Religion, Spirituality, and Health Service Use by Older Hospitalized Patients

Background: Religious and spiritual beliefs and practices are common among medical inpatients, and may impact length of hospital stay (LOS) and other health services (HSU) during hospitalization. Methods: 812 consecutively admitted patients age 50 or over to Duke University Medical Center were assessed. Measures of religiousness and spirituality included religious TV/radio (RTV), self-rated religiousness (SRR), observer-rated spirituality (ORS), and daily spiritual experiences (DSE). The primary outcome was LOS. Results: RTV and SRR predicted longer LOS, whereas ORS and DSE predicted shorter LOS (p 0.05). Effects of RTV onLOS were stronger among women, but explained by worse health status. The effects of DSE on LOS were stronger among non-whites. Among those reporting high DSE, diagnostic tests and total procedures also tended to be less common. Conclusions: Religious activities, attitudes, and spiritual experiences are weak predictors of LOS and HSU during hospitalization. Whether the prediction is positive or negative depends on the religious or spiritual characteristic.     

Lexical encoding of event participant information.

The typical understanding of a short passive sentence like The ship was sunk is that it was sunk by someone. We investigated whether unexpressed agent information is introduced via semantic argument information associated with the lexical representations of verbs, or instead via conceptually derived inferences. We demonstrate, in self-paced reading and eye-monitoring studies, that implicit agents are derived from lexical rather than conceptual sources and that verb argument structure information is accessed as soon as a verb is recognized.     

Prevalence and predictors of benevolent childhood experiences among a representative sample of young people

Emerging research evidence suggests that benevolent childhood experiences (BCEs) may partly explain more favourable mental health outcomes among individuals affected by adverse childhood experiences (ACEs). However, much of this research has focused on adult populations. Consequently, this study sought to provide the first rigorous assessment of the prevalence and predictors of BCEs using a nationally representative sample of young people from Northern Ireland (NI). Participants were 11–19-years-olds (N = 1293) who participated in the NI Youth Wellbeing Prevalence Survey (NI-YWS, 2020). Prevalence rates, gender differences and predictors of BCEs were investigated. Results revealed how most of the sample experienced multiple BCEs (95%, n = 1084), with females reporting higher levels of BCEs. Significant positive predictors of BCEs were female gender, parental education, living with both biological parents, and living in areas with lower deprivation, while significant negative predictors of BCEs included family being in receipt of social welfare and older age. Overall, this study highlights how BCEs are common, while the identification of factors associated with likelihood of having positive experiences during early development provides novel insights into those young people who may be at greater risk for maladaptive psychological outcomes.     

Ethically Allocating COVID-19 Drugs Via Pre-approval Access and Emergency Use Authorization

Abstract

Allocating access to unapproved COVID-19 drugs available via Pre-Approval Access pathways or Emergency Use Authorization raises unique challenges at the intersection of clinical care and research. In conditions of scarcity, prioritization approaches should minimize harm, maximize benefit, and promote fairness. To promote continued data collection, patients seeking access to unproven COVID-19 drugs should receive lower priority for allocation when they decline to participate in clinical trials, either of the requested drug or other investigational products, offering a comparable balance of risks and benefits; special attention should be paid to concerns of voluntariness and distrust. In addition, institutional treatment protocols that can contribute more robust real world data should be preferred to single patient requests for access, with priority for inclusion based on traditional clinical allocation criteria relying on available evidence. Fairness demands distribution of these protocols across a diverse range of sites, particularly those serving marginalized populations, among other protections.     

Deception and subtypes of aggression during early childhood

A multi-informant study investigated the association between deception capacities and subtypes of aggression in a young early childhood sample (M = 44.65 months of age, SD = 13.39, N = 64). A newly developed teacher report of deception had appropriate psychometric properties (reliability, concurrent validity, and construct validity). Recently introduced observational methods of physical and relational aggression were reliable and valid with this sample. Findings indicated that both physical and relational aggression were associated with concurrent deception. For boys only, physical aggression uniquely predicted deception, controlling for the variance associated with relational aggression. In addition, relational aggression predicted deception above and beyond the role of physical aggression for the entire sample.     

Integration of intermittent visual samples over time and between the eyes

The authors investigated the integration of alternate disparate monocular inputs for binocular perception in 1-handed catching experiments (N = 14, 32, 22, and 15 participants, respectively in Experiments 1-4). They varied the no-vision interval between alternate monocular samples to measure catching performance, and they compared the alternating monocular conditions with binocular and monocular conditions with equal no-vision intervals. They found no evidence of a binocular advantage for one-handed catching in the alternating monocular conditions. Performance in monocular and alternating monocular conditions did not differ across no-vision intervals ranging from 0-80 ms and was particularly worse than performance in binocular viewing conditions when the no-vision interval was 40 ms or more. The authors argue that the dissimilarity between disparate monocular inputs created by the approaching object limited the integration of those inputs and subsequent binocular perception.     

Ambivalence toward the body: death, neuroticism, and the flight from physical sensation

Based on terror management theory, the authors suggest that ambivalent reactions to the human body are partially rooted in the association of the physical body with inescapable death and that individuals high in neuroticism are particularly vulnerable to such difficulties. Three experiments demonstrated that priming thoughts about one's death leads individuals high in neuroticism to flee from physical sensations, including pleasurable ones. In response to mortality salience, highly neurotic individuals spent less time submerging their arm in ice-cold water and using an electric foot massager but did not avoid stimulation in nontactile modalities (i.e., listening to music). The discussion highlights the role of existentially motivated self-repression in inhibitions surrounding the body.     

Asymmetries in finger-tapping interference produced by mental versus manual rotation of Shepard and Metzler type objects

Two experiments were conducted using dual-task finger-tapping procedures to examine cerebral hemisphere laterization for mental versus manual rotation. Actual three-dimensional block-designs based on Shepard and Metzler's (1971) abstract three-dimensional cubes were constructed. Forty-eight right-handed introductory psychology students participated in each study. The first experiment showed greater right-hand than left-hand interference for mental rotation implicating more left-hemisphere involvement. In contrast, more left-hand than right-hand finger-tapping disruption with manual rotation was observed suggesting more right-hemisphere involvement. A second experiment was conducted to determine if the right-hemisphere involvement found with manual rotation was due to the manual activity of handling and rotating the blocks. Results showed that dual-task interference produced by irrelevant manual rotation combined with mental rotation was not lateralized. Thus, the pattern of results indicate that the manipulospatial processing required in the first experiment was responsible for the asymmetry implicating right-hemisphere involvement.     

Suicidal behavior among urban,African American young adults

The objectives of the present study were four-fold. First, to determine the lifetime, last year, and 6-month prevalence and demographic correlates of suicidal behavior in a defined population of urban, African American young adults. Second, to determine the degree of mental health service utilization among attempters. Third, to study the comorbidity between mental disorders and suicidal behavior, along with the variation in the numbers and types of psychiatric disorders associated with attempts versus ideation only. Fourth, to examine gender differences in the psychiatric diagnoses associated with attempts and ideation. Data relevant to each of these objectives were gathered through structured interviews of 1,157 economically disadvantaged, African American young adults. Lifetime, last year, and 6-month prevalence rates for attempts were 5.3%, 1.2%, and 0.4%, respectively, whereas the lifetime and 6-month prevalence of ideation were 14% and 1.9%, respectively. Approximately two thirds of those who reported lifetime ideation, and a similar proportion of those who reported lifetime attempts, had a history of at least one lifetime psychiatric disorder. There were no gender differences in terms of the degree of risk for suicidal behavior (ideation or attempts) associated with any of the comorbid psychiatric diagnoses assessed. Despite the severity of most attempts, few attempters received mental health services in their lifetime or at the time of their most recent attempt.