Post-COVID syndrome manifests with a diverse array of symptoms for which no standard care plan currently exists. Many questions were raised by patients, which underscored the need for a validated patient-reported outcome measure (PROM). Therefore, a post-COVID module was developed to be included in the Assessment of Burden of Chronic Conditions (ABCC-) tool. The ABCC-tool evaluates and visualises the perceived physical, emotional and social burden of one or multiple chronic disease(s) using a balloon diagram and aims to facilitate person-centred care and structured discussions between patients and healthcare professionals. This study explores the patients’ perspective on the content of the ABCC-tool for post-COVID and the tool’s usability in a home-based setting.

All patients who completed the ABCC-tool for post-COVID were invited for an online semi-structured interview. We selected post-COVID patients who had used the tool in the past three months. Interviews were audio recorded and analysed using a thematic approach with Atlas.ti version 23.

Nineteen post-COVID patients (10 males, mean age 56) were interviewed between May and August 2024. The tool was regarded as user-friendly, and patients indicated they would use the tool again in the future. Patients valued the tool’s broad range of topics, some of which are often overlooked in standard healthcare consultations. The tool was comprehensible and relevant according to all patients. The balloon diagram was easy to understand, but a legend explaining the colours of the balloons was preferred. Other suggestions for improvement included adding open-text fields and periodic reminders to increase usability and adding long-term data.

The ABCC-tool is a promising instrument for post-COVID patients, offering a structured way to monitor and communicate experienced burden in addition to standard healthcare consultations. Refinements addressing usability and comprehensiveness are recommended to facilitate its integration into clinical practices.

Nutrition care is a crucial component of healthcare, with dietitians playing a key role in patient outcomes. However, their integration into interdisciplinary teams remains limited. While there are countries where dietitians are well situated, in the Czech Republic, the profession of a dietitian was established in 2004 and is still undergoing a transformation. Hence, this study aims to explore the experiences and challenges in delivering nutrition care that Czech dietitians encounter while working in a hospital setting.

Data were collected through semistructured interviews with hospital dietitians. Participants were recruited purposefully via professional associations, social media and chain referrals. Interviews were transcribed and analysed using applied thematic analysis with an inductive coding approach.

Interviews were held with hospital dietitians from across the Czech Republic. All interviews were conducted online via ZOOM.

A total of 15 hospital dietitians took part in the study, predominantly female, covering a wide range of formal level of dietetics education, years of practice and professional roles.

Three main themes were identified: (1) unclear professional role and identity, (2) marginalisation of nutrition care and (3) tension between professional aspirations and legal boundaries. The professional identity of dietitians remains fragmented, especially in the matter of what constitutes the role of a dietitian. Participants reported limited recognition by other healthcare professionals and insufficient organisational support. Barriers such as inadequate staffing, lack of autonomy and absence of strategic prioritisation of nutrition care were perceived as key obstacles to effective interprofessional collaboration and delivery of nutrition care.

Hospital dietitians in the Czech Republic face systemic, organisational and team-based challenges that may limit their ability to deliver effective nutrition care. The findings suggest that clarifying professional roles, improving awareness among healthcare staff and exploring supportive institutional practices could help strengthen their integration into interprofessional teams. Further research is needed to examine how changes in educational structures, staffing policies and management approaches would influence the delivery of nutrition care and the evolving role and professional identity of dietitians.

Glaucoma is a leading cause of irreversible blindness worldwide. Early detection and continuous monitoring are essential to preventing vision loss, yet traditional diagnostic tools remain largely inaccessible in low-resource settings.

This scoping review aimed to map the existing evidence on the use of portable devices for the detection, diagnosis and monitoring of glaucoma.

We conducted a scoping review in accordance with the Joanna Briggs Institute Manual and Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses extension for Scoping Reviews guidelines. A comprehensive search was performed across major databases to identify studies that evaluated handheld tonometers, portable fundus cameras and visual field testing devices. Data were extracted on study design, population characteristics, devices used, comparators and reported outcomes.

A total of 216 studies published between 1975 and 2024 were included. Most studies (90.3%) were method agreement studies, primarily focused on intraocular pressure (IOP) devices. Only two studies evaluated all three glaucoma assessment domains (IOP, visual fields and fundus imaging). Most studies were conducted in high-income countries, with a smaller number from low- and middle-income countries. Despite variability in performance, many devices demonstrated acceptable agreement with gold standard methods and were assessed in a range of clinical and community settings.

This review highlights the range and characteristics of portable glaucoma devices and their potential for enhancing access to diagnosis and monitoring, particularly in underserved settings. However, the predominance of method agreement studies and the limited integration of multimodal assessments point to gaps in the literature. Future research should focus on comprehensive diagnostic pathways using multiple portable tools and on expanding evaluations in low-resource settings to inform policy and service planning.

Diabetic foot ulcers (DFUs) are highly prevalent and recurrent complications of diabetes mellitus that have significant health and cost implications. Self-care is critical for preventing or delaying DFU and promoting healing, yet adherence to self-care recommendations is low. Interventions using motivational interviewing (MI) have been effective in supporting behaviour change and emotional adjustment, but evidence for DFU is scarce. This study will assess the acceptability, feasibility and preliminary efficacy of an MI-guided programme, Healing DFU through Empowerment and Active Listening (HEALing), and its integration in usual wound care practice.

This single-arm pilot study adopts a mixed-methods approach to assess the feasibility and acceptability of the HEALing intervention. HEALing is a practical, low-intensity, clinic-integrated personalised self-care support intervention, comprising three 30 min face-to-face sessions delivered over 6 weeks by trained wound care nurses, aiming to enhance self-care behaviours and support emotional adjustment in patients with DFU. Data will be collected from a battery of questionnaire-based surveys with patients (n=30), and in-depth individual interviews with both patients (n=30) and wound care nurse facilitators (n=10) from nurse-led wound clinics in a large primary care sector in Singapore.

The primary feasibility outcomes will include enrolment, retention (≥80%), data completion (≥80% of surveys) and participant satisfaction. Secondary outcomes will include self-report measures of illness perceptions, foot care confidence, diabetes distress, foot self-care behaviour, DFU knowledge, autonomy support and health-related quality of life, taken at baseline and post-intervention. Post-intervention interviews with patients and wound care nurse facilitators will be conducted to collect feedback on the programme and its implementation feasibility.

The study protocol has been approved by the local ethics committee, and written informed consent will be obtained from all participants. Findings will be disseminated through the first author’s PhD thesis, peer-reviewed journals, national and international conferences and public events.

NCT06540170; Pre-results.

Living with epilepsy, especially drug-resistant epilepsy (DRE), imposes several challenges for people diagnosed with the condition. These challenges include the physical and mental implications of epilepsy on both caregivers and patients with epilepsy. For the more than 120 000 individuals living with this neurological disorder in the Netherlands, along with their families, daily activities become hazardous, limited and costly, significantly affecting their health-related quality of life (HRQoL). As data on the burden of epilepsy in the Netherlands are lacking, studies attempting to capture the impact of epilepsy on individuals, caregivers and society are needed to enhance understanding and help address the burden of epileptic seizures.

The study is part of the AIM@EPILEPSY project. The project aims to develop a planning suite enabling cost-saving, minimally invasive treatment for epilepsy. By surveying 330 people with epilepsy and an anticipated sample of 150–200 informal caregivers across the Netherlands, using standardised questionnaires focusing on associated societal costs and the impact on HRQoL, this bottom-up, prevalence-based prospective study aims to understand the societal burden of DRE in the Netherlands. The data will be collected at 0, 3, 6 and 12 months of follow-up. The study results will describe the economic impact of epilepsy, focusing on cost-of-illness () and HRQoL (utilities) in the Netherlands.

The proposed study was approved by the Maastricht University Medical Ethics Review Committee (Approval reference: FHML-REC/2024/067/Amendment/2024_16). The result of the study is planned to be published in a peer-reviewed journal and presented at international and local scientific conferences.