Protective Behavior in Course of the COVID-19 Outbreak: Survey Results From Germany

Objective: The COVID-19 outbreak means far-reaching changes in the organization of daily lives. Disease-related literacy and factors such as age, gender, or education play a major role in shaping individual practices of protective behavior. This paper investigates different types and frequency of practicing protective behaviors, as well as socio-demographic factors that are associated with such behavioral change. Methods: Data stem from a cross-sectional survey in Germany. Three thousand seven hundred and sixty-five people were contacted, 3,186 participated in the survey. Information on behavior to lower the risk of becoming infected with COVID-19 was assessed by nine items (answer options yes/no). For each item, logistic regression models were used to estimate odds ratios (OR), using education, sex, and age as main predictors and adjusting for partnership status and household composition. Results: People with lower educational level were less likely to avoid gatherings (OR = 0.63; 95%CI = 0.48–0.83), adapt their work situation (OR = 0.66; 95%CI = 0.52–0.82), reduce personal contacts and meetings (OR = 0.71; 95%CI = 0.55–0.93), or increase hand hygiene (OR = 0.53; 95%CI = 0.38–0.73). Being female was associated with higher odds of protective behavior for most outcomes. Exceptions were wearing face masks and adapting the own work situation. Associations between respondents' age and individual behavior change were inconsistent and mostly weak. Conclusion: Disease specific knowledge is essential in order to enable people to judge information on COVID-19. Health education programs aiming at improving COVID-19 knowledge are helpful to build up appropriate practices and reduce the spread of the disease. Strategies are needed to guarantee easy access and better dissemination of high-quality news and fact-checks. Socioeconomic characteristics should be taken into account in the development of infection control measures

Repositioning synthetic glucocorticoids in psychiatric disease associated with neural autoantibodies: a narrative review

Synthetic glucocorticoids (sGCs) are a well-investigated and standard drug therapy for disorders associated with CNS inflammation. Less is known about treating psychiatric disorders associated with neural autoantibodies. Our aim is to elucidate the repositioning of sGCs in psychiatric diseases that co-exist with neural autoantibodies. We used PubMed to identify articles for this narrative review. To our knowledge, no randomized, placebo-controlled trials have yet been conducted on applying sGC to treat neural autoantibody-associated psychiatric disorders. We describe initial results of cohort studies and single cases or case series often associated with autoantibodies against membrane-surface antigens demonstrating a largely beneficial response to sGCs either as monotherapy or polytherapy together with other immunosuppressive agents. However, sGCs may be less efficient in patients with psychiatric diseases associated with autoantibodies directed against intracellular antigens. These results reveal potential benefits of the novel usage of sGCs for the indication of neural autoantibody-associated psychiatric disease. Further large-scale randomized, placebo-controlled trials are needed to discover whether sGCs are safe, well tolerated, and beneficial in subgroups of neural autoantibody-associated psychiatric diseases

Interleukin-1 beta and neurotrophin-3 synergistically promote neurite growth in vitro

Pro-inflammatory cytokines such as interleukin-1 beta (IL-1β) are considered to exert detrimental effects during brain trauma and in neurodegenerative disorders. Consistently, it has been demonstrated that IL-1β suppresses neurotrophin-mediated neuronal cell survival rendering neurons vulnerable to degeneration. Since neurotrophins are also well known to strongly influence axonal plasticity, we investigated here whether IL-1β has a similar negative impact on neurite growth. We analyzed neurite density and length of organotypic brain and spinal cord slice cultures under the influence of the neurotrophins NGF, BDNF, NT-3 and NT-4. In brain slices, only NT-3 significantly promoted neurite density and length. Surprisingly, a similar increase of neurite growth was induced by IL-1β. Additionally, both factors increased the number of brain slices displaying maximal neurite growth. Furthermore, the co-administration of IL-1β and NT-3 significantly increased the number of brain slices displaying maximal neurite growth compared to single treatments. These data indicate that these two factors synergistically stimulate two distinct aspects of neurite outgrowth, namely neurite density and neurite length from acute organotypic brain slices

Metacognitive training in the acute psychiatric care setting: feasibility, acceptability, and safety

Patients on acute psychiatric wards desire more psychosocial treatment than they receive, according to recent studies, but evidence-based interventions tailored to this setting are currently lacking. Metacognitive Training for psychosis (MCT) is a flexible, easy-to-administer group therapy that has been adapted to meet this demand (MCT-Acute). Thirty-seven patients with severe mental illness took part in MCT-Acute twice a week during their stay on a locked acute ward and were interviewed before, during, and after the intervention period regarding subjective utility, subjective adverse events, and symptom severity; attendance rates and reasons for absence were recorded. In addition, staff rated adverse events, symptom severity, and functioning (German Clinical Trial Register ID: DRKS00020551). Overall, most patients evaluated MCT-Acute positively and reported symptom stabilization. Staff also reported improvement in functioning. No clinician-rated adverse events related to participation in MCT-Acute were reported. Conducting MCT-Acute is feasible and safe and may contribute to meeting patients’, practitioners’, and researchers’ demands for more evidence-based psychotherapeutic interventions for the acute psychiatric care setting.Clinical Trial RegistrationID: DRKS00020551, https://drks.de/search/de/trial/DRKS0002055

Service users’ perceptions of relevant and helpful components of an integrated care concept (ACCESS) for psychosis

IntroductionPsychotic disorders have a significant impact on patients’ lives and their families, and long-term treatment with individually tailored multimodal combinations of therapies is often required. Integrated care (IC) concepts such as the “Hamburg Model (ACCESS)” with a focus on psychotic disorders, includes different (therapeutic) components with pharmaco- and psychotherapy, family involvement, home treatment and the option of using a 24/7 crisis hotline. All components are offered by a therapeutically-oriented assertive community treatment (TACT) team in a need-adapted manner. So far, however, little is known about which specific components are regarded as especially relevant and helpful by the users of IC.MethodsPatients currently participating in IC completed a questionnaire as part of the continuous quality assurance study (ACCESS II) in which they were asked to rate the different components of treatment according to their relevance and helpfulness, considering the individual’s unique experiences with IC and needs in mental health care. Furthermore, they were asked to make suggestions regarding additional helpful components of treatment.ResultsFifty patients participated in this survey (23% of the patients currently participating in the IC concept). For participants, the most helpful and important factors were having the same therapist in the long-term and the 24/7 crisis telephone. Additional components suggested by patients included more addiction-specific therapies and increased focus on vocational rehabilitation and integration.ConclusionFrom the perspective of the users of IC, long-term care from a trusted therapist with whom there is a therapeutic relationship and the possibility to reach someone they already know from the TACT team 24/7 serves as the best basis for effective care, fostering trust, understanding, and open communication. In contrast, home treatment remains a relevant aspect of evidence-based care for people with severe mental illness, but perhaps surprisingly, is not viewed as the most important issue

see: an R package for visualizing statistical models

The see package is embedded in the easystats ecosystem, a collection of R packages that operate in synergy to provide a consistent and intuitive syntax when working with statistical models in the R programming language (R Core Team, 2021). Most easystats packages return comprehensive numeric summaries of model parameters and performance. The see package complements these numeric summaries with a host of functions and tools to produce a range of publication-ready visualizations for model parameters, predictions, and performance diagnostics. As a core pillar of easystats, the see package helps users to utilize visualization for more informative, communicable, and well-rounded scientific reporting

datawizard: an R package for easy data preparation and statistical transformations

The {datawizard} package for the R programming language (R Core Team, 2021) provides a lightweight toolbox to assist in key steps involved in any data analysis workflow: (1) wrangling the raw data to get it in the needed form, (2) applying preprocessing steps and statistical transformations, and (3) compute statistical summaries of data properties and distributions. Therefore, it can be a valuable tool for R users and developers looking for a lightweight option for data preparation

Carbon, nitrogen, and oxygen stable isotopes in modern tooth enamel: A case study from Gorongosa National Park, central Mozambique

The analyses of the stable isotope ratios of carbon (delta C-13), nitrogen (delta N-15), and oxygen (delta O-18) in animal tissues are powerful tools for reconstructing the feeding behavior of individual animals and characterizing trophic interactions in food webs. Of these biomaterials, tooth enamel is the hardest, most mineralized vertebrate tissue and therefore least likely to be affected by chemical alteration (i.e., its isotopic composition can be preserved over millions of years), making it an important and widely available archive for biologists and paleontologists. Here, we present the first combined measurements of delta C-13, delta N-15, and delta O-18 in enamel from the teeth of modern fauna (herbivores, carnivores, and omnivores) from the well-studied ecosystem of Gorongosa National Park (GNP) in central Mozambique. We use two novel methods to produce high-precision stable isotope enamel data: (i) the "oxidation-denitrification method," which permits the measurement of mineral-bound organic nitrogen in tooth enamel (delta N-15(enamel)), which until now, has not been possible due to enamel's low organic content, and (ii) the "cold trap method," which greatly reduces the sample size required for traditional measurements of inorganic delta C-13(enamel) and delta O-18(enamel) (from >= 0.5 to <= 0.1 mg), permitting analysis of small or valuable teeth and high-resolution serial sampling of enamel. The stable isotope results for GNP fauna reveal important ecological information about the trophic level, dietary niche, and resource consumption. delta N-15(enamel) values clearly differentiate trophic level (i.e., carnivore delta N-15(enamel) values are 4.0 parts per thousand higher, on average, than herbivores), delta C-13(enamel) values distinguish C-3 and/or C-4 biomass consumption, and delta O-18(enamel) values reflect local meteoric water (delta O-18(water)) in the park. Analysis of combined carbon, nitrogen, and oxygen stable isotope data permits geochemical separation of grazers, browsers, omnivores, and carnivores according to their isotopic niche, while mixed-feeding herbivores cannot be clearly distinguished from other dietary groups. These results confirm that combined C, N, and O isotope analyses of a single aliquot of tooth enamel can be used to reconstruct diet and trophic niches. Given its resistance to chemical alteration, the analysis of these three isotopes in tooth enamel has a high potential to open new avenues of research in (paleo)ecology and paleontology.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio