Positive psychotherapy for distressed cancer survivors: posttraumatic growth facilitation reduces posttraumatic stress

Background/Objective:There is increasing evidence that positive life changes,such as post-traumatic growth (PTG),can result from the experience of coping with cancer.However,no interventions have been specically designed to facilitate the development of PTG in cancer.In this article,we describe and assess the results of Positive Psychotherapy for Cancer (PPC) survivors.It aims to facilitate PTG as a way of achieving signicant reductions in the symptoms of emotional distress and posttraumatic stress.In addition,the corroboration of this PTG facilitation is assessed using interpersonal indicators.Method: We allocated 126 consecutive survivors of cancer with high levels of emotional distress and who were seeking psychological support to either an experimental group (PPC) or a waiting list group. Results: The PPC group obtained signicantly better results after treatment than the control group,showing reduced distress, decreased posttraumatic symptoms, and increased PTG. The benets were maintained at 3 and 12 months' follow-up. Participants' PTG was correlated to the PTG that their significant others attributed to them, corroborating PTG facilitation. Conclusions: PPC appears to promote signicant long-term PTG and can reduce emotional distress and posttraumatic stress in cancer survivors. In addition,PTG facilitation induced by PPC is corroborated by signicant others

La imagen y la narrativa como herramientas para el abordaje psicosocial en escenarios de violencia. Departamentos del Cesar y la Guajira.

En Colombia la violencia ha afectado y afecta aun sin números de personas de manera directa e indirecta, convirtiéndose así en un acontecimiento social que afecta la salud mental y física de muchas personas, como se puede observar en el relato de “Camilo” un joven que a temprana edad ha podido experimentar junto a su familia, la inclemencia y el horror que produce la violencia causada por el conflicto armado en Colombia y las huellas que deja en la vida de cada sujeto, tonto a nivel personal, familiar y social. Por consiguiente se aborda la pregunta como herramienta de abordaje psicosocial para conocer desde diferentes tipos de preguntas circulares, reflexivas y estratégicas, como ha sido todo este proceso como víctima y sobreviviente de la violencia en Colombia. Así mismo, se puede evidenciar, el estudio realizado en la historia de los sucesos acontecidos en Peñas Coloradas corregimiento del departamento de Caquetá (Colombia), donde muchas familias desplazas por la violencia llegan a estas tierras, en busca de salvaguardar sus vidas y las de sus familias y, en busca de una estabilidad económica que les permitiera mejora su calidad de vida, a través de la agricultura, la pesca, caza y las pieles. Por ende se crean dos acciones y tres estrategias de acompañamiento psicosocial que permitirá ayudar a esta población a seguir adelante y a realizar el afrontamiento de su realidad, reconciliación, sanación, empoderamiento y reactivación económica de estas familias afectadas por la violencia. Finalmente, se logró plasmar mediante la herramienta de la foto voz, las imágenes de terror, dolor, abusos, atropellos, entre otros, causados por la violencia en diferentes comunidades del territorio colombiano y como convirtieron su historia de dolor en historias esperanzadoras.In Colombia, violence has affected and affects even without numbers of people directly and indirectly, thus becoming a social phenomenon that affects the mental and physical health of many people, as can be seen in the story of "Camilo" a young man who early age he has been able to experience, together with his family, the harshness and horror produced by the violence caused by the armed conflict in Colombia and the traces it leaves in the life of each individual, on a personal, family and social level. Therefore, the question is approached as a psychosocial approach tool to learn from the different types of questions circular, reflective and strategic questions, how this whole process has been as a victim and survivor of violence in Colombia. Likewise, it can be evidenced, the study carried out in the history of the events that occurred in Peñas Coloradas, a district of the department of Caquetá (Colombia), where many families displaced by violence come to these lands, in search of safeguarding their lives and those of their families and, in search of an economic stability that would allow them to improve their quality of life, through agriculture, fishing, hunting and furs. Therefore, two actions and three strategies of psychosocial support are created that will help this population to move forward and face their reality, reconciliation, healing, empowerment and economic reactivation of these families affected by violence. Finally, it was possible to capture, through the tool of the photo voice, the images of terror, pain, abuse, abuses, among others, caused by violence in different communities of the Colombian territory and how they turned their story of pain into hopeful

Video Conference vs Face‐to‐Face Group Psychotherapy for Distressed Cancer Survivors : A Randomized Controlled Trial

Objective This study assesses the effectiveness of face‐to‐face group positive psychotherapy for cancer survivors (PPC) compared to its online adaptation, online group positive psychotherapy for cancer survivors (OPPC), which is held via videoconference. A two‐arm, pragmatic RCT was conducted to examine the effects of both interventions on emotional distress, posttraumatic stress (PTSS) and posttraumatic growth (PTG) among cancer survivors and analyze attrition to treatment. Methods Adult women with a range of cancer diagnoses were invited to participate if they experienced emotional distress at the end of their primary oncological treatment. Emotional distress, PTSS and PTG were assessed at baseline, immediately after treatment and three months after treatment. Intention‐to‐treat analyses were carried out using general linear mixed models to test the effect of the interventions overtime. Logistic regressions were performed to test differential adherence to treatment and retention to follow‐up. Results A total of 269 individuals participated. The observed treatment effect was significant in both modalities, PPC and OPPC. Emotional distress (b = − 2.24, 95%CI = ‐3.15‐ −1.33) and PTSS (b = − 3.25, 95%CI = ‐4.97‐ −1.53) decreased significantly over time, and PTG (b = 3.08, 95%CI = 0.38‐5.78) increased significantly. Treatment gains were sustained across outcomes and over time. Analyses revealed no significant differences between modalities of treatment, after adjusting for baseline differences, finding that OPPC is as effective and engaging as PPC. Conclusions The OPPC treatment was found to be effective and engaging for female cancer early survivors. These results open the door for psycho‐oncology interventions via videoconference, which are likely to lead to greater accessibility and availability of psychotherapy

Grado de implementación y determinación del proceso de seguridad en el paciente en IPS públicas y privadas en Santa Marta.

En la siguiente investigación se tiene como pregunta problema ¿Qué grado de implementación y determinación del proceso de seguridad en el paciente en IPS públicas y privadas en Santa Marta?, se ve la necesidad de realizar este estudio ya que es importante tener en cuenta la seguridad del paciente para evitar situaciones entorpecedoras para el tratamiento o prevenir riesgos mayores como transmisión de enfermedades o generación de nuevas discapacidades y lesiones mayores; el estudio tiene como objetivo principaldeterminar el grado de implementación y determinación del proceso de seguridad en el paciente en IPS públicas y privadas de Santa Marta, se realiza la investigación por medio del método descriptivo y cualitativo transversal que se ha utilizado ampliamente en la Ciencia, sin embargo, es importante fomentar la necesidad de indagar sobre este tema; ya que no hay antecedentes a nivel local. Los resultados permiten establecer el estado de las pautas de seguridad del paciente en las entidades presentes en la investigación cursada, en las cuales se encuentran que la normatividad exigida por el Ministerio de Protección Social es la misma tanto para instituciones públicas como privadas, se recomienda al estado mejorar la vigilancia y control del cumplimiento de estas, también se hallan distribuidos una serie de servicios habilitados que difieren con respecto a los estándares de calidad. Dejando claro que según los encuestados las entidades privadas ofertan diferentes tipos de servicios de atención al usuario, mientras tanto en las entidades públicas solo brindan los servicios de odontología general y programas de promoción y prevención dentro de sus instalaciones

Executive functioning among female pathological gambling and bulimia nervosa patients: preliminary findings

Shared vulnerabilities have been described across disorders of impulse control, including pathological gambling (PG) and bulimia nervosa (BN). Our aim was to compare the executive functioning of PG and BN females in order to confirm their similarity at a neurocognitive level. A total of 15 BN females, 15 PG females, and 15 healthy control (HC) females were administered the Wisconsin Card Sorting Test (WCST) and the Stroop Color and Word Test. Analysis of covariance adjusted for age and education was conducted to compare groups. PG showed the greatest impairment, that is, the highest percentage of WCST perseverative errors (p = .023), the lowest percentage of conceptual-level responses (p = .034), and the highest number of total trials administered (p = .021), while BN showed the highest percentage of WCST nonperseverative errors (p = .003). Both BN and PG females demonstrated executive dysfunction relative to HCs but different specific correlates (i.e., greater vulnerability to distraction in BN, but more cognitive inflexibility in PG)

Everything causes cancer? Beliefs and attitudes towards cancer prevention among anti-vaxxers, flat earthers, and reptilian conspiracists: online cross sectional survey

Objective: To evaluate, using an online non-probability sample, the beliefs about and attitudes towards cancer prevention of people professing vaccination scepticism or conspiracy theories. Design: Cross sectional survey. Setting: Data collected mainly from ForoCoches (a well known Spanish forum) and other platforms, including Reddit (English), 4Chan (English), HispaChan (Spanish), and a Spanish language website for cancer prevention (mejorsincancer.org) from January to March 2022. Participants: Among 1494 responders, 209 were unvaccinated against covid-19, 112 preferred alternative rather than conventional medicine, and 62 reported flat earth or reptilian beliefs. Main outcome measures: Cancer beliefs assessed using the Cancer Awareness Measure (CAM) and Cancer Awareness Measure Mythical Causes Scale (CAM-MYCS) (both validated tools). Results: Awareness of the actual causes of cancer was greater (median CAM score 63.6%) than that of mythical causes (41.7%). The most endorsed mythical causes of cancer were eating food containing additives or sweeteners, feeling stressed, and eating genetically modified food. Awareness of the actual and mythical causes of cancer among the unvaccinated, alternative medicine, and conspiracy groups was lower than among their counterparts. A median of 54.5% of the actual causes was accurately identified among each of the unvaccinated, alternative medicine, and conspiracy groups, and a median of 63.6% was identified in each of the three corresponding counterparts (P=0.13, 0.04, and 0.003, respectively). For mythical causes, medians of 25.0%, 16.7%, and 16.7% were accurately identified in the unvaccinated, alternative medicine, and conspiracy groups, respectively; a median of 41.7% was identified in each of the three corresponding counterparts (P<0.001 in adjusted models for all comparisons). In total, 673 (45.0%) participants agreed with the statement "It seems like everything causes cancer." No significant differences were observed among the unvaccinated (44.0%), conspiracist (41.9%), or alternative medicine groups (35.7%), compared with their counterparts (45.2%, 45.7%, and 45.8%, respectively). Conclusions: Almost half of the participants agreed that "It seems like everything causes cancer," which highlights the difficulty that society encounters in differentiating actual and mythical causes owing to mass information. People who believed in conspiracies, rejected the covid-19 vaccine, or preferred alternative medicine were more likely to endorse the mythical causes of cancer than their counterparts but were less likely to endorse the actual causes of cancer. These results suggest a direct connection between digital misinformation and consequent erroneous health decisions, which may represent a further preventable fraction of cancer

Spanish Version of the Caregiver Contribution to Self-Care of Heart Failure Index (CC-SCHFI): A Psychometric Evaluation

Background: The Caregiver Contribution to Self-Care of Heart Failure (CC-SCHFI) is a theoretically driven instrument to measure the extent to which caregivers support heart failure (HF) patients to perform self-care. The CC-SCHFI measures caregivers’ contribution to self-care maintenance and self-care management and caregiver confidence in contributing to heart failure patients’ self-care. To date, the CC-SCHFI has never been tested in Spanish-speaking populations. Purpose: To translate the CC-SCHFI from English into Spanish and to test its psychometric characteristics. Method: CC-SCHFI translation and back-translation were performed according to the Beaton et al. methodology. Data from a cross-sectional study conducted in an outpatient clinic in Spain were used for the analysis. Psychometric analysis was performed with exploratory factor analysis (EFA) with oblique rotation. Results: Caregivers had a mean age of 60.5 years (SD 14,9) and the majority were female (85%). Data from 220 caregivers were analyzed. From EFA, using the principal axis factoring method, we extracted two factors in the self-care maintenance subscale (“treatment adherence behaviors” and “symptom control and maintenance behaviors”), two in the self-care monitoring subscale (“illness behaviors” and “prevention behaviors”) and one factor for the self-efficacy subscale. The Pearson’s rank correlation coefficients between SCHFI and CCSCHFI showed significant correlation in each subdimension

A Novel Intragenic Duplication in the HDAC8 Gene Underlying a Case of Cornelia de Lange Syndrome

Cornelia de Lange syndrome; Genetic disorder; Intragenic duplicationSíndrome de Cornelia de Lange; Trastorno genético; Duplicación intragénicaSíndrome de Cornelia de Lange; Trastorn genètic; Duplicació intragènicaCornelia de Lange syndrome (CdLS) is a multisystemic genetic disorder characterized by distinctive facial features, growth retardation, and intellectual disability, as well as various systemic conditions. It is caused by genetic variants in genes related to the cohesin complex. Single-nucleotide variations are the best-known genetic cause of CdLS; however, copy number variants (CNVs) clearly underlie a substantial proportion of cases of the syndrome. The NIPBL gene was thought to be the locus within which clinically relevant CNVs contributed to CdLS. However, in the last few years, pathogenic CNVs have been identified in other genes such as HDAC8, RAD21, and SMC1A. Here, we studied an affected girl presenting with a classic CdLS phenotype heterozygous for a de novo ~32 kbp intragenic duplication affecting exon 10 of HDAC8. Molecular analyses revealed an alteration in the physiological splicing that included a 96 bp insertion between exons 9 and 10 of the main transcript of HDAC8. The aberrant transcript was predicted to generate a truncated protein whose accessibility to the active center was restricted, showing reduced ease of substrate entry into the mutated enzyme. Lastly, we conclude that the duplication is responsible for the patient’s phenotype, highlighting the contribution of CNVs as a molecular cause underlying CdLS.This work was supported by the Spanish Ministry of Health-ISCIII Fondo de Investigación Sanitaria (FIS) (Ref. PI19/01860, to F.J.R. and J.P.) and Diputación General de Aragón-FEDER: European Social Fund (Grupo de Referencia B32_17R/B32_20R, to J.P.). A.L.-P. is supported by a “Juan de la Cierva-Incorporación” postdoctoral grant from MICIU (Spanish Ministry of Science and Universities), M.G.-S. is supported by a Predoctoral Fellowship from the Diputación General de Aragón, and C.L.-C. is supported by a Predoctoral Fellowship from the MH-ISCIII. This work was also supported by Spanish government grants RTI2018-094434-B-I00 (MCIU/AEI/FEDER, UE) and DTS20-00024 (ISCIII) to P.G.-P., as well as funds from the European JPIAMR network “EPIC-Alliance” to P.G.-P. The computational support of the “Centro de Computación Científica CCC-UAM” is gratefully recognized. This work was also partially supported by Spanish Instituto de Salud Carlos III, Fondo de Investigaciones Sanitarias co-funded with ERDF funds, Grant No. FIS PI20/01767) to A.P. and by Spanish Instituto de Salud Carlos III, Fondo de Investigaciones Sanitarias co-funded with ERDF funds, Grant No. FIS PI18/000687 to E.F.T

Genomic evolution of human respiratory syncytial virus during a decade (2013–2023): bridging the path to monoclonal antibody surveillance

Evolution; Human respiratory syncytial virus; Monoclonal antibodiesEvolución; Virus respiratorio sincitial humano; Anticuerpos monoclonicosEvolució; Virus respiratori sincitial humà; Anticossos monoclonalsObjectives This study investigated the prevalence, genetic diversity, and evolution of human respiratory syncytial virus (HRSV) in Barcelona from 2013 to 2023. Methods Respiratory specimens from patients with RTI suspicion at Hospital Universitari Vall d′Hebron were collected from October 2013 to May 2023 for laboratory-confirmation of respiratory viruses. Next-generation sequencing was performed in randomly-selected samples with Illumina technology. Phylogenetic analyses of whole genome sequences were performed with BEAST v1.10.4. Signals of selection and evolutionary pressures were inferred by population dynamics and evolutionary analyses. Mutations in major surface proteins were genetic and structurally characterised, emphasizing those within antigenic epitopes. Results Analyzing 139,625 samples, 5.3% were HRSV-positive (3008 HRSV-A, 3882 HRSV-B, 56 HRSV-A and -B, and 495 unsubtyped HRSV), with a higher prevalence observed in the paediatric population. Pandemic-related shifts in seasonal patterns returned to normal in 2022–2023. A total of 198 whole-genome sequences were obtained for HRSV-A (6.6% of the HRSV-A positive samples) belonging to GA2.3.5 lineage. For HRSV-B, 167 samples were sequenced (4.3% of the HRSV-B positive samples), belonging to GB5.0.2, GB5.0.4a and GB5.0.5a. HRSV-B exhibited a higher evolution rate. Post-SARS-CoV-2 pandemic, both subtypes showed increased evolutionary rates and decreased effective population size initially, followed by a sharp increase. Analyses indicated negative selective pressure on HRSV. Mutations in antigenic epitopes, including S276N and M274I in palivizumab-targeted site II, and I206M, Q209R, and S211N in nirsevimab-targeted site Ø, were identified. Discussion Particularly in the context of the large-scale use in 2023–2024 season of nirsevimab, continuous epidemiological and genomic surveillance is crucial.This study was supported by the European Development Regional Fund (ERDF) “A way to achieve Europe”, Spanish Ministry of Economy and Competitiveness [Grant FIS PI18/00685], and by CIBER -Consorcio Centro de Investigación Biomédica en Red- (CB 2021), CIBERINFEC, Instituto de Salud Carlos III, Ministerio de Ciencia e Innovación and Unión Europea – NextGenerationEU