Validation of the Spanish version of the borderline symptom list, short form (BSL-23)

Background: The Borderline Symptom List-23 (BSL-23) is a reliable and valid self-report instrument for assessing Borderline Personality Disorder (BPD) severity. The psychometric properties of the original version have proven to be adequate. The aim of the present study was to validate the Spanish language version of the BSL-23. Methods: The BSL-23 was administered to 240 subjects with BPD diagnosis. Factor structure, reliability, test-retest stability, convergent validity, and sensitivity to change were analyzed. Results: The Spanish version of the BSL-23 replicates the one-factor structure of the original version. The scale has high reliability (Cronbach's alpha=.949), as well as good test-retest stability, which was checked in a subsample (n=74; r=.734; p<.01). The Spanish BSL-23 shows moderate to high correlations with depressive symptomatology, state and trait anxiety, hostility and impulsivity scores and BPD measures. The Spanish BSL-23 is able to discriminate among different levels of BPD severity and shows satisfactory sensitivity to change after treatment, which was verified by assessing change before and after 12 group sessions of Dialectical Behavioral Therapy in a subgroup of 31 subjects. Conclusions: Similar to the original BSL-23, the Spanish BSL-23 is a reliable and valid instrument for assessing BPD severity and sensitivity to change

No paradox, no progress: inverse cancer comorbidity in people with other complex diseases.

In the past 5 years, several leading groups have attempted to explain why individuals with Down's syndrome have a reduced risk of many solid tumours and an increased risk of leukaemia and testicular cancer. Niels Bohr, the Danish physicist, noted that a paradox could initiate progress. We think that the paradox of a medical disorder protecting against cancer could be formalised in a new model of inverse cancer morbidity in people with other serious diseases. In this Personal View, we review evidence from epidemiological and clinical studies that supports a consistently lower than expected occurrence of cancer in patients with Down's syndrome, Parkinson's disease, schizophrenia, diabetes, Alzheimer's disease, multiple sclerosis, and anorexia nervosa. Intriguingly, most comorbidities are neuropsychiatric or CNS disorders. We provide a brief overview of evidence indicating genetic and molecular connections between cancer and these complex diseases. Inverse comorbidity could be a valuable model to investigate common or related pathways or processes and test new therapies, but, most importantly, to understand why certain people are protected from the malignancy

Psychometric behaviour of the strengths and difficulties questionnaire (SDQ) in the Spanish national health survey 2006

Background: The Strengths and Difficulties Questionnaire (SDQ) is a tool to measure the risk for mental disorders in children. The aim of this study is to describe the diagnostic efficiency and internal structure of the SDQ in the sample of children studied in the Spanish National Health Survey 2006. Methods: A representative sample of 6,773 children aged 4 to 15 years was studied. The data were obtained using the Minors Questionnaire in the Spanish National Health Survey 2006. The ROC curve was constructed and calculations made of the area under the curve, sensitivity, specificity and the Youden J indices. The factorial structure was studied using models of exploratory factorial analysis (EFA) and confirmatory factorial analysis (CFA). Results: The prevalence of behavioural disorders varied between 0.47% and 1.18% according to the requisites of the diagnostic definition. The area under the ROC curve varied from 0.84 to 0.91 according to the diagnosis. Factor models were cross-validated by means of two different random subsamples for EFA and CFA. An EFA suggested a three correlated factor model. CFA confirmed this model. A five-factor model according to EFA and the theoretical five-factor model described in the bibliography were also confirmed. The reliabilities of the factors of the different models were acceptable (>0.70, except for one factor with reliability 0.62). Conclusions: The diagnostic behaviour of the SDQ in the Spanish population is within the working limits described in other countries. According to the results obtained in this study, the diagnostic efficiency of the questionnaire is adequate to identify probable cases of psychiatric disorders in low prevalence populations. Regarding the factorial structure we found that both the five and the three factor models fit the data with acceptable goodness of fit indexes, the latter including an externalization and internalization dimension and perhaps a meaningful positive social dimension. Accordingly, we recommend studying whether these differences depend on sociocultural factors or are, in fact, due to methodological questions

Degradation of 1,2-dichloroethane by microbial communities from river sediment at various redox conditions

Insight into the pathways of biodegradation and external factors controlling their activity is essential in adequate environmental risk assessment of chlorinated aliphatic hydrocarbon pollution. This study focuses on biodegradation of 1,2-dichloroethane (1,2-DCA) in microcosms containing sediment sourced from the European rivers Ebro, Elbe and Danube. Biodegradation was studied under different redox conditions. Reductive dechlorination of 1,2-DCA was observed with Ebro and Danube sediment with chloroethane, or ethene, respectively, as the major dechlorination products. Different reductively dehalogenating micro-organisms (Dehalococcoides spp., Dehalobacter spp., Desulfitobacterium spp. and Sulfurospirillum spp.) were detected by 16S ribosomal RNA gene-targeted PCR and sequence analyses of 16S rRNA gene clone libraries showed that only 2-5 bacterial orders were represented in the microcosms. With Ebro and Danube sediment, indications for anaerobic oxidation of 1,2-DCA were obtained under denitrifying or iron-reducing conditions. No biodegradation of 1,2-DCA was observed in microcosms with Ebro sediment under the different tested redox conditions. This research shows that 1,2-DCA biodegradation capacity was present in different river sediments, but not in the water phase of the river systems and that biodegradation potential with associated microbial communities in river sediments varies with the geochemical properties of the sediment

REDITS Red Interuniversitaria para la Didáctica en Trabajo Social

La red REDITS cuenta con una trayectoria de 11 años trabajando en procesos de innovación vinculados a la docencia de Trabajo Social. Este curso, ante la prolongación de las medidas de seguridad sanitaria por la pandemia, se asumió la necesidad de implementar sistemas innovadores para la enseñanza de la práctica del Trabajo Social, que se veía limitada por la imposibilidad de asistencia a los centros externos de prácticas. De esta manera se puso en marcha la preparación de videos acompañados de un modelo de supervisión de casos que permitió en dos fases diferentes la satisfacción de las necesidades de aprendizaje. La experiencia fue desarrollada en dos niveles de prácticas de tercer curso del grado de Trabajo Social de la Universidad de Alicante, con replicaciones en las diferentes universidades que integran la red. Posteriormente fue sometida a evaluación con enfoque cualitativo y cuantitativo por parte de las y los estudiantes con resultados satisfactorios

Supplementary Material for: Inverse and Direct Cancer Comorbidity in People with Central Nervous System Disorders: A Meta-Analysis of Cancer Incidence in 577,013 Participants of 50 Observational Studies

<b><i>Background:</i></b> There is a lack of scientific consensus about cancer comorbidity in people with central nervous system (CNS) disorders. This study assesses the co-occurrence of cancers in patients with CNS disorders, including Alzheimer's disease (AD), amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS), autism spectrum disorders, Down's syndrome (DS), Huntington's disease (HD), multiple sclerosis (MS), Parkinson's disease (PD) and schizophrenia (SCZ). <b><i>Method:</i></b> Comprehensive search in PubMed/MEDLINE, Scopus and ISI Web of Knowledge of the literature published before March 2013. We identified 51 relevant articles from 2,229 discrete references, 50 of which contained data suitable for quantitative synthesis (577,013 participants). Pooled effect sizes (ES) were calculated using multiple random-effects meta-analyses. Sources of heterogeneity and uncertainty were explored by means of subgroup and sensitivity analyses, respectively. <b><i>Results:</i></b> The presence of CNS disorders was associated with a reduced co-occurrence of cancer (ES = 0.92; 95% confidence interval, CI: 0.87-0.98; I² = 94.5%). A consistently lower overall co-occurrence of cancer was detected in patients with neurodegenerative disorders (ES = 0.80; 95% CI: 0.75- 0.86; I² = 82.8%), and in those with AD (ES = 0.32; 95% CI: 0.22-0.46; I² = 0.0%), PD (ES = 0.83; 95% CI: 0.76-0.91; I² = 80.0%), MS (ES = 0.91; 95% CI: 0.87-0.95; I² = 30.3%) and HD (ES = 0.53; 95% CI: 0.42-0.67; I² = 56.4%). Patients with DS had a higher overall co-occurrence of cancer (ES = 1.46; 95% CI: 1.08-1.96; I² = 87.9%). No association was observed between cancer and ALS (ES = 0.97; 95% CI: 0.76-1.25; I² = 0.0%) or SCZ (ES = 0.98; 95% CI: 0.90-1.07; I² = 96.3%). Patients with PD, MS and SCZ showed (a) higher co-occurrence of some specific cancers (e.g. PD with melanoma, MS with brain cancers and SCZ with breast cancer), and (b) lower co-occurrence of other specific cancers (e.g. lung, prostate and colorectal cancers in PD; lung and prostate cancers in MS; and melanoma and prostate cancer in SCZ). <b><i>Conclusion:</i></b> Increased and decreased co-occurrence of cancer in patients with CNS disorders represents an opportunity to discover biological and non-biological connections between these complex disorders