Immune and neuroendocrine correlates of temperament in infancy.

There is now a clear focus on incorporating, and integrating, multiple levels of analysis in developmental science. The current study adds to research in this area by including markers of the immune and neuroendocrine systems in a longitudinal study of temperament in infants. Observational and parent-reported ratings of infant temperament, serum markers of the innate immune system, and cortisol reactivity from repeated salivary collections were examined in a sample of 123 infants who were assessed at 6 months and again when they were, on average, 17 months old. Blood from venipuncture was collected for analyses of nine select innate immune cytokines; salivary cortisol collected prior to and 15 min and 30 min following a physical exam including blood draw was used as an index of neuroendocrine functioning. Analyses indicated fairly minimal significant associations between biological markers and temperament at 6 months. However, by 17 months of age, we found reliable and nonoverlapping associations between observed fearful temperament and biological markers of the immune and neuroendocrine systems. The findings provide some of the earliest evidence of robust biological correlates of fear behavior with the immune system, and identify possible immune and neuroendocrine mechanisms for understanding the origins of behavioral development.

Clinician Attitudes Toward Suicide Prevention Practices and Their Implementation: Findings From the System of Safety Study.

OBJECTIVE: The authors aimed to assess clinicians' attitudes toward suicide-related practices and their implementation, across roles and settings, before implementation of the Zero Suicide model in a health care system. METHODS: Clinicians (N=5,559) were invited to complete a survey assessing demographic characteristics; confidence and self-reported suicide-related practice; leadership buy-in; and attitudes toward suicide prevention, safety planning, and continuous quality improvement (CQI). RESULTS: Of 1,224 respondents, most felt confident conducting suicide screening but less confident performing other suicide-related care. Provider role and care setting were significantly associated with confidence (p<0.001, Kruskal-Wallis H test) and practice (p<0.001, Kruskal-Wallis H test) of providing suicide prevention care, with behavioral health providers and providers in the emergency department (ED) reporting the highest confidence. Attitudes toward safety planning were more positive among women (p<0.001, t test) and behavioral health providers (p<0.001, F test) than among their counterparts or peers. Positive attitudes toward CQI were significantly associated with male sex (p=0.01), non-White race (p=0.03), younger age (p=0.02), fewer years working in health care (p<0.001), administrative role (p<0.001), working in the ED (p<0.001), outpatient settings (p<0.02), and medical provider role (p<0.001). CONCLUSIONS: Behavioral health providers and those in the ED reported feeling prepared to deliver suicide-related care, with nurses feeling less confident and less supported. Initiatives to improve suicide-related care should account for clinical role and care setting during planning. CQI could help engage a broader range of clinicians in suicide-related care improvements.

Studying the implementation of Zero Suicide in a large health system: Challenges, adaptations, and lessons learned.

Background: Suicide remains the 10th leading cause of death in the United States. Many patients presenting to healthcare settings with suicide risk are not identified and their risk mitigated during routine care. Our aim is to describe the planned methodology for studying the implementation of the Zero Suicide framework, a systems-based model designed to improve suicide risk detection and treatment, within a large healthcare system. Methods: We planned to use a stepped wedge design to roll-out the Zero Suicide framework over 4 years with a total of 39 clinical units, spanning emergency department, inpatient, and outpatient settings, involving ∼310,000 patients. We used Lean, a widely adopted a continuous quality improvement (CQI) model, to implement improvements using a centralize "hub" working with smaller "spoke" teams comprising CQI personnel, unit managers, and frontline staff. Results: Over the course of the study, five major disruptions impacted our research methods, including a change in The Joint Commission's safety standards for suicide risk mitigation yielding massive system-wide changes and the COVID-19 pandemic. What had been an ambitious program at onset became increasingly challenging because of the disruptions, requiring significant adaptations to our implementation approach and our study methods. Conclusions: Real-life obstacles interfered markedly with our plans. While we were ultimately successful in implementing Zero Suicide, these obstacles led to adaptations to our approach and timeline and required substantial changes in our study methodology. Future studies of quality improvement efforts that cut across multiple units and settings within a given health system should avoid using a stepped-wedge design with randomization at the unit level if there is the potential for sentinel, system-wide events.

Maternal prenatal infection and anxiety predict neurodevelopmental outcomes in middle childhood.

Prenatal maternal infection and anxiety have been linked, in separate lines of study, with child neurodevelopment. We extend and integrate these lines of study in a large prospective longitudinal cohort study of child neurodevelopment. Data are based on the Avon Longitudinal Study of Parents and Children (ALSPAC) cohort; prenatal maternal anxiety was assessed from self-report questionnaire; prenatal infection was derived from reports of several conditions in pregnancy (n = 7,042). Child neurodevelopment at approximately 8 years of age was assessed by in-person testing, reports of social and communication problems associated with autism, and psychiatric evaluation. Covariates included psychosocial, demographic, and perinatal/obstetric risks. Prenatal infection was associated with increased likelihood of co-occurring prenatal risk, including anxiety. Regression analyses indicated that both prenatal infection and prenatal anxiety predicted child social and communication problems; the predictions were largely independent of each other. Comparable effects were also found for the prediction of symptoms of attention problems and anxiety symptoms. These results provide the first evidence for the independent effects of prenatal infection and anxiety on a broad set of neurodevelopmental and behavioral and emotional symptoms in children, suggesting the involvement of multiple mechanisms in the prenatal programming of child neurodevelopment. The results further underscore the importance of promoting prenatal physical and mental health for child health outcomes. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2022 APA, all rights reserved).

The Effect of Systematic Light Exposure on Sleep in a Mixed Group of Fatigued Cancer Survivors.

STUDY OBJECTIVES: Sleep disturbances are commonly reported by cancer survivors. Systematic light exposure using bright light has been used to improve sleep in other populations. In this secondary data analysis, the effect of morning administration of bright light on sleep and sleep quality was examined in a mixed group of fatigued cancer survivors. METHODS: Forty-four cancer survivors screened for cancer-related fatigue were randomized to either a bright white light or a comparison dim red light condition. Participants were instructed to use a light box every morning for 30 minutes for 4 weeks. Wrist actigraphy and the Pittsburgh Sleep Quality Index were administered at 4 time points: prior to light treatment (baseline), 2 weeks into the intervention, during the last week of the intervention, and 3 weeks postintervention. Thirty-seven participants completed the end-of-intervention assessment. RESULTS: Repeated-measures linear mixed models indicated a statistically significant time × treatment group interaction effect with sleep efficiency improving more in the bright light condition over time compared with the dim light condition (F3,42 = 5.55; P = .003) with a large effect size (partial η2 = 0.28). By the end of the intervention and 3 weeks postintervention, mean sleep efficiency in the bright light group was in the normal range. Medium to large effect sizes were also seen in sleep quality, total sleep time, and wake after sleep onset for participants favoring the bright light condition. CONCLUSIONS: The results suggest that systematic bright light exposure in the morning may have beneficial effects on sleep in fatigued cancer survivors. Larger scale efficacy trials are warranted. CLINICAL TRIAL REGISTRATION: Registry: ClinicalTrials.gov, Title: Treating Cancer-Related Fatigue Through Systematic Light Exposure, Identifier: NCT01873794, URL: https://clinicaltrials.gov/ct2/show/NCT01873794.