Little is known about how COVID-19 affects older patients living at home or how it affects district nursing teams providing care to these patients. This study aims to (1) explore, from the perspectives of Dutch district nurses, COVID-19′s impact on patients receiving district nursing care, district nursing …

Background Communication between people with aphasia and their healthcare professionals (HCPs) can be greatly improved when HCPs are trained in using supportive conversation techniques and tools. Communication partner training (CPT) is an umbrella term that covers a range of interventions that train …

The thoracic and peritoneal cavities are lined by serous membranes and are home of the serosal immune system. This immune system fuses innate and adaptive immunity, to maintain local homeostasis and repair local tissue damage, and to cooperate closely with the mucosal immune system. Innate lymphoid cells …

Background & aims: The year 2019 marked the centenary of the publication of the Harris and Benedict equations for estimation of energy expenditure. In October 2019 a Scientific Symposium was organized by the European Society for Clinical Nutrition and Metabolism (ESPEN) in Vienna, Austria, to celebrate …

Background & aims: Omega-3 polyunsaturated fatty acid (PUFA) supplementation has been proposed as a potential therapy for cancer-related malnutrition, which affects up to 70% of patients with cancer. The aim of this systematic review and meta-analysis was to examine the effects of oral omega-3 PUFA supplementation …

Background & aims: Anorexia is a frequent symptom in cancer and we aimed to assess its prevalence among patients at their first cancer diagnosis by different appetite tools and the relationship between each tool with self-reports of food intake. We also tested whether cancer anorexia influences outcomes …

The issue of plastic marine pollution has drastically increased in recent years. The questionable management of single-use plastic items has led to a concerning environmental scenario. The European Union is desperately trying to tackle the issue. In the early months of 2019, the EU approved the single-use …

Internationalization in higher education has been a substantial and impactful phenomenon, which has proven to be of high value to both the Dutch society and the global community as a whole. With the heightened tendency of bachelor and master degree-seeking students opting to enroll to study programs …

The transition towards sustainable, healthy diets in Europe is necessary to make Europe the first climate-neutral continent by 2050 and achieving the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals. It is well established that meat production and consumption are unsustainable from environmental and health …

The theoretical framework of this dissertation is based on Amartya Sen’s capability approach (Chapter 2). In the early 1980s, development economist Amartya Sen developed the capability framework as a broad normative framework for the evaluation and assessment …