How culturally unique are pandemic effects? Evaluating cultural similarities and differences in effects of age, biological sex, and political beliefs on COVID impacts.

Despite being bio-epidemiological phenomena, the causes and effects of pandemics are culturally influenced in ways that go beyond national boundaries. However, they are often studied in isolated pockets, and this fact makes it difficult to parse the unique influence of specific cultural psychologies. To help fill in this gap, the present study applies existing cultural theories via linear mixed modeling to test the influence of unique cultural factors in a multi-national sample (that moves beyond Western nations) on the effects of age, biological sex, and political beliefs on pandemic outcomes that include adverse financial impacts, adverse resource impacts, adverse psychological impacts, and the health impacts of COVID. Our study spanned 19 nations (participant N = 14,133) and involved translations into 9 languages. Linear mixed models revealed similarities across cultures, with both young persons and women reporting worse outcomes from COVID across the multi-national sample. However, these effects were generally qualified by culture-specific variance, and overall more evidence emerged for effects unique to each culture than effects similar across cultures. Follow-up analyses suggested this cultural variability was consistent with models of pre-existing inequalities and socioecological stressors exacerbating the effects of the pandemic. Collectively, this evidence highlights the importance of developing culturally flexible models for understanding the cross-cultural nature of pandemic psychology beyond typical WEIRD approaches.

Does surgical observed structured clinical exam (OSCE) predict clerkship grade, shelf exam scores, and preceptor clinical evaluation?

BACKGROUND: Clinical evaluation of medical student performance has been criticized as variable and subjective. The aim of this study was to assess the correlation of a summative surgical OSCE exam to clinical faculty evaluations as well as surgery shelf exam score and final grades. METHODS: The performance of 392 students who completed the surgical clerkship between 2017 and 2019 was assessed via Pearson Coefficients comparing OSCE grades, clinical evaluations of Medical Knowledge and Patient Care, Communication and Professionalism, the National Board of Medical Examiners (NBME) shelf surgical subject exam, and final clerkship grade. RESULTS: Results demonstrate a statistically significant positive relationship between the OSCE, Shelf score and grade, final clerkship grade, and all clinical evaluations except Communication skills. The greatest correlation occurred between OSCE and shelf scores and grades. Although significant, the degree of correlation with clinical observation was significantly less. CONCLUSION: This study demonstrates that a surgical OSCE has a small positive correlation with clinical knowledge as measured by the NBME shelf exam. There is also an equal correlation with medical knowledge standards, with the OSCE better predicting NBME shelf outcome. This lower correlation to clinical assessment suggests that either the clinical grades contain elements not detected on an OSCE exam but could also support the hypothesis that variability in clinical grades do contain a significant degree of subjectivity.

Hassles predict physical health complaints in undergraduate students: a dynamic structural equation model analysis of daily diary data.

OBJECTIVE: Daily hassles and physical health complaints are common among undergraduate students, and both are related to negative academic and psychosocial outcomes. However, the extent to which hassles or health complaints persist from day to day is underexplored, and studies examining whether hassles predict health complaints or vice versa, are lacking. This study aimed to examine the temporal stability and to define the temporal relationship between daily hassles and health symptoms in undergraduate students. DESIGN: Participants (n = 255, mean age = 19.2 years, 69% female, 53% White) completed 14 consecutive daily diaries of hassles and health complaints. MAIN OUTCOME MEASURES: Daily reports of the Brief College Students Hassles Scale and the Patient Health Questionnaire-15. RESULTS: Hassles and health complaints demonstrated stability through autocorrelations. Hassles significantly predicted subsequent health complaints, but health complaints did not significantly predict subsequent hassles. However, the two paths did not differ significantly. CONCLUSION: Students reporting elevations in one or both domains may benefit from interventions aimed at reducing daily hassles, in order to promote better perceived health and well-being.