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Background: Agentive steadfastness was identified as a potential trait marker with which to anticipate prognostically that a patient will persevere steadfastly and take congruent action in facing the demands of living. Taken as an enduring expression of personality, this study investigated agentive steadfastness among adult social media respondents (n = 511) in relation to temperament and character as captured in Cloninger's psychobiological model of personality., Methods: Participants recruited though snowball sampling on social media platforms, applied the 27-item Agentive Steadfastness Index (ASI) and the 240-item Temperament and Character Inventory (TCI-R-240)., Results: Agentive steadfastness was statistically predicted by the Self-directedness (β = 0.634), Self-transcendence (β = 0.119), Harm Avoidance (β = -0.142) and the Reward Dependence (β = 0.071) scales, accounting for 63.3 % of the variance in one stepwise regression model. In another stepwise model for the TCI-R-240 subscales, the Purposeful (β = 0.359), Anticipatory Worry (β = -0.353), and the Responsibility (β = 0.259) subscales accounted for respectively 56.8 %, 11.2 % and 2.8 % of the variance in ASI scores., Limitations: Results are limited to adult social media respondents who were willing to participate., Conclusions: Agentive steadfastness may serve as a trait marker of well-being and the good prognostic associations that have been established for high self-directedness, low harm avoidance, as well as resilience, and character strengths. It may be assessed clinically to anticipate prognostically the extent to which a patient will persevere steadfastly and take congruent action in facing the demands of living and adversity., Competing Interests: Declaration of competing interest The authors declare they have no conflict of interest., (Copyright © 2024 The Authors. Published by Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.)

Agentive steadfastness is a hitherto unarticulated and unmeasured construct, although clinicians may have drawn intuitively on it in anticipating clients' prognosis and anticipated responsiveness to adverse events. Following the conceptualisation and articulation of the agentive steadfastness construct and a measure thereof, the current study examined the validity and reliability of the agentive steadfastness index (ASI) among responding adult social media users (n = 511). Results confirmed convergent validity between agentive steadfastness and closest related psychological constructs, which were resilience (r = .715) and character strength (r = .704). Its discriminant validity was observed with other related but notably distinct psychological constructs, which were anxiety (r = -.599) and ego-strength (r = -.244). Temporal stability was confirmed over a period of 6 months (r = .763). The ASI showed good internal (Cronbach alpha = .937) and split-half reliability (r = .838) and a low standard error of measurement of 7.57 points within a theoretical range of 190 points. These results suggest that the ASI is a valid and a reliable measure of agentive steadfastness. Equipped with the ASI, further research is enabled on agentive steadfastness as a psychotherapeutic target and its relations with various aspects of personality, prognosis and adversity., (© 2023 The Authors. International Journal of Psychology published by John Wiley & Sons Ltd on behalf of International Union of Psychological Science.)

Trichomonosis is an endemic disease in cattle that are reared under extensive conditions and bred by natural mating. It causes profound economic losses to the producers by increasing calving interval, increasing embryo losses, and decreasing pregnancy rates. The aim of this study was to determine whether Tritrichomonas foetus infections were absent from cattle in St. Kitts. Using the modified hypergeometric method, preputial samples from bulls (n = 78) were tested using the InPouch™ culture for presence of T. foetus. Results highlighted an absence of trichomoniasis in bulls on St. Kitts with a 95% confidence.