Work-related psychological health among clergywomen in Australia

Drawing on the classic model of balanced affect, the Francis Burnout Inventory conceptualises good work-related psychological health among clergy in terms of negative affect being balanced by positive affect. This paper sets out to explore the relationship between work-related psychological health and psychological type (as assessed by the Francis Psychological-Type Scales) among a sample of 212 Australian clergywomen who completed the National Church Life Survey Form L in 2006. The data supported the internal consistency reliability of the Francis Burnout Inventory and Francis Psychological-Type Scales and found that work-related psychological health was positively related to extraversion and sensing

Improving the psychological evaluation of exercise referral: psychometric properties of the Exercise Referral Quality of Life Scale

There is a growing need to assess the psychological outcomes of exercise referral and the National Institute of Health and Care Excellence has called for the routine assessment of life-quality. However, a quality of life scale specific to the requirements of exercise referral is currently unavailable. Therefore, the aim of this study was to produce a quality of life measure for this purpose. The Exercise Referral Quality of Life Scale is a 22-item measure comprising three domains: mental and physical health, injury pain and illness and physical activity facilitators. Exploratory factor analysis determined the initial factor structure and was subsequently confirmed by confirmatory factor analysis. Additional scale properties were also assessed. The scale contributes to the global need for improved consistent psychological outcome assessment of exercise referral

Psychological interventions in asthma

Asthma is a multifactorial chronic respiratory disease characterised by recurrent episodes of airway obstruction. The current management of asthma focuses principally on pharmacological treatments, which have a strong evidence base underlying their use. However, in clinical practice, poor symptom control remains a common problem for patients with asthma. Living with asthma has been linked with psychological co-morbidity including anxiety, depression, panic attacks and behavioural factors such as poor adherence and suboptimal self-management. Psychological disorders have a higher-than-expected prevalence in patients with difficult-to-control asthma. As psychological considerations play an important role in the management of people with asthma, it is not surprising that many psychological therapies have been applied in the management of asthma. There are case reports which support their use as an adjunct to pharmacological therapy in selected individuals, and in some clinical trials, benefit is demonstrated, but the evidence is not consistent. When findings are quantitatively synthesised in meta-analyses, no firm conclusions are able to be drawn and no guidelines recommend psychological interventions. These inconsistencies in findings may in part be due to poor study design, the combining of results of studies using different interventions and the diversity of ways patient benefit is assessed. Despite this weak evidence base, the rationale for psychological therapies is plausible, and this therapeutic modality is appealing to both patients and their clinicians as an adjunct to conventional pharmacological treatments. What are urgently required are rigorous evaluations of psychological therapies in asthma, on a par to the quality of pharmaceutical trials. From this evidence base, we can then determine which interventions are beneficial for our patients with asthma management and more specifically which psychological therapy is best suited for each patient

Nutrition Strategies for Triathlon

Contemporary sports nutrition guidelines recommend that each athlete develop a personalised, periodised and practical approach to eating that allows him or her to train hard, recover and adapt optimally, stay free of illness and injury and compete at their best at peak races. Competitive triathletes undertake a heavy training programme to prepare for three different sports while undertaking races varying in duration from 20 min to 10 h. The everyday diet should be adequate in energy availability, provide CHO in varying amounts and timing around workouts according to the benefits of training with low or high CHO availability and spread high-quality protein over the day to maximise the adaptive response to each session. Race nutrition requires a targeted and well-practised plan that maintains fuel and hydration goals over the duration of the specific event, according to the opportunities provided by the race and other challenges, such as a hot environment. Supplements and sports foods can make a small contribution to a sports nutrition plan, when medical supplements are used under supervision to prevent/treat nutrient deficiencies (e.g. iron or vitamin D) or when sports foods provide a convenient source of nutrients when it is impractical to eat whole foods. Finally, a few evidence-based performance supplements may contribute to optimal race performance when used according to best practice protocols to suit the triathlete’s goals and individual responsiveness

Validation of a brief telephone battery for neurocognitive assessment of patients with pulmonary arterial hypertension

BACKGROUND: The effects of pulmonary arterial hypertension on brain function are not understood, despite patients' frequent complaints of cognitive difficulties. Using clinical instruments normally administered during standard in-person assessment of neurocognitive function in adults, we assembled a battery of tests designed for administration over the telephone. The purpose was to improve patient participation, facilitate repeated test administration, and reduce the cost of research on the neuropsychological consequences of acute and chronic cardiorespiratory diseases. We undertook this study to validate telephone administration of the tests. METHODS: 23 adults with pulmonary arterial hypertension underwent neurocognitive assessment using both standard in-person and telephone test administration, and the results of the two methods compared using interclass correlations. RESULTS: For most of the tests in the battery, scores from the telephone assessment correlated strongly with those obtained by in-person administration of the same tests. Interclass correlations between 0.5 and 0.8 were observed for tests that assessed attention, memory, concentration/working memory, reasoning, and language/crystallized intelligence (p ≤ 0.05 for each). Interclass correlations for the Hayling Sentence Completion test of executive function approached significance (p = 0.09). All telephone tests were completed within one hour. CONCLUSION: Administration of this neurocognitive test battery by telephone should facilitate assessment of neuropsychological deficits among patients with pulmonary arterial hypertension living across broad geographical areas, and may be useful for monitoring changes in neurocognitive function in response to PAH-specific therapy or disease progression

Mitochondrial polymorphisms in rat genetic models of hypertension

Hypertension is a complex trait that has been studied extensively for genetic contributions of the nuclear genome. We examined mitochondrial genomes of the hypertensive strains: the Dahl Salt-Sensitive (S) rat, the Spontaneously Hypertensive Rat (SHR), and the Albino Surgery (AS) rat, and the relatively normotensive strains: the Dahl Salt-Resistant (R) rat, the Milan Normotensive Strain (MNS), and the Lewis rat (LEW). These strains were used previously for linkage analysis for blood pressure (BP) in our laboratory. The results provide evidence to suggest that variations in the mitochondrial genome do not account for observed differences in blood pressure between the S and R rats. However, variants were detected among the mitochondrial genomes of the various hypertensive strains, S, SHR, and AS, and also among the normotensive strains R, MNS, and LEW. A total of 115, 114, 106, 106, and 16 variations in mtDNA were observed between the comparisons S versus LEW, S versus MNS, S versus SHR, S versus AS, and SHR versus AS, respectively. Among the 13 genes coding for proteins of the electron transport chain, 8 genes had nonsynonymous variations between S, LEW, MNS, SHR, and AS. The lack of any sequence variants between the mitochondrial genomes of S and R rats provides conclusive evidence that divergence in blood pressure between these two inbred strains is exclusively programmed through their nuclear genomes. The variations detected among the various hypertensive strains provides the basis to construct conplastic strains and further evaluate the effects of these variants on hypertension and associated phenotypes

A multiplex marker set for microsatellite typing and sexing of sooty terns Onychoprion fuscatus

OBJECTIVES: Seabirds have suffered dramatic population declines in recent decades with one such species being the sooty tern Onychoprion fuscatus. An urgent call to re-assess their conservation status has been made given that some populations, such as the one on Ascension Island, South Atlantic, have declined by over 80% in three generations. Little is known about their population genetics, which would aid conservation management through understanding ecological processes and vulnerability to environmental change. We developed a multiplex microsatellite marker set for sooty terns including sex-typing markers to assist population genetics studies. RESULTS: Fifty microsatellite loci were isolated and tested in 23 individuals from Ascension Island. Thirty-one were polymorphic and displayed between 4 and 20 alleles. Three loci were Z-linked and two autosomal loci deviated from Hardy-Weinberg equilibrium. The remaining 26 autosomal loci together with three sex-typing makers were optimised in seven polymerase chain reaction plexes. These 26 highly polymorphic markers will be useful for understanding genetic structure of the Ascension Island population and the species as a whole. Combining these with recently developed microsatellite markers isolated from Indian Ocean birds will allow for assessment of global population structure and genetic diversity

Radiation Produces Irreversible Chronic Dysfunction in the Submandibular Glands of the Rat

The exposure to high doses of ionizing radiation during radiotherapy results in severe morphological and functional alterations of the salivary glands, such as xerostomia. In the present study we investigated the chronic effect of a single radiation dose of 15 Gray (Gy) limited to head and neck on rat salivary gland function (salivary secretion and gland mass) and histology. Results indicate that norepinephrine (NE)-induced salivary secretion was reduced significantly at 30, 90, 180 and 365 days after the administration of a single dose of 15 Gy of ionizing radiation compared to non-irradiated animals. The maximal secretory response was reduced by 33% at 30 and 90 days post irradiation. Interestingly, a new fall in the salivary response to NE was observed at 180 days and was maintained at 365 days post irradiation, showing a 75% reduction in the maximal response. The functional fall of the salivary secretion observed at 180 days post irradiation was not only associated with a reduction of gland mass but also to an alteration of the epithelial architecture exhibiting a changed proportion of ducts and acini, loss of eosinophilic secretor granular material, and glandular vacuolization and fibrosis. On the basis of the presented results, we conclude that ionizing radiation produces irreversible and progressive alterations of submandibular gland (SMG) function and morphology that leads to a severe salivary hypo-function