Interactive Genetic Counseling Role-Play: A Novel Educational Strategy for Family Physicians

Background Family physicians (FPs) are increasingly involved in delivering genetic services. Familiarization with aspects of genetic counseling may enable FPs to help patients make informed choices. Purpose Exploration of interactive role-play as a means to raise FPs’ awareness of the process and content of genetic counseling. Methods FPs attending two large Canadian family medicine conferences in 2005 were eligible—93 participated. FPs discussed a case during a one-on-one session with a genetic counselor. Evaluation involved pre and post intervention questionnaires Results FPs’ baseline genetic knowledge was self-rated as uniformly poor. Baseline confidence was highest in eliciting family history and providing psychosocial support and lowest in discussing risks/benefits of genetic testing and counseling process. Post-intervention, 80% of FPs had better appreciation of family history and 97% indicated this was an effective learning experience. Conclusions Role-play with FPs is effective in raising awareness of the process and content of genetic counseling and may be applied to other health disciplines. This research was funded by: The Canadian Institutes of Health Research (CIHR) Institute of Genetics, The Genetics Education Project (funded by the Ontario Women’s Health Council), and GeneSens (funded by a CIHR Interdisciplinary Capacity Enhancement Team Grant).     

Variables Associated with Therapy Attendance in Runaway Substance Abusing Youth: Preliminary Findings

Service providers and researchers note that youth with substance abuse problems are difficult to engage in treatment and, when engaged, often drop out early. Estimates of the alcohol and drug abuse rate of runaway youth range from 70% to 95%. This study evaluated predictors of therapy attendance in a sample of substance abusing youth recruited through two southwestern runaway shelters. Runaway youth and their families (N = 36) were engaged into a 15-session ecologically-based family therapy (EBFT) intervention. Fewer days between the pretreatment assessment and the first therapy session, as well as less perceived parental care, predicted more therapy sessions attended. No relationship was found between level of substance use and treatment attendance. The findings highlight the importance of engaging families in therapy soon after the youth's arrival to the shelter, as treatment motivation may decrease as the crisis lessens.     

Individual difference factors and beliefs in medical and political conspiracy theories

This study examined the relationship between a series of individual difference measures and belief in political and medical conspiracy theories. Participants (N = 323) rated 20 conspiracy theories (10 medical, 10 political) and completed a set of questionnaires. Belief in political conspiracies was strongly positively correlated with belief in medical conspiracies. Belief in both conspiracy types was correlated with low self‐esteem, low Conscientiousness, more right‐wing political views, younger age, and greater belief in the benefits of Alternative Medicine. It was also correlated with religiousness and gender. Low Emotional Stability and Agreeableness were also correlated with belief in political conspiracies, and higher education level was correlated with belief in medical conspiracies. The findings generally demonstrated support for a monological belief system. Implications and limitations are discussed.     

Multimodal events and moving locations: eye movements of adults and 6-month-olds reveal dynamic spatial indexing

The ability to keep track of locations in a dynamic, multimodal environment is crucial for successful interactions with other people and objects. The authors investigated the existence and flexibility of spatial indexing in adults and 6-month-old infants by adapting an eye-tracking paradigm from D. C. Richardson and M. J. Spivey (2000). Multimodal events were presented in specific locations, and eye movements were measured when the auditory portion of the stimulus was presented without its visual counterpart. Experiment 1 showed that adults spatially index auditory information even when the original associated locations move. Experiments 2 and 3 showed that infants are capable of both binding multimodal events to locations and tracking those locations when they move.     

Overexpectation: response loss during sustained stimulus compounding in the rabbit nictitating membrane preparation

Rabbits were given reinforced training of the nictitating membrane (NM) response using separate conditioned stimuli (CSs), which were a tone, light, and/or tactile vibration. Then, two CSs were compounded and given further pairings with the unconditioned stimulus (US). Evidence of both overexpectation and summation effects appeared. That is, responding to the individual CSs declined despite their continued pairing with the US on compound trials (overexpectation), and responding on the compound trials was greater than responding to the individual CSs (summation). The response loss appeared regardless of the testing regime, that is, whether the test presentations of the individual CSs were themselves reinforced (Experiment 2), not reinforced (Experiment 1), or deferred until the end of compound training (Experiment 2). The results are discussed with respect to the roles of excitatory versus inhibitory processes, elemental versus configural processes, and the possible roles of cerebellar and hippocampal pathways.     

Body image and psychosocial differences among stable average weight, currently overweight, and formerly overweight women: the role of stigmatizing experiences

Substantial research has compared obese and nonobese persons on body image and psychosocial adjustment. While differences in body satisfaction are often observed, the literature is less clear on other dimensions. Extant differences are typically thought to result from the social stigmatization and maltreatment experienced by obese persons, especially females. The present study of 165 women compared three cohorts who were currently overweight, never overweight, or formerly overweight. Relative to never-overweight women, currently overweight women reported more body dissatisfaction/distress, overweight preoccupation, and dysfunctional appearance investment, as well as more binge eating, lower social self-esteem, and less satisfaction with life. Consistent with the “phantom fat” phenomenon, formerly overweight women were comparable to currently overweight women but worse than never-overweight women on overweight preoccupation and dysfunctional appearance investment. Correlations confirmed that, among overweight but not formerly overweight women, more frequent stigmatizing experiences during childhood, adolescence, and adulthood were significantly associated with currently poorer body image and psychosocial functioning. Scientific and clinical implications of the findings are discussed.     

Limited spread of innovation in a wild parrot, the kea (Nestor notabilis)

In the local population of kea in Mount Cook Village, New Zealand, some keas open the lids of rubbish bins with their bill to obtain food scraps within. We investigated the extent to which this innovation has spread in the local population, and what factors limit the acquisition of bin opening. Only five males of 36 individually recognised birds were observed to have performed successful bin opening. With one exception there were always other keas present, watching successful bin opening. Seventeen additional individuals were seen to have benefitted from lid opening. Their foraging success was less than that of the bin openers. Social status of bin openers did not differ from scrounging males. Among the individuals that were regularly seen at the site of the bins but were not successful in bin opening, social status and the ratio of feeding directly from open bins correlated with the amount of opening attempts. We conclude that scrounging facilitated certain behavioural aspects of bin opening rather than inhibiting them. The fact that only 9% of opening attempts were successful, and the long period of time required to increase efficiency in lid opening shows that mainly individual experience, and to a lesser extent insight and social learning, play key roles in acquisition of the opening technique. The results indicate that the spread of innovative solutions of challenging mechanical problems in animals may be restricted to only a few individuals.     

Ethical considerations for research and treatment with runaway and homeless adolescents

Ethical considerations for working with runaway and homeless youth in research and treatment settings are presented. Issues of parents' and adolescents' consent for research and treatment are discussed, with particular attention given to the lack of explicit guidelines for working with abused and neglected youth. The principles of beneficence and justice are discussed as they apply to intervening with a high-risk, multiproblem population. The authors offer a rationale for allowing adolescents to self-consent to research and treatment. They argue that in many circumstances, requiring parental consent may not be in the youth's best interest and may preclude his or her participation in treatment and research programs.     

Attaining personal goals: self-concordance plus implementation intentions equals success

The present article includes separate meta-analyses showing that self-concordance and implementation intentions are significantly positively associated with goal progress. Study 1 confirmed the positive relations of both self-concordance and implementation intentions to weekend goal progress. Study 2 confirmed the positive relation of self-concordance with monthly progress on New Year's resolutions but failed to find a direct benefit for implementation intentions. Both studies, however, obtained a significant interaction effect indicating that goal self-concordance and implementation intentions combined synergistically to facilitate goal progress. The article also reports a meta-analysis and results from the 2 studies that demonstrated that goal progress was associated with improved affect over time.     

Interpopulation variation in the risk-related decisions of <Emphasis Type="Italic">Portia labiata</Emphasis>, an araneophagic jumping spider (Araneae,Salticidae), during predatory sequences with spitting spiders

The extent to which decision-making processes are constrained in animals with small brains is poorly understood. Arthropods have brains much smaller and simpler than those of birds and mammals. This raises questions concerning limitations on how intricate the decision-making processes might be in arthropods. At Los Ba?os in the Philippines, Scytodes pallidus is a spitting spider that specialises in preying on jumping spiders, and Portia labiata is a jumping spider that preys on S. pallidus. Scytodid spit comes from the mouth, and egg-carrying females are less dangerous than eggless scytodids because the female uses her chelicerae to hold her eggs. Held eggs block her mouth, and she has to release them before she can spit. The Los Ba?os P. labiata sometimes adjusts its tactics depending on whether the scytodid encountered is carrying eggs or not. When pursuing eggless scytodids, the Los Ba?os P. labiata usually takes detour routes that enable it to close in from behind (away from the scytodid's line of fire). However, when pursuing egg-carrying scytodids, the Los Ba?os P. labiata sometimes takes faster direct routes to reach these safer prey. The Los Ba?os P. labiata apparently makes risk-related adjustments specific to whether scytodids are carrying eggs, but P. labiata from Sagada in the Philippines (allopatric to Scytodes) fails to make comparable risk-related adjustments.