Want doctors to use VR simulation? Make it mandatory, accessible, educationally valuable, and enjoyable!

Background: Virtual reality (VR) simulation training is mandatory for postgraduate year 1-2 doctors at the author's hospital trust. Despite this, a preceding quantitative study demonstrated uptake below required levels. While the educational value of VR simulation has been highlighted, little attention has been paid to participant utilisation in postgraduate curricula.

Framing sound: Using expectations to reduce environmental noise annoyance.

Background: Annoyance reactions to environmental noise, such as wind turbine sound, have public health implications given associations between annoyance and symptoms related to psychological distress. In the case of wind farms, factors contributing to noise annoyance have been theorised to include wind turbine sound characteristics, the noise sensitivity of residents, and contextual aspects, such as receiving information creating negative expectations about sound exposure.

Objective: The experimental aim was to assess whether receiving positive or negative expectations about wind farm sound would differentially influence annoyance reactions during exposure to wind farm sound, and also influence associations between perceived noise sensitivity and noise annoyance.

Health complaints and wind turbines: The efficacy of explaining the nocebo response to reduce symptom reporting.

Background: A number of people are reporting an environmental sensitivity to sub-audible windfarm sound (infrasound), characterised by the experience of recurrent non-specific symptoms. A causal link between exposure and symptoms is not indicated by empirical evidence. Research indicates symptoms may be explained by the nocebo response, whereby health concerns and negative expectations, created from social discourse and media reports, trigger symptom reporting.

Accentuate the positive: Counteracting psychogenic responses to media health messages in the age of the Internet.

Objective: The Internet has expanded the scope for creating health scares and increased the risk of nocebo responding in individuals exposed to misinformation about threats to personal health posed by aspects of modern life, such as exposure to new technologies. It was the aim of this experiment to investigate whether the delivery of positive expectations might reduce or reverse symptoms triggered by negative expectations formed from such misinformation.

Method: In the context of a study investigating symptoms during exposure to windfarm sound, 64 volunteers assessed their symptomatic experiences during two discrete sessions, throughout which they listened to wind turbine sound containing audible and sub-audible (infrasound) components.

The Link between Health Complaints and Wind Turbines: Support for the Nocebo Expectations Hypothesis.

The worldwide expansion of wind energy has met with opposition based on concerns that the infrasound generated by wind turbines causes health problems in nearby residents. In this paper, we argue that health complaints are more likely to be explained by the nocebo response, whereby adverse effects are generated by negative expectations. When individuals expect a feature of their environment or medical treatment to produce illness or symptoms, then this may start a process where the individual looks for symptoms or signs of illness to confirm these negative expectations.

How common are symptoms? Evidence from a New Zealand national telephone survey.

Objective: To assess the frequency of symptoms in a general population sample over the previous week and the associations between symptom reporting and demographic factors, medical visits and medication use.

Design: A representative general population sample (n=1000) was recruited using random digit dialling. Participants were asked whether they had experienced any of a list of 46 symptoms in the previous 7 days and if so, whether the symptom was mild, moderate or severe.

The power of positive and negative expectations to influence reported symptoms and mood during exposure to wind farm sound.

Objective: Wind farm developments have been hampered by claims that sound from wind turbines causes symptoms and negative health reports in nearby residents. As scientific reviews have failed to identify a plausible link between wind turbine sound and health effects, psychological expectations have been proposed as an explanation for health complaints. Building on recent work showing negative expectations can create symptoms from wind turbines, we investigated whether positive expectations can produce the opposite effect, in terms of a reduction in symptoms and improvements in reported health.

Can expectations produce symptoms from infrasound associated with wind turbines?

Objective: The development of new wind farms in many parts of the world has been thwarted by public concern that subaudible sound (infrasound) generated by wind turbines causes adverse health effects. Although the scientific evidence does not support a direct pathophysiological link between infrasound and health complaints, there is a body of lay information suggesting a link between infrasound exposure and health effects. This study tested the potential for such information to create symptom expectations, thereby providing a possible pathway for symptom reporting.