Counselors as Advocates: Effects of a Pilot Project Designed to Develop Advocacy Knowledge and Confidence in Trainees

While there has been increased attention to advocacy within counseling and counseling psychology, it has been noted that trainees generally feel unprepared to engage in advocacy and do not participant e in this type of work to a large extent, even with increased age or professional experience). The qualitative study summarizes the findings of a project within a graduate multicultural counseling course designed to increase trainee knowledge and confidence related to advocacy. This project required students (N = 19) to complete individual advocacy projects in the community, with opportunities for self-reflection and evaluation of their progress throughout the semester. Student reflection responses about the effects of this project were analyzed using methods from Grounded Theory by a collaborative research team. This process resulted in a core category of responses that included expanded definitions of advocacy, increased self-confidence regarding advocacy work, obstacles encountered, and reactions to the course assignment. Implications and future directions are discussed

Letter to the Editor—Journal of Cardiovascular Translational Research

This issue’s focus on women and cardiovascular medicine is timely and critically important. Recently published studies have underscored, yet again, that cardiovascular disease research must more effectively and aggressively target women if it is to produce results that lead to improved prevention and early detection, accurate diagnosis, and proper treatment for women. Specifically, one study found that women have been underrepresented in NIH-supported cardiovascular randomized controlled trials conducted in the past 10 years, despite a 1993 federal law requiring clinical trials to include a significant proportion of women [1]. Possible reasons for this failure are varied, ranging from a lack of information about the availability of clinical trials by women patients and their healthcare providers to study designs that exclude women heart patients due to their medical conditions, medications, or history. Pragmatic concerns by women patients about how participation in a clinical trial will affect their health insurance coverage and the logistical difficulties of transportation and childcare also have an adverse effect on participation rates [2]. The impact of failing to overcome these barriers and significantly increasing the number of women in clinical trials has contributed to a substantial deficit of gender-based knowledge about everything from the “typical ” heart attack symptoms in women to the risks and benefits of commonly used diagnostic tests and therapies [3]. Exacerbating this problem are the serious lapses in the U.S

Keep Your Stats in the Cloud! Evaluating the Use of Google Sheets to Teach Quantitative Methods

Teaching quantitative methods at the undergraduate level is a difficult yet rewarding endeavor due to the challenges instructors face in presenting the material. One way to bolster student learning is through the use of statistical software packages. Google Sheets is a cloud-based spreadsheet program capable of many basic statistical procedures, which has yet to be evaluated for use in quantitative methods courses. This article contains pros and cons to using Google Sheets in the classroom and provides an evaluation of student attitudes toward using Google Sheets in an introductory quantitative methods class. The results suggest favorable student attitudes toward Google Sheets and which attitudes toward Google Sheets show a positive relationship with quantitative self-efficacy. Thus, based on the positive student attitudes and the unique features of Google Sheets, it is a viable program to use in introductory methods classes. However, due to limited functionality, Google Sheets may not be useful for more advanced courses. Future research may want to evaluate the use of third-party Google Sheets applications, which can increase functionality, and the use of Google Sheets in online classes

Magnetic resonance microscopy of renal and biliary abnormalities in excised tissues from a mouse model of autosomal recessive polycystic kidney disease.

Polycystic kidney disease (PKD) is transmitted as either an autosomal dominant or recessive trait and is a major cause of renal failure and liver fibrosis. The cpk mouse model of autosomal recessive PKD (ARPKD) has been extensively characterized using standard histopathological techniques after euthanasia. In the current study, we sought to validate magnetic resonance microscopy (MRM) as a robust tool for assessing the ARPKD phenotype. We used MRM to evaluate the liver and kidney of wild-type and cpk animals at resolutions \u3c100 \u3eμm and generated three-dimensional (3D) renderings for pathological evaluation. Our study demonstrates that MRM is an excellent method for evaluating the complex, 3D structural defects in this ARPKD mouse model. We found that MRM was equivalent to water displacement in assessing kidney volume. Additionally, using MRM we demonstrated for the first time that the cpk liver exhibits less extensive ductal arborization, that it was reduced in volume, and that the ductal volume was disproportionately smaller. Histopathology indicates that this is a consequence of bile duct malformation. With its reduced processing time, volumetric information, and 3D capabilities, MRM will be a useful tool for future in vivo and longitudinal studies of disease progression in ARPKD. In addition, MRM will provide a unique tool to determine whether the human disease shares the newly appreciated features of the murine biliary phenotype

Primary Care Providers' Self-Efficacy and Outcome Expectations for Childhood Obesity Counseling

Primary care providers have a role in the prevention and management of childhood obesity. We explored the relationship of providers' self-efficacy, outcome expectations, and practice level support with childhood obesity counseling frequency

The Role of Neutrophils during Mild and Severe Influenza Virus Infections of Mice

Neutrophils have been implicated in both protective and pathological responses following influenza virus infections. We have used mAb 1A8 (anti-Ly6G) to specifically deplete LyG6high neutrophils and induce neutropenia in mice infected with virus strains known to differ in virulence. Mice were also treated with mAb RB6-8C5 (anti-Ly6C/G or anti-Gr-1), a mAb widely used to investigate the role of neutrophils in mice that has been shown to bind and deplete additional leukocyte subsets. Using mAb 1A8, we confirm the beneficial role of neutrophils in mice infected with virus strains of intermediate (HKx31; H3N2) or high (PR8; H1N1) virulence whereas treatment of mice infected with an avirulent strain (BJx109; H3N2) did not affect disease or virus replication. Treatment of BJx109-infected mice with mAb RB6-8C5 was, however, associated with significant weight loss and enhanced virus replication indicating that other Gr-1+ cells, not neutrophils, limit disease severity during mild influenza infections

Effect of a Web-Based Behavior Change Program on Weight Loss and Cardiovascular Risk Factors in Overweight and Obese Adults at High Risk of Developing Cardiovascular Disease: Randomized Controlled Trial.

Web-based programs are a potential medium for supporting weight loss because of their accessibility and wide reach. Research is warranted to determine the shorter- and longer-term effects of these programs in relation to weight loss and other health outcomes

Evaluation and Validation of a Real-Time PCR Assay for Detection and Quantitation of Human Adenovirus 14 from Clinical Samples

In 2007, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) reported that Human adenovirus type 14 (HAdV-14) infected 106 military personnel and was responsible for the death of one U.S. soldier at Lackland Air Force Base in Texas. Identification of the responsible adenovirus, which had not previously been seen in North America and for which rapid diagnostic tools were unavailable, required retrospective analysis at reference laboratories. Initial quarantine measures were also reliant on relatively slow traditional PCR analysis at other locations. To address this problem, we developed a real-time PCR assay that detects a 225 base pair sequence in the HAdV-14a hexon gene. Fifty-one oropharyngeal swab specimens from the Naval Health Research Center, San Diego, CA and Advanced Diagnostic Laboratory, Lackland AFB, TX were used to validate the new assay. The described assay detected eight of eight and 19 of 19 confirmed HAdV-14a clinical isolates in two separate cohorts from respiratory disease outbreaks. The real-time PCR assay had a wide dynamic range, detecting from 102 to 107 copies of genomic DNA per reaction. The assay did not cross-react with other adenoviruses, influenza, respiratory syncytial virus, or common respiratory tract bacteria. The described assay is easy to use, sensitive and specific for HAdV-14a in clinical throat swab specimens, and very rapid since turnaround time is less than four hours to obtain an answer

How many mailouts? Could attempts to increase the response rate in the Iraq war cohort study be counterproductive?

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>Low response and reporting errors are major concerns for survey epidemiologists. However, while nonresponse is commonly investigated, the effects of misclassification are often ignored, possibly because they are hard to quantify. We investigate both sources of bias in a recent study of the effects of deployment to the 2003 Iraq war on the health of UK military personnel, and attempt to determine whether improving response rates by multiple mailouts was associated with increased misclassification error and hence increased bias in the results.</p> <p>Methods</p> <p>Data for 17,162 UK military personnel were used to determine factors related to response and inverse probability weights were used to assess nonresponse bias. The percentages of inconsistent and missing answers to health questions from the 10,234 responders were used as measures of misclassification in a simulation of the 'true' relative risks that would have been observed if misclassification had not been present. Simulated and observed relative risks of multiple physical symptoms and post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) were compared across response waves (number of contact attempts).</p> <p>Results</p> <p>Age, rank, gender, ethnic group, enlistment type (regular/reservist) and contact address (military or civilian), but not fitness, were significantly related to response. Weighting for nonresponse had little effect on the relative risks. Of the respondents, 88% had responded by wave 2. Missing answers (total 3%) increased significantly (p < 0.001) between waves 1 and 4 from 2.4% to 7.3%, and the percentage with discrepant answers (total 14%) increased from 12.8% to 16.3% (p = 0.007). However, the adjusted relative risks decreased only slightly from 1.24 to 1.22 for multiple physical symptoms and from 1.12 to 1.09 for PTSD, and showed a similar pattern to those simulated.</p> <p>Conclusion</p> <p>Bias due to nonresponse appears to be small in this study, and increasing the response rates had little effect on the results. Although misclassification is difficult to assess, the results suggest that bias due to reporting errors could be greater than bias caused by nonresponse. Resources might be better spent on improving and validating the data, rather than on increasing the response rate.</p

Common genetic variation and susceptibility to partial epilepsies: a genome-wide association study

Partial epilepsies have a substantial heritability. However, the actual genetic causes are largely unknown. In contrast to many other common diseases for which genetic association-studies have successfully revealed common variants associated with disease risk, the role of common variation in partial epilepsies has not yet been explored in a well-powered study. We undertook a genome-wide association-study to identify common variants which influence risk for epilepsy shared amongst partial epilepsy syndromes, in 3445 patients and 6935 controls of European ancestry. We did not identify any genome-wide significant association. A few single nucleotide polymorphisms may warrant further investigation. We exclude common genetic variants with effect sizes above a modest 1.3 odds ratio for a single variant as contributors to genetic susceptibility shared across the partial epilepsies. We show that, at best, common genetic variation can only have a modest role in predisposition to the partial epilepsies when considered across syndromes in Europeans. The genetic architecture of the partial epilepsies is likely to be very complex, reflecting genotypic and phenotypic heterogeneity. Larger meta-analyses are required to identify variants of smaller effect sizes (odds ratio <1.3) or syndrome-specific variants. Further, our results suggest research efforts should also be directed towards identifying the multiple rare variants likely to account for at least part of the heritability of the partial epilepsies. Data emerging from genome-wide association-studies will be valuable during the next serious challenge of interpreting all the genetic variation emerging from whole-genome sequencing studie