Gender role conflict scale: validation for a sample of gay men and lesbian women

This study tested the oblique four-factor model of the Gender Role Conflict Scale for a sample of gay men and lesbian women residing in the United States. 400 gay men and 292 lesbian women recruited from university and college gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgender LISTSERVs participated. The internal consistency reliability of the Gender Role Conflict Scale scores was high, but low means on the expressive dimension of gender role conflict were noted. The results of two separate sets of confirmatory factor analyses indicated that the four-factor model's fit to the data could be enhanced for both groups by applying item parceling to lower the number of indicators per factor, suggesting that the actual structural validity of the Gender Role Conflict Scale may be better than suggested by the reported fit indices.     

THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN FEMININE GENDER ROLE STRESS, BODY IMAGE, AND EATING DISORDERS

The Feminine Gender Role Stress (FGRS) scale was used in two studies to determine whether eating disorders could be linked to the cognitive tendency among women to appraise specific situations as highly stressful because of rigid adherence to the traditional feminine gender role. Study 1 showed the FGRS scale could distinguish eating disorders from other psychiatric disorders in an inpatient setting and from normal college women. This suggests that women who have eating disorders report higher than usual levels of stress as a result of rigid adherence to the traditional feminine gender role. Study 2 looked at cardiovascular reactivity to a feminine (i.e., body image threat) and a control stressor and determined the FGRS scale could predict which women are threatened by feminine stressors. Results from these studies suggest feminine gender role stress may be the missing link between cultural values of femininity and vulnerability for eating disorders.     

Usability of a Smartphone Application to Support the Prevention and Early Intervention of Anxiety in Youth

Mental, emotional, and behavioral disorders are common in youth with anxiety problems being among the most prevalent, typically failing to spontaneously remit, and placing some youth at risk for additional difficulties. Mobile health (mHealth) might be a novel avenue to strengthen prevention efforts for child anxiety, since program effects are generally small. However, although a significant number of mHealth tools have been developed, few have been evaluated in terms of usability (or even clinical effectiveness). Usability testing is the first level of evaluation in responsible mHealth efforts as it is one of the main barriers to usage and adoption. As such, the objective of this research was to evaluate the usability of a smartphone application (app) corresponding to an indicated prevention and early intervention targeting youth anxiety. To accomplish this, 132 children (M_age = 9.65, 63% girls) and 45 service providers (M_age = 29.13, 87% female) rated our app along five established dimensions of usability (ease of use, ease of learning, quality of support information, satisfaction, and stigma). Findings showed that the app was highly and positively rated by youth and providers, with some variations (lower ratings when errors occurred). Path analyses also showed that system understanding was significantly related to greater system satisfaction, but that such relation occurred through the quality of support information offered by the app. Together, this has research and clinical implications as it highlights avenues for advancing youth care via mHealth usability evaluation, including prior to establishing effectiveness.     

A Clinical Decision Support Tool to Predict Cancer Risk for Commonly Tested Cancer-Related Germline Mutations

The rapid drop in the cost of DNA sequencing led to the availability of multi-gene panels, which test 25 or more cancer susceptibility genes for a low cost. Clinicians and genetic counselors need a tool to interpret results, understand risk of various cancers, and advise on a management strategy. This is challenging as there are multiple studies regarding each gene, and it is not possible for clinicians and genetic counselors to be aware of all publications, nor to appreciate the relative accuracy and importance of each. Through an extensive literature review, we have identified reliable studies and derived estimates of absolute risk. We have also developed a systematic mechanism and informatics tools for (1) data curation, (2) the evaluation of quality of studies, and (3) the statistical analysis necessary to obtain risk. We produced the risk prediction clinical decision support tool ASK2ME (All Syndromes Known to Man Evaluator). It provides absolute cancer risk predictions for various hereditary cancer susceptibility genes. These predictions are specific to patients’ gene carrier status, age, and history of relevant prophylactic surgery. By allowing clinicians to enter patient information and receive patient-specific cancer risks, this tool aims to have a significant impact on the quality of precision cancer prevention and disease management activities relying on panel testing. It is important to note that this tool is dynamic and constantly being updated, and currently, some of its limitations include (1) for many gene-cancer associations risk estimates are based on one study rather than meta-analysis, (2) strong assumptions on prior cancers, (3) lack of uncertainty measures, and (4) risk estimates for a growing set of gene-cancer associations which are not always variant specific. All of these concerns are being addressed on an ongoing basis, aiming to make the tool even more accurate.     

The effects of framing and action instructions on whether older adults obtain flu shots.

The authors tested the effects of cues to action--messages intended to increase flu immunizations. North Dakota counties were randomly assigned to reminder letters, action letters, or no letters. Within the reminder-letter counties, Medicare recipients received either (a) a reminder from the state peer review organization (PRO) to obtain a flu shot or (b) a reminder from the PRO, framed either in terms of the loss associated with failing to get a shot or (c) the benefits associated with getting a shot. Within the action-letter counties, Medicare recipients leaned where and when to receive a flu shot. Reminder type failed to differentially affect the immunization rate (overall M = 24.5%). However, the action messages worked better (28.2%) than no message (19.6%).