Type 2 diabetes mellitus (T2DM) is a significant public health issue, with diet playing a crucial role in its management.1 Food insecurity, defined as the lack of consistent access to enough food for an active, healthy life, exacerbates this condition, making effective dietary interventions critical.2 Food-as-medicine programmes, which provide medically tailored meals and nutritional education, aim to improve health outcomes for individuals with chronic diseases.2 The study...

Inflammatory bowel diseases (IBDs) are chronic conditions characterised by intestinal and systemic inflammation, often associated with significant psychological distress. Emerging evidence highlights a bidirectional relationship between inflammation and psychological factors, mediated by the gut-brain axis. Psychological distress may not only result from chronic inflammation but also contribute to symptom persistence and disease exacerbation. Despite this, clinical management of IBD primarily focuses on controlling inflammation, often overlooking psychological factors that may influence disease activity and treatment response.

GastroPsy protocol will last for 24 months and will follow a cross-sectional design. At least 150 participants will undergo a clinical evaluation based on the detection of biological, medical and psychological indicators and variables. The evaluation battery will comprise seven validated questionnaires. Through a k-means cluster analysis, the study aims to derive and describe data-driven clusters of IBD patients, finally exploring associations between identified clusters and external clinical variables (e.g. clinical activity).

Ethical Committee Approval was obtained from the CEtRA Abruzzo Region (IT) (Protocol ID 228/2025). The results of the present project will be published in peer-reviewed journals, disseminated electronically and in print, and presented as abstracts and/or personal communications during national and international conferences.

Parkinson’s disease (PD) is a chronic neurodegenerative condition that affects approximately 10 million people worldwide. As the second most common neurodegenerative disease, its prevalence is expected to double in the next 30 years. PD is characterised by both motor and non-motor symptoms that significantly impact patients’ quality of life. The disease leads to physical disabilities and can strain the social and emotional well-being of patients and caregivers. While pharmacological and surgical treatments are essential, non-pharmacological approaches, including self-care strategies, play a critical role in managing the disease. This study protocol aims to describe methodological steps required to explore the self-care behaviours of patients with PD and their caregivers, with a particular focus on the dimensions of self-care maintenance, monitoring and management.

This mixed-method study will involve dyads of patients with PD and their caregivers. Participants will be recruited from the PD and Movement Disorders Centre of the "Azienda Socio Sanitaria Territoriale (ASST) Gaetano Pini-Centro Traumatologico Ortopedico (CTO)". Validated questionnaires, such as the WHOQOL-Bref, the version 2 Self-Care of Chronic Illness Inventory, and the Caregiver Self-Efficacy in Contributing to Self-Care Scale, will be administered. The study will also include semistructured interviews to collect qualitative data on patients’ and caregivers’ perceptions of self-care. A non-probabilistic convenience sampling method will be employed, encompassing both patients at any stage of disease and their primary caregivers. The estimated sample size is 311 dyads, calculated to provide a 5% margin of error.

The study has been approved by the Lombardia 3 ethics committee (identification (ID) study 5732 12.03.2025 P bis). All participants will sign a written informed consent document. Ethical considerations include ensuring participant confidentiality, voluntary participation and the right to withdraw at any time without consequence. The study results will be disseminated through national and international conferences and published in clinical research journals to contribute to the broader understanding of self-care in the management of PD.

NCT06953050 (clinicaltrials.gov).

The Episodic Disability Questionnaire (EDQ) was developed to measure the presence, severity and episodic nature of disability experienced among persons with chronic conditions. Our aim was to assess the sensibility, utility and implementation considerations of the EDQ among older adults with complex health needs.

Cross-sectional measurement study involving quantitative and qualitative methods of data collection.

We recruited community-dwelling older adults (65 years of age or older) living with complex health needs receiving care from a primary healthcare team in Toronto, Canada.

We administered the EDQ, sensibility questionnaire (assessing face and content validity, and ease of usage, with each item scored from 0 to 7 with greater scores indicating greater sensibility) and demographic questionnaire, followed by a semi-structured interview in the home or clinical setting. Using an interview guide, we asked participants about their perspectives on utility, format and implementation of the EDQ in clinical practice. We considered the EDQ sensible if the median score on the sensibility questionnaire was ≥5/7 for ≥80% of items and if none of the items had a median score of ≤3/7. We conducted a team-based directed content analysis of the interview transcripts.

The median age of the 11 participants in this study was 83 years of age. All participants reported living with two or more chronic health conditions, with osteoarthritis (n=5) and diabetes (n=4) most frequently reported. The EDQ met the criterion for sensibility as measured by the sensibility questionnaire. Interview data from participants (n=10) indicated that the EDQ represents the health-related challenges among this sample of older adults with complex health needs, captures the episodic nature of disability and was easy to use. Utility of the EDQ included providing clinicians with a holistic understanding of health challenges older adults face, aiding in intervention planning and measuring changes in disability over time. Six of the participants also expressed uncertainty as to how the EDQ specifically could be used by clinicians in their care. Considerations for implementation included mode of administration (paper or electronic) and the importance of communicating EDQ scores with older adults based on individual preferences.

The EDQ possesses sensibility and utility for use among this sample of older adults living with complex health needs in home or clinical care settings.