Dealing with Anxious Patients: A Systematic Review of the Literature on Nonpharmaceutical Interventions to Reduce Anxiety in Patients Undergoing Medical or Dental Procedures.

State (situational) anxiety can create suboptimal outcomes for patients across a variety of health care specializations. While anxiolytic medications reduce anxiety, problematic side effects can compromise outcomes. These challenges have spurred searches for nonpharmaceutical approaches to alleviate patient anxiety.

Dealing with Anxious Patients: An Integrative Review of the Literature on Nonpharmaceutical Interventions to Reduce Anxiety in Patients Undergoing Medical or Dental Procedures.

A previous systematic literature review (SLR) evaluated 501 experiments on reducing patient anxiety across medical and dental environments. This integrative review examines those interventions and explores possible mechanisms leading to relative success or failure within those environments, in the interest of interprofessional education and communication. Reviewers evaluated 501 experiments testing interventions for reducing patient anxiety in a variety of medical and dental health care settings.

Spatial scale and structure of complex life cycle trematode parasite communities in streams.

By considering the role of site-level factors and dispersal, metacommunity concepts have advanced our understanding of the processes that structure ecological communities. In dendritic systems, like streams and rivers, these processes may be impacted by network connectivity and unidirectional current. Streams and rivers are central to the dispersal of many pathogens, including parasites with complex, multi-host life cycles.

Seasonal and Annual Variation in Trematode Infection of Stream Snail Elimia proxima in the Southern Appalachian Mountains of Virginia.

Understanding temporal variation of host-pathogen dynamics can be important for predicting disease risks and anticipating how disease systems may change in response to natural or human disturbances. Seasonal changes in weather, especially those associated with changes in temperature or precipitation, are often a key component of temporal changes in infection risk and can have important impacts on disease systems. However, these patterns can be difficult to track due to interannual variation and the need for longer term, multi-year surveillance efforts.