The newsworthiness of suicide

There is a paucity of studies examining which suicides are considered news-worthy. By combining data on media reports of individuals' suicides with routinely collected suicide data, it was found that 1% of Australian suicides were reported over a 1-year period. There was evidence of over-reporting of suicides by older people and females, and those involving dramatic methods. Reported suicides fell into three groups: suicides reported in a broader context; suicides by celebrities; and suicides involving unusual circumstances/methods. The data suggest a need for media professionals and suicide experts to work together to balance newsworthiness against the risk of copycat behavior.     

Interprofessional Education: Preparing Psychologists for Success in Integrated Primary Care

Rapidly occurring changes in the healthcare arena mean time is of the essence for psychology to formalize a strategic plan for training in primary care settings. The current article articulates factors affecting models of integrated care in Academic Health Centers (AHCs) and describes ways to identify and utilize resources at AHCs to develop interprofessional educational and clinical integrated care opportunities. The paper asserts that interprofessional educational experiences between psychology and other healthcare providers are vital to insure professionals value one another’s disciplines in health care reform endeavors, most notably the patient-centered initiatives. The paper highlights ways to create shared values and common goals between primary care providers and psychologists, which are needed for trainee internalization of integrated care precepts. A developmental perspective to training from pre-doctoral, internship and postdoctoral levels for psychologists in integrated care is described. Lastly, a call to action is given for the field to develop more opportunities for psychology trainees to receive education and training within practica, internships and postdoctoral fellowships in primary care settings to address the reality that most patients seek their mental health treatment in primary care settings.     

Visually guided step descent in children with Williams syndrome

Individuals with Williams syndrome (WS) have impairments in visuospatial tasks and in manual visuomotor control, consistent with parietal and cerebellar abnormalities. Here we examined whether individuals with WS also have difficulties in visually controlling whole-body movements. We investigated visual control of stepping down at a change of level in children with WS (5-16-year-olds), who descended a single step while their movement was kinematically recorded. On each trial step height was set unpredictably, so that visual information was necessary to perceive the step depth and position the legs appropriately before landing. Kinematic measures established that children with WS did not use visual information to slow the leg at an appropriate point during the step. This pattern contrasts with that observed in typically developing 3- and 4-year-old children, implying severe impairment in whole-body visuomotor control in WS. For children with WS, performance was not significantly predicted by low-level visual or balance problems, but improved significantly with verbal age. The results suggest some plasticity and development in WS whole-body control. These data clearly show that visuospatial and visuomotor deficits in WS extend to the locomotor domain. Taken together with evidence for parietal and cerebellar abnormalities in WS, these results also provide new evidence for the role of these circuits in the visual control of whole-body movement.     

Social support for women with chronic pelvic pain: what is helpful from whom?

Eight women with Chronic Pelvic Pain (CPP) were asked, by means of semi-structured interview, what had been helpful and unhelpful in terms of social support from their partners, families, friends, acquaintances, doctors, nurses and other women with CPP. Firstly, thematic analysis employing a pre-defined social support category system revealed that particular forms of tangible support were preferred from specific support providers but emotional and informational support was appreciated from the whole support network. Secondly, interpretative phenomenological analysis revealed three major additional themes: ‘Pain and Suffering’ described the trauma suffered by these patients and the anger and anxiety surrounding their experience; ‘Ideal Social Support’ revealed a picture of desired support consisting of enduring emotional and practical support which did not undermine individual autonomy; ‘Shortfalls in Social Support’ had subsidiary themes entitled ‘Lack of empathy’ and ‘Lack of engagement’. These themes were described and discussed in relation to each other, extant research and their clinical implications.     

Unintended Diagnosis of Von Hippel Lindau Syndrome Using Array Comparative Genomic Hybridization (CGH): Counseling Challenges Arising from Unexpected Information

Array Comparative Genomic Hybridization (array CGH) is a powerful tool for identifying genomic imbalances and providing a diagnosis in individuals with a normal karyotype. It has been particularly useful in the investigation of individuals with developmental delay +/?, dysmorphic features and/or multiple congenital abnormalities. However, this non-targeted method of scanning the whole genome can reveal unexpected information. We present a case where array CGH identified the cause of a proband’s moderate mental retardation by discovery of a de novo deletion of chromosome 3p25.3. This deletion was shown to contain at least 25 genes including the VHL gene, the deletion or mutation of which leads to Von Hippel Lindau (VHL) syndrome. Presymptomatic testing for VHL is usually offered after appropriate genetic counseling about the implications of this condition. Therefore, scanning the genome by array CGH presents a number of challenges for the genetic counselor. We suggest that further understanding of the psychosocial effects of array CGH is needed in order for appropriate pre- and post-test counseling to be provided.     

On the representation of intentions: Do personally relevant consequences determine activation?

The intention-superiority effect describes shorter latencies for reactions to stimuli intended for future enactment, relative to stimuli associated with no enactment or canceled enactment. Previous attempts to demonstrate an intention-superiority effect for other types of tasks—for instance, observing the experimenter executing actions—have not yielded an intention-superiority effect. A reason for this could be that the typical enactment task was associated with a higher degree of personal relevance than were other laboratory-based tasks and that task importance or its consequences heighten the accessibility of intention-relevant materials. In two experiments, we demonstrate an intention-superiority effect for different types of tasks (e.g., monitoring a video clip) when task realization has personally relevant consequences in terms of a performance evaluation. In contrast, we found no intention-superiority effect when future enactment had no personally relevant consequences for participants. These findings imply that the intention-superiority effect is not restricted to actions but occurs generally for relevant plans.     

The effects of enactment and intention accessibility on prospective memory performance

The intention-superiority effect denotes faster response latencies to stimuli linked with a prospective memory task compared to stimuli linked with no prospective task or with a cancelled task. It is generally assumed that the increased accessibility of intention-related materials contributes to successful execution of prospective memory tasks at an appropriate opportunity. In two experiments we investigated the relationship between the intention-superiority effect and actual prospective memory performance under relatively realistic conditions. We also manipulated enactment versus observation encoding to further investigate the similarity in representations of enacted and to-be-enacted tasks. Additionally, Experiment 1 included a control condition to investigate the development of the intention-superiority effect over time. Participants were asked to perform prospective tasks at the end of the experiment to prepare the room for the next participant. They studied these preparatory tasks at the beginning of the experiment either by enacting them themselves or by observing the experimenter perform them. In Experiment 2, participants in a control condition did not intend to perform prospective tasks. We observed a smaller intention-superiority effect after enactment encoding than after observation encoding, but only if response latencies were assessed immediately before the prospective memory task. In addition, Experiment 2 suggested that the size of the intention-superiority effect is related to successful prospective memory performance, thus providing evidence for a functional relationship between accessibility and memory.