Strength-based cognitive-behavioural therapy and peer-to-peer support in the recovery process for people with schizophrenia: A randomised control trial.

BACKGROUND AND AIMS: Dysfunctional cognition and negative symptoms in schizophrenia are associated with persistently low social functioning and quality of life (QoL). Recovery interventions report only a modest effect in improving social functioning and QoL. This study examined the therapeutic effects and pathways of interventions using strength-based cognitive-behavioural therapy (SBCBT) and peer-to-peer support (PSP) approaches. METHODS: A randomised control trial compared SBCBT, PSP and TAU (treatment-as-usual) by recruiting 127 individuals with schizophrenia spectrum disorders and low social functioning. RESULTS: The three-group comparison found SBCBT produced improved social functioning and social support at post-intervention and 6-month follow-up while PSP reported improved social QoL and defeatist beliefs, but none remained at 6-month follow-up. Unsurprising, no improvement was found in any areas for TAU, both at post-test and 6-month follow-up. Regarding mechanisms of change, improvements in hope and personal recovery consistently and significantly accounted for improvements in social functioning and many aspects of QoL of participants, thus indicating the important contribution of hope and personal recovery in strength-based interventions for people with schizophrenia. CONCLUSION: This rigorously designed study provides the first few solid empirical evidence on the effectiveness of SBCBT and PSP in recovery from schizophrenia and provides initial evidence of the linkage between dysfunctional cognition, hope and recovery in schizophrenia.

Optimized extraction technology of glutathione from 'Haidao 86' germ rice by response surface methodology.

Glutathione is an important functional component of 'Haidao 86', which has many important physiological functions in organisms and is widely used in medicine and other industries. In this study, the effects of four extraction methods (hot water extraction, formic acid extraction, ethanol extraction, and sulfuric acid extraction) on the yield of glutathione in 'Haidao 86' germ powders were studied by high-performance liquid chromatography, and the yield of glutathione in hot water extraction was the highest. The effects of material-liquid ratio, temperature, pH, and time on the extraction rate of glutathione from 'Haidao 86' were investigated by single-factor experiment and Box-Behnken combined experiment. The results showed that the order of influence on GSH yield was pH, temperature, material-liquid ratio, and time, and the interaction of extraction time and pH had a significant influence on glutathione yield of 'Haidao 86' germ powders. The optimum parameters for hot water extraction of glutathione from 'Haidao 86' germ powders were determined as follows: material-liquid ratio of 1:12, pH value of 2.8, temperature of 84.9°C, time of 14 min, and the extraction rate of glutathione was 139.68 mg/100 g. It provided the scientific proof for the development and industrial production of functional products of 'Haidao 86'.

Towards an integrative hope-dysfunctional beliefs perspective to personal recovery in schizophrenia: a path analysis.

BACKGROUND: Evidence shows that negative symptoms of schizophrenia and underlying dysfunctional cognition are related to persistently low functioning and quality of life. However, despite the abundance of existing recovery programs for people with schizophrenia, few have examined whether and how the widely-adopted hope-motivation recovery pathway and the deficit-oriented cognitive pathway might converge to influence functioning and quality of life. METHODS: A cross-sectional, quantative survey recruited a convenient sample of adult outpatients with DSM-5 schizophrenia spectrum disorders and low social functioning (n = 124). Self-reported measurements included personal recovery (30-item Mental Health Recovery Measure), social functioning (8-item Social Functioning Questionnaire), hope (12-item Hope Scale), quality of life (28-item World Health Organization Quality of Life Scale-Abbreviated Version-Hong Kong), defeatist beliefs (15-item extracted from Dysfunctional Attitude Scale), and asocial beliefs (15-item extracted from Revised Social Anhedonia Scale). Correlation analysis and structural equation modelling was applied to investigate how the two pathways intertwined to predict social functioning and quality of life. RESULTS: Asocial beliefs and hope separately mediated two partial mediation pathways from defeatist beliefs to recovery outcomes (social functioning and personal recovery). Meanwhile, defeatist beliefs, social functioning, and personal recovery further predicted quality of life. CONCLUSIONS: This is one of the very few studies that provides empirical evidence of a deficit-strength linkage in the recovery from schizophrenia. Remediation of dysfunctional beliefs and the injection of hope and successful experiences should be undertaken concurrently in recovery as they are associated with differential effects on enhancing social functioning and personal recovery, which then converge and contribute to a better quality of life.

Country's value priorities in health crisis: How dominant societal motivations shape COVID-19 severity.

This paper presents two comprehensive studies examining how Schwartz's human values dimensions at the country level predict COVID-19 pandemic severity. Study 1 aggregated survey data across 89 countries from the European Social Survey and World Values Survey to assess societal-level conservation versus openness to change (CON-OTC) and self-enhancement versus self-transcendence (SE-ST) value-continuums. Study 2 developed an innovative archival measurement approach using 10 indicators to estimate these value dimensions for over 180 countries. Both studies employed multilevel modeling to test the relationships between country-level values and COVID-19 severity, measured through epidemiological indicators of transmission speed, case fatality rate, infection prevalence and mortality burden. Results revealed that the CON-OTC and SE-ST value-continuums showed consistent, significant negative associations with transmission speed and infection prevalence before adjusting for modernization, latitude, historical pathogen prevalence and government stringency across both studies. However, after accounting for these socioecological and policy covariates, the CON-OTC value-continuum positively predicted case fatality rate in both studies, implying conservation values could increase COVID-19 lethality. In contrast, across both studies, the SE-ST value-continuum negatively predicted case fatality rate after adjusting for the covariates, suggesting countries prioritizing self-enhancement values exhibited relatively lower pandemic severity and lethality when accounting for developmental, ecological, and policy factors. Accordingly, the studies advance theoretical understanding of how country's value priorities shape COVID-19 impact. Methodologically, these studies contribute through multilevel techniques that account for spatial dependencies, as well as an innovative ecological measurement. Overall, this research demonstrates the value of applying Schwartz's framework at a societal level to predict global health crises and pandemics.

Coronavirus-Related Searches on the Internet Predict COVID-19 Vaccination Rates in the Real World: A Behavioral Immune System Perspective.

According to the smoke detector and functional flexibility principles of human behavioral immune system (BIS), the exposure to COVID-19 cues could motivate vaccine uptake. Using the tool of Google Trends, we tested that coronavirus-related searches-which assessed natural exposure to COVID-19 cues-would positively predict actual vaccination rates. As expected, coronavirus-related searches positively and significantly predicted vaccination rates in the United States (Study 1a) and across the globe (Study 2a) after accounting for a range of covariates. The stationary time series analyses with covariates and autocorrelation structure of the dependent variable confirmed that more coronavirus-related searches compared with last week indicated increases in vaccination rates compared with last week in the United States (Study 1b) and across the globe (Study 2b). With real-time web search data, psychological scientists could test their research questions in real-life settings and at a large scale to expand the ecological validity and generalizability of the findings.

The COVID-19 pandemic and seeking information about condoms online: an infodemiology approach.

Objectives: As condoms are effective tools for pathogen-avoidance in sexual intercourse, seeking information about condoms online may be a reactive response to the COVID-19 according to the behavioral immune system theory.Design: Taking an infodemiology perspective, this research employed multilevel analyses to examine how COVID-19 online query data (i.e., Google topic search terms Coronavirus and COVID-19) and coronavirus epidemiological data (i.e., COVID-19 cases per million and case fatality rate) would predict condom information seeking behavior online (i.e., Google topic search term Condom) throughout the pandemic across American states (Study 1) and 102 countries/territories (Study 2), after accounting for death-thought accessibility (i.e., illness-related searches), interest in birth control (i.e., birth-control-related searches), COVID-19 control policy, stay at home behavior, season, religious holidays, yearly trends, autocorrelation, and contextual variables such as HIV prevalence rate and socioeconomic development indicators (GINI index, urbanization, etc.).Results: When there were high levels of COVID-19 concerns in cyberspace in a given week, search volume for condoms increased from the previous week across American states and different countries/territories. By contrast, the effect of actual coronavirus threat was non-significant.Conclusion: Seeking information about condoms online could be a reactive response to high levels of COVID-19 concerns across different populations.

The day-of-week (DOW) effect on liberalism-conservatism: Evidence from a large-scale online survey in China.

Introduction: Past research has shown that psychological states tend to fluctuate across the days of a week, which is referred to as the day-of-week (DOW) effect. This study investigated the DOW effect on liberalism-conservatism among Chinese people by testing two competing hypotheses. According to the cognitive states hypothesis, it was predicted that liberalism would be high on Mondays but gradually decrease to Fridays due to the depletion of cognitive resources over the weekdays. In contrast, the affective states hypothesis predicted the opposite, considering the more positive affect brought by the approaching weekends. Both hypotheses predicted the level of liberalism would peak at weekends. Methods: Data (n = 171,830) were collected via an online questionnaire, the Chinese Political Compass (CPC) survey, which includes 50 items to measure people' liberalism-conservatism in three domains (i.e., political, economic, and social). Results: The results showed the level of liberalism decreased gradually from Mondays until Wednesdays, rebounded from Wednesdays to Fridays, and peaked at weekends. Discussion: The V-shaped pattern suggested that the DOW fluctuation in liberalism-conservatism could derive from the synergy of both cognitive and affective processes, instead of either one alone. The findings have important implications for practice and policy-making, including the recent pilot scheme of 4-day workweek.

The role of ingroup assortative sociality in the COVID-19 pandemic: A multilevel analysis of google trends data in the United States.

This study tested how family ties and religiosity, two extended elements of ingroup assortative sociality, would predict group-level COVID-19 severity in the U.S. and how COVID-19 threat would predict ingroup assortative sociality at a weekly level. Multilevel models which analyzed the state-level archival (e.g., religious participation) and Google trends data (e.g., marriage for family ties; prayer for religiosity) on ingroup assortative sociality showed that religious search volume (from 2004 to 2019) significantly and negatively predicted COVID-19 severity (i.e., shorter time delay of first documented cases, shorter overall doubling times, higher reproductive ratio and higher case fatality ratio) across states (Study 1a) and counties (Study 1b) while search volume for family ties only significantly and negatively predicted county-level COVID-19 severity. Multilevel analyses also found that weekly COVID-19 severity weakly predicted weekly search volume of marriage and religion (Study 2a), but when COVID-19 threat was in the collective consciousness in a given week (i.e., Google search volume for coronavirus within 52 weeks), collective levels of ingroup assortative sociality increased from the previous week (Study 2b). Evidence across studies suggested that religiosity, compared with family ties, could serve a more important role for the U.S. people during the deadly pandemic.

Short and Long-Term Outcomes of Epidural or Intravenous Analgesia after Esophagectomy: A Propensity-Matched Cohort Study.

BACKGROUND AND OBJECTIVES: As a well-established technique for postoperative pain relief, the benefits of epidural analgesia (EDA) have been under debate recently. This study aimed to determine whether EDA could improve perioperative outcomes and survival in patients undergoing esophagectomy. METHODS: From January 2010 to December 2012, 587 consecutive cases undergoing McKeown-type esohpageactomy were retrospectively identified from a prospectively maintained database. RESULTS: After propensity-matching, incorporating baseline characteristics, 178 cases were included in each group, and patients characteristics distributions were well-balanced between two groups. Compared with intravenous analgesia, the use of EDA significantly decreased the incidence of pneumonia from 32% to 19.7% (P = 0.008), and anastomotic leakage from 23.0% to 14.0% (P = 0.029). The change in CRP level of EDA group was significantly decreased (preoperative, 6.2 vs. 6.2; POD 1, 108.1 vs. 121.3; POD 3, 131.5 vs. 137.8; POD 7, 69.3 vs. 82.1 mg/L; P = 0.044). EDA patients had a significantly longer duration of indwelling urinary catheter (P<0.001), and lower levels in both systolic (P = 0.001) and diastolic blood pressure (P<0.001). There weren't significant differences in overall survival (log-rank P = 0.47) and recurrence (Gray-test P = 0.46) between two groups. CONCLUSIONS: These findings revealed that EDA could attenuate inflammatory response and reduce the incidence of pneumonia and anastomotic leakage after esophagectomy, at the price of delayed urinary catheter removal and lower blood pressure. EDA remains an important component of multimodal perioperative management after esophagectomy.

Validation of the Automatic Thoughts Questionnaire (ATQ) Among Mainland Chinese Students in Hong Kong.

OBJECTIVE: The present study validated the combined version of the 8-item Automatic Thought Questionnaire (ATQ) and 10 positive items from the ATQ-revised among Chinese university students. METHOD: A total of 412 Mainland Chinese university students were recruited in Hong Kong by an online survey. RESULTS: A 14-item Chinese ATQ was derived via item analysis. Satisfactory internal consistency reliability and good split-half reliability were obtained. Exploratory and confirmatory factor analysis revealed a 3-correlated-factor solution for the Chinese ATQ: negative thought, positive thought (emotional), and positive thought (cognitive). The negative ATQ subscale score was positively correlated with negative affect, and negatively correlated with positive affect and life satisfaction. The two positive ATQ subscale scores were negatively correlated with negative affect, and positively correlated with positive affect and life satisfaction. CONCLUSION: The 14-item ATQ is a valid and reliable instrument for measuring automatic thoughts in the Chinese context of Hong Kong.

Validation of the Curiosity and Exploration Inventory-II (CEI-II) Among Chinese University Students in Hong Kong.

This study aimed at validating the Curiosity and Exploration Inventory-II (CEI-II; Kashdan et al., 2009 ) in a Chinese context. A total of 294 Chinese first-year undergraduate students in Hong Kong completed the CEI-II and measures of satisfaction with university life, the Big Five personality traits, and human values. The results of exploratory structural equation modeling, parallel analysis, and confirmatory factor analysis supported a 1-factor solution and did not replicate the original 2-factor structure. Time invariance of the 1-factor structure was obtained among 242 participants who completed the questionnaires again after 4 months. The latent means and correlation indicated that curiosity as measured by the CEI-II was quite stable over the period of investigation. The CEI-II was found to be positively correlated with satisfaction with university life, extraversion, agreeableness, conscientiousness, openness to experience, and openness to change values, but negatively with neuroticism and conservation values. The results of hierarchical multiple regression analyses showed that the CEI-II score had incremental validity above and beyond the Big Five personality traits in predicting human values and satisfaction with university life.

[Analgesic effect and safety of intercostal nerve cryoanalgesia after the video-assisted thoracoscopic surgery].

OBJECTIVE: To investigate the analgesic efficacy and safety of intercostal nerve cryoanalgesia after video-assisted thoracoscopic surgery (VATS). METHODS: This was a prospective randomized controlled study. From May 2014 to April 2015, 80 patients who would undergoing selective surgery performed by the same surgeon team were chosen, and were randomly divided into cryoanalgesia group and intravenous analgesia group by a random number table. Visual analogue scale (VAS) at resting and movement were measured on postoperative 4 h, 1 d, 2 d, 3 d, and the amount of supplemental morphine use and adverse reactions were recorded; plasma concentration of cortisol, blood glucose, C-reactive protein (CRP) and interleukin-6 (IL-6) were detected on preoperative and postoperative 4 h,1 d,2 d. RESULTS: Seventy-one patients with complete test process were included in the statistical analysis, including cryoanalgesia group (35 cases) and intravenous group (36 cases). No statistical differences were found in terms of age, gender, body mass index (BMI) between the two groups. VAS scores of cryoanalgesia group at movement on postoperative 4 h, 1 d, 2 d, 3 d were 5(5,7), 4(3,6), 3(3,4), 3(0,3), and in intravenous group were 5(5,6), 5(3,5), 3(3,4), 2(0,3), respectively, but there was no statistically different between two groups (P>0.05). Resting VAS scores of cryoanalgesia group on postoperative 4 h, 1 d, 2 d, 3 d were 3(2,4), 0(0,3), 0(0,0), 0(0,0), and in intravenous group were 3(0.5,4), 2(0,3), 0(0,1.5), 0(0,0) respectively, but there was no statistically different between two groups (P>0.05). Resting analgesic effectiveness (VAS≤5) of cryoanalgesia group were 91.4%, and in intravenous group were 97.2%, respectively. Median of morphine dosage was equal between two groups on postoperative 4 h, 1 d, 2 d, cumulative amount of morphine of cryoanalgesia group was higher than intravenous group, but the difference between the two groups was not statistically significant. Incidence of nausea and vomiting for intravenous group was 36.1%, significantly higher than cryoanalgesia group (17.1%, χ(2)=4.148, P<0.05). The change of plasma concentration of cortisol, C-response protein (CRP), interleuken-6(IL-6) was noticeable, but there was no statistical significance in each time point. CONCLUSION: The analgesic effect of both Intercostal nerve cryoanalgesia and intravenous analgesia after VATS is almost the same.Compare with intravenous analgesia, incidence of the adverse reactions of cryoanalgesia is lower, and there is no increasing in the stress response.

Ginsenoside Rb1 improves spatial learning and memory by regulation of cell genesis in the hippocampal subregions of rats.

Ginsenoside Rb1 (Rb1) is known to improve learning and memory in hippocampus-dependent tasks. However, the cellular mechanism remains unknown. Cell genesis in hippocampus is involved in spatial learning and memory. In the present study, Rb1 was orally administrated to adult rats for 30days. The behavioral training tests indicated that Rb1 improved spatial cognitive performance of rats in Morris water maze (MWM). Furthermore, we investigated the effects of Rb1 on cell genesis in adult rats' hippocampus, using thymidine analog bromodeoxyuridine (BrdU) as a marker for dividing cells. It has been shown that hippocampal cell genesis can be influenced by several factors such as learning and exercise. In order to avoid the effects of the interfering factors, only the rats treated with Rb1 without training in MWM were used to investigate cell genesis in hippocampus. When BrdU was given to the rats 30days prior to being killed, it was shown that oral administration of Rb1 significantly increased cell survival in dentate gyrus and hippocampal subregion CA3. However, when BrdU was injected 2h prior to sacrifice, the results indicated that Rb1 had no significant influence on cell proliferation in the hippocampal subregions. Thus, an increase of cell survival in hippocampus stimulated by Rb1 may be one of the mechanisms by which ginseng facilitates spatial learning and memory. Our study also indicates that Rb1 may be developed as a therapeutic agent for patients with memory impairment.

[Separation of aromatic amines by capillary zone electrophoresis with lower electroosmotic flow].

It is effective to restrain the electroosmotic flow (EOF) with lower pH value (pH < or = 2.0). As a result, a capillary zone electrophoretic (CZE) system of lower electroosmotic flow was established. Seven aromatic amines were separated by CZE with lower electroosmotic flow. In the system, the aromatic amines combined with protons under the experimental conditions, and had positive charges. Therefore, the sample entered the capillary at the positive electrode and was detected at the negative electrode. It was found that the migration time of aromatic amines increased quickly with a slight increase in pH value in CZE at lower electroosmotic flow. The retention order of peaks of aromatic amines is related to their pKb and the numbers of amino and acidic groups. When the number of amino groups gets larger, the pKb becomes smaller, and the peaks elute earlier. The acidic groups of aromatic amines make the peaks to elute later. The optimal conditions were 40 mmol/L NaH2PO4 (pH 1.7).