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Currently, the utilization patterns of medications for heart failure (HF) after worsening HF events remain unelucidated in Japan. Here, we conducted a retrospective cohort study evaluating the changes in HF drug utilization patterns in 6 months before and after hospitalizations for HF. The adherence to newly initiated HF medications was evaluated based on the proportion of days covered (PDC) and persistence as continuous treatment episodes among new users. The study included 9091 patients hospitalized for HF between January 2016 and September 2019, including 2735 (30.1%) patients who were newly prescribed at least one HF medication after hospitalization. Despite increases in the use of foundational HF therapy (beta-blockers, angiotensin-converting-enzyme inhibitors/angiotensin receptor blockers, or mineralocorticoid receptor antagonists), 35.6% and 7.6% of patients were treated with the HF foundational monotherapy or diuretics alone after hospitalization, respectively. The mean PDC of newly initiated HF medications ranged from 0.57 for thiazide diuretics to 0.77 for sodium-glucose cotransporter-2 inhibitors. Continuous use of HF medications during the first year after initiation was observed in 30–60% of patients. The mean PDC and one-year continuous HF medication use were consistently lower in patients aged ≥ 75 years and in patients with a history of HF hospitalization for all HF medication classes except for tolvaptan and digoxin. Despite the guideline recommendations of HF pharmacotherapy, both treatment and adherence were suboptimal after HF hospitalization, especially in vulnerable populations such as older patients and those with prior HF hospitalizations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Innovative behavior can be described as a process in which new ideas are generated, created, developed, applied, promoted, realized, and modified by employees to benefit role performance. Various reasons, such as rapid technological and social changes in society, underline the necessity for innovative behavior of employees and certainly of teachers. However, little research has been conducted that explores teacher innovative behavior and which factors influence this behavior or what effects can be achieved through such behavior. In this systematic literature review, we develop a preliminary model of factors that enhance innovative behavior in educational organizations. Similar to findings of studies in other human behavior fields, self-efficacy plays an important role as well as a variety of individual and environmental factors. Based on this review, we urge for more systematic research on teacher innovative behavior to enhance the future quality of education.

Materialism has often been pitted against relational well-being. However, it is unclear if such a negative relationship exists in East Asian cultures where personal goals and values tend to be shaped by social motives. In three studies, we tested the association between materialism and relational well-being across multiple individualistic and collectivistic cultures and further studied the role of social motives for materialism. In Study 1a, materialism predicted relational well-being negatively in the US but not in Japan. In Study 1b, we replicated the findings of Study 1a with Chinese and the US adults showing that materialism predicted relational well-being differently between the two cultures. Lastly in Study 2, Chinese reported higher social motives for materialism than European Americans, and such difference explained cultural moderation of the link between materialism and relational well-being. The studies suggest that cultural contexts and social motives play important roles in relational well-being of materialistic individuals. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]