environment' and `body function' were used more frequently in core set inventories documenting complex conditions than descriptors from the `body structures' domain. That is, personal, social and environmental dimensions were highlighted more frequently than medical aspects of complex conditions. Conclusion: `The ICF `core sets' for complex health conditions provide a useful, research-based perspective on healthcare complexity. The current study suggests that clinical education for complexity should likewise be broad in scope and include the multiple personal, social and environmental dimensions of complexity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The use of controlled-clearance piston gauges as highly accurate primary pressure standards is well established. However, the operation of a controlled-clearance gauge is more complicated than that of the familiar simple or reentrant designs. An investigation has been performed on a modified design of a piston gauge for which the same piston/cylinder can be operated in either the controlled-clearance, simple, or reentrant modes, to determine the degree of degradation in accuracy of measured pressure using the gauge in either the simple or reentrant modes as a standard. How the particular characterization of the standard gauge affects the calibration parameters of a test gauge is also explored. The effective areas of the test gauge are within 4.5 parts per million (ppm) when the standard is used in the simple mode instead of the controlledclearance mode, up to a pressure of 28 MPa, whereas in the case of the reentrant mode this deviation increases from 2.5 ppm at 7 MPa to 14 ppm at 26 MPa. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]