Anxiety Sensitivity and Smoking Behavior Among Trauma-Exposed Daily Smokers: The Explanatory Role of Smoking-Related Avoidance and Inflexibility

Work suggests anxiety sensitivity (AS) plays an important role in understanding the smoking-trauma association. AS is thought to serve as a transdiagnostic risk factor in both smoking and trauma, resulting in poorer outcomes in both domains. Cognitive inflexibility reflects a lack of ability to disengage attention from one task to another. In relation to smoking, a decrease in smoking-specific avoidance and inflexibility is associated with increased likelihood of smoking abstinence after treatment. Our aim was to examine whether smoking-specific avoidance and inflexibility explains the relation of AS and smoking severity among trauma-exposed smokers. It was hypothesized AS would have a significant indirect effect within this relation. The findings show empirical evidence of the explanatory effect of smoking-specific avoidance and inflexibility in the relation between AS and smoking severity among trauma-exposed smokers. This relation impacted number of cigarettes per day, years of being a daily smoker, number of failed quit attempts, and even heaviness of smoking index.Psychology, Department ofHonors Colleg

The Differential Role of Anxiety Sensitivity and its Components in the Relation Between Emotional Nonacceptance and Anxiety and Depressive Symptoms and Disorders among Latinos in Primary Care

Latinos are the second fastest growing minority group in the United States. Unfortunately, rates of depression and anxiety symptoms among Latinos may be as much as twice the rate of non-Latino White Americans. Due to cultural values such as emotional restraint and perceptions of emotional expression as a sign of weakness, emotional nonacceptance could play a major role in development and maintenance of mood and anxiety problems among the Latino population. Hypothesis. Anxiety sensitivity may explain the associations between emotional nonacceptance and symptoms of anxious arousal, social anxiety, depression and other mood/anxiety disorders. The sub-scales of AS: physical, cognitive and social concerns were expected to be mediators to anxious arousal, depressive symptoms and social anxiety symptoms respectively. AS was found to explain the relations between emotional nonacceptance and all dependent variables: social anxiety, anxious arousal, depressive symptoms, and number of mood/anxiety disorder diagnoses. AS may be an explanatory mechanism in the relation between emotional nonacceptance and a relatively broad array of anxiety and depressive symptoms and clinical disorders. This project was completed with contributions from Monica Garza from Legacy Community Health, Houston.Psychology, Department ofHonors Colleg

Self-reported COVID-19 symptoms and perceived likelihood of suicide attempt among Latinx individuals who experience acculturative stress

The impact of COVID-19 has led to a substantial economic and psychosocial burden on the Latinx population. However, few studies have evaluated how COVID-19 symptoms may exacerbate suicide risk indicators among Latinx persons, or the particular social determinants of health facilitating such detrimental effects. The present study examined the association between self-reported COVID-19 symptoms and suicide likelihood (i.e., self-reported perceived likelihood that one will attempt suicide in the future) among Latinx individuals within a timeframe involving high COVID-19 contagion before the onset of vaccine dissemination. Further, the possible moderating role of acculturative stress in the association between COVID-19 symptoms and suicide likelihood was examined. The sample included 200 Latinx participants (67.5% male, Mage = 34.67 years, SD = 9.15) who completed self-report measures on COVID-19 symptoms, suicide likelihood, acculturative stress, depressive symptoms, trauma symptoms, somatic symptoms, and general COVID-19 emotional impact. Findings indicated that self-reported COVID-19 symptoms were positively associated with suicide likelihood. Further, the association between COVID-19 symptoms and suicide likelihood was moderated by acculturative stress, such that the association was only statistically significant at mean or higher levels of acculturative stress but was not significant among participants with lower acculturative stress. The moderation effect was statistically significant after controlling for sociodemographic factors, depressive symptoms, trauma symptoms, somatic symptoms, and the general emotional impact of the COVID-19 pandemic. The current findings indicate that, among Latinx individuals, acculturative stress is a key social determinant of health for marked psychological distress in the context of the COVID-19 pandemic

International Nosocomial Infection Control Consortiu (INICC) report, data summary of 43 countries for 2007-2012. Device-associated module

We report the results of an International Nosocomial Infection Control Consortium (INICC) surveillance study from January 2007-December 2012 in 503 intensive care units (ICUs) in Latin America, Asia, Africa, and Europe. During the 6-year study using the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's (CDC) U.S. National Healthcare Safety Network (NHSN) definitions for device-associated health care–associated infection (DA-HAI), we collected prospective data from 605,310 patients hospitalized in the INICC's ICUs for an aggregate of 3,338,396 days. Although device utilization in the INICC's ICUs was similar to that reported from ICUs in the U.S. in the CDC's NHSN, rates of device-associated nosocomial infection were higher in the ICUs of the INICC hospitals: the pooled rate of central line–associated bloodstream infection in the INICC's ICUs, 4.9 per 1,000 central line days, is nearly 5-fold higher than the 0.9 per 1,000 central line days reported from comparable U.S. ICUs. The overall rate of ventilator-associated pneumonia was also higher (16.8 vs 1.1 per 1,000 ventilator days) as was the rate of catheter-associated urinary tract infection (5.5 vs 1.3 per 1,000 catheter days). Frequencies of resistance of Pseudomonas isolates to amikacin (42.8% vs 10%) and imipenem (42.4% vs 26.1%) and Klebsiella pneumoniae isolates to ceftazidime (71.2% vs 28.8%) and imipenem (19.6% vs 12.8%) were also higher in the INICC's ICUs compared with the ICUs of the CDC's NHSN