Summary Background: A gap exists between evidence-based medicine and clinical-practice. Every day, healthcare professionals (HCPs) combine empirical evidence and subjective experience in order to maximize the effectiveness of interventions. Consequently, it is important to understand how HCPs interpret the research evidence and apply it in everyday practice. We focused on the prevention of falls, a common cause of injury-related morbidity and mortality in later life, for which there is a wide range of known risk factors. Objectives: To use the Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP) to investigate the opinions of HCPs in prioritizing risk factors for preventing falls. Methods: We used the AHP to develop a hierarchy of risk factors for falls based on the knowledge and experience of experts. We submitted electronic questionnaires via the web, in order to reach a wider number of respondents. With a web service, we pooled the results and weighted the coherence and the experience of respondents. Results: Overall, 232 respondents participated in the study: 32 in the technical pilot study, nine in the scientific pilot study and 191 respondents in the main study. We identified a hierarchy of 35 risk factors, organized in two categories and six sub-categories. Conclusions: The hierarchy of risk factors provides further insights into clinicians’ perceptions of risk factors for falls. This hierarchy helps understand the relative importance that clinicians place on risk factors for falls in older people and why evidence-based guidelines are not always followed. This information may be helpful in improving intervention programs and in understanding how clinicians prioritize multiple risk factors in individual patients. The AHP method allows the opinions of HCPs to be investigated, giving appropriate weight to their coherence, background and experience.

Starting from methyl salicylate and 2-amino-2-(hydroxymethyl)propane-1,3-diol 1a , or 2-amino- 2-methylpropane-1-ol 1b , the 2-oxazoline derivatives 2a , 2b or 3, as well as mono- 4a and 4b and bis- 5a and 5b derivatives of salicylic acid were synthesized. Reactions were performed by microwave irradiation in the presence of tetrabutylammonium bromide or metallic sodium as catalyst, as well as by conventional heating. Microwave-induced reaction of some diols, diamines and amino alcohols with methyl salicylate gave mono- and/or bis- derivatives of salicylic acid 4c, 5c, 5d, 6c, 8c, 7a, 7b, 8a and 8b . The mono- and bis-salicyloyl derivatives 4c , 5c and 5d were transformed to the corresponding phenyl-azo derivatives 9, 10c and 10d . The structure of compound 3 was proved by the X-ray analysis and the R-configuration on its stereocenter was confirmed. The antioxidant and cytotoxic activities of the synthesized derivatives were evaluated in a series of in vitro tests. Compounds 5d , 8b and 8c exhibited very strong activity against hydroxyl radical. Six 4c , 5d , 8a-c , 10c of 16 tested compounds inhibited growth of MDA-MB-231 cells at a nanomolar concentration. Compounds 8c and 10c showed high cytotoxicity against MCF7 cells, whereas compounds 4c , 5d , 8a-c and 10d showed high activity against K562 cells.