Tertiary hospital nurses' ethical sensitivity and its influencing factors: A cross-sectional study.

BACKGROUND: High ethical sensitivity positively affects the quality of nursing care; nevertheless, Chinese nurses' ethical sensitivity and the factors influencing it have not been described. RESEARCH OBJECTIVES: The purpose of this study was to describe ethical sensitivity and to explore factors influencing it among Chinese-registered nurses, to help nursing administrators improve nurses' ethical sensitivity, build harmony between nurses and patients, and promote the patients' health. RESEARCH DESIGN: This was a descriptive, cross-sectional study. PARTICIPANTS AND RESEARCH CONTEXT: We recruited 500 nurses from several departments in three tertiary hospitals. The Chinese Moral Sensitivity Questionnaire-Revised version and the Jefferson Scale of Empathy-Health Professionals were used to assess the nurses' ethical sensitivity and empathy ability, respectively. Fifteen sociodemographic variables were included in the questionnaires. ETHICAL CONSIDERATIONS: Informed consent was obtained from the participants regarding participation and data storage and handling. This program has been examined and supported by the research center of medical ethics and professional ethics of Guilin Medical University. The Approval No. was 2016RWYB04. The whole research process is conducted strictly according to ethical requirements. RESULTS: The valid response rate was 84.40% (n = 422). The total score of Chinese Moral Sensitivity Questionnaire-Revised was 35.82 ± 8.17. The subscale scores of moral responsibility and strength and sense of moral burden were 21.50 ± 4.91 and 14.33 ± 3.98, respectively. Significant differences were found among age groups, gender, years of working, category of profession, and quality of family communication regarding nurses' ethical sensitivity (p < 0.05). Regression analysis showed that the main factors influencing nurses' ethical sensitivity were gender, years of working, quality of family communication, career satisfaction, and empathic ability. DISCUSSION: Our findings suggest that Chinese nurses' ethical sensitivity in tertiary hospitals in Guilin is at a medium level. CONCLUSION: The director of nursing schools and hospitals in China should pay attention to nurses' ethical sensitivity and should intensify education and training to improve nurses' ethical sensitivity. Further studies should focus on interventions aimed at improving Chinese nurses' ethical sensitivity.

The role of prepotent response inhibition and interference control in depression.

INTRODUCTION: The ability to suppress inappropriate prepotent response and to overcome the interference of irrelevant information are two important components of inhibitory control. Little is known, however, about the relevant contributions in these two components of inhibitory control to depression. The aim of the present study was to assess the prepotent response inhibition and interference control simultaneously in a group of patients diagnosed with major depression disorder (MDD). METHODS: A clinical group of patients with MDD (n = 41) and a control group of healthy volunteers (n = 39) were recruited and assessed using the stop-signal task and the Flanker task respectively. RESULTS: The results showed longer stop-signal reaction time in patients with MDD in the stop-signal task. Regarding the interference control function, the analysis showed the response accuracy under the incongruent condition was significantly lower in patients with MDD than healthy individuals. CONCLUSIONS: In conclusion, patients with MDD showed impairments both in prepotent response inhibition and interference control. The present findings provide a better understanding of the mechanism of depression-related deficits in inhibition and have great implications for the development of cognitive training programmes to remediate cognitive dysfunction in depression.

Deficits in maintenance and interference control of working memory in major depression: evidence from the visuospatial change detection task.

INTRODUCTION: Recent theories in cognitive psychology suggest that working memory (WM) processing involves a set of specific functions, in particular the WM functions of maintenance and interference control. Previous findings on WM impairments in patients with major depressive disorder (MDD) had been inconsistent, partly because earlier studies did not take into account these two different functions of WM. METHOD: Forty-two participants with MDD and 39 controls completed the visuospatial change detection task. We estimated the WM function of maintenance, based on performance in trials using the targets only, and the WM function of interference control, based on performance in trials with distractor rectangles. RESULTS: Our results showed that participants with MDD had poorer WM function of maintenance and interference control than controls. However, the results of filtering efficiency did not show significant group difference, thus patients with MDD showed comparable impairments in WM function of maintanance as well as in WM function of interference control. CONCLUSION: Our findings suggested that patients with MDD appear to show generalised impairments on visuospatial WM function of maintenance and interference control. Future studies should use refined paradigms to assess the different functions of WM and their distinctive contributions to symptomatology of depression.

Self-reported confidence in patient safety competencies among Chinese nursing students: a multi-site cross-sectional survey.

BACKGROUND: Nursing interns are an important backup force for nursing professionals, so efforts to strengthen their patient safety (PS) competencies are a major priority. To do so requires assessing the strengths and weaknesses of Chinese nursing students' PS competence and identifying the influencing factors. METHODS: This was a multi-site, cross-sectional, web-based study that was carried out between September 2018 and January 2019. A national online survey was completed by 732 Chinese undergraduate nursing students. Our primary outcome factor was the Health Professional Education in Patient Safety Survey score. We also collected socio-demographic and clinical practice-related characteristics as independent variables. Multiple stepwise linear regression was performed to identify predictors of PS competence. RESULTS: Chinese undergraduate nursing students were fairly confident in their clinical safety skills but less confident in what they learned about sociocultural or context-dependent aspects of PS and speaking up about PS, including effective communication and understanding human and environmental factors. Less than half of the students felt that they could approach someone engaging in unsafe practice and were reluctant to voice concern about adverse events. We observed significant differences in PS competence between students from different regions, across different PS learning styles (self-study and classroom theoretical study), with different self-assessed PS competence levels, and with experiences of adverse events (p < 0.05). These factors accounted for almost 15% of the total variance in PS competence scores (adjusted R2 = 0.15, p = 0.00). CONCLUSIONS: The results of this study provide a better understanding of PS competence among final-year nursing students in China. Our findings may help nursing educators or healthcare organizations to cultivate and improve PS competence by establishing documented policies or by improving the efficacy of intervention.

Diminished Anticipatory and Consummatory Pleasure in Dysphoria: Evidence From an Experience Sampling Study.

Anhedonia, the experience of diminished pleasure, is a core feature of major depressive disorder and is often present long before the diagnosis of depression. Most previous studies have investigated anhedonia with self-report measures of trait anhedonia or with behavioral paradigms using laboratory stimuli, and the real-time characteristics of hedonic processing in subclinical depression remain under-investigated. We used the experience sampling method to evaluate momentary experience of hedonic feelings in the context of daily life. Dysphoric (n = 49) and non-dysphoric (n = 51) college students completed assessments of their current positive affect (PA), as well as state anticipatory and consummatory pleasure, 3 or 4 times a day every day for 2 weeks. The results showed that dysphoric individuals reported less state anticipatory and consummatory pleasure compared with non-dysphoric individuals. Moreover, significant time-lagged associations between anticipatory pleasure and follow-up consummatory pleasure were found in the whole sample, after adjustment for current PA. The current findings thus hold considerable promise in advancing our understanding of anhedonia as well as the important role of state anticipatory pleasure in relation to depression.

Hypoxia­induced miR­210 contributes to apoptosis of mouse spermatocyte GC­2 cells by targeting Kruppel­like factor 7.

The aim of the present study was to investigate the underlying mechanisms of hypoxia­induced microRNA (miR)­210 effects on mouse GC­2spd (GC­2) cells. GC­2 cells were subjected to hypoxia or normoxia for 12, 24, 48 and 72 h. Apoptosis of GC­2 cells was detected using terminal deoxynucleotidyl­transferase­meditated dUTP nick end labeling and flow cytometry. Reverse transcription­quantitative polymerase chain reaction was performed to analyze the expression of miR­210. Hypoxia­inducible factor­1α (HIF­1α), caspase­3, B­cell lymphoma 2, apoptosis regulator BAX and Kruppel­like factor 7 (KLF7) protein expression levels were detected by western blotting. Luciferase reporter gene assays were used to assess the targeting effects of miR­210 on KLF7. Hypoxia induced GC­2 cell apoptosis and increased the expression of HIF­1α and pro­apoptotic proteins; however, decreased anti­apoptotic protein expression levels. Furthermore, hypoxia resulted in the upregulation of miR­210 in GC­2 cells. HIF­1α and miR­210 were involved in the apoptosis of GC­2 cells by mediating the expression of apoptosis­associated proteins. Furthermore, KLF7 was directly targeted by miR­210 to influence the apoptosis of GC­2 cells subjected to hypoxia. The results suggested that hypoxia­induced miR­210 stimulated the activation of the apoptosis signaling pathway and contributed to the apoptosis of GC­2 cells by targeting KLF7.

Poly[(2-(acryloyloxy) ethyl]trimethylammonium chloride-co-ethylene dimethacrylate monolith on-line solid-phase extraction coupled with liquid chromatography and tandem mass spectrometry for the fast determination of salicylic acid in foodstuffs.

We report the fabrication of an anion-exchange monolithic column in a stainless-steel chromatographic column (10 mm × 2.1 mm i.d.) using [2-(acryloyloxy) ethyl]trimethylammonium chloride as the monomer and ethylene dimethacrylate as the crosslinker. The prepared monolith was developed as the adsorbent for the on-line solid-phase extraction of salicylic acid in various animal-origin foodstuffs combined with liquid chromatography and tandem mass spectrometry. The monolith was characterized by using Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy, scanning electron microscopy, nitrogen adsorption analysis, and elemental analysis. Potential factors affecting the on-line solid-phase extraction and liquid chromatography with tandem mass spectrometry analysis were studied in detail. Under the optimized conditions, the total analysis time including cleanup and liquid chromatography with tandem mass spectrometry separation was 17 min. The developed method gave the linear range of 15-750 µg/kg, detection limits (S/N = 3) of 5 µg/kg, and quantification limits (S/N = 10) of 15 µg/kg. The recoveries obtained by spiking 10, 20, and 100 µg/kg of salicylic acid in the animal-origin food samples were in the range of 85.2-98.4%. In addition, the monolith was stable enough for 550 extraction cycles with the precision of peak area ≤11.6%.

Hypoxia induces apoptosis of mouse spermatocyte GC-2 cells through activation of autophagy.

The aim of this study was to investigate the underlying mechanisms of hypoxia-induced apoptosis of GC-2spd (GC-2) cells. The GC-2 cells were treated with or without hypoxia for 12, 24, 48, and 72 h. Apoptosis of GC-2 cells was detected using TUNEL and flow cytometry. Fluorescence microscopic was used to observe the autophagy of GC-2 cells. Hypoxia-inducible factor-1alpha (HIF-1α), apoptosis-related protein and marker protein of autophagy levels were measured by Western blotting. Hypoxia induced apoptosis and autophagy of GC-2 cells, and increased expression of HIF-1α, LC3-II, Beclin-1, and pro-apoptotic protein, but reduced p62 and anti-apoptotic protein level. Meanwhile, hypoxia-induced HIF-1α mediated expression of apoptosis and autophagy-related protein in GC-2 cell. Furthermore, autophagy regulated hypoxia-induced apoptosis of GC-2 cell. Our data suggest that hypoxia induces apoptosis of GC-2 cell by activation of autophagy involving activation of the apoptosis signaling pathway under the hypoxic condition.

Magnetic metal-organic frameworks for fast and efficient solid-phase extraction of six Sudan dyes in tomato sauce.

Magnetic solid-phase extraction is an effective and useful technique to preconcentrate trace analytes from food samples. In this study, a magnetic trimeric chromium octahedral metal-organic framework (Fe3O4-NH2@MIL-101) was fabricated and characterized. Fe3O4-NH2@MIL-101 was applied as an adsorbent of magnetic solid-phase extraction combined with high performance liquid chromatography to effectively isolate and simultaneously determine six Sudan dyes (Para Red, Sudan I-IV, and Sudan Red 7B) from tomato sauce. Potential factors affecting the MSPE were investigated in detail, and adsorption efficiency of Fe3O4-NH2@MIL-101 was compared with those of conventional adsorbents, such as neutral alumina, HLB, and C18. The developed method facilitated the extraction with using only 3 mg of adsorbent in 2 min. In addition, enhancement factors of 50, linear range of 0.01-25 µg/mL, and detection limit (S/N = 3) of 0.5-2.5 µg/kg were obtained. The intra-day and inter-day recoveries for spiked Sudan dyes were in the range of 72.6%-92.9% and 69.6%-91.6%, respectively, with relative standard deviations of ≤9.2%.

[Association between GSTP1, GSTM1, GSTT1 genetic polymorphisms and urinary styrene phenyl hydroxyethyl mercapturic acids level].

OBJECTIVE: To investigate the relationship between genetic polymorphisms of glutathione S-transferase P1 (GSTP1), glutathione S-transferase M1 (GSTM1), and glutathione S-transferase T1 (GSTT1) and urinary level of mercapturic acids of styrene (PHEMAs) in workers exposed to styrene. METHODS: One hundred and twenty-six workers exposed to styrene were selected as exposure group, and 150 workers without styrene exposure as the control group; all the workers came from a locomotive shell production factory in Shandong Province, China. The PCR-RFLP technique was applied to analyze the individual genetic polymorphisms of GSTP1; the multiplex PCR technique was used to investigate the genetic polymorphisms of GSTM1 and GSTT1; the relationship between genetic polymorphisms of GSTP1, GSTM1, and GSTT1 and urinary level of PHEMAs in workers exposed to styrene was statistically analyzed. RESULTS: The three genotypes investigated in the study had a distribution in accordance with the Chinese population. With exposure to high- concentration styrene, the individuals carrying GSTP1 (exon5, A105G) AA genotype (wildtype) had a significantly higher urinary level of PHEMAs (43.58 mg/g) than those with mutant genotypes AG (29.769 mg/g) and GG (30.245 mg/g); the urinary level of PHEMAs in individuals carrying wild-type GSTM1 genotype was significantly higher than that in individuals carrying deficient-type GSTM1 genotype (40.197 mg/g vs 28.866 mg/g, P < 0.05); no significant difference in urinary level of PHEMAs was found between individuals carrying wild-type GSTT1 genotype and deficient-type GSTT1 genotype. There was no significant relationship between the three gene polymorphisms and urinary level of PHEMAs in the control group. CONCLUSION: The genetic polymorphisms of GSTP1 and GSTM1 may be related to urinary level of PHEMAs in workers exposed to styrene.

The role of fascin in migration and invasion of urothelial carcinoma of the bladder.

INTRODUCTION: To investigate the roles of fascin in migration and invasiveness in bladder urothelial carcinoma. MATERIALS AND METHODS: Immunohistochemical detection of fascin in urothelial carcinoma samples and inhibition the expression of fascin in the urothelial carcinoma cell line were performed, then the differences in cell behaviors before and after silencing of the fascin gene were tested. RESULTS: In our study, we found that overexpression of fascin was more frequent in urothelial carcinoma tissues (p < 0.001). Fascin expression was positively correlated with histological grade (p = 0.024) and pT stage (p < 0.001). After transfection of fascin shRNA, the expressions of fascin in 5637 cells and BIU87 cells were efficiently decreased according to real-time RT-PCR and Western blot analysis. When fascin was inhibited, a significant decrease in migration and invasion, and increase in adhesion were observed in 5637 cells and BIU87 cells. However, there was no significant change in the proliferation of 5637 cells or BIU87 cells with or without inhibition of the fascin gene. CONCLUSIONS: Fascin expression can be used as a predictor for transformation and progression of urothelial carcinoma, and reduction of fascin levels may represent a novel therapeutic strategy for urothelial carcinoma of the bladder.