Search Results (16,058)

Background: Discussing healthcare professional safety—not just patient safety—is crucial for delivering safe and high-quality healthcare, an essential component for achieving the third Sustainable Development Goal. The evaluation of the safety of healthcare professionals requires instruments that address multiple dimensions of their safety: organizational, emotional, professional and structural. The aim of this study was to validate the Questionnaire on Health Professional Safety in the COVID-19 Pandemic (QSP COVID-19). Methods: This is a methodological study to develop and validate the QSP COVID-19. Data were collected in a Brazilian municipality in 2022 and 2023. Exploratory factor analysis was carried out using the FACTOR software version 12.04.04. Results: A total of 259 professionals answered the QSP COVID-19. The factor analysis extracted four factors (organizational, emotional, professional and structural dimensions) which explained 55.4% of the total variance. The QSP COVID-19 has 30 items, all of which had factor loadings above 0.300. The latent and observed H-index of the four domains suggests that the factors may be replicable in future studies. Conclusions: the QSP COVID-19 has evidence of validity for assessing the safety of healthcare professionals in the context of COVID-19. Full article

Background/Objectives: Adverse childhood experiences (ACEs) impact social, emotional, psychological, and physical development, often leading to health risk behaviors in adulthood. Instruments like the Adverse Childhood Experiences International Questionnaire (ACE-IQ) are essential for assessing ACEs globally and confirming their association with health outcomes in adulthood. Methods: This study evaluates the ACE-IQ’s validity in a Chilean cohort by analyzing the prevalence of ACEs and the instrument’s psychometric properties. Structural validity, internal consistency, and concurrent validity were assessed using the Marshall Scale as a comparative measure. Additionally, binary and frequency scoring methods were compared. Results: Structural validity analyses showed the best fit for three- and four-dimensional models using frequency scoring. The overall internal consistency of the scale was adequate (α > 0.7), although dimensions such as childhood neglect and violence outside the home demonstrated lower internal consistency. Concurrent validity showed significant positive correlations between ACE-IQ scores (both binary and frequency methods) and the Marshall Scale. Conclusions: The ACE-IQ demonstrates adequate reliability for the full scale, with strong evidence of construct validity using the frequency scoring method and concurrent validity for both scoring methods. These findings support the ACE-IQ’s use for measuring childhood adversities in Chile and assessing their association with adult health outcomes. Full article

Natural gene variants of metabotropic glutamate receptor subtype 7 (Grm7), coding for mGluR7, affect individuals’ alcohol-drinking preference. Psychopharmacological investigations have suggested that mGluR7 is also involved in responses to cocaine, morphine, and nicotine exposures. We review the pleiotropic effects of Grm7 and the principle of recombinant quantitative trait locus introgression (RQI), which led to the discovery of the first mammalian quantitative gene accounting for alcohol-drinking preference. Grm7/GRM7 can play important roles in mammalian ontogenesis, brain development, and predisposition to addiction. It is also involved in other behavioral phenotypes, including emotion, stress, motivated cognition, defensive behavior, and pain-related symptoms. This review identified pleiotropy and the modulation of neurobehavioral processes by variations in the gene Grm7/GRM7. Patterns of pleiotropic genes can form oligogenic architectures whosecombined additive and interaction effects can significantly predispose individuals to the expressions of disorders. Identifying and characterizing pleiotropic genes are necessary for understanding the expressions of complex traits. This requires tasks, such as discovering and identifying novel genetic elements of the genetic architecture, which are unsuitable for AI but require classical experimental genetics. Full article

(1) Background: Darier disease (DD) is a rare autosomal dominant disorder caused by mutations in ATP2A2, a gene that encodes the sarco(endo)plasmic reticulum calcium-ATPase 2 enzyme, which disrupts calcium homeostasis in keratinocytes. Pruritus, a frequently overlooked symptom in DD, can lead to physical and emotional complications, especially in patients with DD who are genetically predisposed to psychiatric comorbidities. (2) Methods: This study aimed to analyze pruritus and other related symptoms in patients with DD and explore their correlation with neuropsychiatric conditions, psychological challenges, disease severity, and body surface area (BSA) involvement through a retrospective review of a tertiary center. (3) Results: Data from 76 patients (equal gender distribution, mean age 44 years) revealed a prevalence of pruritus of 90.8%, surpassing symptoms such as pain (34.3%) and malodor (43.4%). Burning sensations due to DD lesions were significantly correlated with the diagnosis of comorbid neuropsychiatric conditions (p = 0.047) and psychiatric medication use (p = 0.019). While pruritus correlated with disease severity and %BSA involvement, the findings were not statistically significant. Patients reporting pruritus had a significantly higher Dermatology Life Quality Index symptom score (2.4 ± 1.0), which is defined as the presence of itch, soreness, pain, or stinging, than those who did not (1.5 ± 0.6), indicating accurate symptom reporting. (4) Conclusions: In conclusion, a striking majority of patients with DD experience pruritus, with higher prevalence among those with neuropsychiatric challenges, severe Darier disease, and greater %BSA skin involvement. Clinicians should recognize pruritus as a key therapeutic target and adopt comprehensive treatment approaches that both address the neuropsychiatric comorbidities and the added psychological burden of pruritus in patients with DD. Full article

Negative emotions can shape human visual perception, which is mainly investigated using basic emotions such as fear. Whether guilt emotion, which is a negative moral emotion originating late in our evolutionary ancestry, has similar modulatory effects as basic emotions is largely unexplored. Here, we employed a dot estimation task to induce feelings of guilt and subsequently measured the Ebbinghaus illusion strength. The photos of victims’ faces were projected on the central circle of the Ebbinghaus configuration. The results showed that guilt significantly strengthened the illusion effect relative to control condition, which was observed only for female participants playing with same-gender partners and reversed to the opposite pattern with disruption of left ventrolateral prefrontal cortex. The findings suggest that guilt can sculpt early visual perception in a gender-specific and prefrontal-dependent manner, thus broaden our understanding of guilt emotion and have implications for relevant neuropsychiatric disorders. Full article

Background: Research indicates that surrogate decision-makers often struggle to accurately interpret and reflect the preferences of incapacitated patients they represent. This discrepancy raises important concerns about the reliability of such practice. Artificial intelligence (AI)-based Patient Preference Predictors (PPPs) are emerging tools proposed to guide healthcare decisions for patients who lack decision-making capacity. Objectives: This scoping review aims to provide a thorough analysis of the arguments, both for and against their use, presented in the academic literature. Methods: A search was conducted in PubMed, Web of Science, and Scopus to identify relevant publications. After screening titles and abstracts based on predefined inclusion and exclusion criteria, 16 publications were selected for full-text analysis. Results: The arguments in favor are fewer in number compared to those against. Proponents of AI-PPPs highlight their potential to improve the accuracy of predictions regarding patients’ preferences, reduce the emotional burden on surrogates and family members, and optimize healthcare resource allocation. Conversely, critics point to risks including reinforcing existing biases in medical data, undermining patient autonomy, raising critical concerns about privacy, data security, and explainability, and contributing to the depersonalization of decision-making processes. Conclusions: Further empirical studies are needed to assess the acceptability and feasibility of these tools among key stakeholders, such as patients, surrogates, and clinicians. Moreover, robust interdisciplinary research is needed to explore the legal and medico-legal implications associated with their implementation, ensuring that these tools align with ethical principles and support patient-centered and equitable healthcare practices. Full article

Musicians have an advantage in recognizing vocal emotions compared to non-musicians, a performance advantage often attributed to enhanced early auditory sensitivity to pitch. Yet a previous ERP study only detected group differences from 500 ms onward, suggesting that conventional ERP analyses might not be sensitive enough to detect early neural effects. To address this, we re-analyzed EEG data from 38 musicians and 39 non-musicians engaged in a vocal emotion perception task. Stimuli were generated using parameter-specific voice morphing to preserve emotional cues in either the pitch contour (F0) or timbre. By employing a neural decoding framework with a Linear Discriminant Analysis classifier, we tracked the evolution of emotion representations over time in the EEG signal. Converging with the previous ERP study, our findings reveal that musicians—but not non-musicians—exhibited significant emotion decoding between 500 and 900 ms after stimulus onset, a pattern observed for F0-Morphs only. These results suggest that musicians’ superior vocal emotion recognition arises from more effective integration of pitch information during later processing stages rather than from enhanced early sensory encoding. Our study also demonstrates the potential of neural decoding approaches using EEG brain activity as a biological sensor for unraveling the temporal dynamics of voice perception. Full article

In recent years, the frequent occurrence of public emergencies has often triggered the rapid spread and amplification of social emotions. The accumulation and intensification of negative emotions can lead to collective behaviors and even pose a threat to social stability. To better understand the formation and evolution of social emotions in such contexts, this study constructs a theoretical framework and simulation approach that combines opinion dynamics with emotional and trust interactions. First, we propose a clustering method that incorporates emotional similarity and trust relationships among users to delineate group structures involved in social emotion formation. Second, a dynamic trust adjustment mechanism is also proposed to capture how trust evolves as individuals interact emotionally. Third, a large-scale group emotional consensus decision-making approach, based on the DeGroot model, is developed to simulate how emotional exchanges and resonance drive groups toward consensus in public emergencies. Additionally, we present a strategy for guiding emotional interactions to reach a desired consensus that ensures minimal modifications to collective preference values while achieving an acceptable consensus level, helping to manage emotional escalation. To validate the proposed model, we conduct simulations using the “Fat Cat” incident as a case study. The results reveal key mechanisms underlying social emotion formation during public emergencies and highlight critical influencing factors, including user participation, opinion leader influence, and trust relationships. This study provides a clear understanding of how social emotions are generated and offers practical insights for managing emotional dynamics and improving group decision-making during crises. Full article

The low intake of fruit and vegetables among the Polish population prompts a search for factors that can be addressed in dietary interventions, such as the family food environment. Background/Objectives: The objective of this study is to explore the link between maternal feeding practices applied to children aged 4–10 years and fruit and vegetable intake among children and their mothers. Methods: A cross-sectional study using a Computer-Assisted Web Interview technique took place in 2020–2021 among 260 Polish women who were mothers of children aged 4–10. Statistical analysis included descriptive statistics, Spearman’s correlation coefficient, and multiple linear and logistic regression. Results: The mother’s intake of fruit was strongly correlated with the children’s intake of fruit (β = 0.309; p < 0.001), and a similar correlation was found for vegetable intake (β = 0.428; p < 0.001). Apart from the mother’s fruit and vegetable intake, the Food as a Reward practice correlated negatively (β = −0.164; p = 0.015), while Monitoring (β = 0.158; p = 0.017) and Modeling (β = 0.170; p = 0.028) correlated positively with vegetable intake in children. The Monitoring practice correlated positively (β = 0.221; p < 0.001) with children’s fruit intake. After adjusting for the mother’s age, child’s gender, and mother’s recommended intake of fruit and vegetables, the Monitoring practice (OR = 1.971; p = 0.025) positively correlated with meeting the daily recommendations of fruit and vegetables in children. However, the Food as a Reward (OR = 0.484; p = 0.018) and Emotion Regulation (OR = 0.345; p = 0.008) practices negatively correlated with meeting the daily recommendations of fruit and vegetables in children aged 4–6, while the Monitoring practice (OR = 4.141; p = 0.017) correlated positively with meeting the daily recommendations of fruit and vegetables in children aged 7–10. Conclusions: The findings have shown that the mother’s fruit intake strongly correlates with the child’s fruit intake. Moreover, some maternal feeding practices, i.e., the Food as a Reward and Emotion Regulation practices, were negatively associated with meeting fruit and vegetable recommendations in younger children, while the Monitoring practice was positively related to meeting them in older children. Full article

This study examines the transformation of masculine representation across television and digital platforms in Indonesian reality shows. We identified distinct patterns of masculine representation emerging across platforms through a mixed-method analysis of 240 h of television programming, 1100 digital media items, and survey data from 1000 respondents. Our study reveals a significant decline in traditional masculine representations from 85% to 30% between 2019 and 2024, accompanied by the rise of “platform-specific masculinities”. The research identifies three primary categories: traditional (dominated by competitive achievement), emotional (characterized by interpersonal connection), and creativity (marked by innovative self-expression). Digital platforms demonstrate higher engagement rates for emotional (380 k interactions) and creative content (320 k interactions) compared to traditional representations (180 k interactions), particularly among younger audiences (18–24). While television maintains predominantly traditional representations (65%), digital platforms, especially TikTok, show higher proportions of emotional (42%) and creative (45%) expressions. These findings contribute to understanding how platform characteristics influence gender representation and suggest implications for media production in Southeast Asia. Full article

The furniture market is being conquered by the variety of wood-based composite materials to the detriment of solid wood, which is considered expensive, but research has yet to explain definitively why these two materials receive such disparate evaluations. This study aims to evaluate the perception of wood by proposing an emotion-oriented research method. It combines the esthetic appeal of wood products, the subjective emotions of the subjects, and physiological emotions. We evaluated different wood materials using a multisensory evaluation method that combines vision and touch during the experiment. Seven specimens of solid wood and three of wood composite materials covered with synthetic veneer with similar characteristics were evaluated, and we used subjective evaluations and physiological responses (electroencephalography and electrodermal activity) from twenty participants. Our analysis identified significant correlations between subjective assessment and physiological responses, highlighting the influence of material appearance on emotional reactions. Notably, rough-textured materials elicited higher positive affectivity than smooth-textured ones, and bright materials were associated with more positive emotions. This research elucidates the impact of material components on emotional responses, offering insights into processing techniques that enhance the value of wood product design. Full article

The use of non-pharmaceutical interventions (NPIs) was imperative to avoid prolonged school closures during the COVID-19 pandemic. The purpose of this study was to understand the levels of adherence to and attitudes towards NPIs from February 2021 to December 2023 in schools in Ontario, Canada. Participants reported how frequently they, their coworkers, and their students used five NPIs: hand hygiene, covering coughs, staying home when ill, wearing a mask, and physically distancing. Open text comments provided participants with the option to provide additional details. Our mixed methods approach incorporated a series of descriptive statistics calculated at consecutive time points and thematic analysis. Participants reported higher adherence to NPIs than their coworkers and students, with less than perfect adherence that declined over time. Six themes emerged from the qualitative analysis on NPI use in schools: (1) the influence of time; (2) managing competing priorities; (3) a lack of enabling factors; (4) a lack of reinforcing factors; (5) the responsive use of NPIs; and (6) an emotional toll. To reduce the transmission of future communicable diseases and resultant staff and student sick days, ongoing commitment to hand hygiene, covering coughs, and staying home when ill is required. Full article

Background: Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) has been described as a neurodevelopmental disorder characterized by inattention, hyperactivity, and impulsivity affecting cognitive, emotional, and social functioning. While pharmacological and behavioral treatments remain primary, physical activity (PA) (digital and non-digital versions) has emerged as a great complementary intervention due to its potential impact on executive functions, emotional regulation, and neurobiological markers. Objectives: This study aimed to assess the effects of PA on ADHD symptoms, executive function, and emotional regulation, exploring its potential impact and new practical applications in digital and non-digital treatment. Methods: This narrative review assessed 132 studies published between 1 January 2010 and January 2025, ensuring the inclusion of the most recent and relevant findings. The review was conducted in Scopus, PubMed, and Web of Science, using a predefined combination of terms related to ADHD, physical activity, executive function, neuroplasticity, and emotional regulation. Results: Regular PA improves executive functions, attention, inhibitory control, and cognitive flexibility in ADHD. Aerobic exercise enhances sustained attention, high-intensity training improves impulse control, and coordinative activities boost cognitive flexibility. Non-digital and digital innovations, such as exergaming and wearable fitness trackers, offer promising solutions to improve adherence to PA regimens, reinforcing their role as a key intervention in ADHD management. Conclusions: PA could be a valuable complementary intervention for ADHD through a hybrid approach that may improve cognitive and emotional functioning while addressing comorbidities. Full article

This paper systematically discusses the impact of kitchen environment design on users’ well-being. Based on the user-centered design concept, this paper focuses on the theoretical framework of positive psychology and combines quantitative and qualitative research methods. Firstly, using bibliometric analysis tools (CiteSpace 6.1.R1 and VOSviewer 1.6.20), 1256 related articles in the Web of Science Core database were analyzed to reveal the multidimensional association between kitchen design and user well-being. It was found that improving kitchen air quality, optimizing space layout design, intelligent design, and family interaction significantly improve users’ mental health and happiness. Then, based on the PERMA model of positive psychology, this paper discusses the support path of kitchen design to users’ psychological needs from five dimensions: positive emotion, engagement, relationships, meaning, and accomplishment. Optimizing the kitchen environment can enhance user experience by creating an immersive experience and positive feedback and promoting family communication, social interaction, cultural heritage, and sustainable development. Based on research results and cutting-edge design cases in the discussion section, a home kitchen design strategy for improving user welfare through the PERMA model is proposed. Finally, follow-up research can further explore the differentiated needs of different cultural backgrounds and user groups to promote the combined application of innovative kitchen technology and positive psychology and further focus on kitchen environment and health equity, especially for developing and vulnerable countries—group-specific needs. Full article

Background/Objectives: Patients with physical disabilities, like cerebral palsy, the most common movement disorder in childhood, can benefit from instrumental therapy using piano. Playing the piano promotes the interaction between different brain regions and integrates motor skills, sensory skills, musical hearing, and emotions. A pilot music study examined the effects of six months of piano lessons on hand motor skills and musical hearing in groups of children with motor disabilities. Methods: The allocation to the group was not randomized. Various tests, including the standardized Box and Block Test (BBT) and piano tests, assessed hand motor skills. Musical hearing was evaluated, and a questionnaire was used to determine the participants’ enjoyment and experience with the piano lessons. The regularity, tempo of keystrokes, and synchronization between the two hands were assessed and compared to evaluate the effects of six months of piano training. Results: After six months of piano training, statistically significant improvements were observed in the BBT, as well as in the regularity and tempo of the non-dominant hand. The children showed significant improvement in hand-motor control, moving 27.3% more cubes in the BBT. Regularity and tempo in piano playing, especially in the non-dominant hand, also improved. Moreover, 55% of the children better recognized the correct pitches of notes. Conclusions: Thus, this study supports the concept that piano lessons are an effective form of physical therapy for the development of hand motor skills and musical hearing. Full article