Substantial experimental research has explored mental contamination – feelings of internal pollution proposed to result from misinterpreting perceived violations. The Mental Contamination Report (MCR) was developed to measure in-the-moment experiences of mental contamination, and has been used in seminal experiments in this domain. However, the MCR has yet to be psychometrically evaluated. The aim of the current study was to evaluate the psychometric properties of the MCR, and if warranted, propose a revised version with improved research utility.

Data for this study were collected as part of a larger experiment examining the impact of moral self-violation on mental contamination. A sample of 150 undergraduate students completed the MCR, Vancouver Obsessional-Compulsive Inventory-Mental Contamination Subscale, and the Vancouver Obsessional-Compulsive Inventory.

The original Emotions Subscale of the MCR demonstrated excellent internal consistency (${\rm{\alpha }}$=0.92) but contained emotions non-specific to mental contamination. We conducted an exploratory factor analysis (EFA) of the emotion items to identify which items load more heavily onto a mental contamination-specific factor. The EFA revealed a two-factor solution, with five items items loading strongly on the mental contamination-specific factor. For the 5-item mental contamination-specific Emotions Subscale, we found excellent internal consistency (${\rm{\alpha }}$=0.90), strong known groups validity, F2,147=63.17, p<.001, ηp2=.46, good convergent validity and mixed results for divergent validity. For the Behavioural Urges Subscale, we found overall mixed psychometric properties.

Based on the results of the psychometric analysis, a revised version of the MCR is proposed.

Central venous catheter use is not standardised in paediatric cardiology, yet it is associated with additional morbidity. We aimed to characterise variation in central venous catheter use and complications across paediatric acute care cardiology units.

This retrospective, multi-centre, and registry-based study examined all unique acute care cardiology encounters from February 2019 through September 2021 in the Paediatric Acute Care Cardiology Collaborative registry. Descriptive and comparative statistics were assessed for differences based on central venous catheter use. Multivariate logistic regression identified factors associated with increased line duration and use frequency.

About 35,379 encounters from 24 institutions were assessed. About one in five encounters had at least one central venous catheter (n = 7,524, 21.3%). Neonates and post-operative cardiothoracic surgery patients were more likely to have central venous catheters than not (28.9% of neonates with, versus 11.4% without; 58.4% of post-operative patients with, versus 35.7% without; p < 0.001). Most patients after STAT 4 procedures retained central venous access for over half of the acute care cardiology stay. Institutions with overall “low” central venous catheter utilisation rates (<20%) also used central venous access most often on STAT 4 patients (p < 0.0001). Complication rates for venous thrombus and central line-associated bloodstream infection were low (1.9% and 0.2%).

There is variable utilisation of central venous catheters across participating acute care cardiology units, though overall they are common vascular access modalities. Acute care cardiology units use central venous catheters more often in neonates, those after cardiac surgery, and in their higher-risk patients (i.e. after STAT 4 procedures).

Migraine is one of the leading neurological causes of disability worldwide with a significant impact on all aspects of life, despite the high prevalence and debilitating effects migraine remains underestimated in Sudan. This study aims to measure the prevalence of migraine among medical students at a Sudanese University.

This study aims to measure the prevalence of migraine among medical students from the University of Science and Technology Faculty of Medicine, Omdurman, Sudan.

This descriptive cross-sectional study was carried out between June and August 2024 involving 283 medical students enrolled in the University of Science and Technology, data was collected online and ID-Migraine was used to screen for migraine and R programming language for statistical computation and graphics was used to analyze the data.

The prevalence of migraine was 41% and females were more affected than males. The most reported trigger factor was irregular sleep 84%, with rest being the most used method for relief 43% and the majority of migraine-positive students 46% mentioned their academic performance was moderately affected.

This study found a high prevalence of migraine among medical students enrolled in the University of Science and Technology, with female students being more affected and significant impact on academic performance.

None Declared

Bipolar depression remains difficult to treat, and people often experience ongoing residual symptoms, decreased functioning and impaired quality of life. Adjunctive therapies targeting novel pathways can provide wider treatment options and improve clinical outcomes. Garcinia mangostana Linn. (mangosteen) pericarp has serotonogenic, antioxidant anti-inflammatory and neurogenic properties of relevance to the mechanisms of bipolar depression.

The current 28-week randomised, multisite, double-blind, placebo-controlled trial investigated mangosteen pericarp extract as an adjunct to treatment-as-usual for treatment of bipolar depression.

This trial was prospectively registered on the Australia New Zealand Clinical Trials Registry (no. ACTRN12616000028404). Participants aged 18 years and older with a diagnosis of bipolar I or II and with at least moderate depressive symptoms were eligible for the study. A total of 1016 participants were initially approached or volunteered for the study, of whom 712 did not progress to screening, with an additional 152 screened out. Seventy participants were randomly allocated to mangosteen and 82 to a placebo control. Fifty participants in the mangosteen and 64 participants in the placebo condition completed the treatment period and were analysed.

Results indicated limited support for the primary hypothesis of superior depression symptom reduction following 24 weeks of treatment. Although overall changes in depressive symptoms did not substantially differ between conditions over the course of the trial, we observed significantly greater improvements for the mangosteen condition at 24 weeks, compared with baseline, for mood symptoms, clinical impressions of bipolar severity and social functioning compared with controls. These differences were attenuated at week 28 post-discontinuation assessment.

Adjunctive mangosteen pericarp treatment appeared to have limited efficacy in mood and functional symptoms associated with bipolar disorder, but not with manic symptoms or quality of life, suggesting a novel therapeutic approach that should be verified by replication.

A key step toward understanding psychiatric disorders that disproportionately impact female mental health is delineating the emergence of sex-specific patterns of brain organisation at the critical transition from childhood to adolescence. Prior work suggests that individual differences in the spatial organisation of functional brain networks across the cortex are associated with psychopathology and differ systematically by sex.

We aimed to evaluate the impact of sex on the spatial organisation of person-specific functional brain networks.

We leveraged person-specific atlases of functional brain networks, defined using non-negative matrix factorisation, in a sample of n = 6437 youths from the Adolescent Brain Cognitive Development Study. Across independent discovery and replication samples, we used generalised additive models to uncover associations between sex and the spatial layout (topography) of personalised functional networks (PFNs). We also trained support vector machines to classify participants’ sex from multivariate patterns of PFN topography.

Sex differences in PFN topography were greatest in association networks including the frontoparietal, ventral attention and default mode networks. Machine learning models trained on participants’ PFNs were able to classify participant sex with high accuracy.

Sex differences in PFN topography are robust, and replicate across large-scale samples of youth. These results suggest a potential contributor to the female-biased risk in depressive and anxiety disorders that emerge at the transition from childhood to adolescence.

Posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) has been associated with advanced epigenetic age cross-sectionally, but the association between these variables over time is unclear. This study conducted meta-analyses to test whether new-onset PTSD diagnosis and changes in PTSD symptom severity over time were associated with changes in two metrics of epigenetic aging over two time points.

We conducted meta-analyses of the association between change in PTSD diagnosis and symptom severity and change in epigenetic age acceleration/deceleration (age-adjusted DNA methylation age residuals as per the Horvath and GrimAge metrics) using data from 7 military and civilian cohorts participating in the Psychiatric Genomics Consortium PTSD Epigenetics Workgroup (total N = 1,367).

Meta-analysis revealed that the interaction between Time 1 (T1) Horvath age residuals and new-onset PTSD over time was significantly associated with Horvath age residuals at T2 (meta β = 0.16, meta p = 0.02, p-adj = 0.03). The interaction between T1 Horvath age residuals and changes in PTSD symptom severity over time was significantly related to Horvath age residuals at T2 (meta β = 0.24, meta p = 0.05). No associations were observed for GrimAge residuals.

Results indicated that individuals who developed new-onset PTSD or showed increased PTSD symptom severity over time evidenced greater epigenetic age acceleration at follow-up than would be expected based on baseline age acceleration. This suggests that PTSD may accelerate biological aging over time and highlights the need for intervention studies to determine if PTSD treatment has a beneficial effect on the aging methylome.

Antibiotic stewardship programs (ASPs) target hospitalized children, but most do not routinely review antibiotic prescriptions at discharge, despite 30% of discharged children receiving additional antibiotics. Our objective is to describe discharge antibiotic prescribing in children hospitalized for uncomplicated community-acquired pneumonia (CAP), skin/soft tissue infection (SSTI), and urinary tract infection (UTI).

Retrospective cohort study.

Four academic children’s hospitals with established ASPs.

ICD-10 codes identified 3,847 encounters for children <18 years admitted from January 1, 2021 to December 31, 2021 and prescribed antibiotics at discharge for uncomplicated CAP, SSTI, or UTI. After excluding children with medical complexity and encounters with concomitant infections, >7 days hospital stay, or intensive care unit stay, 1,206 encounters were included.

Primary outcomes were the percentage of subjects prescribed optimal (1) total (inpatient plus outpatient) duration of therapy (DOT) and (2) antibiotic choice based on current national guidelines and available evidence.

Of 226 encounters for CAP, 417 for UTI, and 563 for SSTI, the median age was 4 years, 52% were female, and the median DOT was 9 days (8 for CAP, 10 for UTI, and 9 for SSTI). Antibiotic choice was optimal for 77%, and DOT was optimal for 26%. Only 20% of antibiotic courses included both optimal DOT and antibiotic choice.

At 4 children’s hospitals with established ASPs, 80% of discharge antibiotic courses for CAP, UTI, and SSTI were suboptimal either by choice of antibiotic or DOT. Discharge antibiotic prescribing represents an opportunity to improve antibiotic use in children.

Despite the central role that patient and community engagement plays in translational science and health equity research, there remain significant institutional barriers for researchers and their community partners to engage in this work meaningfully and sustainably. The goal of this paper is to describe the process and outcomes of Engage for Equity PLUS at Stanford School of Medicine, which was aimed at understanding and addressing institutional barriers and facilitators for community-engaged research (CEnR).

A Stanford champion team of four faculty and two community partners worked with the University of New Mexico team to conduct two workshops (n = 26), focus groups (n = 2), interviews with leaders (n = 4), and an Institutional Multi-Stakeholder Survey (n = 35). These data were employed for action planning to identify strategies to build institutional support for CEnR.

Findings revealed several key institutional barriers to CEnR, such as the need to modify organizational policies and practices to expedite and simplify CEnR administration, silos in collaboration, and the need for capacity building. Facilitators included several offices devoted to and engaging in innovative CEnR efforts. Based on these findings, action planning resulted in three priorities: 1) Addressing IRB barriers, 2) Addressing barriers in post-award policies and procedures, and 3) Increasing training in CEnR within Stanford and for community partners.

Addressing institutional barriers is critical for Academic Medical Centers and their partners to meaningfully and sustainably engage in CEnR. The Engage for Equity PLUS process offers a roadmap for Academic Medical Centers with translational science and health equity goals.