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BackgroundHabitual postural patterns are associated with musculoskeletal pain, and improving a maladaptive posture requires postural awareness in order to lead to clinical improvements. This study aimed to develop and evaluate the psychometric properties of an innovative postural awareness scale.MethodsA 12-item Postural Awareness Scale (PAS) was developed and administered to 512 chronic pain patients (50.3 ± 11.4 years, 91.6% female, 37.1% spinal/shoulder pain) to assess its factor structure and reliability. To determine convergent validity, measures of body awareness, body responsiveness, body image, and mindfulness were correlated with the PAS, as were clinical measures of pain intensity, disability, and mental health. Sensitivity to change was assessed in 202 outpatients participating in a 10-week multimodal mind-body program.ResultsFactor analysis revealed two factors (Ease/Familiarity with Postural Awareness and Need for Attention Regulation with Postural Awareness) that explained 50.8% of the variance. Cronbach's alpha for the complete scale was 0.80; Spearman-Brown coefficient of split-half reliability was 0.67; and intra-class correlation was ICC2,1 = 0.75 (95% confidence interval = 0.71, 0.78). Significant positive correlations were found for body awareness (r = 0.23), body responsiveness (r = 0.41), body image (r = 0.22-0.32), and mindfulness (r = 0.38); negative correlations for pain intensity (r = - 0.14), disability (r = - 0.12), depression (r = - 0.23), and stress (r = - 0.29). Postural awareness scores increased with a mind-body program (p

Background: Several meditation interventions showed positive effects on physical and mental health. The aim of this study is a first evaluation of the (within-group) effects of a 21-day online meditation course of the "expansion method." Methods: For this exploratory observational study, parameters were assessed at baseline, at 1 month, and at a 3-month follow-up. Exploratory endpoints were health-related quality of life (PROMIS Preference Score), global health (PROMIS) with the subscales physical and mental health, stress perception (Perceived Stress Scale), positive and negative affect regulation (Positive and Negative Affect Schedule), flourishing (Flourishing Scale), self-efficacy (Short Scale for Measuring General Self-Efficacy Beliefs), gratitude and awe (Gratitude and Awe Questionnaire), resilience (Connor-Davidson Resilience Scale), spirituality (Aspects of Spirituality), and mysticism (Mysticism Scale) on validated inventories. In addition, self-constructed questions (NRS) assessed health status, lifestyle, and concept evaluation. Results: Data from 359 participants were included in this study (response rate: 68% at 1 month, 46% at 3 months). The main analysis was based on the complete cases at 1 month (n = 244 participants; 84% female; 51 ± 11 years; 89% German). Medium effect sizes were found for mental health (p < 0.0001; d = 0.6), flourishing (p < 0.0001; d = 0.63), and negative affect (p < 0.0001; d = 0.68) at 1 month. Small effect sizes were obtained for physical health, stress, positive affect, self-efficacy, spirituality, and mysticism at 3 months. In a sensitivity analysis, the strongest effects at 1 month were found in the subgroup that completed per-protocol (n = 140), followed by those with complete data at all time points (n = 159). Effects were lowest in the intention-to-treat analysis (n = 359). The content of the course was positively evaluated by the participants. Conclusions: The online meditation course based on the expansion method had potentially beneficial effects, especially on mental health parameters. Based on the feasibility results, further research using randomized controlled designs is warranted. Clinical Trial Registration: NCT04950543. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Introduction and objective: Open science (OS) aims to make the dissemination of knowledge and the research process transparent and accessible to everyone. With the increasing popularity of complementary, alternative, and integrative medicine (CAIM), our goal was to explore what are CAIM researchers' practices and perceived barriers related to OS. Methods: We conducted an anonymous online survey of researchers who published in journals listed in Scopus containing the words "complementary", "alternative", or "integrative" medicine in their names. We emailed 6040 researchers our purpose-built electronic survey after extracting their email address from one of their publications in our sample of journals. We questioned their familiarity with different OS concepts, along with their experiences and challenges engaging in these practices over the last 12 months. Results: The survey was completed by 392 researchers (6.5% response rate, 97.1% completion rate). Most respondents were CAIM researchers familiar with the overall concept of OS, indicated by those actively publishing open access (OA) (n = 244, 76.0%), registering a study protocol (n = 148, 48.0%), and using reporting guidelines (n = 181, 59.0%) in the past 12 months. Preprinting, sharing raw data, and sharing study materials were less popular. A lack of funding was reported as the greatest barrier to publishing OA by most respondents (n = 252, 79.0%), and that additional funding is the most significant incentive in applying more OS practices to their research (n = 229,72.2%). With respect to preprinting barriers, 36.3% (n = 110) participants believed there are potential harms in sharing non-peer-reviewed work and 37.0% (n = 112) feared preprinting would reduce the likelihood of their manuscript being accepted by a journal. Respondents were also concerned about intellectual property control regarding sharing data (n = 94, 31.7%) and research study materials (n = 80, 28.7%). Conclusions: Although many participants were familiar with and practiced aspects of OS, many reported facing barriers relating to lack of funding to enable OS and perceived risks of revealing research ideas and data prior to publication. Future research should monitor the adoption and implementation of OS interventions in CAIM. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Open science practices are implemented across many scientific fields to improve transparency and reproducibility in research. Complementary, alternative, and integrative medicine (CAIM) is a growing field that may benefit from adoption of open science practices. The efficacy and safety of CAIM practices, a popular concern with the field, can be validated or refuted through transparent and reliable research. Investigating open science practices across CAIM journals by using the Transparency and Openness Promotion (TOP) guidelines can potentially promote open science practices across CAIM journals. The purpose of this study is to conduct an audit that compares and ranks open science practices adopted by CAIM journals against TOP guidelines laid out by the Center for Open Science (COS). Methods: CAIM-specific journals with titles containing the words "complementary", "alternative" and/or "integrative" were included in this audit. Each of the eight TOP criteria were used to extract open science practices from each of the CAIM journals. Data was summarized by the TOP guideline and ranked using the TOP Factor to identify commonalities and differences in practices across the included journals. Results: A total of 19 CAIM journals were included in this audit. Across all journals, the mean TOP Factor was 2.95 with a median score of 2. The findings of this study reveal high variability among the open science practices required by journals in this field. Four journals (21%) had a final TOP score of 0, while the total scores of the remaining 15 (79%) ranged from 1 to 8. Conclusion: While several studies have audited open science practices across discipline-specific journals, none have focused on CAIM journals. The results of this study indicate that CAIM journals provide minimal guidelines to encourage or require authors to adhere to open science practices and there is an opportunity to improve the use of open science practices in the field. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Summary: The study objective was to estimate the efficacy and safety of chlormethiazole in older adults experiencing insomnia (sleep disorder). We therefore systematically searched Medline, Scopus, the Cochrane Library, PsycINFO, Ovid, ZB MED and PMC through December 2021 for randomized–controlled trials including patients > 60 years old with insomnia treated with chlormethiazole. Standardized mean differences or odds ratios with 95% confidence intervals were calculated for the main outcome parameters: sleep duration, onset of sleep, quality of sleep, adverse events or drop‐out rates compared with placebo and other drugs. Risk of bias was assessed using the Cochrane tool. Eight randomized–controlled trials with 424 patients were included. Chlormethiazole significantly increased the duration of sleep when compared with placebo (standardized mean difference = 0.61; 95% confidence interval = 0.11–1.11; p = 0.02). More patients receiving chlormethiazole had adequate quality of sleep than those receiving other drugs (odds ratio = 1.44; 95% confidence interval = 1.04–1.98; p = 0.03). No differences were found regarding the onset of sleep (standardized mean difference = 1.07; 95% confidence interval = 0.79–1.46; p = 0.65). Drop‐out rates were significantly lower under chlormethiazole treatment when compared with other drugs (odds ratio = 0.51; 95% confidence interval = 0.26–0.99; p = 0.05) and did not differ from placebo treatment (odds ratio = 1.37; 95% confidence interval = 0.23–8.21; p = 0.73). Side‐effects such as "hangover" and daytime drowsiness occurred less frequently during chlormethiazole treatment compared with other drugs in three out of four studies, but differences were not significant (odds ratio = 0.24; 95% confidence interval = 0.04–1.48; p = 0.12). In conclusion, chlormethiazole showed significant effects on the duration and the quality of sleep with better tolerability if compared with other drugs in older adults with insomnia. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]