Measuring providers' verbal and nonverbal emotion recognition ability: reliability and validity of the Patient Emotion Cue Test (PECT)

Objective

To describe the development and validation of the Patient Emotion Cue Test (PECT) as a tool to measure providers’ emotion cue recognition ability.

Methods

The PECT consists of 47 video clips depicting emotion cues that systematically vary in intensity of both verbal and nonverbal contents. The PECT assesses the provider's ability to detect and identify patients’ emotion cues accurately. A multi-stage development process produced the PECT. Reliability and validity were assessed in three studies.

Results

Scores on the PECT are normally distributed with significantly above chance responding. Across three studies, the PECT demonstrates convergent validity through significant correlations with standardized tests representing multiple channels of emotion recognition, including the face, body, and voice. The PECT shows adequate inter-item and split-half reliability.

Conclusion

The PECT is an easily administered, reliable, and valid test of emotion cue recognition.

Practice implications

The PECT can be used in future research on providers’ emotion recognition ability, for evaluating self-assessment of ability, and as a teaching tool in medical schools.     

Methods used in cross-cultural comparisons of sexual symptoms and their determinants

This is the fourth in a series of reviews of cross-cultural studies of menopausal symptoms. The purpose of this review is to examine methods used in cross-cultural comparisons of sexual symptoms among women at midlife, and to examine the determinants of sexual symptoms and how those determinants were measured. The goal of this review is to make recommendations that will improve cross-cultural comparisons in the future. The review included nine studies that explicitly examined symptoms in different countries or different ethnic groups in the same country and included: Australian/Japanese Midlife Women's Health Study (AJMWHS), Decisions At Menopause Study (DAMeS), Four Major Ethnic Groups (FMEG), Hilo Women's Health Survey (HWHS), Mid-Aged Health in Women from the Indian Subcontinent (MAHWIS), Penn Ovarian Aging Study (POAS), Study of Women's Health Across the Nation (SWAN), Women's Health in Midlife National Study (WHiMNS), and Women's International Study of Health and Sexuality (WISHeS).Although methods used for assessing sexual symptoms across cultures differed between studies, statistically significant differences were reported. Cross-cultural differences in sexual symptoms exist, and should be measured by including the following symptoms: loss of interest in sex, vaginal dryness, and the Females Sexual Function Index which covers desire, arousal, lubrication, orgasm, satisfaction, and pain on intercourse. The measurement of these symptoms will provide an evidence-based approach when forming any future menopause symptom list and allow for comparisons across studies.     

Methods used in cross-cultural comparisons of psychological symptoms and their determinants

This paper is the second in a series of reviews of cross-cultural studies of menopausal symptoms. The goal of this review is to compare and contrast methods which have been previously utilized in Cross-Cultural Midlife Women's Health Studies with a view to (1) identifying the challenges in measurement across cultures in psychological symptoms and (2) suggesting a set of unified questions and tools that can be used in future research in this area. This review also aims to examine the determinants of psychological symptoms and how those determinants were measured. The review included eight studies that explicitly compared symptoms in different countries or different ethnic groups in the same country and included: Australian/Japanese Midlife Women's Health Study (AJMWHS), Decisions At Menopause Study (DAMeS), Four Major Ethnic Groups (FMEG), Hilo Women's Health Survey (HWHS), Penn Ovarian Aging Study (POAS), Study of Women's Health Across the Nation (SWAN), Women's Health in Midlife National Study (WHiMNS), and the Women's International Study of Health and Sexuality (WISHeS).This review concludes that mental morbidity does affect vasomotor symptom prevalence across cultures and therefore should be measured. Based on the review of these eight studies it is recommended that the following items be included when measuring psychological symptoms across cultures, feeling tense or nervous, sleeping difficulty, difficulty in concentrating, depressed and irritability along with the CES-D Scale, and the Perceived Stress Scale. The measurement of these symptoms will provide an evidence based approach when forming any future menopause symptom list and allow for comparisons across studies.     

Use of existing systematic reviews for the development of evidence-based vaccination recommendations: Guidance from the SYSVAC expert panel

National immunization technical advisory groups (NITAGs) develop immunization-related recommendations and assist policy-makers in making evidence informed decisions. Systematic reviews (SRs) that summarize the available evidence on a specific topic are a valuable source of evidence in the development of such recommendations. However, conducting SRs requires significant human, time, and financial resources, which many NITAGs lack. Given that SRs already exist for many immunization-related topics, and to prevent duplication and overlap of reviews, a more practical approach may be for NITAGs to use existing SRs. Nevertheless, it can be challenging to identify relevant SRs, to select one SR from among multiple SRs, or to critically assess and effectively use them.To support NITAGs, the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, Robert Koch Institute and collaborators developed the SYSVAC project, which consists of an online registry of systematic reviews on immunization-related topics and an e-learning course, that supports the use of them (both freely accessible at https://www.nitag-resource.org/sysvac-systematic-reviews). Drawing from the e-learning course and recommendations from an expert panel, this paper outlines methods for using existing systematic reviews when making immunization-related recommendations. With specific examples and reference to the SYSVAC registry and other resources, it offers guidance on locating existing systematic reviews; assessing their relevance to a research question, up-to-dateness, and methodological quality and/or risk of bias; and considering the transferability and applicability of their findings to other populations or settings.     

基于数据挖掘探讨近5年针刺神经影像学高影响因子文章特点＊

目的 收集整理近5年的针刺神经影像学高影响因子文章，在此基础上，对纳入文章的研究方案设计、执行、管理等方面进行分析，剖析研究的特点和共性，以期为今后的研究提供参考和借鉴。方法 以“Acupuncture”“Neuroimaging”“Functional MRI”等为检索词，检索pubmed数据库2013-2018年5年内相关文章，并查询文章当年影响因子，收集符合纳入标准并且IF ≥ 5分的文章进行整理分析。结果 经筛选共纳入8篇针刺神经影像学高影响因子文章，最高影响因子为11.501（Biological Psychiatry），最低影响因子为5.228（Scientific Reports）。纳入的8篇文章均选取fMRI技术作为研究手段，其中静息态fMRI研究3篇，任务态fMRI研究5篇；数据分析方法涉及功能连接度分析（FC）、区域同质性（ReHo）、拓扑网络分析等，研究内容以针刺镇痛中枢机制最为常见（5篇）。结论 基于对近5年针刺神经影像学高影响因子文章剖析发现，利用神经影像技术探究针刺镇痛的中枢机制是针刺神经影像学目前较热点的研究方向。同时，在针刺神经影像学研究中，如何选择与研究目的相匹配的扫描技术及模态还需继续探索。