Psychological Literacy Weakly Differentiates Students by Discipline and Year of Enrolment

Psychological literacy, a construct developed to reflect the types of skills graduates of a psychology degree should possess and be capable of demonstrating, has recently been scrutinized in terms of its measurement adequacy. The recent development of a multi-item measure encompassing the facets of psychological literacy has provided the potential for improved validity in measuring the construct. We investigated the known-groups validity of this multi-item measure of psychological literacy to examine whether psychological literacy could predict (a) students’ course of enrolment and (b) students’ year of enrolment. Five hundred and fifteen undergraduate psychology students, 87 psychology/human resource management students, and 83 speech pathology students provided data. In the first year cohort, the reflective processes (RPs) factor significantly predicted psychology and psychology/human resource management course enrolment, although no facets significantly differentiated between psychology and speech pathology enrolment. Within the second year cohort, generic graduate attributes (GGAs) and RPs differentiated psychology and speech pathology course enrolment. GGAs differentiated first-year and second-year psychology students, with second-year students more likely to have higher scores on this factor. Due to weak support for known-groups validity, further measurement refinements are recommended to improve the construct’s utility

The measurement of psychological literacy: A first approximation

Psychological literacy, the ability to apply psychological knowledge to personal, family, occupational, community and societal challenges, is promoted as the primary outcome of an undergraduate education in psychology. As the concept of psychological literacy becomes increasingly adopted as the core business of undergraduate psychology training courses world-wide, there is urgent need for the construct to be accurately measured so that student and institutional level progress can be assessed and monitored. Key to the measurement of psychological literacy is determining the underlying factor-structure of psychological literacy. In this paper we provide a first approximation of the measurement of psychological literacy by identifying and evaluating self-report measures for psychological literacy. Multi-item and single-item self-report measures of each of the proposed nine dimensions of psychological literacy were completed by two samples (N = 218 and N = 381) of undergraduate psychology students at an Australian university. Single and multi-item measures of each dimension were weakly to moderately correlated. Exploratory and confirmatory factor analyses of multi-item measures indicated a higher order three factor solution best represented the construct of psychological literacy. The three factors were reflective processes, generic graduate attributes, and psychology as a helping profession. For the measurement of psychological literacy to progress there is a need to further develop self-report measures and to identify/develop and evaluate objective measures of psychological literacy. Further approximations of the measurement of psychological literacy remain an imperative, given the construct's ties to measuring institutional efficacy in teaching psychology to an undergraduate audience

Getting Recovery Right After Neck Dissection (GRRAND-F): mixed-methods feasibility study to design a pragmatic randomised controlled trial

Objective: To determine the feasibility of a randomised controlled trial to estimate the effectiveness and cost-effectiveness of a rehabilitation intervention following neck dissection (ND) after head and neck cancer (HNC). Design: Two-arm, open, pragmatic, parallel, multicentre, randomised controlled feasibility trial. Setting: Two UK NHS hospitals. Participants: People who had HNC in whom a ND was part of their care. We excluded those with a life expectancy of six months or less, pre-existing, long-term neurological disease affecting the shoulder and cognitive impairment. Intervention: Usual care (standard care supplemented with a booklet on postoperative self-management) was received by all participants. The GRRAND intervention programme consisted of usual care plus up to six individual physiotherapy sessions including neck and shoulder range of motion and progressive resistance exercises, advice and education. Between sessions, participants were advised to complete a home exercise programme. Randomisation: 1:1 randomisation. Allocation was based on minimisation, stratified by hospital site and spinal accessory nerve sacrifice. It was not possible to mask treatment received. Main outcome measures: Primary: Participant recruitment, retention and fidelity to the study protocol and interventions from study participants and staff at six months post-randomisation (and 12 months for those reaching that time-point). Secondary: clinical measures of pain, function, physical performance, health-related quality of life, health utilisation and adverse events. Results: 36 participants were recruited and enrolled. The study achieved five of its six feasibility targets. These included consent - 70% of eligible participants were consented; intervention fidelity - 78% participants discharged completed the intervention sessions; contamination - none - no participants in the control arm received the GRRAND-F intervention and retention - 8% of participants were lost to follow-up. The only feasibility target that was not achieved was the recruitment target where only 36 of the planned 50 participants were recruited over 18 months. This was principally due to the COVID-19 pandemic which caused all research activity to be paused or reduced, with a subsequent reduction in. Conclusions: Based on the findings a full-trial can now be designed to better understand whether this proposed intervention is effective

Swift and XMM-Newton Observations of the Extraordinary GRB 060729: An afterglow with a more than 100 days X-ray light curve

We report the results of the Swift and XMM observations of the Swift-discovered long Gamma-Ray Burst GRB 060729 ($T_{90}$=115s). The afterglow of this burst was exceptionally bright in X-rays as well as at UV/Optical wavelengths showing an unusually long slow decay phase ($\alpha$=0.14\plm0.02) suggesting a larger energy injection phase at early times than in other bursts. The X-ray light curve displays a break at about 60 ks after the burst. The X-ray decay slope after the break is $\alpha$=1.29\plm0.03. Up to 125 days after the burst we do not detect a jet break, suggesting that the jet opening angle is larger than 28 degrees. In the first 2 minutes after the burst (rest frame) the X-ray spectrum of the burst changed dramatically from a hard X-ray spectrum to a very soft one. We find that the X-ray spectra at this early phase can all be fitted by an absorbed single power law model or alternatively by a blackbody plus power law model. The power law fits show that the X-ray spectrum becomes steeper while the absorption column density decreases. In Swift's UV/Optical telescope the afterglow was clearly detected up to 9 days after the burst in all 6 filters and even longer in some of the UV filters with the latest detection in the UVW1 31 days after the burst. A break at about 50 ks is clearly detected in all 6 UVOT filters from a shallow decay slope of about 0.3 and a steeper decay slope of 1.3. In addition to the \swift observations we also present and discuss the results from a 61 ks ToO observation by XMM. (Abriviated)Comment: Accepted to be published in the Astrophysical Journal, 28 pages, 10 figure

Deletions at 22q11.2 in idiopathic Parkinson's disease: a combined analysis of genome-wide association data.

BACKGROUND: Parkinson's disease has been reported in a small number of patients with chromosome 22q11.2 deletion syndrome. In this study, we screened a series of large, independent Parkinson's disease case-control studies for deletions at 22q11.2. METHODS: We used data on deletions spanning the 22q11.2 locus from four independent case-control Parkinson's disease studies (UK Wellcome Trust Case Control Consortium 2, Dutch Parkinson's Disease Genetics Consortium, US National Institute on Aging, and International Parkinson's Disease Genomics Consortium studies), which were independent of the original reports of chromosome 22q11.2 deletion syndrome. We did case-control association analysis to compare the proportion of 22q11.2 deletions found, using the Fisher's exact test for the independent case-control studies and the Mantel-Haenszel test for the meta-analyses. We retrieved clinical details of patients with Parkinson's disease who had 22q11.2 deletions from the medical records of these patients. FINDINGS: We included array-based copy number variation data from 9387 patients with Parkinson's disease and 13 863 controls. Eight patients with Parkinson's disease and none of the controls had 22q11.2 deletions (p=0·00082). In the 8451 patients for whom age at onset data were available, deletions at 22q11.2 were associated with Parkinson's disease age at onset (Mann-Whitney U test p=0·001). Age at onset of Parkinson's disease was lower in patients carrying a 22q11.2 deletion (median 37 years, 95% CI 32·0-55·5; mean 42·1 years [SD 11·9]) than in those who did not carry a deletion (median 61 years, 95% CI 60·5-61·0; mean 60·3 years [SD 12·8]). A 22q11.2 deletion was present in more patients with early-onset (p<0·0001) and late-onset Parkinson's disease (p=0·016) than in controls, and in more patients with early-onset than late-onset Parkinson's disease (p=0·005). INTERPRETATION: Clinicians should be alert to the possibility of 22q11.2 deletions in patients with Parkinson's disease who have early presentation or features associated with the chromosome 22q11.2 deletion syndrome, or both. FUNDING: UK Medical Research Council, UK Wellcome Trust, Parkinson's UK, Patrick Berthoud Trust, National Institutes of Health, "Investissements d'Avenir" ANR-10-IAIHU-06, Dutch Parkinson Foundation (Parkinson Vereniging), Neuroscience Campus Amsterdam, National Institute for Health Research, National Institute on Aging, National Institutes of Health.UK Medical Research Council, UK Wellcome Trust, Parkinson's UK, Patrick Berthoud Trust, National Institutes of Health, “Investissements d'Avenir” ANR-10-IAIHU-06, Dutch Parkinson Foundation (Parkinson Vereniging), Neuroscience Campus Amsterdam, National Institute for Health Research, National Institute on Aging, National Institutes of Health.This is the final version of the article. It first appeared from Elsevier via http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/S1474-4422(16)00071-

Aquatic Macroinvertebrate Biodiversity Associated with Artificial Agricultural Drainage Ditches

Agricultural drainage channels and ditches are ubiquitous features in the lowland agricultural landscapes, built primarily to facilitate land drainage, irrigate agricultural crops and alleviate flood risk. Most drainage ditches are considered artificial waterbodies and are not typically included in routine monitoring programmes, and as a result the faunal and floral communities they support are poorly quantified. This paper characterizes the aquatic macroinvertebrate diversity (alpha, beta and gamma) of agricultural drainage ditches managed by an internal drainage board in Lincolnshire, UK. The drainage ditches support very diverse macroinvertebrate communities at both the site (alpha diversity) and landscape scale (gamma diversity) with the main arterial drainage ditches supporting greater numbers of taxa when compared to smaller ditches. Examination of the between site community heterogeneity (beta diversity) indicated that differences among ditches were high spatially and temporally. The results illustrate that both main arterial and side ditches make a unique contribution to aquatic biodiversity of the agricultural landscape. Given the need to maintain drainage ditches to support agriculture and flood defence measures, we advocate the application of principles from ‘reconciliation ecology’ to inform the future management and conservation of drainage ditches

Hormone replacement therapy (conjugated oestrogens plus bazedoxifene) for post-menopausal women with symptomatic hand osteoarthritis: primary report from the HOPE-e randomised, placebo-controlled, feasibility study

Background Symptomatic hand osteoarthritis is more common in women than in men, and its incidence increases around the age of menopause, implicating oestrogen deficiency. No randomised controlled trials of hormone replacement therapy (HRT) have been done in people with hand osteoarthritis. We aimed to determine the feasibility and acceptability of a form of HRT (conjugated oestrogens plus bazedoxifene) in post-menopausal women with painful hand osteoarthritis. Methods The HOPE-e feasibility study was a randomised, double-blind, placebo-controlled trial, for which we recruited women aged 40–65 years, for whom 1–10 years had passed after their final menstrual period, with definite hand osteoarthritis and at least two painful hand joints. Participants were recruited across three primary or secondary care sites and from the community and were randomly assigned (1:1) to receive conjugated oestrogens plus bazedoxifene or placebo, orally once every day for 24 weeks, before weaning for 4 weeks until the end of the study. The primary feasibility outcomes were rates of identification, recruitment, randomisation, retention, and compliance of eligible participants, and the likelihood of unmasking. The secondary objective was to generate proof-of-concept quantitative and qualitative data on the acceptability of proposed clinical outcomes for a full trial and adverse events. We used an intention-to-treat analysis, and criteria for progression to a full trial were pre-defined as recruitment of at least 30 participants across all sites in 18 months; a dropout rate of less than or equal to 30% of randomised individuals; and acceptability to the majority of participants, including acceptable rates of adverse events. Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the recruitment window was reduced to 12–15 months. A proportionately reduced minimum sample size of 22 was judged to be sufficient to test feasibility. This trial was registered at ISRCTN, ISRCTN12196200. Findings From May 9, 2019 to Dec 31, 2020, 434 enquiries or referrals were received. We did 96 telephone pre-screens; of the 35 eligible participants, seven were excluded as ineligible at the telephone or face-to-face screening and 28 (80% [95% CI 63–92]) were randomly assigned. Of the 406 who were not randomly assigned, 250 (62%) were ineligible (with contraindicated medications accounting for 50 [20%] of these), 101 (25%) did not respond to further enquiries, and 55 (14%) chose not to proceed (with the most common reason being not wanting to take a hormone-based drug). All 28 randomised participants completed all follow-up assessments with high compliance and outcome measure completeness. All three adverse event-related treatment withdrawals were in the placebo group. No serious adverse events were reported. Participants and investigators were successfully masked (participant Bang's blinding index placebo group 0·50 [95% CI 0·25–0·75]). The trial met the prespecified criteria for progression to a full trial. Interpretation This first-ever feasibility study of a randomised controlled trial of HRT for post-menopausal women with painful hand osteoarthritis met its progression criteria, although it was not powered to detect a clinical effect. This outcome indicates that a full trial of an HRT in this population is feasible and acceptable and identifies potential refinements with regard to the design of such a trial. Funding Research for Patient Benefit programme, National Institute for Health Research