The impact of social comparison on the neural substrates of reward processing: An event-related potential study

Event-related potentials (ERPs) were recorded to explore the electrophysiological correlates of reward processing in the social comparison context when subjects performed a simple number estimation task that entailed monetary rewards for correct answers. Three social comparison stimulus categories (three relative reward levels/self reward related to the other subject's) were mainly prepared: Self:Other = 1:2 (Disadvantageous inequity condition); Self:Other = 1:1 (Equity condition); and Self:Other = 2:1 (Advantageous inequity condition). Results showed that: both Disadvantageous and Advantageous inequity elicited a more negative ERP deflection (N350–550) than did Equity between 350 and 550 ms, and the generators of N350–550 were localized near the parahippocampal gyrus and the medial frontal/anterior cingulate cortex, which might be related to monitor and control reward prediction error during reward processing. Then, Disadvantageous and Advantageous inequity both elicited a more late negative complex (LNC1 and LNC2) than did Equity between 550 and 750 ms. The generators of LNC1 and LNC2 were both localized near the caudate nucleus, which might be related to reward processing under social comparison.     

The impact of emotional intelligence in health care professionals on caring behaviour towards patients in clinical and long-term care settings: Findings from an integrative review

BackgroundOver recent years there has been criticism within the United Kingdom’s health service regarding a lack of care and compassion, resulting in adverse outcomes for patients. The impact of emotional intelligence in staff on patient health care outcomes has been recently highlighted. Many recruiters now assess emotional intelligence as part of their selection process for health care staff. However, it has been argued that the importance of emotional intelligence in health care has been overestimated.ObjectivesTo explore relationships between emotional intelligence in health care professionals, and caring behaviour. To further explore any additional factors related to emotional intelligence that may impact upon caring behaviour.DesignAn integrative review design was used.Data sourcesPsychinfo, Medline, CINAHL Plus, Social Sciences Citation Index, Science Citation Index, and Scopus were searched for studies from 1995 to April 2017.Review methodsStudies providing quantitative or qualitative exploration of how any healthcare professionals’ emotional intelligence is linked to caring in healthcare settings were selected.ResultsTwenty two studies fulfilled the inclusion criteria. Three main types of health care professional were identified: nurses, nurse leaders, and physicians. Results indicated that the emotional intelligence of nurses was related to both physical and emotional caring, but emotional intelligence may be less relevant for nurse leaders and physicians. Age, experience, burnout, and job satisfaction may also be relevant factors for both caring and emotional intelligence.ConclusionsThis review provides evidence that developing emotional intelligence in nurses may positively impact upon certain caring behaviours, and that there may be differences within groups that warrant further investigation. Understanding more about which aspects of emotional intelligence are most relevant for intervention is important, and directions for further large scale research have been identified.     

Parental response to children's pain: the moderating impact of children's emotional distress on symptoms and disability

Parental responses play a central role in the development and maintenance of children’s pain behavior. Previous studies examining the impact of parental responses on children’s pain have focused mainly on protective or solicitous responses. This study examined the impact of parental responses, including protectiveness, minimization of pain, and encouraging and monitoring responses, on children’s functional disability and somatic symptoms. Participants included 327 patients with chronic pain, ages 8–17, who completed measures of pain, disability, somatic symptoms, depression, and anxiety. Patients’ parents completed a measure assessing parental responses to their children’s pain. Results show that for children with higher levels of emotional distress, maladaptive parental responses to pain (e.g., criticism, discounting of pain, increased attention to pain, and granting of special privileges) were associated with increased disability and somatic symptoms. Results of this study demonstrate the important ways in which parents can influence how their children cope with and manage chronic pain. Children whose parents are overly protective or critical of their pain may experience more impairment or somatic symptoms, particularly those children who are already at risk for difficulties due to higher levels of emotional distress.     

The impact of social support on mental health service users’ sense of coherence: A longitudinal panel survey

Background

Social support is a crucial coping resource in the development of a strong sense of coherence. However, little is known about which components of social support are most important for the positive development of sense of coherence.

Objectives

The aim of this study is to investigate the ability of the six social provisions in Weiss's theory of social support to predict the positive development of sense of coherence among people with mental health problems.

Design

The study has a prospective design including a baseline assessment and one-year follow-up.

Settings

The community mental health care system in a large city in Norway.

Participants

The sample comprised 107 people with mental health problems. The inclusion criteria were: 18-80 years of age, living at home, mental health problems considered relatively stable, able to engage in dialogue, reliant on the mental health services and/or an activity centre, good orientation, mastery of the Norwegian language and no alcohol and/or drug problems. A total of 92 completed both measures.

Methods

Sense of coherence was measured by the Sense of Coherence questionnaire, mental symptoms by the revised Symptom Checklist-90-R and social support by The Social Provision Scale (all Norwegian versions).

Results

The results show that while social support predicted change in sense of coherence (standardized beta coefficient for social support was 0.32, P = 0.016), mental symptoms did not (standardized beta coefficient −0.07, P = 0.621). The social provision of opportunity for nurturance contributed most to the prediction (standardized beta coefficient 0.24, P = 0.019).

Conclusions

The results indicate that improving social support with special emphasis on opportunity for nurturance might provide important opportunities for increasing sense of coherence among people with mental health problems.     

The impact of social support upon intention to leave among female nurses in Europe: Secondary analysis of data from the NEXT survey

Objectives

This study examined the importance of one's social work environment in the light of prevention of premature leave from the nursing profession. A research model with social support (from direct supervisor and close colleagues) as predictor and intention to leave as the dependent variable has been tested, while controlling for job satisfaction and age. Moreover, we have studied the impact of nurses’ age upon the prevalence of social support from both parties.

Participants

Data were obtained from 17,524 registered female nurses working in hospitals throughout Europe (Belgium, Germany, Finland, France, Italy, The Netherlands, Poland, and Slovakia).

Results

Our findings indicated that a lack of job satisfaction is an important risk factor in the light of nurses’ turnover as for most countries the intention to leave cannot be buffered by social support from one's close colleagues. However, in general, social support from one's direct superior appeared to contribute negatively to the intention to leave the profession, over and above job satisfaction and age. As regards age effects, in line with our expectation, we have found a significant negative relationship between age and social support from close colleagues, while the hypothesis regarding the relationship between age and supervisory support could not be confirmed.

Conclusions

Given its importance in the light of preventing premature leave, we advocate not to neglect the possible positive effects of social support from important key figures like nurses’ direct supervisor and close colleagues. It is necessary for health care institutions to carefully pay attention to finding opportunities to obtain more social support for all staff members. In Section 5, limitations and practical implications of this study are dealt with.     

The impact of temporal regularization on estimates of the BOLD hemodynamic response function: a comparative analysis

In fMRI data analysis it has been shown that for a wide range of situations the hemodynamic response function (HRF) can be reasonably characterized as the impulse response function of a linear and time invariant system. An accurate and robust extraction of the HRF is essential to infer quantitative information about the relative timing of the neuronal events in different brain regions. When no assumptions are made about the HRF shape, it is most commonly estimated using time windowed averaging or a least squares estimated general linear model based on either Fourier or delta basis functions. Recently, regularization methods have been employed to increase the estimation efficiency of the HRF; typically these methods produce more accurate HRF estimates than the least squares approach [Goutte, C., Nielsen, F.A., Hansen, L.K., 2000. Modeling the Haemodynamic Response in fMRI Using Smooth FIR Filters. IEEE Trans. Med. Imag. 19(12), 1188-1201.]. Here, we use simulations to clarify the relative merit of temporal regularization based methods compared to the least squares methods with respect to the accuracy of estimating certain characteristics of the HRF such as time to peak (TTP), height (HR) and width (W) of the response. We implemented a Bayesian approach proposed by Marrelec et al. [Marrelec, G., Benali, H., Ciuciu, P., Pelegrini-Issac, M., Poline, J.-B., 2003. Robust Estimation of the Hemodynamic Response Function in Event-Related BOLD fMRI Using Basic Physiological Information. Hum. Brain Mapp. 19, 1-17., Marrelec, G., Benali, H., Ciuciu, P., Poline, J.B. Bayesian estimation of the hemodynamic of the hemodynamic response function in functional MRI. In: R. F, editor; 2001; Melville. p 229-247.] and its deterministic counterpart based on a combination of Tikhonov regularization [Tikhonov, A.N., Arsenin, V.Y., 1977. Solution of ill-posed problems. Washington DC: W.H. Winston.] and generalized cross-validation (GCV) [Wahba, G., 1990. Spline Models for Observational Data. Philadelphia: SIAM.] for selecting the regularization parameter. The performance of both methods is compared with least square estimates as a function of temporal resolution, color and strength of the noise, and the type of stimulus sequences used. In almost all situations, under the considered assumptions (e.g. linearity, time invariance and smooth HRF), the regularization-based techniques more accurately characterize the HRF compared to the least-squares method. Our results clarify the effects of temporal resolution, noise color, and experimental design on the accuracy of HRF estimation.     

The impact of limitations in physical, executive, and emotional function on health-related quality of life among adult survivors of childhood cancer: a report from the Childhood Cancer Survivor Study

Ness KK, Gurney JG, Zeltzer LK, Leisenring W, Mulrooney DA, Nathan PC, Robison LL, Mertens AC. The impact of limitations in physical, executive, and emotional function on health-related quality of life among adult survivors of childhood cancer: a report from the Childhood Cancer Survivor Study.

Objective

To examine associations between limitations in physical performance, executive function, and emotional health (activity domains) and either social role attainment or health-related quality of life (HRQOL) in adult survivors of childhood cancer.

Design

Cross-sectional analysis.

Setting

Cancer survivors living in the community; previously treated for childhood cancer at one of 26 institutions.

Participants

Subjects included 7147 (76.8%) of 9307 eligible adult members of the Childhood Cancer Survivor Study who completed a follow-up questionnaire between 2002 and 2004.

Interventions

Not applicable.

Main Outcome Measures

Demographic information was used to classify social roles and the Medical Outcomes Survey 36-Item Short-Form Health Survey to ascertain HRQOL. Questions from the National Health Interview Survey were used to represent physical performance; from the Brief Symptom Inventory to classify emotional health; and from the Behavioral Rating of Executive Function to describe executive function. Multivariate logistic regression was used to examine the association between limitations in activity domains, role attainment, and HRQOL.

Results

In this cohort, 18.1% reported deficits in physical performance, 10.5% in emotional health, and 14.0% in executive function. In adjusted models, when compared with survivors who reported no limitations, those with physical performance, executive function, or emotional health deficits were less likely to be employed, married, or have incomes greater than $20,000 a year. Limitations in executive function or emotional health were associated with no health insurance. Limitations in any activity domain were associated with poor HRQOL. Emotional health limitations had the most impact, with odds ratios from 3.18 (physical performance summary) to 25.81 (mental health).

Conclusions

The results of these analyses show the need for development and testing of interventions to remediate limitations in activity domains, because they negatively impact role attainment and HRQOL.     

Organizing future research and intervention efforts on the impact and effects of gender differences on disability and rehabilitation: The usefulness of the International Classification of Functioning,Disability and Health (ICF)

The International Classification of Functioning, Disability and Health (ICF) is discussed as being relevant to research and service delivery for women with disabilities. The personal meaning a disability has for a woman is shaped largely by Personal Factors. These, in turn, have historically been affected strongly by Environmental Factors such as culture and attitudes. Too often both Personal Factors, and how they are shaped by Environmental Factors, are not adequately addressed in our intervention programs. The interaction of Personal and Environmental Factors is illustrated by examples from the technology use and non-use literature.