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Bilingual education currently faces the challenge of improving teacher training to meet the linguistic and didactic demands of a content and language integrated approach. Our paper analyses what Spanish in-service primary school teachers consider the key training priorities for their involvement in bilingual programmes. Using content data analysis, we have detected the most frequently used terms in the teachers' answers to an open-ended question. 2,830 words were examined, and the net of relations among the training priorities emerging from their discourse was established. Our results confirm that teachers prioritise the need to be proficient in English over methodological issues, which prevail once language proficiency has been achieved. They highlight investment as being crucial both to implement school bilingual programmes and to provide training opportunities for their professional development. Our study concludes that only concerted personal and administrative efforts will bridge the gap between global educational agendas and classroom performance.

A pre-placement questionnaire was completed by a cohort of 30 students participating in the Erasmus exchange programmes from the University of Salamanca, placed in British universities, and by a group of 25 Nottingham Trent University students hosted by diverse Spanish universities. The questionnaire was then analysed with the aim of providing a profile of their intercultural communicative competence (ICC), based on data about their self-perceived motivation and their intercultural awareness, knowledge, attitudes and skills, prior to their stay abroad. Despite the fact that their previous experience abroad, level of language proficiency and home university requirements for the placement differed, both groups shared a positive attitude towards the host country, considered themselves ready to adapt to new cultural environments, regarded misperceptions and solving conflicts as their greater challenge and expressed a willingness to grow personally and professionally. These data will inform a larger research project seeking to identify the factors that promote the acquisition of intercultural competences, as a basis for universities to equip students with tools aimed at overcoming obstacles that may pose an educational challenge for them and hinder the development of their ICC while on placement abroad.

Bilingual education currently faces the challenge of improving teacher training to meet the linguistic and didactic demands of a content and language integrated approach. Our paper analyses what Spanish in-service primary school teachers consider the key training priorities for their involvement in bilingual programmes. Using content data analysis, we have detected the most frequently used terms in the teachers' answers to an open-ended question. 2,830 words were examined, and the net of relations among the training priorities emerging from their discourse was established. Our results confirm that teachers prioritise the need to be proficient in English over methodological issues, which prevail once language proficiency has been achieved. They highlight investment as being crucial both to implement school bilingual programmes and to provide training opportunities for their professional development. Our study concludes that only concerted personal and administrative efforts will bridge the gap between global educational agendas and classroom performance. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A pre-placement questionnaire was completed by a cohort of 30 students participating in the Erasmus exchange programmes from the University of Salamanca, placed in British universities, and by a group of 25 Nottingham Trent University students hosted by diverse Spanish universities. The questionnaire was then analysed with the aim of providing a profile of their intercultural communicative competence (ICC), based on data about their self-perceived motivation and their intercultural awareness, knowledge, attitudes and skills, prior to their stay abroad. Despite the fact that their previous experience abroad, level of language proficiency and home university requirements for the placement differed, both groups shared a positive attitude towards the host country, considered themselves ready to adapt to new cultural environments, regarded misperceptions and solving conflicts as their greater challenge and expressed a willingness to grow personally and professionally. These data will inform a larger research project seeking to identify the factors that promote the acquisition of intercultural competences, as a basis for universities to equip students with tools aimed at overcoming obstacles that may pose an educational challenge for them and hinder the development of their ICC while on placement abroad. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Introduction: home enteral nutrition (HEN) has undergone an important development; however, there is a notable lack of information with regard to its incidence and characteristics., Objectives: our aim was to assess the state of HEN in our area., Methods: an observational, prospective study, involving all patients who had initiated HEN in the Nutrition Unit during a year. Epidemiological, functional, and nutritional evolution of the patients was described and incidence of HEN was calculated., Results: HEN incidences totalled 229/100,000 inhabitants/year. The HEN population in our area was characterized by the aged and a high frequency of comorbidity and functional limitations. Neurological and oncological diseases accounted for 50% of indications. The remaining cases were malnourished patients who had received short periods of HEN after hospitalization or a hip fracture. Oral supplements (60%) with standard and hypercaloric formulas were used the most. At baseline, 75% of the patients suffered from malnutrition. During the follow-up, patients showed weight gain (1.6%), an increase in the percentage of normal weight and overweight (from 74% to 82.7%, p = 0.001) and a reduction in pressure ulcers (15.7% vs10.3%, p < 0.001). The median duration of HEN was 8.5 months. Only a quarter of the patients experienced complications (mostly mild gastrointestinal complications); 43.1% had died at the end of the follow-up., Conclusions: in our area, the HEN incidence was much higher than those described in the literature. HEN appears to be a safe therapy with few complications that improves the nutritional status of the patients, even with short periods of administration.

Introduction: home artificial nutrition (HAN) is a growing therapy, but the absence of obligatory registries complicates the calculation of its real economic burden. The aim of this study was to assess the state and economic impact of HAN in our health area., Methods: an observational, prospective study was designed to calculate the cost of nutritional formulas and materials in patients who initiated HAN in the nutrition unit during a year., Results: we included 573 new patients with HAN during the study period, 60% of whom were treated with oral supplements. The median daily cost of oral HAN was 3.65 (IQR 18.63) euros compared to a cost of 8.86 (IQR 20.02) euros for enteral-access HAN. The daily expenditure per 1 000 kcal of diet was higher for patients on oral HAN than for patients with tubes (5.13 vs. 4.52 euros, p < 0.001). The median cost of the complete HAN treatments during the study period was also calculated (186.60 euros and 531.99 euros for oral and tube HAN, respectively). The total estimated cost for all patients who initiated HAN in the study period was around one million euros., Conclusions: HAN represented an important economic burden in our health area, but the estimated daily cost of HAN was moderate, probably because of the high frequency of oral HAN, the adjusted treatments, and the centralized dispensation by the hospital pharmacy., (Copyright AULA MEDICA EDICIONES 2014. Published by AULA MEDICA. All rights reserved.)