The efficacy of preopoerative instruction in reducing anxiety following gyneoncological surgery: a case control study

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>This is a quasi-experimental case control research focusing on the impact of systematic preoperative instruction on the level of postoperative anxiety in gyneoncologic patients. The population studied consists of the gyneoncologic surgery patients admitted to the Gynecologic Oncology Service at Zekai Tahir Burak Gynecology Training and Research Hospital from May to September 2010.</p> <p>Patients and methods</p> <p>Through a random sampling, 60 patients were recruited in each group. The study group was given a systematic preoperative instruction while the control group was given routine nursing care. Patients were interviewed in the postoperative period and anxiety was measured. The data-collecting tool consisted of the Individual Information Form and the State-Trait Anxiety Inventory. The collected data were analyzed by using the SPSS Program to find the frequency, the percentage, the mean and the standard variables, and the hypothesis was tested with Chi-square, variance, and t-independent test.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>It was found that the incidence rates from the post-operative anxiety score of the study group were lower than those of the control group (p < .05). The results of this research demonstrated that gyneoncologic surgery patients who were given systematic preoperative instruction felt less anxious than the ones who were given merely a routine nursing care.</p> <p>Conclusions</p> <p>Results of this study suggest that preoperative instruction programs aiming at informing gyneoncologic surgery patients at the preoperative stage should be organized in hospitals and have an essential role.</p

The global impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on the management and course of chronic urticaria

Introduction: The COVID-19 pandemic dramatically disrupts health care around the globe. The impact of the pandemic on chronic urticaria (CU) and its management are largely unknown. Aim: To understand how CU patients are affected by the COVID-19 pandemic; how specialists alter CU patient management; and the course of CU in patients with COVID-19. Materials and Methods: Our cross-sectional, international, questionnaire-based, multicenter UCARE COVID-CU study assessed the impact of the pandemic on patient consultations, remote treatment, changes in medications, and clinical consequences. Results: The COVID-19 pandemic severely impairs CU patient care, with less than 50% of the weekly numbers of patients treated as compared to before the pandemic. Reduced patient referrals and clinic hours were the major reasons. Almost half of responding UCARE physicians were involved in COVID-19 patient care, which negatively impacted on the care of urticaria patients. The rate of face-to-face consultations decreased by 62%, from 90% to less than half, whereas the rate of remote consultations increased by more than 600%, from one in 10 to more than two thirds. Cyclosporine and systemic corticosteroids, but not antihistamines or omalizumab, are used less during the pandemic. CU does not affect the course of COVID-19, but COVID-19 results in CU exacerbation in one of three patients, with higher rates in patients with severe COVID-19. Conclusions: The COVID-19 pandemic brings major changes and challenges for CU patients and their physicians. The long-term consequences of these changes, especially the increased use of remote consultations, require careful evaluation

Erratum to: Comparison of the Z/γ* + jets to γ + jets cross sections in pp collisions at √s = 8

Erratum to: JHEP10(2015)128. ArXiv ePrint: 1505.06520. The online version of the original article can be found at http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/JHEP10(2015)128

How Do I Know You? Person Perception From Photographs To Live Interactions

Mental representations of unknown others play a central role in person perception. These representations, informed by our memories as well as the affective associations we acquire though our past experiences, heavily influence how we perceive, evaluate, and react to new people we encounter in our day-to-day lives. Three papers aim to understand the antecedents and consequences of these representations at different stages of relationship formation and functioning-from evaluating unknown others to getting acquainted with these individuals. The first paper focused on idiosyncratic cues pertaining to representations of significant others and showed that women evaluated unknown men who resembled their partner (vs. those who did not) more favorably, even when they were not consciously aware of the idiosyncratic cue. In everyday person perception, such idiosyncratic cues are encountered simultaneously with cues shared across perceivers. The second paper provided the first systematic examination of how resemblance to known others (an idiosyncratic cue) and facial width-to-height ratio (a shared cue) simultaneously influence person perception. Shared and idiosyncratic cues had additive effects when participants made evaluative judgments (i.e., snap judgments of liking). Across three studies, facial width-to-height ratio was negatively related to liking. However, this association was significantly attenuated for women with a wide-faced romantic partner. The idiosyncratic cue predicted liking only when novel faces resembled newly encountered people who engaged in blameworthy behaviors or when they resembled significant others. Shared and idiosyncratic cues interacted to influence processing efficiency when participants made categorical judgments (i.e., indicated whether unknown faces resembled someone they knew). Participants made slower and less accurate responses to wider faces resembling a liked known other (vs. not). By focusing on static photographs of faces, these studies showed that shared and idiosyncratic cues profoundly influence person perception. The third paper complements this research by showing that likeability judgments from photographs predicted likeability judgments following live interactions, even when judgments were separated by two weeks and when interactions provided more opportunities to learn about the person. Drawing from theorizing on mental representations, the present research sheds light on the multitude of factors that influence everyday person perception from photographs to live interactions

Impressions Based on a Portrait Predict, 1-Month Later, Impressions Following a Live Interaction

When it comes to person perception, does one "judge a book by its cover?" Perceivers made judgments of liking, and of personality, based on a photograph of an unknown other, and at least 1 month later, made judgments following a face-to-face interaction with the same person. Photograph-based liking judgments predicted interaction-based liking judgments, and, to a lesser extent, photograph-based personality judgments predicted interaction-based personality judgments (except for extraversion). Consistency in liking judgments (1) partly reflected behavioral confirmation (i.e., perceivers with favorable photograph-based judgments behaved more warmly toward the target during the live interaction, which elicited greater target warmth); (2) explained, at least in part, consistency in personality judgments (reflecting a halo effect); and (3) remained robust even after controlling for perceiver effects, target effects, and perceived attractiveness. These findings support the view that even after having "read a book," one still, to some extent, judges it by its "cover.

How can emergency physicians protect their work in the era of pseudo publishing?

Recently scientists have been targets of pseudo journals (fake, hijacked or predatory journals). These journals provide a low barrier to publication and quick publication times compared to high quality journals and exploit the pay-to-publish system in order to charge publication fees but they provide no formal peer-review. We aim to increase awareness among emergency physicians about pseudo journals.Trying to list all of fake, hijacked or predatory journals is not the solution because new journals are launched almost everyday and the fast proliferation of journals makes it difficult to identify and list all of them. Only an understanding of the practices and markers of legitimate and predatory publishers will allow the researcher to keep pace with danger because fraud is an ever-changing field.In this review we offer basic information (our top list of strategies and potential red flags) to recognize these journals to avoid submission and suggest some solutions if a paper has already been submitted or published in these journals. Keywords: Fake journal, Hijacked journal, Open access, Predatory journal, Predatory publishing, Pseudo publishin

Reverse correlating love: highly passionate women idealize their partner's facial appearance.

A defining feature of passionate love is idealization--evaluating romantic partners in an overly favorable light. Although passionate love can be expected to color how favorably individuals represent their partner in their mind, little is known about how passionate love is linked with visual representations of the partner. Using reverse correlation techniques for the first time to study partner representations, the present study investigated whether women who are passionately in love represent their partner's facial appearance more favorably than individuals who are less passionately in love. In a within-participants design, heterosexual women completed two forced-choice classification tasks, one for their romantic partner and one for a male acquaintance, and a measure of passionate love. In each classification task, participants saw two faces superimposed with noise and selected the face that most resembled their partner (or an acquaintance). Classification images for each of high passion and low passion groups were calculated by averaging across noise patterns selected as resembling the partner or the acquaintance and superimposing the averaged noise on an average male face. A separate group of women evaluated the classification images on attractiveness, trustworthiness, and competence. Results showed that women who feel high (vs. low) passionate love toward their partner tend to represent his face as more attractive and trustworthy, even when controlling for familiarity effects using the acquaintance representation. Using an innovative method to study partner representations, these findings extend our understanding of cognitive processes in romantic relationships