Publications by authors named "Laura Derksen"
Providing health information is a non-pharmaceutical intervention designed to reduce disease transmission and infection risk by encouraging behavior change. But does knowledge change behavior? We test whether coronavirus health knowledge promotes protective risk mitigation behaviors early in the Covid-19 pandemic in samples from four African countries (Ghana, Malawi, Sierra Leone, and Tanzania). Despite reputations for weak health sectors and low average levels of education, health knowledge of the symptoms and transmission mechanisms was high in all countries in the two months after the virus entered the country.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFArticle Synopsis
- Chronic pain patients show longer completion times in tests for sustained attention and mental flexibility compared to controls, suggesting a decline in attention but not in planning or inhibition tasks.
- The observed decrease in mental flexibility may be influenced by psychomotor speed rather than a general decline in executive function.
- Overall, chronic pain specifically impairs sustained attention, while planning and inhibition abilities seem preserved.
Objectives: Previous studies have revealed that memory performance is diminished in chronic pain patients. Few studies, however, have assessed multiple components of memory in a single sample. It is currently also unknown whether attentional problems, which are commonly observed in chronic pain, mediate the decline in memory.
View Article and Find Full Text PDF