A network analysis of adolescent mental well-being during the coronavirus pandemic: Evidence for cross-cultural differences in central features.

The COVID-19 pandemic continues to pose unprecedented threat globally. Adolescents and youth may be especially susceptible to the long-term impact of these stressors, thus intervening early is an important priority. However, it is also crucial to understand how young people maintain psychological well-being in the face of adversity, particularly given that many nations are experiencing further waves of the pandemic. The understanding of such resilient outcomes could inform the development of programs to encourage positive mental health.We explored adolescents' resilience to the COVID-19 pandemic stress by examining core aspects of well-being across countries using network analysis. Using the short Warwick-Edinburgh Mental Wellbeing Scale, cross-sectional data was collected online from adolescents from India (N = 310; Males = 159, Females = 151, aged 12-18 years), Israel (N = 306; Males = 154, Females = 152, aged 12-18 years) and the United Kingdom (UK; N = 1666; Males = 598, Females = 1068, aged 12-25 years). Two highly similar network clusters were identified for UK and Israel, with three clusters emerging for India. UK and Israeli networks centred on "dealing with problems well" while the Indian network centred on "feeling useful". As central items highlight aspects of well-being that influence or are influenced by other aspects, these findings may inform interventions to safeguard adolescent mental health during future phases of the pandemic.

'Empowering clinicians in smaller sites': A qualitative study of clinician's experiences with a rural Virtual Paediatric Feeding Clinic.

OBJECTIVE: To explore the experiences of 'spoke site' allied health and child and family health clinicians in the provision of care through a pilot 'hub and spoke' model Virtual Paediatric Feeding Clinic (VPFC) outreach service. DESIGN: The study was qualitative, with data from virtual interview transcripts analysed using thematic analysis. SETTING: Orange Health Service ('hub site') and seven community health centres within the Western NSW Local Health District ('spoke sites'). PARTICIPANTS: Nine 'spoke site' clinicians (from dietetics, speech pathology, occupational therapy and child and family health nursing), who had participated in the pilot clinic. INTERVENTIONS: Participants took part in a semi-structured interview with a member of the research team. MAIN OUTCOME MEASURES: Spoke site clinicians experiences and perceptions of the VPFC. RESULTS: Four key themes emerged: (1) impact of the VPFC on 'spoke site' clinicians, (2) benefits for clients and families, (3) perceptions of the virtual model of care and (4) VPFC service challenges. CONCLUSION: The expansion of an existing interdisciplinary Paediatric Feeding Clinic into a virtual service demonstrates the use of technology to bridge a gap in healthcare. Clinicians reported benefits not only for families, but for their own knowledge and confidence in provision of care and reduced professional isolation through connection with discipline-specific colleagues.

An 'eFP-Seq Browser' for visualizing and exploring RNA sequencing data.

Improvements in next-generation sequencing technologies have resulted in dramatically reduced sequencing costs. This has led to an explosion of '-seq'-based methods, of which RNA sequencing (RNA-seq) for generating transcriptomic data is the most popular. By analysing global patterns of gene expression in organs/tissues/cells of interest or in response to chemical or environmental perturbations, researchers can better understand an organism's biology. Tools designed to work with large RNA-seq data sets enable analyses and visualizations to help generate hypotheses about a gene's function. We present here a user-friendly RNA-seq data exploration tool, called the 'eFP-Seq Browser', that shows the read map coverage of a gene of interest in each of the samples along with 'electronic fluorescent pictographic' (eFP) images that serve as visual representations of expression levels. The tool also summarizes the details of each RNA-seq experiment, providing links to archival databases and publications. It automatically computes the reads per kilobase per million reads mapped expression-level summaries and point biserial correlation scores to sort the samples based on a gene's expression level or by how dissimilar the read map profile is from a gene splice variant, to quickly identify samples with the strongest expression level or where alternative splicing might be occurring. Links to the Integrated Genome Browser desktop visualization tool allow researchers to visualize and explore the details of RNA-seq alignments summarized in eFP-Seq Browser as coverage graphs. We present four cases of use of the eFP-Seq Browser for ABI3, SR34, SR45a and U2AF65B, where we examine expression levels and identify alternative splicing. The URL for the browser is https://bar.utoronto.ca/eFP-Seq_Browser/. OPEN RESEARCH BADGES: This article has earned an Open Data Badge for making publicly available the digitally-shareable data necessary to reproduce the reported results. Tool is at https://bar.utoronto.ca/eFP-Seq_Browser/; RNA-seq data at https://s3.amazonaws.com/iplant-cdn/iplant/home/araport/rnaseq_bam/ and https://s3.amazonaws.com/iplant-cdn/iplant/home/araport/rnaseq_bam/Klepikova/. Code is available at https://github.com/BioAnalyticResource/eFP-Seq-Browser.

Social support and mental well-being among people with and without chronic illness during the Covid-19 pandemic: evidence from the longitudinal UCL covid survey.

PURPOSE: An immediate research priority recovering from the COVID-19 pandemic is well-being among some of our most vulnerable-people with chronic illness. We studied how mental health changed among people with and without chronic illness throughout the pandemic and the mediating role of social support. METHODS: We used the 3-waves of COVID-19 survey within the Millennium Cohort Study (MCS, age 19, N = 5522) and MCS Parent (MCSP, age > > 19, N = 7479) samples, with additional pre-pandemic measures of some outcomes and exposure. Using Structural Equation Panel Models with Full Information Maximum Likelihood estimation to address missing data, we studied differences between respondents with a chronic illness and without, regarding depressive symptoms and mental well-being, with social provision, social support, and loneliness as potential mediators. RESULTS: Mental well-being (SWEMWBS) and psychological distress (Kessler-6) worsened significantly during the pandemic relative to baseline for people with and without chronic illness, while the latter group had substantially better well-being at all waves and the baseline regarding both outcomes. When the lockdown was lifted during wave-2, mental well-being temporarily rebounded, and distress waned among people without chronic illness but continued to worsen among people with chronic illness. Social support partially mediated the link between chronic illness and mental well-being. CONCLUSIONS: The large mental well-being gap between people with and without chronic illness persisted during the pandemic. However, social support and provision can partially narrow this gap, hence should be employed in future pandemic management.

Self-Reported Worries in Young People During the COVID-19 Pandemic.

Purpose: COVID-19 pandemic has had long-standing consequences for all aspects of life. Although young people appear less susceptible to severe forms of physical illness due to the coronavirus, they have not escaped unscathed from its' psychological impacts. The present study measured the content of worries in young people residing in the UK during the pandemic and how it varied with sociodemographic factors. Methods: Between May and December 2020, UK-residing participants aged 12-25 years completed an online survey that presented participants with free-text fields to describe their top three worries over the last two weeks, in addition to demographic and other information. Cross-sectional data from 2560 participants (Males = 767; Female = 1793) was analyzed. Results: Irrespective of sociodemographic, a majority of the participants reported worries related to academics, followed by social relationships, own physical health, social and work routines, and physical health of others. Significantly more females reported concerns about academics, finances, physical health, social and work routines, social relationships, mental health and emotions, and physical health of others. Expectedly, more older (18-25 years) than younger (12-17 years) participants reported concerns about career-prospects and finances, while more younger than older ones were worried about academics (98.41% vs. 80.90%). With respect to financial worries, a higher percentage of BAME (Black, Asian and Minority Ethnic) communities in the UK reported such worries. Ethnicity significantly predicted more worries about social relationships among White than BAME participants. Significant differences also existed across different SES groups regarding endorsement of a particular category of worry. Conclusion: These findings highlight the need for tailored interventions depending on the major concerns for young people of different ages, sexes, ethnicities, and SES. Supplementary Information: The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1007/s10608-023-10396-3.

Lessons From the COVID-19 Pandemic to Improve the Health, Social Care, and Well-being of Minoritized Ethnic Groups With Chronic Conditions or Impairments: Protocol for a Mixed Methods Study.

BACKGROUND: The COVID-19 pandemic has inequitably impacted the experiences of people living with ill health/impairments or from minoritized ethnic groups across all areas of life. Given possible parallels in inequities for disabled people and people from minoritized ethnic backgrounds, their existence before the pandemic and increase since, and the discriminations that each group faces, our interest is in understanding the interplay between being disabled AND being from a minoritized ethnic group. OBJECTIVE: The overarching aim of the Coronavirus Chronic Conditions and Disabilities Awareness (CICADA) project, building on this understanding, is to improve pandemic and longer-term support networks, and access to and experiences of care, services, and resources for these underserved groups, both during the pandemic and longer term, thereby reducing inequities and enhancing social, health, and well-being outcomes. METHODS: This mixed methods study involves three "sweeps" of a new UK survey; secondary analyses of existing cohort and panel surveys; a rapid scoping review; a more granular review; and qualitative insights from over 200 semistructured interviews, including social network/map/photo elicitation methods and two subsequent sets of remote participatory research workshops. Separate stakeholder cocreation meetings, running throughout the study, will develop analyses and outputs. Our longitudinal study design enables the exploration of significant relationships between variables in the survey data collected and to the assessment of changes in variables over time, including consideration of varying pandemic contexts. The qualitative data will provide more granular detail. We will take a strengths and assets-based approach, underpinned by the social model of disability and by intersectional considerations to challenge discrimination. Our exploration of the social determinants of health and well-being is framed by the social ecological model. RESULTS: The CICADA project was funded by the Health and Social Care Delivery Research (HSDR) Programme of the United Kingdom (UK) National Institute for Health and Care Research (NIHR) in March 2021 and began in May 2021. Further work within the project (84 interviews) was commissioned in March 2022, a substudy focusing on mental health, specifically in Northeast England, Greater Manchester, and the Northwest Coast of the United Kingdom. Data collection began in August 2021, with the last participants due to be recruited in September 2022. As of January 2022, 5792 survey respondents and 227 interviewees had provided data. From April 2022, the time of article submission, we will recruit participants for the substudy and wave 2 of the surveys and qualitative work. We expect results to be published by winter 2022. CONCLUSIONS: In studying the experiences of disabled people with impairments and those living with chronic conditions who come from certain minoritized ethnic groups, we are aiming for transformative research to improve their health and well-being. INTERNATIONAL REGISTERED REPORT IDENTIFIER (IRRID): DERR1-10.2196/38361.

Pancreas-specific ablation of beta1 integrin induces tissue degeneration by disrupting acinar cell polarity.

BACKGROUND & AIMS: Integrin contact with basement membrane is a major determinant of epithelial cell polarity. beta1 integrin heterodimers are the primary receptors for basement membrane in pancreatic acinar cells, which function to synthesize and directionally secrete digestive enzymes into a central lumen. Aberrant acinar secretion and exposure of the parenchyma to digestive enzyme activity lead to organ damage and pancreatitis. METHODS: beta1 integrin conditional knockout mice were crossed to Ptf1a-Cre mice to ablate beta1 integrin in the pancreas. Histopathology of aged and cerulein-treated mice were assessed by histology and immunocytochemistry. Directional secretion was determined in vitro by FM1-43 loading with cerulein stimulation. RESULTS: Pancreas-specific ablation of beta1 integrin led to progressive organ degeneration, associated with focal acinar cell necrosis and ductal metaplasia along with widespread inflammation and collagen deposition. beta1 Integrin-null pancreata were highly susceptible to cerulein-induced acute pancreatitis, displaying an enhanced level of damage with no loss in regeneration. Degenerating beta1 integrin-null pancreata were marked by disruption of acinar cell polarity. Protein kinase C epsilon, normally localized apically, was found in the cytoplasm where it can lead to intracellular digestive enzyme activation. beta1 Integrin-null acinar cells displayed indiscriminate secretion to all membrane surfaces, consistent with an observed loss of basolateral membrane localization of Munc18c, which normally prevents basal secretion of digestive enzymes. CONCLUSIONS: Ablation of beta1 integrin induces organ atrophy by disrupting acinar cell polarity and exposing the pancreatic parenchyma to digestive enzymes.

The presence, characteristics and correlates of pathological social withdrawal in Taiwan: An online survey.

OBJECTIVES: Pathological social withdrawal (PSW) has become a public health concern, especially in Asia. However, few studies have investigated the presence of PSW and its characteristics in Taiwan. In this study, we aimed to discover whether individuals in Taiwan display PSW behaviours, the demographic characteristics and psychiatric history of those meeting criteria for PSW and the associated psychological risks. METHODS: An online self-report survey collected participants' demographic characteristics, social behaviours and their psychiatric history, along with information on adherence to cultural norms and mental health. RESULTS: Among 1,046 valid respondents, 9% reported behaviours consistent with PSW for at least 6 months, commensurate with other online surveys in Asian countries. Around 20% of these also reported current or past psychiatric disorders, although this was lower than previous findings (50%-80%). Participants with PSW reported poorer mental health and lower confidence in social/academic/work skills than unaffected participants. CONCLUSION: This study identified for the first time the presence of PSW in Taiwan. Except the lower rates of psychiatric comorbidity (which could be explained by sociocultural factors and sampling methods), data were consistent with previous findings. We also extended our understanding of possible psychological risk factors associated with this pathological condition.

Follistatin preferentially antagonizes activin rather than BMP signaling in Drosophila.

Ligands of the transforming growth factor-beta (TGF-beta) superfamily play important roles in embryonic patterning and development throughout the animal kingdom. Consequently, extracellular factors that affect ligand stability, mobility, and receptor interaction also have profound effects on development. One such regulator, Follistatin (Fst), functions as an inhibitor of both activin and bone morphogenetic protein (BMP) subfamilies of TGF-beta ligands in vertebrates. Drosophila follistatin (fs) encodes a Fst homolog that is broadly expressed throughout development, but the in vivo function of the protein remains unclear. We show that overexpression of fs affects prepupal to pupal transition and morphogenesis, highlighting a novel requirement for TGF-beta signaling in metamorphosis. In addition, fs expression disrupts various aspects of neuronal morphogenesis, mimicking mutant phenotypes of the activin ligands, Dawdle (Daw) and Activin-beta. In assays targeting endogenous BMP signaling, we find no evidence that fs can antagonize BMP activity. We conclude that fs functions primarily as an inhibitor of activin rather than BMP ligands.

Barriers to influenza vaccination among pregnant women.

OBJECTIVE: Despite pregnant women's increased morbidity and mortality from influenza, vaccination rates remain low. This study intended to evaluate barriers to pregnant women's uptake of influenza vaccine. STUDY DESIGN: A survey was designed that assessed participant demographics, knowledge, beliefs, attitudes, and general experiences with seasonal and 2009 novel H1N1 influenza. Associations between patient characteristics and vaccine uptake were then assessed. RESULTS: 88 women completed the survey. Women who correctly answered >75% of knowledge questions regarding influenza were significantly more likely to accept the influenza vaccine (seasonal: p=0.04, H1N1: p<0.01). Conversely, patients who declined the vaccine were more likely to hold false beliefs, such as perceiving that the vaccine was not protective (seasonal: p<0.01, H1N1: p<.01) and that they were not at risk for influenza (seasonal: p< 0.01). CONCLUSION: The reasons for influenza vaccine declination in pregnant patients include lower levels of knowledge and unfavorable attitudes regarding the safety and efficacy of the vaccine, and suggest the importance of education as a tool to improve vaccination uptake.