Is There an Association between Advanced Paternal Age and Endophenotype Deficit Levels in Schizophrenia?

The children of older fathers have increased risks of developing schizophrenia spectrum disorders, and among those who develop these disorders, those with older fathers present with more severe clinical symptoms. However, the influence of advanced paternal age on other important domains related to schizophrenia, such as quantitative endophenotype deficit levels, remains unknown. This study investigated the associations between paternal age and level of endophenotypic impairment in a well-characterized family-based sample from the Consortium on the Genetics of Schizophrenia (COGS). All families included at least one affected subject and one unaffected sibling. Subjects met criteria for schizophrenia (probands; n = 293) or were unaffected first-degree siblings of those probands (n = 382). Paternal age at the time of subjects’ birth was documented. Subjects completed a comprehensive clinical assessment and a battery of tests that measured 16 endophenotypes. After controlling for covariates, potential paternal age–endophenotype associations were analyzed using one model that included probands alone and a second model that included both probands and unaffected siblings. Endophenotype deficits in the Identical Pairs version of the 4-digit Continuous Performance Test and in the Penn Computerized Neurocognitive Battery verbal memory test showed significant associations with paternal age. However, after correcting for multiple comparisons, no endophenotype was significantly associated with paternal age. These findings suggest that factors other than advanced paternal age at birth may account for endophenotypic deficit levels in schizophrenia

Qualitative methods in social research

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The Impact of Sexual Harassment on Depressive Symptoms during the Early Occupational Career

Sexual harassment has been theorized as a stressor with consequences for the physical and mental health of its targets. Though social scientists have documented a negative association between sexual harassment and mental health, few longitudinal studies have investigated the association between sexual harassment and depressive symptoms. Using longitudinal survey data from the Youth Development Study, combined with in-depth interviews, this article draws on Louise Fitzgerald’s theoretical framework, stress theory, and the life course perspective to assess the impact of sexual harassment on depressive affect during the early occupational career. In support of Fitzgerald’s model, our findings confirm that sexual harassment is a stressor that is associated with increased depressive symptoms. Our quantitative results show that women and men who experience more frequent sexual harassment at work have significantly higher levels of depressed mood than non-harassed workers, even after controlling for prior harassment and depressive symptoms. Moreover, we find evidence that sexual harassment early in the career has long-term effects on depressive symptoms in adulthood. Interviews with a subset of our survey respondents point to a variety of coping strategies and reveal further links between harassment and other aspects of mental health, such as anger and self-doubt

Universal tumor screening for Lynch syndrome: Assessment of the perspectives of patients with colorectal cancer regarding benefits and barriers

BACKGROUND Universal tumor screening for Lynch syndrome, the most common form of hereditary colorectal cancer (CRC), has been recommended among all patients newly diagnosed with CRC. However, there is limited literature regarding patient perspectives of tumor screening for Lynch syndrome among patients with CRC who are not selected for screening based on family history criteria. METHODS A total of 145 patients aged 39 to 87 years were administered surveys assessing perceived risk, patient perspectives, and potential benefits of and barriers to tumor screening for Lynch syndrome. Associations between patient‐specific and cancer‐specific factors and survey responses were analyzed. RESULTS The majority of participants perceived their risk of developing Lynch syndrome as being low, with 9 participants (6.2%) anticipating an abnormal screening result. However, most participants endorsed the potential benefits of screening for themselves and their families, with 84.8% endorsing ≥6 benefits and 50.3% endorsing all 8 benefits. Participants also endorsed few potential barriers to screening, with 89.4% endorsing ≤4 of 9 potential barriers. A common barrier was worry about the cost of additional testing and surveillance, which was endorsed by 54.5% of participants. The level of distress associated with tumor screening for Lynch syndrome, which was very low, was not associated with age or CRC stage. CONCLUSIONS The results of the current study indicate that patients with CRC overall have a positive attitude toward tumor screening for Lynch syndrome, endorse the benefits of screening, and experience low levels of distress. These findings provide insight into patient attitudes toward tumor screening for Lynch syndrome among unselected patients with CRC to inform educational approaches that assist in patient decision‐making and guide the successful implementation of screening programs. Cancer 2015;121:3281–3289. © 2015 American Cancer Society

Evoking desires and stirring up distress : The im-pertinence of emotions in my ethnographic work Evocando desejos e revirando mal-estares: A im-pertinência das emoções no meu trabalho etnográfico Evocando deseos y revolviendo malestares: La im-pertinencia de las emociones en mi trabajo etnográfico

Doctora en Sociología y Máster en Investigación en Sociología por la Universitat de Barcelona, España. Licenciada en Antropología por la Universidad Complutense de Madrid y Licenciada en Sociología por la Universidad Carlos III de Madrid. Profesora del Departamento de Antropología Social y Cultural de la Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona, España e investigadora postdoctoral vinculada a un proyecto internacional adscrito a la Universitat Oberta de Catalunya, España. Entre sus últimas publicaciones están: (en coautoría con Nuria Vergés Bosch y Elisabet Almeda Samaranch) "TFrom Alliance to Trust: Constructing Crip-Queer Intimacies". Journal of Gender Studies 26 (3): 269-281, 2017; (en coautoría con Andrea y Miriam Arenas Conejo) "Playing Crip: the Politics of Disabled Artists' Performances in Spain". Research in Drama Education: The Journal of Applied Theatre and Performance 22 (3): 345-351, 2017. *[email protected] ethnographic work has revolved around the body and desire, its articulation, and its reappropriation by people expelled from their habitual representations. In this sense, my academic reflection has focused on addressing and analyzing the body and the desire of the others, watching over my own. However, feminist epistemology has, for decades, been criticizing the science that aims to present itself as objective and neutral, and challenges us to produce situated knowledge, to face reflexivity and, in the words of Haraway (1988), to explain embodied objectivities. Methodology: In this article, I apply the methodological proposal of embodied anthropology (Esteban 2004b) that allows me, from two ethnographic passages in which my emotions played a fundamental role, to pose three areas of reflection around ethnography: the "construction of the research field"; the established (power) relationships; and the management of ethics, privacy, and conflict. Conclusions: The presentation of rigorously disembodied academic works can generate somatic infiltrations, which are unconscious and uncontrollable, in our ethnographies. On the contrary, confronting the influence of emotions in the field, of the affects, commitments and conflicts that we generate, constitutes a way to humanize expert knowledge, disclosing forms of epistemological production and, therefore, empowering the relations of horizontality and reciprocity with our interlocutors. Originality: The analysis of the role of emotions in the field of research allows us not only to verify the inherent subjectivity of all epistemological production, but to problematize what kind of linkages we generate in contemporary ethnographies in which the "natives" are our neighbors with smartphone and 4G technology: instant readers of our analyses, accomplices of our desires, witnesses of our faults

Is there an association between advanced paternal age and endophenotype deficit levels in schizophrenia?

The children of older fathers have increased risks of developing schizophrenia spectrum disorders, and among those who develop these disorders, those with older fathers present with more severe clinical symptoms. However, the influence of advanced paternal age on other important domains related to schizophrenia, such as quantitative endophenotype deficit levels, remains unknown. This study investigated the associations between paternal age and level of endophenotypic impairment in a well-characterized family-based sample from the Consortium on the Genetics of Schizophrenia (COGS). All families included at least one affected subject and one unaffected sibling. Subjects met criteria for schizophrenia (probands; n = 293) or were unaffected first-degree siblings of those probands (n = 382). Paternal age at the time of subjects birth was documented. Subjects completed a comprehensive clinical assessment and a battery of tests that measured 16 endophenotypes. After controlling for covariates, potential paternal age-endophenotype associations were analyzed using one model that included probands alone and a second model that included both probands and unaffected siblings. Endophenotype deficits in the Identical Pairs version of the 4-digit Continuous Performance Test and in the Penn Computerized Neurocognitive Battery verbal memory test showed significant associations with paternal age. However, after correcting for multiple comparisons, no endophenotype was significantly associated with paternal age. These findings suggest that factors other than advanced paternal age at birth may account for endophenotypic deficit levels in schizophrenia