Topic Analysis of UK Fitness to Practise Cases: What Lessons Can Be Learnt?
Abstract
:1. Introduction
- to demonstrate how topic analysis could be employed for examining published FtP cases;
- to apply the NMF model to enable the identification of topics (themes);
- to determine the extent to which the topics affected the four professions.
2. Materials and Methods
2.1. Data Collection
2.2. Nature of the Data
2.3. Data Pre-Processing
- Removal of duplicate cases. Where the minutes of two or more hearings related to the same case identification number, the file with the largest size was retained on the basis that it provided the greatest descriptive detail
- Removal of ‘boilerplate’ text [30] that appears as a standard across many cases. For example, the name of the assembled committee, or the address where the meeting took place
- Tokenization (i.e., separating text into the constituent words, or ‘tokens’ that comprise the sentences and paragraphs within it) [31]
- Removal of all tokens not entirely comprised of alphabetic characters (this removed all numeric tokens)
- Removal of stop words (words that occur with high frequency but add little contextual meaning, for example, ‘the’, ‘and’, ‘but’, ‘in’) [32]
- Removal of frequently appearing proper nouns including personally identifying names, and place names
- The conversion of text to lower case
2.4. Topic Extraction
2.5. Choosing the Number of Topics
2.6. Data Analysis
2.7. Ethical Approval
3. Results
- 577 dental (as of July 2019, there were around 40,000 dentists and 60,000 dental care professionals on the register [37]).
- 481 medical (as of July 2019, there were around 290,000 UK medical practitioners on the register [38])
- 2199 nursing (as of 31 March 2019, there were 698,237 people on the NMC register [9])
- 63 pharmacy (as of 31 March 2019, there were 56,288 pharmacists and 23,387 technicians on the GPhC register [7]).
- Criminal offences
- Dishonesty
- Drug possession/supply
- English language
- Indemnity insurance
- Patient care
- Personal behavior
- Aggression
- Assault
- Competency
- Fraud
- Sexual conduct
- Terrorism-related
- Theft
- Traffic
- Substance misuse
4. Discussion
Limitations
5. Conclusions
Author Contributions
Funding
Conflicts of Interest
References
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Groups of Words (10 Highest Scoring Words) | Allocated Topic Title (Sub-Title) |
---|---|
sentence, sentencing, conviction, crown, imprisonment, judge, sentenced, convicted, court, remarks | Criminal offences |
assault, conviction, violence, beating, magistrates, police, criminal, court, guilty, assaulting | Criminal offences (assault) |
sexual, child, images, sex, offences, offenders, photograph, prevention, convictions, photographs | Criminal offences (sexual conduct) |
jury, terrorism, conviction, Islamic, murder, trial, prison, judge, sentencing, defendant | Criminal offences (terrorism-related) |
speeding, traffic, offences, driver, vehicle, drivers, liable, declarations, magistrates, sentences | Criminal offences (traffic) |
dishonesty, dishonest, dishonestly, honesty, integrity, knew, conceal, false, difficult, honest | Dishonesty |
falsified, forged, signatures, signature, false, submitting, purported, verification, dishonest, stamp | Dishonesty (fraud) |
cash, thefts, money, till, theft, planned, additionally, caution, repay, repaid | Dishonesty (theft) |
drugs, controlled, drug, misuse, possession, supply, class, book, theft, quantity | Drug possession/supply |
English, language, registrar, knowledge, kingdom, united, qualification, speaking, score, skills | English language |
indemnity, insurance, cover, compensation, indemnified, hold, arrangements, claim, membership, policy | Indemnity insurance |
gloves, control, instruments, infection, decontamination, cross, nurses, items, cleaned, inspection | Patient care |
administered, chart, administer, mar, medication, prescribed, dose, errors, medications, incorrectly | Patient care (competency) |
factors, attitudinal, behavior, harm, deep, seated, mark, harmful, personality, actions | Personal behavior |
room, words, link, video, conversation, nurse, aggressive, staff, call, rude | Personal behavior (aggression) |
sexual, touching, breasts, boundaries, sexually, touched, harassment, thigh, leg, knee | Personal behavior (sexual conduct) |
cannabis, cocaine, consumed, abstinence, coping, mid, relapse, redacted, results, hair | Personal behavior (substance misuse) |
Topics | Dental | Medical | Nursing | Pharmacy |
---|---|---|---|---|
Criminal offences | 16.8% | 17.9% | 6.3% | 38.1% |
Criminal offences (sexual conduct) | 1.4% | 3.5% | 1.5% | 3.2% |
Criminal offences (substance misuse) | 3.1% | 3.3% | 1.0% | 4.8% |
Dishonesty | 0.7% | 0.4% | 0.8% | 4.8% |
Dishonesty (fraud) | 8.7% | 3.3% | 2.0% | 14.3% |
Drug possession/supply | 1.6% | 1.7% | 2.2% | 28.6% |
English Language | 1.2% | 2.5% | 3.0% | 0.0% |
Indemnity Insurance | 6.2% | 0.8% | 0.0% | 0.0% |
Patient Care | 25.5% | 25.6% | 8.6% | 6.3% |
Patient Care (competency) | 4.0% | 38.9% | 17.9% | 17.5% |
Personal behavior | 0.0% | 0.0% | 0.8% | 0.0% |
Personal behavior (aggression) | 0.3% | 1.5% | 3.3% | 0.0% |
Personal behavior (sexual conduct) | 0.9% | 5.6% | 0.6% | 3.2% |
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Hanna, A.; Hanna, L.-A. Topic Analysis of UK Fitness to Practise Cases: What Lessons Can Be Learnt? Pharmacy 2019, 7, 130. https://doi.org/10.3390/pharmacy7030130
Hanna A, Hanna L-A. Topic Analysis of UK Fitness to Practise Cases: What Lessons Can Be Learnt? Pharmacy. 2019; 7(3):130. https://doi.org/10.3390/pharmacy7030130
Chicago/Turabian StyleHanna, Alan, and Lezley-Anne Hanna. 2019. "Topic Analysis of UK Fitness to Practise Cases: What Lessons Can Be Learnt?" Pharmacy 7, no. 3: 130. https://doi.org/10.3390/pharmacy7030130