Increasing Emotional Intelligence through Training: Current Status and Future Directions

Emotional intelligence consists of adaptive emotional functioning involving inter-related competencies relating to perception, understanding, utilising and managing emotions in the self and others. Researchers in diverse fields have studied emotional intelligence and found the construct to be associated with a variety of intrapersonal and interpersonal factors such as mental health, relationship satisfaction, and work performance. This article reviews research investigating the impact of training in emotional-intelligence skills. The results indicate that it is possible to increase emotional intelligence and that such training has the potential to lead to other positive outcomes. The paper offers suggestions about how future research, from diverse disciplines,can uncover what types of training most effectively increase emotional intelligence and produce related beneficial outcomes

Living at home with eating difficulties following stroke: a phenomenological study of younger people's experiences.

To access publisher's full text version of this article, please click on the hyperlink in Additional Links field or click on the hyperlink at the top of the page marked Files. This article is open access.AIMS AND OBJECTIVES: To explore and describe the experience of eating and eating-related difficulties in stroke survivors living at home. BACKGROUND: The ability to consume food and to take pleasure in eating is an essential part of life. For people with stroke, eating difficulties are frequent. A phenomenological perspective of stroke survivors' experience of eating difficulties exceeding the acute stroke event and in-hospital rehabilitation is missing. DESIGN: A qualitative study founded on the Husslarian descriptive phenomenology. METHODS: Colaizzi's seven phases of data analysis provided a systematic approach to explore 17 in-depth interviews from seven participants and how eating difficulties influenced their daily lives. RESULTS: Eating difficulties revealed themselves in participants' relationship with the outer world in far-reaching disruptions of habits, capacities and actions. Four key themes illuminating the eating difficulties emerged: (1) preserving dignity by not conveying serious problems, (2) staying vigilant to bodily limitations, (3) stepping out of the security zone and (4) moving on without missing out. The findings exposed that eating difficulties might not only lead to serious consequences such as malnutrition but also, and equally importantly, lead to losses in the existential, social and cultural lifeworld. CONCLUSIONS: The experience of eating difficulties entails an ongoing readjustment process, which is strongly influenced by interactions with other people. The findings suggest that individualised long-term support is needed to facilitated the use of helpful strategies to manage eating difficulties. RELEVANCE TO CLINICAL PRACTICE: The long-term losses that people with eating difficulties experience are not reflected in conventional screening tools and interventions. To avoid haphazard identification presupposes professional knowledge of how eating difficulties are woven into daily life. This knowledge may inform innovative nursing strategies reaching beyond immediate rehabilitation. Partnership-based practice may provide an important framework to establish unique needs and to mobilise relevant actions and resources.Icelandic Nurses Association Research Assistant Fund of the University of Icelan

The radical character of the acenes: A density matrix renormalization group study

We present a detailed investigation of the acene series using high-level wavefunction theory. Our ab-initio Density Matrix Renormalization Group algorithm has enabled us to carry out Complete Active Space calculations on the acenes from napthalene to dodecacene correlating the full pi-valence space. While we find that the ground-state is a singlet for all chain-lengths, examination of several measures of radical character, including the natural orbitals, effective number of unpaired electrons, and various correlation functions, suggests that the longer acene ground-states are polyradical in nature.Comment: 10 pages, 8 figures, supplementary material, to be published in J. Chem. Phys. 127, 200

Psychological flexibility and attitudes toward evidence-based interventions by amyotrophic lateral sclerosis patients

Objective Declining a percutaneous endoscopic gastrostomy (PEG) or non-invasive ventilation (NIV) by people with amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) is often contrary to advice provided by health-care-professionals guided by evidence-based principles. This study proposes relational frame theory (RFT) to offer a viable explanation of this phenomenon. Design A total of 35 people (14 female, 21 male) aged between 34 and 73 years, with ALS, participated in this cross-sectional research. Main outcome measures This research examined the predictive power and interaction effect of psychological flexibility (the fundamental construct of RFT) and psychological well-being on attitudes toward intervention options. Results Participants with high psychological flexibility reported lower depression, anxiety, and stress, and higher quality of life. In addition, psychological flexibility was predictive of a participant’s understanding and acceptance of a PEG as an intervention option. Psychological flexibility was not found to be a significant predictor of understanding and acceptance of NIV. Conclusion Although the criterion measure had not been piloted or validated outside of the current study and asks about expected rather than actual acceptance, findings suggest that applied RFT may be helpful for clients with ALS

Evolution of hepatitis C virus variants following blood transfusion from one infected donor to several recipients: a long-term follow-up

Variants of hepatitis C virus (HCV) from a single infected blood donor and 13 viraemic recipients who were traced were examined by sequencing and cloning to determine the extent of virus diversity in hypervariable region 1. Serum-derived viral isolates were studied from the donor when his HCV infection was discovered in 1993, in his recipients that year (0·3–5 years post-transfusion) and 5 years later in the donor and six viraemic recipients who were still alive. Viral variants of broad diversity were readily demonstrated in the baseline samples of the donor (nucleotide p-distance 0·130), but significantly less (P<0·00003) diversity was observed in the recipients' first samples (p-distances within recipients 0·003–0·062). In the first blood samples of the recipients, many of the viral variants identified were closely related to a strain variant from the donor. In follow-up samples drawn 5 years later from the donor and six recipients, the p-distance among donor clones had increased (0·172, P<0·0005) compared with the recipients, who displayed significantly narrower quasispecies (0·011–0·086). A common finding was that recipients of blood components processed from the same donation differed substantially in persisting HCV infectious sequence. Markedly few changes leading to changes of amino acids had occurred during follow-up in four of six recipients. These results question the significance of the development of viral variants as a necessary phenomenon in the evolution of HCV and pathogenesis of the disease

Protect Me from What I Want: Understanding Excessive Polluting Behavior and the Willingness to Act

Publisher's version (útgefin grein)Many environmental problems stem from unsustainable human consumption. Accordingly, many studies have focused on the barriers to pro-environmental behavior. The inability or unwillingness to act is partially related to personal values as well as the psychological distance between individual actions and the resulting pollution, which is often perceived as abstract or intangible. In contrast, fireworks produce imminent, undeniable air pollution. The goal of this research was to advance the knowledge on the awareness-value-behavior gap by studying public fireworks consumption and the willingness to act against firework pollution. A nationally representative survey was conducted after the extremely polluting 2017/18 New Year's Eve in Iceland (European hourly record in fine particulate matter: 3014 μg/m3). Our results demonstrate that, after controlling for the awareness of harmful pollution, hedonic motives predict the purchasing of fireworks and the opposition to mitigating action. Noticing public warnings regarding fireworks pollution did not significantly relate to the purchase behavior. The awareness of the harmful effects of firework pollution was, however, the largest predictor of the support for mitigating action. Despite reporting the pleasure derived from fireworks, 57% of the sample favored stricter governmental regulation, and 27% favored banning the public use of fireworks in order to "protect them from what they want".This research was funded by the Engineering Institute of the University of Iceland (P.I. Hrund Andradóttir).Peer Reviewe

Changes in stigma and help-seeking in relation to postpartum depression: non-clinical parenting intervention sample

Postpartum depression (PPD) is a prevalent mental illness affecting women, and less commonly, men in the weeks and months after giving birth. Despite the high incidence of PPD in Australia, rates for help-seeking remain low, with stigma and discrimination frequently cited as the most common deterrents to seeking help from a professional source. The present study sought to investigate PPD stigma in a sample of parents and to examine the effects of an intervention on stigma and help-seeking behaviour. A total of 212 parents aged 18–71 years (M = 36.88, 194 females) completed measures of personal and perceived PPD stigma and attitudes towards seeking mental health services and were randomly assigned to one of four groups: an intervention group (video documentary or factsheet related to PPD) or a control group (video documentary or factsheet not related to PPD). Results showed that there were no effects for type of intervention on either personal or perceived PPD stigma scores. No effect was found for help-seeking propensity. Males had higher personal PPD stigma than females and older age was associated with lower personal PPD stigma. Familiarity with PPD was associated with perceived PPD stigma in others but not personal PPD stigma. More work needs to be conducted to develop interventions to reduce PPD stigma in the community

Association between plasma activities of semicarbazide-sensitive amine oxidase and angiotensin-converting enzyme in patients with type 1 diabetes mellitus

Aims/hypothesis: Plasma semicarbazide-sensitive amine oxidase (SSAO) is elevated in patients with type 1 and type 2 diabetes and has been implicated in the pathophysiology of diabetic late complications. The regulation of SSAO production remains unknown. We studied correlations between plasma SSAO activity and parameters associated with diabetic late complications. Methods: Plasma SSAO was measured in a well-characterised group of 287 patients with type 1 diabetes. Standard statistical methods were used to investigate correlations with clinical parameters and components of the renin-angiotensin system. Results: Overall, plasma SSAO was elevated, at 693±196 mU/l (mean±SD; normal controls 352±102 mU/l). Plasma SSAO was higher in the group with late complications or hypertension, and in patients treated with ACE-inhibitors. In univariate analysis a significant positive correlation (p<0.001, r=0.27) was found between plasma SSAO and serum ACE activity in patients untreated with ACE inhibitors or angiotensin II receptor antagonists (n=221), but plasma SSAO did not differ by ACE I/D genotype. Plasma SSAO correlated positively with duration of diabetes, HbA1c and plasma renin, and negatively with plasma angiotensinogen and body mass index. A multiple regression analysis including these variables resulted in serum ACE activity (p<0.001), ACE genotype (negatively, p<0.001) and HbA 1c (p=0.023) as explaining variables. Conclusions/interpretation: Results suggest that a common factor is involved in the regulation of both plasma SSAO and serum ACE, which is different from the genetic determination of ACE activity