The relationships between health anxiety, online health information seeking, and cyberchondria: Systematic review and meta-analysis

© 2018 Background: Cyberchondria refers to an abnormal behavioral pattern in which excessive or repeated online searches for health-related information are distressing or anxiety-provoking. Health anxiety has been found to be associated with both online health information seeking and cyberchondria. The aims of the present systematic review and meta-analysis were to examine the magnitude of these associations and identify any moderator variables. Methods: A systematic literature search was performed across several databases (PsycINFO, PubMed, Embase) and reference lists of included studies. Results: Twenty studies were included across two independent meta-analyses, with 7373 participants. Random effects meta-analyses showed that there was a positive correlation between health anxiety and online health information seeking [r = 0.34, 95% CI (0.20, 0.48), p <.0001], and between health anxiety and cyberchondria [r = 0.62, 95% CI (0.52, 0.71), p <.0001]. A meta-regression indicated that the age of study participants [Q(1) = 4.58, p =.03] was partly responsible for the heterogeneity found for the relationship between health anxiety and cyberchondria. Limitations: The generalizability and validity of our findings are restricted by the methodological limitations of the primary studies, namely, an over-reliance on a single measure of cyberchondria, the Cyberchondria Severity Scale. Conclusions: Our review found a positive correlation between health anxiety and online health information seeking, and between health anxiety and cyberchondria. Further research should aim to explore the contexts for these associations as well as address the identified limitations of the extant literature

Neuroimaging in infants with congenital cytomegalovirus infection and its correlation with outcome: emphasis on white matter abnormalities

Objective: To evaluate the association between neuroimaging and outcome in infants with congenital cytomegalovirus (cCMV), focusing on qualitative MRI and quantitative diffusion-weighted imaging of white matter abnormalities (WMAs). Methods: Multicentre retrospective cohort study of 160 infants with cCMV (103 symptomatic). A four-grade neuroimaging scoring system was applied to cranial ultrasonography and MRI acquired at ≤3 months. WMAs were categorised as multifocal or diffuse. Temporal-pole WMAs (TPWMAs) consisted of swollen or cystic appearance. Apparent diffusion coefficient (ADC) values were obtained from frontal, parieto-occipital and temporal white matter regions. Available follow-up MRI at ≥6 months (N=14) was additionally reviewed. Neurodevelopmental assessment included motor function, cognition, behaviour, hearing, vision and epilepsy. Adverse outcome was defined as death or moderate/severe disability. Results: Neuroimaging scoring was associated with outcome (p<0.001, area under the curve 0.89±0.03). Isolated WMAs (IWMAs) were present in 61 infants, and WMAs associated with other lesions in 30. Although TPWMAs and diffuse pattern often coexisted in infants with IWMAs (p<0.001), only TPWMAs were associated with adverse outcomes (OR 7.8; 95% CI 1.4 to 42.8), including severe hearing loss in 20% and hearing loss combined with other moderate/severe disabilities in 15%. Increased ADC values were associated with higher neuroimaging scores, WMAs based on visual assessment and IWMAs with TPWMAs. ADC values were not associated with outcome in infants with IWMAs. Findings suggestive of progression of WMAs on follow-up MRI included gliosis and malacia. Conclusions: Categorisation of neuroimaging severity correlates with outcome in cCMV. In infants with IWMAs, TPWMAs provide a guide to prognosis

Recent insights into cyberchondria

PURPOSE OF REVIEW:The construct of cyberchondria was introduced relatively recently. This article aims to review the conceptualization, theoretical basis and correlates of cyberchondria, as well as its prevention and management. RECENT FINDINGS:Although there is no consensus, most definitions of cyberchondria emphasize online health research associated with heightened distress or anxiety. The two theoretical models of cyberchondria involve reassurance seeking and specific metacognitive beliefs. Cyberchondria has relationships with health anxiety, problematic Internet use and symptoms of obsessive-compulsive disorder, with public health implications pertaining to functional impairment and altered healthcare utilization. Suggestions about prevention and management of cyberchondria have been put forward, but not tested yet. Research interest in cyberchondria has steadily increased. It is uncertain whether cyberchondria can be considered a distinct entity. Future research should aim to clarify the conceptual status of cyberchondria, quantify its impact and develop evidence-based approaches for a better control of cyberchondria

Desarrollo y presentación de una entrevista para la evaluación de los pensamientos ansiosos en niños

Presentación de la entrevista semiestructurada CATI desarrollada para la evaluación de intrusiones de contenido obsesivo en menore

Sediment sources in a small, abandoned farmland catchment, Central Spanish Pyrenees

In an abandoned farmland catchment the eroded areas have been mapped in order to locate the possible sediment sources. Besides large, non functional mass movements, three types of processes and geoforms stand out: small debris flows, areas where sheet wash erosion prevails and scars located in the taluses flanking the main ravine. Fieldwork and the first results obtained on sediment transport at the outlet of the catchment suggest that the sediment contributing area, representing less than 1 percent of the basin, is mostly the channel itself and its taluses. © 1997 Published by Elsevier Science Ltd

Catchment soil moisture and rainfall characteristics as determinant factors for discharge/suspended sediment hysteretic loops in a small headwater catchment in the Spanish pyrenees

The concentration of suspended sediment and discharge generated during flood events are not normally homogenous, and the curve representing sediment concentration vs. discharge through time is often a hysteretic loop. Three types of hysteretic loops were found at Arnás, a Mediterranean headwater catchment in the Central Spanish Pyrenees: clockwise (the most frequent), counter-clockwise and eightshaped. They are associated with different levels of humidity and rainfall and therefore indicators of different processes of runoff and sediment transport. Clockwise loops are generated under “normal” stormflow conditions, when the catchment is very moist and runoff generation and sediment supply is limited to areas next to the channel (i.e., sediments are removed, transported and depleted rapidly). Counter-clockwise curves occur under very high moisture and high antecedent rainfall conditions. In this case, flood propagation occurs as a kinematic wave. Sediment sources are incorporated all over the catchment. In both cases, saturation excess overland flow generates the superficial runoff. The eight-shaped loop (partial clockwise followed by counterclockwise) occurs with low water content. Here, the runoff generation process is supposed to be infiltration excess overland flow, which causes a rapid extension of the contributing areas both near the channel and over the whole catchment

Charakteristika des Sedimenttransports in einem Kleineinzugsgebiet der Aragonesischen Pyrenäen

Characteristics of sediment transport in a small catchment in the Spanish Pyrenees. The transport of suspended sediment during a stormflow event is very variable. The resulting hysteretic loop of the relationship of the discharge and suspended sediment concentration is used in the present paper to classificate rainfall-runoff-events and identify by canonical discriminant analysis the factors determining the different event types. The analysis of 19 events in a headwater catchment of the Central Pyrenees leads to the identification of 3 types of floods. A majoritary with clockwise shaped hysteretic loop, a second one with anti-clockwise shaped hysteretic loop and a third group with eight shaped hysteretic loop. The most important factor for generating different types of events is the soil moisture in the catchment. On a secondary level, total rainfall amount and precipitation of the 3 days before are important. So, the different flood types are generated with different contributing areas or by different processes. Clockwise shaped events have limited sources of suspended sediment near the channel with limited supply. Anti clockwise shaped events lead sediments from all over the catchment to the ravine. Eight-shaped events are produced under dry conditions, when rainfall intensity exceeds infiltration capacity, so sediments sources may be localised all over the catchment, but their conection to the fluvial network is stoped rapidly with decreasing precipitation

Catchment soil moisture and rainfall characteristics as determinant factors for discharge/suspended sediment hysteretic loops in a small headwater catchment in the Spanish Pyrennes

The concentration of suspended sediment and discharge generated during flood events are not normally homogenous, and the curve representing sediment concentration vs. discharge through time is often a hysteretic loop. Three types of hysteretic loops were found at Arnás, a Mediterranean headwater catchment in the Central Spanish Pyrenees: clockwise (the most frequent), counter-clockwise and eight-shaped. They are associated with different levels of humidity and rainfall and therefore indicators of different processes of runoff and sediment transport. Clockwise loops are generated under 'normal' stormflow conditions, when the catchment is very moist and runoff generation and sediment supply is limited to areas next to the channel (i.e. sediments are removed, transported and depleted rapidly). Counter-clockwise curves occur under very high moisture and high antecedent rainfall conditions. In this case, flood propagation occurs as a kinematic wave. Sediment sources are incorporated all over the catchment. In both cases, saturation excess overland flow generates the superficial runoff. The eight-shaped loop (partial clockwise followed by counter-clockwise) occurs with low water content. Here, the runoff generation process is supposed to be infiltration excess overland flow, which causes a rapid extension of the contributing areas both near the channel and over the whole catchment. © 2003 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved

La evolución del piso subalpino en la Sierra de Urbión (Sistema Ibérico, Norte de España): Un modelo de impacto geoecológico de actividades humanas en el Valle de Ormazal = Evolution of the subalpine belt in the Urbión Sierra (Iberian Range, Northern Spain): An example of the geoecological impact of human activity in the Ormazal Valley

This paper is a synthesis of the landscape, geomorphic and functional evolution of the subalpine belt in the Urbión Sierra, providing a geoecological perspective of the interactions between human activity, spatial organization, geomorphological dynamics and recent land use changes. Landscape changes in the subalpine belt started at least during the Late Neolithic, with forest fires that tried to waste the forest to enable the expansion of summer grasslands favouring an incipient sheep transhumance. Fires occurred also through the Chalcolithic and the Bronze and Iron Ages, and culminated during the Middle Ages. Deforestation of the subalpine belt would be responsible for the triggering of a number of shallow landslides and soil erosion in steep slopes above 1500 m a.s.l. The crisis of the transhumance since the beginning of the 19th century reduced the livestock pressure, particularly in the second half of the 20th century, and has contributed to shrub and forest expansion, whereas the area occupied by summer grasslands has been remarkably reduced. The decreasing livestock pressure suggests that forest expansion will continue in the next future, in a favourable context of global warming and declining presence of snowpack in the subalpine belt. Copyright: © 2016 CSIC This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY) Spain 3.0

MVA-B deletion mutants induces the production of IFN-β, type I IFN inducible genes, TNF-α and MIP-1α in macrophages and dendritic cells.

<p>Human THP-1 macrophages (A) and moDCs (B, C) were mock-infected or infected with MVA-WT, MVA-B, MVA-B ΔC6L or MVA-B ΔC6L/K7R (5 PFU/cell in A, and 1 PFU/cell in B and C). At different time post-infection (3 h and 6 h in A, 6 h in B), RNA was extracted and the mRNA levels of IFN-β, TNF-α, MIP-1α, type I IFN inducible genes (IFIT1 and IFIT2), and HPRT were analyzed by RT-PCR. Results were expressed as the ratio of gene to HPRT mRNA levels. A.U: arbitrary units. <i>p</i> values indicate significantly higher responses compared to DNA-B/MVA-B immunization group. * <i>p</i><0.05, ** <i>p</i><0.005, *** <i>p</i><0.001. Data are means ± SD of duplicate samples and are representative of three independent experiments. (C) Human moDCs were mock-infected or infected with 1 PFU/cell of MVA-WT, MVA-B, MVA-B ΔC6L or MVA-B ΔC6L/K7R. Six hours later, cell-free supernatants were collected to quantify the concentration of IFN-β by ELISA and the concentration of TNF-α and MIP-1α by Luminex. Data are means ± SD of duplicates and are representative of three independent experiments.</p