The use of contextualised standardised client simulation to develop clinical reasoning in final year veterinary students

Clinical reasoning is an important skill for veterinary students to develop before graduation. Simulation has been studied in medical education as a method for developing clinical reasoning in students, but evidence supporting it is limited. This study involved the creation of a contextualized, standardized client simulation session that aimed to improve the clinical reasoning ability and confidence of final-year veterinary students. Sixty-eight participants completed three simulated primary-care consultations, with the client played by an actor and the pet by a healthy animal. Survey data showed that all participants felt that the session improved their clinical decision-making ability. Quantitative clinical reasoning self-assessment, performed using a validated rubric, triangulated this finding, showing an improvement in students’ perception of several components of their clinical reasoning skill level from before the simulation to after it. Blinded researcher analysis of the consultation video recordings found that students showed a significant increase in ability on the history-taking and making-sense-of-data (including formation of a differential diagnosis) components of the assessment rubric. Thirty students took part in focus groups investigating their experience with the simulation. Two themes arose from thematic analysis of these data: variety of reasoning methods and “It’s a different way of thinking.” The latter highlights differences between the decision making students practice during their time in education and the decision making they will use once they are in practice. Our findings suggest that simulation can be used to develop clinical reasoning in veterinary students, and they demonstrate the need for further research in this area

Business Ethics: The Promise of Neuroscience

Recent advances in cognitive neuroscience research portend well for furthering understanding of many of the fundamental questions in the field of business ethics, both normative and empirical. This article provides an overview of neuroscience methodology and brain structures, and explores the areas in which neuroscience research has contributed findings of value to business ethics, as well as suggesting areas for future research. Neuroscience research is especially capable of providing insight into individual reactions to ethical issues, while also raising challenging normative questions about the nature of moral responsibility, autonomy, intent, and free will. This article also provides a brief summary of the papers included in this special issue, attesting to the richness of scholarly inquiry linking neuroscience and business ethics. We conclude that neuroscience offers considerable promise to the field of business ethics, but we caution against overpromise

Self-Compassion, emotion regulation and stress among australian psychologists: Testing an emotion regulation model of self-compassion using structural equation modeling

Psychologists tend to report high levels of occupational stress, with serious implications for themselves, their clients, and the discipline as a whole. Recent research suggests that selfcompassion is a promising construct for psychologists in terms of its ability to promote psychological wellbeing and resilience to stress; however, the potential benefits of self-compassion are yet to be thoroughly explored amongst this occupational group. Additionally, while a growing body of research supports self-compassion as a key predictor of psychopathology, understanding of the processes by which self-compassion exerts effects on mental health outcomes is limited. Structural equation modelling (SEM) was used to test an emotion regulation model of self-compassion and stress among psychologists, including postgraduate trainees undertaking clinical work (n = 198). Self-compassion significantly negatively predicted emotion regulation difficulties and stress symptoms. Support was also found for our preliminary explanatory model of self-compassion, which demonstrates the mediating role of emotion regulation difficulties in the self-compassion-stress relationship. The final self-compassion model accounted for 26.2% of variance in stress symptoms. Implications of the findings and limitations of the study are discussed

Beetle and plant arrow poisons of the Ju|’hoan and Hai||om San peoples of Namibia (Insecta, Coleoptera, Chrysomelidae; Plantae, Anacardiaceae, Apocynaceae, Burseraceae)

The use of archery to hunt appears relatively late in human history. It is poorly understood but the application of poisons to arrows to increase lethality must have occurred shortly after developing bow hunting methods; these early multi-stage transitions represent cognitive shifts in human evolution. This paper is a synthesis of widely-scattered literature in anthropology, entomology, and chemistry, dealing with San (“Bushmen”) arrow poisons. The term San (or Khoisan) covers many indigenous groups using so-called ‘click languages’ in southern Africa. Beetles are used for arrow poison by at least eight San groups and one non-San group. Fieldwork and interviews with Ju|’hoan and Hai||om hunters in Namibia revealed major differences in the nature and preparation of arrow poisons, bow and arrow construction, and poison antidote. Ju|’hoan hunters use leaf-beetle larvae of Diamphidia Gerstaecker and Polyclada Chevrolat (Chrysomelidae: Galerucinae: Alticini) collected from soil around the host plants Commiphora africana (A. Rich.) Engl. and Commiphora angolensis Engl. (Burseracaeae). In the Nyae Nyae area of Namibia, Ju|’hoan hunters use larvae of Diamphidia nigroornata Ståhl. Larvae and adults live above-ground on the plants and eat leaves, but the San collect the underground cocoons to extract the mature larvae. Larval hemolymph is mixed with saliva and applied to arrows. Hai||om hunters boil the milky plant sap of Adenium bohemianum Schinz (Apocynaceae) to reduce it to a thick paste that is applied to their arrows. The socio-cultural, historical, and ecological contexts of the various San groups may determine differences in the sources and preparation of poisons, bow and arrow technology, hunting behaviors, poison potency, and perhaps antidotes

Wearable Biomonitoring Platform for the Assessment of Stress and its Impact on Cognitive Performance of Firefighters: An Experimental Study

Background: Stress is a complex process with an impact on health and performance. The use of wearable sensor-based monitoring systems offers interesting opportunities for advanced health care solutions for stress analysis. Considering the stressful nature of firefighting and its importance for the community’s safety, this study was conducted for firefighters. Objectives: A biomonitoring platform was designed, integrating different biomedical systems to enable the acquisition of real time Electrocardiogram (ECG), computation of linear Heart Rate Variability (HRV) features and collection of perceived stress levels. This platform was tested using an experimental protocol, designed to understand the effect of stress on firefighter’s cognitive performance, and whether this effect is related to the autonomic response to stress. Method: The Trier Social Stress Test (TSST) was used as a testing platform along with a 2-Choice Reaction Time Task. Linear HRV features from the participants were acquired using an wearable ECG. Self-reports were used to assess perceived stress levels. Results: The TSST produced significant changes in some HRV parameters (AVNN, SDNN and LF/HF) and subjective measures of stress, which recovered after the stress task. Although these short-term changes in HRV showed a tendency to normalize, an impairment on cognitive performance was found after performing the stress event. Conclusion: Current findings suggested that stress compromised cognitive performance and caused a measurable change in autonomic balance. Our wearable biomonitoring platform proved to be a useful tool for stress assessment and quantification. Future studies will implement this biomonitoring platform for the analysis of stress in ecological settings

A Daily Diary Approach to the Examination of Chronic Stress, Daily Hassles and Safety Perceptions in Hospital Nursing

Purpose: Stress is a significant concern for individuals and organisations. Few studies have explored stress, burnout and patient safety in hospital nursing on a daily basis at the individual level. This study aimed to examine the effects of chronic stress and daily hassles on safety perceptions, the effect of chronic stress on daily hassles experienced and chronic stress as a potential moderator. Method: Utilising a daily diary design, 83 UK hospital nurses completed three end-of-shift diaries, yielding 324 person days. Hassles, safety perceptions and workplace cognitive failure were measured daily, and a baseline questionnaire included a measure of chronic stress. Hierarchical multivariate linear modelling was used to analyse the data. Results: Higher chronic stress was associated with more daily hassles, poorer perceptions of safety and being less able to practise safely, but not more workplace cognitive failure. Reporting more daily hassles was associated with poorer perceptions of safety, being less able to practise safely and more workplace cognitive failure. Chronic stress did not moderate daily associations. The hassles reported illustrate the wide-ranging hassles nurses experienced. Conclusion: The findings demonstrate, in addition to chronic stress, the importance of daily hassles for nurses’ perceptions of safety and the hassles experienced by hospital nurses on a daily basis. Nurses perceive chronic stress and daily hassles to contribute to their perceptions of safety. Measuring the number of daily hassles experienced could proactively highlight when patient safety threats may arise, and as a result, interventions could usefully focus on the management of daily hassles

Discomfort after music abstinence

Three groups were monitored over a period of 7 days. One group was allowed to listen to their preferred music, while one group was asked to listen to non preferred music, and the third group was not allowed to listen to any music at all. Over the seven days, emotion and health were monitored.THIS DATASET IS ARCHIVED AT DANS/EASY, BUT NOT ACCESSIBLE HERE. TO VIEW A LIST OF FILES AND ACCESS THE FILES IN THIS DATASET CLICK ON THE DOI-LINK ABOV

Iso principle

We used a sadness induction to induce a sad mood with a movie clip; afterwards we divided our participants into four groups, each was listening to two pieces of music: happy-happy music; sad-sad music; happy-sad music; sad-happy music. During the experiment, emotional reactions were monitored.THIS DATASET IS ARCHIVED AT DANS/EASY, BUT NOT ACCESSIBLE HERE. TO VIEW A LIST OF FILES AND ACCESS THE FILES IN THIS DATASET CLICK ON THE DOI-LINK ABOV