Search

The aim of the present study was to investigate the effect of ear asymmetry, order of testing, and gender on transient-evoked otoacoustic emission (TEOAE) pass rates and response levels in newborn hearing screening. The screening results of 879 newborns, of whom 387 (study group) passed screening successfully in only one ear in the first TEOAE screening, but passed screening successfully in both ears thereafter, and 492 (control group) who passed screening successfully in both ears in the first TEOAE, were retrospectively examined for pass rates and TEOAE characteristics. Results indicated a right-ear advantage, as manifested by significantly higher pass rates in the right ear (61% and 39% for right and left ears, respectively) in the study group, and in 1.75 dB greater TEOAE response amplitudes in the control group. The right-ear advantage was enhanced when the first tested ear was the right ear (76%). When the left ear was tested first, pass rates were comparable in both ears. The right-ear advantage in pass rates was similar in females versus males, but manifested in 1.5 dB higher response amplitudes in females compared with males, regardless of the tested ear and order of testing in both study and control groups. The study provides further evidence for the functional lateralization of the auditory system at the cochlear level already apparent soon after birth in both males and females. While order of testing plays a significant role in the asymmetry in pass rates, the innate right-ear advantage seems to be a more dominant contributor. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Objectives:Given the increasing reliance on both formal (paid) and informal (unpaid) assistance for the care of older adults and the close relationships which are often formed with home care workers, the present study evaluated satisfaction with the relationship from the perspectives of the three members that make up the home caregiving triad: older adults, their family members and their home care workers. Methods: We relied on a representative sample of 223 complete caregiving triads composed of an older adult, a family member and a home care worker. Each of the members rated his or her level of satisfaction with all other members in the unit, using a seven-item self-report satisfaction with the relationship scale (e.g., satisfaction with communication, intimacy). The Social Relations Model (SRM) was used to partial out the specific variance associated with each of the members as either an actor (i.e., the average satisfaction as a rater, unrelated to whom the person rates) or a partner (i.e., the unique satisfaction level elicited by a person, which is consistent across all ratings of this person). Results: The structural equations model yielded acceptable results: χ2(3) = 6.94,p= .07. Our analysis revealed that the variability associated with the worker as partner was significantly greater than the variability associated with the older adult as partner (∆χ2[1] = 9.21,p= .002) or with the family member as partner (∆χ2[1] = 8.46,p= .004). Conclusions: The study highlights the importance of studying satisfaction with the relationship in the home care setting and calls for further examination of the entire caregiving triad. The home care worker plays a key role in ensuring the overall satisfaction in the caregiving triad. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The study aims to examine changes over time in school victimization and climate in Israel, and whether these changes varied between Jewish and Arab schools and schools with different SES. A secondary analysis of the Ministry of Education database of structured student surveys regarding victimization and climate, was conducted during 2008–2019. All students in grades 5–6 were surveyed. The number of schools ranged between 751 and 1,189 (M = 983, SD = 166.3); 73.7% were Jewish schools, and 26.3% were Arab. Peer victimization dropped from 14.95 in 2008 to 7.97 in 2019 (β = -.39). All climate aspects positively increased. The highest improvements were in feeling unsafe (β = -.28). Reductions in victimization and progress in climate were the strongest among students from Arab schools and schools with lower SES. The implications for policy and future research are discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Voice and laryngeal pathologies are traditionally arranged in categories. A recent study has suggested an alternative approach, using two continuous scales, Organicity and Tonicity, which form a two-dimensional plane on which all pathologies/conditions can be arranged., Objectives: This study was designed to examine the validity and reliability of the new continuous 2D model and to learn how it is affected by experts' background characteristics., Methods: Ninety-three international experts from 16 countries participated in the study and rated a comprehensive list of 35 laryngeal and voice pathologies/conditions on two continuous scales. On the Organicity scale, 0 represented "nonorganic," and 10 defined "organic." Similarly, on the Tonicity scale, 0 described "hypotonic" and 10 represented "hypertonic.", Results: Cronbach's alphas were high for Organicity and Tonicity (0.99), with varied interexpert agreement scores. Pathologies/conditions populated all four quadrants of the constructed two-dimensional plane, with a majority of 21 of the 35 located in the first quadrant (high-Tonicity, high-Organicity). Results showed strong replicability when compared to the preliminary study. In addition, ratings on the two scales were found consistent and statistically unaffected by the experts' background characteristics., Conclusions: The new two-dimensional model is valid and reliable, and it provides a simple yet comprehensive approach for arranging voice disorders using a continuous perspective rather than a categorical one. Furthermore, the new model offers a framework that facilitates examination of the differences in how professional experts view different laryngeal pathologies and conditions., Competing Interests: Declaration of Competing Interest None., (Copyright © 2024 The Voice Foundation. Published by Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.)

Background: Health professionals are often faced with the need to identify women at risk of manifesting poor psychological resilience following the diagnosis and treatment of breast cancer. Machine learning algorithms are increasingly used to support clinical decision support (CDS) tools in helping health professionals identify women who are at risk of adverse well-being outcomes and plan customized psychological interventions for women at risk. Clinical flexibility, cross-validated performance accuracy, and model explainability permitting person-specific identification of risk factors are highly desirable features of such tools., Objective: This study aimed to develop and cross-validate machine learning models designed to identify breast cancer survivors at risk of poor overall mental health and global quality of life and identify potential targets of personalized psychological interventions according to an extensive set of clinical recommendations., Methods: A set of 12 alternative models was developed to improve the clinical flexibility of the CDS tool. All models were validated using longitudinal data from a prospective, multicenter clinical pilot at 5 major oncology centers in 4 countries (Italy, Finland, Israel, and Portugal; the Predicting Effective Adaptation to Breast Cancer to Help Women to BOUNCE Back [BOUNCE] project). A total of 706 patients with highly treatable breast cancer were enrolled shortly after diagnosis and before the onset of oncological treatments and were followed up for 18 months. An extensive set of demographic, lifestyle, clinical, psychological, and biological variables measured within 3 months after enrollment served as predictors. Rigorous feature selection isolated key psychological resilience outcomes that could be incorporated into future clinical practice., Results: Balanced random forest classifiers were successful at predicting well-being outcomes, with accuracies ranging between 78% and 82% (for 12-month end points after diagnosis) and between 74% and 83% (for 18-month end points after diagnosis). Explainability and interpretability analyses built on the best-performing models were used to identify potentially modifiable psychological and lifestyle characteristics that, if addressed systematically in the context of personalized psychological interventions, would be most likely to promote resilience for a given patient., Conclusions: Our results highlight the clinical utility of the BOUNCE modeling approach by focusing on resilience predictors that can be readily available to practicing clinicians at major oncology centers. The BOUNCE CDS tool paves the way for personalized risk assessment methods to identify patients at high risk of adverse well-being outcomes and direct valuable resources toward those most in need of specialized psychological interventions., (©Georgios C Manikis, Nicholas J Simos, Konstantina Kourou, Haridimos Kondylakis, Paula Poikonen-Saksela, Ketti Mazzocco, Ruth Pat-Horenczyk, Berta Sousa, Albino J Oliveira-Maia, Johanna Mattson, Ilan Roziner, Chiara Marzorati, Kostas Marias, Mikko Nuutinen, Evangelos Karademas, Dimitrios Fotiadis. Originally published in the Journal of Medical Internet Research (https://www.jmir.org), 12.06.2023.)

Psychological and physical health among women with breast cancer are linked. However, more research is needed to test the interrelations between psychological and somatic symptoms, over time and throughout the different phases of breast cancer treatment, to determine when and which interventions should be prioritized. Six hundred and eighty nine women from four countries (Finland, Israel, Italy and Portugal) completed questionnaires during their first clinical consultation following diagnosis with breast cancer, and again after 3 and 6 months. The questionnaires included self-reported measures of psychological symptoms (Hospital Anxiety and Depression Scale; the Positive and Negative Affect Schedule Short Form) and somatic symptoms [selected items from the International European Organization for Research and Treatment of Cancer (EORTC) questionnaires]. Psychological and somatic symptoms were relatively stable across the three time-points. Cross-lagged paths leading from somatic to psychological symptoms (beta coefficients of 0.08-0.10), as well as vice-versa (beta 0.11-0.12), were found to be significant. No evidence was found for cross-cultural differences in mutual effects of psychological and somatic symptoms. The findings of this study call for tailoring personal interventions for breast cancer patients-either from a somatic perspective or a psychological perspective-and adjust them to the specific experiences of the individual patient., (© 2022 The Authors. Stress and Health published by John Wiley & Sons Ltd.)

Being diagnosed with breast cancer (BC) can be a traumatic experience for patients who may experience symptoms of depression. In order to facilitate the prevention of such symptoms, it is crucial to understand how and why depressive symptoms emerge and evolve for each individual, from diagnosis through treatment and recovery. In the present work, data from a multicentric study of 706 BC patients followed for 12 months are analyzed. First, a trajectory-based unsupervised clustering based on K-means is performed to capture the dynamic patterns of change in patients' depressive symptoms after BC diagnosis and to identify distinct trajectory clusters. Then a supervised learning approach was employed to build a classification model of depression progression and to identify potential predictors. Patients were clustered into 4 groups: stable low, stable high, improving, and worsening depressive symptoms. In a nested cross-validation pipeline, the performance of the Support Vector Machine model for discriminating between "good" and "poor" progression was 0.78±0.05 in terms of AUC. Several psychological variables emerged as highly predictive of the evolution of depressive symptoms with the most important ones being negative affectivity and anxious preoccupation. Clinical Relevance-The findings of the present study may help clinicians tailor individualized psychological interventions aiming at alleviating the burden of these symptoms in women with breast cancer and improving their overall well-being.

Importance: Prevalent schemes that have been used for arranging voice pathologies have shaped theoretical and clinical views and the conceptualization of the pathologies and of the field as a whole. However, these available schemes contain inconsistencies and categorical overlaps., Objective: To develop and evaluate a new approach for arranging voice pathologies, using 2 continuous scales, organicity and tonicity, which were used to construct a 2-dimensional plane., Design, Setting, and Participants: This survey study was conducted among experts in the fields of laryngology and/or voice disorders from 10 countries. The survey was conducted using an online platform from March to May 2021. The data were analyzed in June 2021. Of the 45 experts who were initially approached, 39 (86.7%) completed the survey., Main Outcomes and Measures: The primary outcome measures were group ratings on 2 rating scales: organicity and tonicity. On the organicity scale, 0 represented nonorganic and 10 organic. On the tonicity scale, 0 represented hypotonic and 10 hypertonic., Results: Participants included 16 laryngologists and 23 speech-language pathologists, of whom 27 (69.2%) were women and 12 (30.8%) men with a mean age of 55 years. The Cronbach α was high for organicity and tonicity (0.98 and 0.97, respectively). Interrater agreement (rwg) was moderate to very strong (rwg≥0.50) for most pathologies. The correlation between the 2 scales was moderate and negative (r = -0.38; P = .03). The pathologies were scattered across the full range of both scales and the 4 quadrants of the 2-dimensional plane, suggesting the continuity and bidimensionality of the new arrangement scheme. In addition, a latent profile analysis suggested that the 4-cluster solution is valid and roughly corresponded to the 4 quadrants of the constructed plane., Conclusions and Relevance: The findings of this survey study suggest the potential use of a 2-dimensional plane that was based on 2 continuous scales as a new arrangement scheme for voice disorders. The results suggest that this approach provides a valid representation of the field based on 2 basic measures beyond the specific etiology of each laryngeal pathology or condition. This simple and comprehensive organization scheme has the potential to facilitate new insights on the nature of voice pathologies, considering the interpathology similarities and differences.

Breast cancer diagnosis has been associated with poor mental health, with significant impairment of quality of life. In order to ensure support for successful adaptation to this illness, it is of paramount importance to identify the most prominent factors affecting well-being that allow for accurate prediction of mental health status across time. Here we exploit a rich set of clinical, psychological, socio-demographic and lifestyle data from a large multicentre study of patients recently diagnosed with breast cancer, in order to classify patients based on their mental health status and further identify potential predictors of such status. For this purpose, a supervised learning pipeline using cross-sectional data was implemented for the formulation of a classification scheme of mental health status 6 months after diagnosis. Model performance in terms of AUC ranged from 0.81± 0.04 to 0.90± 0.03. Several psychological variables, including initial levels of anxiety and depression, emerged as highly predictive of short-term mental health status of women diagnosed with breast cancer.