Brief psychological distress screening on a cancer helpline: How nurses introduce, and callers respond to, the Distress Thermometer.

Purpose: Helplines are increasingly used to provide information and support for people affected by cancer, and the distress routinely associated with diagnosis and treatment is a major focus for those providing such care. Little is known, however, about how the Distress Thermometer (DT), a widely used tool for the assessment of patient/carer distress on cancer-support telephone helplines, is introduced and used in such settings.

Method: Using the method of conversation analysis, we present a qualitative analysis of DT use in actual telephone interactions by looking closely at how particular practices shape interaction on a cancer helpline.

Age and synchrony effects in performance on the Rey Auditory Verbal Learning Test.

Background: There is evidence that individuals perform better on some memory tasks when tested at their preferred time of day, a phenomenon named the synchrony effect. There is also evidence of a predictable change from evening to morning preference during the adult life span. Together, these findings suggest that age effects on memory measures may be overestimated when time of testing is ignored.