Medication/Treatment Adherence calls for papers / publications

Call for Papers for a Special Issue of Europe’s Journal of Psychology: Quality of Life in Social Science & Clinical Medicine

We are inviting papers for a special issue on Quality of Life in Social Science & Clinical Medicine to be published by Europe's Journal of Psychology (EJOP) in February 2013.
This special issue, edited by Dr. Paraskevi Theofilou, welcomes theoretical, methodological and empirical contributions on the following main topics:

1) Quality of life and mental health in chronic disease patients as well as in socially disadvantaged populations
2) Patients’ adherence to treatment - Interventions to improve adherence
3) Health locus of control in chronic disease patients - The relation to QoL and treatment adherence
4) Quality of life in health professionals, e.g. stress, anxiety, burnout
5) Quality of life definition, measurement etc in social science and clinical medicine (as a theoretical topic)

EJOP is a peer-reviewed open-access journal meant to facilitate communication between psychologists, both young professionals and specialists, and to give them access to high-quality professional information, thus fostering the scientific psychological community in Europe and worldwide. It publishes four issues per year and all the articles can be found at: http://ejop.psychopen.eu. The journal is currently indexed by DOAJ, EBSCO, Scopus, ProQuest and PsychEXTRA and part of the PsychOpen Publication Platform.

The deadline for submissions is 15 July and articles should be submitted through the electronic submission system (http://ejop.psychopen.eu/information/authors) with a note that they are intended for this special edition. Articles should not exceed 10.000 words in length and comply with APA publication standards. More author's guidelines can be found at: http://ejop.psychopen.eu/about/submissions#authorGuidelines

Call for Papers for a Special Issue of the International Journal of Biomedical Engineering and Technology: Using Technology to Facilitate Chronic Disease Management

Guest Editors:
Khin Than Win, University of Wollongong, Australia
Nilmini Wickramasinghe, RMIT University, Australia

Chronic disease continues to be one of the leading causes of death and economic loss in most countries today. Hence, it has become a central problem for healthcare and many are looking for solutions.

Early detection and prevention of chronic disease is one of the preferred strategies for reducing the incidence of chronic disease and address escalating cost issues. It has been widely documented that assisting chronic disease management through information technology tends to facilitate better health outcomes. We are therefore seeing several health IT projects being initiated and successfully supporting chronic disease management.

This special issue aims to host a discussion and discourse on the possible applications of IS/IT (information systems/information technology) to facilitate better chronic disease management.

Subject Coverage

Suitable topics include but are not limited to:

Facilitating standardisation via including care plans and guidelines for health information systems and developing decision support systems for assisting healthcare providers' decision making

Technology for delivery of care, e.g. artificial pancreases, implants, telemedicine, radiology, smart devices such as insulin pumps and implants

Electronic health records; health information systems; computerised guidelines; prevention; patient education; care and assistance for elderly people; lifestyle modifications such as physical activities, nutrition, weight management and mental health

Design and development of portals, communication platforms and/or the role of online social networks

Applications for mobile solutions to facilitate monitoring and/or management

Specific technology solutions to address better monitoring and management of asthma, diabetes, congenital heart disease, arthritis, chronic pain and obesity

Notes for Prospective Authors

Submitted papers should not have been previously published nor be currently under consideration for publication elsewhere. (N.B. Conference papers may only be submitted if the paper was not originally copyrighted and if it has been completely re-written).

All papers are refereed through a peer review process. A guide for authors, sample copies and other relevant information for submitting papers are available on the Author Guidelines page.

Important Dates

Papers due: 20 October, 2012

Review results: 31 January, 2013

Final paper due: 20 April 2013

Editors and Notes

You may send one copy in the form of an MS Word or PDF file attached to an email (details in Author Guidelines) to the following:

Dr. Khin Than Win
University of Wollongong
Faculty of Informatics
Northfields Avenue
Wollongong, NSW 2522
Australia
Email: win@uow.edu.au

Prof. Nilmini Wickramasinghe
Epworth Chair Health Information Management
RMIT University
College of Business
GPO Box 2476
Melbourne, VIC 3001
Australia
E-mail: nilmini.wickramasinghe@rmit.edu.au

Please include in your submission the title of the Special Issue, the title of the Journal and the names of the Guest Editors

Call for Papers for a Special Section of Translational Behavioral Medicine: Practice, Policy, Research: Smartphones, Sensors, and Social Networks: A New Age of Health Behavior Change

Submission Deadline November 30, 2012

For submission information: http://www.springer.com/medicine/journal/13142

Traditional health behavior change interventions have long been limited by high expense, patient burden, and poor adherence. As health professionals, our access to intervene upon patients’ behavior is constrained by current models of health care which limit care provision to face-to-face visits provided on a weekly schedule or less frequently. Limited access to patients limits our ability to gain an accurate understanding of the antecedents and consequences of behavior, and to intervene in the moments when patients most need help. Computing technology including mobile phones, sensors, and online social networks – by being available in real time – are being explored as ways to enhance our ability to understand health behavior and more effectively intervene upon it. mHealth, the application of mobile technology to health, has reached its tipping point. A rapidly growing body of research evidence demonstrates the efficacy of mHealth approaches across a wide range of conditions, populations, and settings. mHealth has also attracted a parallel explosion of industry attention. An extremely diverse group of companies are capitalizing on the mHealth market, which is projected to reach $23 billion in revenues by 2017. Sensing technologies are also rapidly being developed to gather behavioral, physiological, and contextual data that can then be used to predict behavior or deliver “just-in-time” interventions. Finally, online social networking, a service that allows individuals to interact and communicate with other users without geographical, physical, or logistical barriers has now been used for health surveillance, disseminating information and innovations, and health behavior intervention. The potential of these technologies to impact health behavior change has yet to be fully realized. The purpose of this special issue is to draw papers from academicians, clinicians, and industry professionals who are developing, testing, and/or researching the efficacy of these technologies for health behavior change.

Given that opportunities for academic-industry communication and collaboration have been too infrequent, we have seen relatively limited translation of evidence-based mHealth approaches into the real-world settings that are largely served by industry. We suspect that collaboration between industry and the research community might accelerate the growth of the mHealth market and improve the health of patients and populations. There are important barriers to such collaborations which we hope are explored and discussed further in this special issue. We hope to attract high quality contributions relating to the opportunities and challenges associated with stimulating academic-industry partnerships and creating evidence-based technology-based approaches to health behavior change. We acknowledge differences in the type of data that is collected by academics and industry professionals and aim to be a forum for both types of data, while acknowledging the strengths and limitations of each. Traditional research reports are sought, but also case studies characterizing real world translation efforts, implementation challenges, and academic-industry partnerships are strongly encouraged. Additionally, synopses of practical tools and strategies, applications, and approaches are of interest. Selected manuscripts will be published together with commentaries in this special section of Translational Behavioral Medicine.

Editors of the Special Section:
Sherry Pagoto, PhD, University of Massachusetts Medical School
Gary Bennett, PhD, Duke University

Editor-in-Chief:
Bonnie Spring, PhD, Northwestern University

Call for Papers for a Theme Issue of the Journal of Medical Internet Research: Internet of Things: Towards a Mobile and Ubiquitous Healthcare and Prevention

The Journal of Medical Internet Research (JMIR) is the leading international peer-reviewed and open access journal dealing with issues related to health, health care and medicine in the Internet age.

JMIR is the most cited journal on medical informatics, according to the Thompson Reuters Journal Citation Reports (JCR) index, with an Impact Factor of 4.7.

The evolution of the Internet towards the Future Internet with IPv6, Wireless Personal and Local Area Networks (e.g. 6LoWPAN, Bluetooth, Wi-Fi), mobile computing (e.g. smart phones, tablets), as well as the capabilities for global and uniqueness identification of objects (e.g. RFID, NFC), are making it feasible to identify, sense, locate, and connect people, machines, devices and everyday equipment.

These new capabilities to link Internet with everyday devices, forms of identification and communication among people and things, and exploitation of data capture, define the so-called Internet of things. This is opening an opportunity not only to extend the current e-Health approaches to a more pervasive and mobile healthcare prevention, by connecting citizens’/patients’ clinical and everyday devices to the Internet, but also to interconnect them with clinical platforms through the advantages from technologies such as smart clinical devices and wireless technologies. Furthermore, new identification and tracking solutions are being defined for hospital equipment, and new smart knowledge-based algorithms are developed to support personalized decision-making in the health and home care sector. Additionally, their applications in supplementary sectors such as pharmaceutical, in order to improve drug compliance and avoid adverse drugs reactions.

The objective of this issue is to report high quality research on recent advances developed in various aspects of e-health, more specifically the state-of-the-art approaches, methodologies, and systems in the design, development, deployment, and innovative use of the technologies, tools, and applications from the Future Internet of Things, People and Services for healthcare and prevention. We invite authors to submit their original papers and contributions addressing (but not limited to) the following topics:

-- Medical communications, protocols, standards and interoperability
-- Personal healthcare informatics solutions
-- Wireless Sensor Networks technologies for e-Health (e.g. 6LoWPAN/Bluetooth/WiFi)
-- Sensor technologies for e-Health and personal healthcare (e.g. ISO/IEEE 11073)
-- Identification technologies for e-Health, surgical and medical systems (e.g. QR/RFID/NFC)
- Wearable and continuous health monitoring
-- e-Health service management (e.g. Web of Things)
-- Elderly homecare, Tele-health, and Ambient Assisted Living (AAL)
-- Usability and HCI interfaces based on mobile computing and the Internet of Things
-- Personal Health Record, Information Systems, and Knowledge-Based Solutions
-- Global Healthcare and Citizens’ Prevention
-- Medication adherence, clinical guideline compliance and pharmaceutical applications
-- Tools and techniques to design, implement, and deploy IoT solutions
-- Mobile computing and Ubiquitous Healthcare applications
-- Living labs and field trials with the Internet of Things technologies

SUBMISSION OF MANUSCRIPTS
Manuscripts must be prepared in accordance with the format and instructions hereto defined in the (www.jmir.org/cms/view/Instructions_for_Authors:Instructions_for_Authors_of_JMIR), and submitted through the Web-Based Manuscript Submission and Tracking System. When submitting, select section “Theme Issue on Internet of Things: Towards Mobile and Ubiquitous Healthcare and Prevention”, in the manuscript type to indicate that the paper is intended for this theme issue.

An OPEN CALL for submissions is issued. In addition, the best papers from the International Workshop on Extending Seamlessly to the Internet of Things (esIoT) will be invited to submit a manuscript. For further information, see www.esiot.com.

All contributions will be peer reviewed. As JMIR is an open access journal, authors publish their work under a creative commons license and keep the copyright. Articles will be freely accessible on the JMIR site and will be available in open access archives such as Pubmedcentral.gov.

These articles will be indexed in more than 20 bibliographic databases and abstracting services, including Medline, CINAHL, Information Science Abstracts, INSPEC (Institution of Electrical Engineers), Communication Abstracts, The Informed Librarian Online, LISA, EMBASE, Scopus, Science Citation Index Expanded, PsycINFO, LISTA (Library / Information Sciences & Technology Abstracts), ASSIA (Applied Social Sciences Index and Abstracts) database, CSA Social Services Abstracts database, Pubmed Central, and other databases and abstraction services. Publication costs (APF: article processing fee) for copyediting, and typesetting must be covered by the authors.

TIMELINE AND DEADLINES
-- DEADLINE FOR SUBMISSION: December 15th, 2012
-- PUBLICATION: The publication is scheduled to end 2013/beginning 2014

EDITOR-in-Chief
Gunther Eysenbach MD, MPH, FACMI.
Editor & Publisher, Journal of Medical Internet Research
University Health Network, Toronto, Canada

RECOMMENDATION: before submit your paper be awareness that JMIR is not an engineering journal, and it will not be published overly technical papers with no real-live application and a thorough evaluation. Therefore, it is required high-quality research articles with technical background, but this also should have a health angle, and an evaluation in hospitals, clinics, living labs, patient‟s homes, residencies, or Ambient Assisted Living scenarios.

For further information, please contact the Guest Editors or the Editor-in-Chief

Call for Papers for a Special Issue of the International Journal of Pharmaceutical and Healthcare Marketing: Pharmaceutical Direct-to-Consumer Advertising: Past, Present, and Future

Guest Editors: Dr Avinandan Mukherjee, Montclair State University, USA
Dr Yam B. Limbu, Montclair State University, USA

Pharmaceutical Direct-to-Consumer Advertising (DTCA) includes different types of promotional efforts employed by pharmaceutical companies to provide prescription drug information to the general public through consumer-oriented media. It is allowed currently only in the USA and New Zealand. In the past decade, pharmaceutical companies have been involved in intense direct-to-consumer advertising and promotion of prescription drugs. Spending on DTCA of prescription drugs has been accelerating. It grew from $2.5 billion in 2000 to $3.3 billion in 2003, $4.2 billion in 2005, and $4.5 billion in 2009. There was a 330 per cent increase in DTCA spending between 1996 and 2005. As a result, the average American television viewer spent about 16 hours annually watching prescription drug advertisements; that was far more time than they spent with their family physicians.

The environment in which the DTCA of prescription drugs operates is unique in two ways:

1 While consumers are targeted by DTC advertisers, only physicians have the right to prescribe the advertised drug; and

2 Considering the risks associated with prescription drugs, regulatory bodies and consumer protection agencies are more involved in approving and monitoring all DTCA communications.

Consumer segments based on a variety of characteristics, e.g. demographics and psychographics, such as health beliefs and health orientations, respond differently to various dimensions of DTCA communication, such as information, comprehension, trust and valence.

While DTCA has been credited for improvements in pharmaceutical sales growth, patient education, and improved health outcomes, it has been criticized for its role in drug over-utilization, public health concerns, higher drug costs, and physician dissonance. These issues become more paramount in the wake of the high involvement nature of prescription drugs, the average consumer's lack of scientific knowledge, and their propensity to self-diagnose and ask physicians for specific medications. DTCA is thus an extremely complex and yet a very important topic that deserves researchers' sincere attention.

It has been an issue of intense public policy attention and debate since the early years of its existence. Unfortunately, it is one of the most understudied areas in pharmaceutical and healthcare marketing. Empirical research on the effect of DTCA is especially scarce. Much of the extant research on DTCA is exploratory in nature, mostly based on literature reviews and using content analysis as the methodology. Comprehensive and empirically validated models of consumer responses to DTCA are still rare in the literature and little is known about its effects on the attitudes and behaviour of concerned parties such as consumers,  physicians, nurses, and other healthcare providers.

Thus, the main goal of this IJPHM special issue is to address these research gaps. Authors are invited to submit empirical or conceptual papers that may have substantial practical and/or theoretical implications for various aspects of DTCA.

Topics for the special issue

Although manuscripts on any topic related to DTCA are welcome, papers on the following topics are highly encouraged:

-- Stakeholders' (e.g., consumers, physicians, nurses, salesforce) responses/attitudes to DTCA

-- Patient-physician interactions, communication, and relationships

-- Effect of DTCA on physician prescription behaviour

-- Information search from sources other than physicians as a result of DTCA (e.g., online search)

-- Other behavioral intentions (e.g., prescription request, intent to recommend, WOM)

-- Content of DTC advertisements (e.g., textual, pictorial)

-- Effect of DTCA expenditure on financial performance (e.g., price/sales/market share/ROI/shareholders' value)

-- Trend analysis of DTCA expenditures by product category and consumer segments

-- Role of internet and technology on DTCA (e.g., DTC web sites, blogs, social media etc--)

-- Risk disclosure and perceived risk

-- DTC claims or message credibility/source or media credibility/ perceived believability

-- Role of different types of message appeal, persuasion

-- Situation and context effects

-- Role of affect, cognition, and emotion

-- Role of different types of involvement, motivation, and individual differences

-- Role of consumer knowledge/expertise/familiarity

-- Consumer recall and memory

-- DTCA exposure, attention, and interpretation

-- Consumer learning, awareness, and literacy

-- Impact on drug and therapy compliance, non-compliance, and adherence

-- Effectiveness of different DTCA information sources (e.g., print, TV, online, radio, outdoor, direct mail)

-- Role of demographics on DTCA perceptions

-- Historical evolution and growth of DTCA

-- Ethical issues relating to DTCA

-- Government policy, laws, and regulations

-- Pharmaceutical industry's perspectives on impact of DTCA

-- Attitudes towards and likely adoption of DTCA in countries other than the USA and NZ

-- Macro impact of DTCA (e--g-- impact on economy, healthcare sector, healthy living, patient care)

-- Future of DTCA

Research methods

Quantitative and qualitative studies, including marketing and consumer behaviour models, experiments, correlational studies, causal studies, comparative studies, descriptive studies, literature reviews, meta-analysis, case studies, viewpoint articles, pedagogical innovations, and book reviews are all welcome. Papers can adopt a historical, current or future perspective.

Submission process

Manuscripts should be submitted no later than 30 June 2012. The special issue is expected to be published in early 2013. All manuscripts will be subjected to double-blind peer review and should follow the general guidelines for authors of the International Journal of Pharmaceutical and Healthcare Marketing, which can be found at:
www.emeraldinsight.com/ijphm.htm

Manuscripts should be submitted electronically to IJPHM editorial e-mail at: editor-ijphc@mail.montclair.edu

Please contact the Guest Editors of this special issue at the following e-mail addresses, if you have any questions:

Dr Avinandan Mukherjee
E-mail: mukherjeeav@mail.montclair.edu

and

Dr Yam Limbu
E-mail: limbuy@mail.montclair.edu