A systematic review of disease related stigmatization in patients living with prostate cancer.

BACKGROUND: Prostate cancer has been shown to be susceptible to significant stigmatisation, because to a large extent it is concealable, it has potentially embarrassing sexual symptoms and has significant impact on the psychosocial functioning. METHODS: This review included studies that focused on qualitative and/or quantitative data, where the study outcome was prostate cancer and included a measure of stigmatization. Electronic databases (CINAHL, Medline, PubMed, PsycInfo, Cochrane Library, PROSPERO, and the Joanna Briggs Institute) and one database for grey literature Opengrey.eu, were screened. We used thematic analysis, with narrative synthesis to analyse these data. We assessed risk of bias in the included studies using the RoBANS. RESULTS: In total, 18 studies met review inclusion criteria, incorporating a total of 2295 participants. All studies recruited participants with prostate cancer, however four studies recruited participants with other cancers such as breast cancer and lung cancer. Of the 18 studies, 11 studies evaluated perceived or felt stigma; four studies evaluated internalised or self-stigma; three studies evaluated more than one stigma domain. DISCUSSION: We found that patients living with prostate cancer encounter stigmatisation that relate to perception, internalisation, and discrimination experiences. We also identified several significant gaps related to the understanding of prostate cancer stigmatization, which provides an opportunity for future research to address these important public health issues. REGISTRATION: This systematic review protocol is registered with PROSPERO, the international prospective register of systematic reviews in health and social care. Registration number: CRD42020177312.

Fear-related barriers to physical activity among adults with overweight and obesity: A narrative synthesis scoping review.

Physical activity is a health behavior contributing to successful weight management. Adults with overweight and obesity find it challenging to meet recommended activity guidelines because of a range of barriers, some of which are not yet fully understood. A barrier receiving limited consideration, compared with other literature within this field, is that of fear. The purpose of this scoping review was to establish the extent of literature on fear-related barriers to physical activity in adults with overweight or obesity and to identify gaps in this literature. The review followed the scoping review framework outlined by Arksey and O'Malley and adhered to the Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic reviews and Meta-Analyses extension for Scoping Reviews guidelines. The findings of the identified papers were charted thematically using a framework of fears and age group. In total, 34 studies were included that identified nine different fears related to barriers to activity in this population. However, only a small number of studies (n = 5) had explicitly intended to explore fear-related barriers. There were notable knowledge gaps including activity-related fear of pain and movement in adults under 45 years of age. There is a strong rationale to further explore these fears because they may restrict health promoting behavior.

The interface between chronic fatigue syndrome and depression: A psychobiological and neurophysiological conundrum.

The chronic fatigue syndrome (CFS) remains a contentious and controversial presentation despite decades of systematic research from a variety of medical specialties and associated disciplines. Variously championed as a condition of immunological, neurological, neurophysiological, psychiatric or psychological origin, consensus on a cogent and evidenced-based pathway has yet to be achieved. Irrespective of the ambiguity regarding aetiology, what is incontrovertible is the experience of significant depression, which often accompanies this most distressing clinical presentation. The current paper examines the potential underlying mechanisms, which may determine and explain this relationship between CFS and depression. In doing so, it offers some insights, which may be of value in the development of evidence-based and scientifically-anchored interventions in individuals experiencing this diagnosis, to improve outcomes in relation to depression specifically and quality of life more generally.

Caloric estimation of healthy and unhealthy foods in normal-weight, overweight and obese participants.

Individuals make dietary choices each time they consume food or drink, and assign labels to each item, such as un/healthy, high/low in calories, high/low in nutrients. These labels are thought to be snap judgments based on prior, and often limited nutritional knowledge. The aim of this study was to examine the perception of the caloric content of 'healthy' and 'unhealthy' foods. Participants (N=141) rated 53 food images on perceived healthiness/un-healthiness alongside the caloric content. Participants were subdivided into three groups: BMI (normal-weight, overweight, obese). Findings suggest that weight status impacts on participant's caloric estimation of foods perceived as healthy, but only marginally for unhealthy foods. However, not all foods were consistently labeled as healthy or unhealthy, on these occasions weight salience appears not to have influenced estimations of caloric content. Foods that confound the dichotomous labeling of healthy or unhealthy appear to gain a 'branding' that confers either greater or fewer calories than they actually contain, on these occasions weight salience does not appear to influence the labeling; implications are discussed.

Twenty Years of Stereotype Threat Research: A Review of Psychological Mediators.

This systematic literature review appraises critically the mediating variables of stereotype threat. A bibliographic search was conducted across electronic databases between 1995 and 2015. The search identified 45 experiments from 38 articles and 17 unique proposed mediators that were categorized into affective/subjective (n = 6), cognitive (n = 7) and motivational mechanisms (n = 4). Empirical support was accrued for mediators such as anxiety, negative thinking, and mind-wandering, which are suggested to co-opt working memory resources under stereotype threat. Other research points to the assertion that stereotype threatened individuals may be motivated to disconfirm negative stereotypes, which can have a paradoxical effect of hampering performance. However, stereotype threat appears to affect diverse social groups in different ways, with no one mediator providing unequivocal empirical support. Underpinned by the multi-threat framework, the discussion postulates that different forms of stereotype threat may be mediated by distinct mechanisms.

Academic self-efficacy in study-related skills and behaviours: relations with learning-related emotions and academic success.

BACKGROUND: Academic self-efficacy, when operationalized as mastery over domain-specific knowledge, has been found to be a predictor of academic achievement and emotions. Although academic emotions are also a predictor of academic achievement, there is limited evidence for reciprocal relations with academic achievement. AIMS: To examine whether academic self-efficacy, when operationalized as confidence in study-related skills and behaviours, is also a predictor of academic achievement and emotions and to test reciprocal relations between academic emotions and achievement. SAMPLE: Two hundred and six first-year undergraduate students. METHODS: Academic self-efficacy was measured at the beginning of the first semester and learning-related emotions (LREs) at the beginning of the second semester. Academic performance was aggregated across assessments in semester one and semester two. RESULTS: Self-efficacy in study-related skills and behaviours predicted: (1) better semester one academic performance and (2) more pleasant and fewer unpleasant LREs at the beginning of the second semester directly and (3) indirectly through semester one academic performance. Reciprocal relations between academic performance and emotions were supported, but only for pleasant emotions. CONCLUSIONS: Self-efficacy in study-related skills was the critical academic self-efficacy variable in this study. It may play an important role in maintaining challenge appraisals to maintain pleasant emotions and better academic performance. Accordingly, practitioners in higher education may wish to consider the value of assessing and developing students' self-efficacy in relation to their independent study skills.

The relationships of 'ecstasy' (MDMA) and cannabis use to impaired executive inhibition and access to semantic long-term memory.

This study aimed to examine the relationship between the consumption of ecstasy (3,4-methylenedioxymethamphetamine (MDMA)) and cannabis, and performance on the random letter generation task which generates dependent variables drawing upon executive inhibition and access to semantic long-term memory (LTM). The participant group was a between-participant independent variable with users of both ecstasy and cannabis (E/C group, n = 15), users of cannabis but not ecstasy (CA group, n = 13) and controls with no exposure to these drugs (CO group, n = 12). Dependent variables measured violations of randomness: number of repeat sequences, number of alphabetical sequences (both drawing upon inhibition) and redundancy (drawing upon access to semantic LTM). E/C participants showed significantly higher redundancy than CO participants but did not differ from CA participants. There were no significant effects for the other dependent variables. A regression model comprising intelligence measures and estimates of ecstasy and cannabis consumption predicted redundancy scores, but only cannabis consumption contributed significantly to this prediction. Impaired access to semantic LTM may be related to cannabis consumption, although the involvement of ecstasy and other stimulant drugs cannot be excluded here. Executive inhibitory functioning, as measured by the random letter generation task, is unrelated to ecstasy and cannabis consumption.