Browsing by Author "Somers, Tamara"

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    Social risk factors predicting outcomes of cervical myelopathy surgery.
    (Journal of neurosurgery. Spine, 2022-01) Rethorn, Zachary D; Cook, Chad E; Park, Christine; Somers, Tamara; Mummaneni, Praveen V; Chan, Andrew K; Pennicooke, Brenton H; Bisson, Erica F; Asher, Anthony L; Buchholz, Avery L; Bydon, Mohamad; Alvi, Mohammed Ali; Coric, Domagoj; Foley, Kevin T; Fu, Kai-Ming; Knightly, John J; Meyer, Scott; Park, Paul; Potts, Eric A; Shaffrey, Christopher I; Shaffrey, Mark; Than, Khoi D; Tumialan, Luis; Turner, Jay D; Upadhyaya, Cheerag D; Wang, Michael Y; Gottfried, Oren

    Objective

    Combinations of certain social risk factors of race, sex, education, socioeconomic status (SES), insurance, education, employment, and one's housing situation have been associated with poorer pain and disability outcomes after lumbar spine surgery. To date, an exploration of such factors in patients with cervical spine surgery has not been conducted. The objective of the current work was to 1) define the social risk phenotypes of individuals who have undergone cervical spine surgery for myelopathy and 2) analyze their predictive capacity toward disability, pain, quality of life, and patient satisfaction-based outcomes.

    Methods

    The Cervical Myelopathy Quality Outcomes Database was queried for the period from January 2016 to December 2018. Race/ethnicity, educational attainment, SES, insurance payer, and employment status were modeled into unique social phenotypes using latent class analyses. Proportions of social groups were analyzed for demonstrating a minimal clinically important difference (MCID) of 30% from baseline for disability, neck and arm pain, quality of life, and patient satisfaction at the 3-month and 1-year follow-ups.

    Results

    A total of 730 individuals who had undergone cervical myelopathy surgery were included in the final cohort. Latent class analysis identified 2 subgroups: 1) high risk (non-White race and ethnicity, lower educational attainment, not working, poor insurance, and predominantly lower SES), n = 268, 36.7% (class 1); and 2) low risk (White, employed with good insurance, and higher education and SES), n = 462, 63.3% (class 2). For both 3-month and 1-year outcomes, the high-risk group (class 1) had decreased odds (all p < 0.05) of attaining an MCID score in disability, neck/arm pain, and health-related quality of life. Being in the low-risk group (class 2) resulted in an increased odds of attaining an MCID score in disability, neck/arm pain, and health-related quality of life. Neither group had increased or decreased odds of being satisfied with surgery.

    Conclusions

    Although 2 groups underwent similar surgical approaches, the social phenotype involving non-White race/ethnicity, poor insurance, lower SES, and poor employment did not meet MCIDs for a variety of outcome measures. This finding should prompt surgeons to proactively incorporate socially conscience care pathways within healthcare systems, as well as to optimize community-based resources to improve outcomes and personalize care for populations at social risk.
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    ItemOpen Access
    Testing a behavioral intervention to improve adherence to adjuvant endocrine therapy (AET).
    (Contemporary clinical trials, 2019-01) Shelby, Rebecca A; Dorfman, Caroline S; Bosworth, Hayden B; Keefe, Francis; Sutton, Linda; Owen, Lynda; Corsino, Leonor; Erkanli, Alaattin; Reed, Shelby D; Arthur, Sarah S; Somers, Tamara; Barrett, Nadine; Huettel, Scott; Gonzalez, Juan Marcos; Kimmick, Gretchen
    Adjuvant endocrine therapy (AET) is used to prevent recurrence and reduce mortality for women with hormone receptor positive breast cancer. Poor adherence to AET is a significant problem and contributes to increased medical costs and mortality. A variety of problematic symptoms associated with AET are related to non-adherence and early discontinuation of treatment. The goal of this study is to test a novel, telephone-based coping skills training that teaches patients adherence skills and techniques for coping with problematic symptoms (CST-AET). Adherence to AET will be assessed in real-time for 18 months using wireless smart pill bottles. Symptom interference (i.e., pain, vasomotor symptoms, sleep problems, vaginal dryness) and cost-effectiveness of the intervention protocol will be examined as secondary outcomes. Participants (N = 400) will be recruited from a tertiary care medical center or community clinics in medically underserved or rural areas. Participants will be randomized to receive CST-AET or a general health education intervention (comparison condition). CST-AET includes ten nurse-delivered calls delivered over 6 months. CST-AET provides systematic training in coping skills for managing symptoms that interfere with adherence. Interactive voice messaging provides reinforcement for skills use and adherence that is tailored based on real-time adherence data from the wireless smart pill bottles. Given the high rates of non-adherence and recent recommendations that women remain on AET for 10 years, we describe a timely trial. If effective, the CST-AET protocol may not only reduce the burden of AET use but also lead to cost-effective changes in clinical care and improve breast cancer outcomes. Trials registration: ClinicalTrials.gov, NCT02707471, registered 3/3/2016.