'We are not aware of notification of tuberculosis': A mixed-methods study among private practitioners from western India.

BACKGROUND: Implementing the Standards for tuberculosis care in India (STCI) guidelines in the private sector is vital. This study attempted to estimate the knowledge and practices regarding STCI guidelines among private practitioners and to explore the reasons and solutions for low tuberculosis (TB) notification rates. METHODS: We conducted a cross-sectional study for assessing the knowledge and practices of the STCI guidelines among 100 full-time allopathic private practitioners in Bhavnagar (in western part of India) from September 2018 to January 2019. Knowledge and practice were categorised as good or poor by assigning scores to the responses to a questionnaire based on the STCI guidelines. It was followed by two focus group discussions to explore the reasons and solutions for low notification rates of TB as perceived by private practitioners. RESULTS: Among the 100 private practitioners, 55% had good knowledge, and 41% had good practice regarding the STCI guidelines; 69% knew about the gazette notification of mandatory notification of TB, and 58% were notifying TB cases to the government. Lack of awareness about the process as well as incentives for notification, time constraints and infrequent visits by health workers were the main reasons perceived by private practitioners for not notifying TB cases to the government. The critical solutions suggested by them were creating awareness regarding the notification process as well as incentives, increasing health worker visits and use of social media for notification. CONCLUSION: Only about half of private practitioners follow the STCI guidelines for TB care, and the notification rates are low in our setting. Regular sensitisation programs need to be arranged for private practitioners to create awareness on TB notification.

Assessing the Temperamental Basis of the Sense of Humor: Adaptation of the English Language Version of the State-Trait Cheerfulness Inventory Long and Standard Form.

The State-Trait Model of Cheerfulness assesses the temperamental basis of the sense of humor with the traits and respective states of cheerfulness, seriousness, and bad mood. Cheerfulness is a dominant factor in current measures of the sense of humor and explains both, the disposition to engaging in smiling and laughter, as well as humor behaviors, and trait seriousness and bad mood are antagonistic to the elicitation of amusement (albeit for different reasons). Several studies have shown the validity and reliability of the STCI questionnaire in German and other language versions (i.e., Spanish). In this study, the English language version with 106 items (STCI-T <106>) was translated, checked for its item and scale characteristics, and tested with a confirmatory factor analysis approach (N = 1101) to investigate the factorial validity of the STCI-T <106> scale. Results show good psychometric characteristics, good internal consistencies, and a fit to the postulated underlying structure of the STCI-T. Then, the standard form with 60 items (STCI-T <60>) was developed and the psychometric characteristics initially tested. In an independent sample (N = 169), the characteristics of the standard form were compared to the parent form and German equivalent. It showed good psychometric characteristics, internal consistencies, as well as a good self- and peer-report congruence. To conclude, the STCI-T <106> is the measure of choice for the assessment of the temperamental basis of the sense of humor and the separate facets of the traits, while the standard form (60 items) allows of an economic assessment of cheerfulness, seriousness, and bad mood, free of context-saturated items and humor preferences.

Studying Irony Detection Beyond Ironic Criticism: Let's Include Ironic Praise.

Studies of irony detection have commonly used ironic criticisms (i.e., mock positive evaluation of negative circumstances) as stimulus materials. Another basic type of verbal irony, ironic praise (i.e., mock negative evaluation of positive circumstances) is largely absent from studies on individuals' aptitude to detect verbal irony. However, it can be argued that ironic praise needs to be considered in order to investigate the detection of irony in the variety of its facets. To explore whether the detection ironic praise has a benefit beyond ironic criticism, three studies were conducted. In Study 1, an instrument (Test of Verbal Irony Detection Aptitude; TOVIDA) was constructed and its factorial structure was tested using N = 311 subjects. The TOVIDA contains 26 scenario-based items and contains two scales for the detection of ironic criticism vs. ironic praise. To validate the measurement method, the two scales of the TOVIDA were experimentally evaluated with N = 154 subjects in Study 2. In Study 3, N = 183 subjects were tested to explore personality and ability correlates of the two TOVIDA scales. Results indicate that the co-variance between the ironic TOVIDA items was organized by two inter-correlated but distinct factors: one representing ironic praise detection aptitude and one representing ironic criticism detection aptitude. Experimental validation showed that the TOVIDA items truly contain irony and that item scores reflect irony detection. Trait bad mood and benevolent humor (as a facet of the sense of humor) were found as joint correlates for both ironic criticism and ironic praise detection scores. In contrast, intelligence, trait cheerfulness, and corrective humor were found as unique correlates of ironic praise detection scores, even when statistically controlling for the aptitude to detect ironic criticism. Our results indicate that the aptitude to detect ironic praise can be seen as distinct from the aptitude to detect ironic criticism. Generating unique variance in irony detection, ironic praise can be postulated as worthwhile to include in future studies-especially when studying the role of mental ability, personality, and humor in irony detection.