Patients' experience on waiting for spinal arthrodesis: a qualitative study.

Purpose: A number of studies have explored patients' subjective experience of waiting for spinal surgery, however, they did so through an investigation conducted post-operatively. Thus, the aim of this study was to explore the experience of patients while still on the waitlist for lumbar spinal arthrodesis.

Methods: This qualitative study of semi-structured interviews was conducted at an orthopedic research institute in Italy.

Racial biases, facial trustworthiness, and resting heart rate variability: unravelling complexities in pain recognition.

The study explores whether racial identity and appearance-based trustworthiness judgments can affect recognition of pain in medical students differing in levels of resting heart rate variability (HRV), a measure of parasympathetic control of the heart. After undergoing HRV assessment, 68 medical students (37 females) participated in a dynamic pain recognition task, viewing video clips of White and Black faces, which differed in perceived trustworthiness based on facial appearance, transitioning from neutral to intense pain expressions. Response time, pain intensity attribution and treatment recommendations were analyzed.

Facial trustworthiness dampens own-gender bias in emotion recognition.

Previous research suggests that emotion recognition is influenced by social categories derived by invariant facial features such as gender and inferences of trustworthiness from facial appearance. The current study sought to replicate and extend these findings by examining the intersection of these social categories on recognition of emotional facial expressions. We used a dynamic emotion recognition task to assess accuracy and response times in the happiness and anger categorization displayed by female and male faces that differed in the degree of facial trustworthiness (i.

Familiarity From Facial Appearance Leads to Hypoalgesia.

Social context has been shown to influence pain perception. This study aimed to broaden this literature by investigating whether relevant social stimuli, such as faces with different levels of intrinsic (based on physical resemblance to known individuals) and episodic (acquired through a previous experience) familiarity, may lead to hypoalgesia. We hypothesized that familiarity, whether intrinsic or acquired through experience, would increase pain threshold and decrease pain intensity.

No(cebo) Vax: COVID-19 Vaccine Beliefs Are Important Determinants of Both Occurrence and Perceived Severity of Common Vaccines' Adverse Effects.

This study highlights the role of psychological influences in triggering and amplifying the adverse effects of the COVID-19 vaccine (i.e., nocebo effects).

Effects of COVID-19 Pandemic on Metabolic Status and Psychological Correlates of a Cohort of Italian NAFLD Outpatients.

Non-alcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD) is a potentially progressive condition characterized by the presence of fat in more than 5% of hepatocytes, representing the hepatic expression of metabolic syndrome (MetS). A reduction of at least 5-7% in initial body weight improves the metabolic profile underlying NAFLD. The aim of our study was to evaluate the effects of the COVID-19 lockdown on a cohort of non-advanced NAFLD Italian outpatients.

Preparing Children for Their First Dental Visit: A Guide for Parents.

The aim of the study was to test an information booklet containing suggestions to parents on how to prepare their child for the first dental visit. Forty-five children and one parent per included child took part in the trial. Children were randomized in two groups; the information booklet was e-mailed to the parents of the study group.

Development and cross-national investigation of a model explaining participation in WHO-recommended and placebo behaviours to prevent COVID-19 infection.

To protect themselves from COVID-19, people follow the recommendations of the authorities, but they also resort to placebos. To stop the virus, it is important to understand the factors underlying both types of preventive behaviour. This study examined whether our model (developed based on the Health Belief Model and the Transactional Model of Stress) can explain participation in WHO-recommended and placebo actions during the pandemic.

Reduced recognition of facial emotional expressions in global burnout and burnout depersonalization in healthcare providers.

The healthcare provider profession strongly relies on the ability to care for others' emotional experiences. To what extent burnout may relate to an actual alteration of this key professional ability has been little investigated. In an experimentally controlled setting, we investigated whether subjective experiences of global burnout or burnout depersonalization (the interpersonal component of burnout) relate to objectively measured alterations in emotion recognition and to what extent such alterations are emotion specific.

Judging health care priority in emergency situations: Patient facial appearance matters.

Rationale: Extensive research has shown that implicit trait inferences from facial appearance can bias everyday life in a pervasive way, influencing our decisions in different social contexts such as mate choice, political vote and criminal sentence. In situations characterized by time pressure and scant information, decisions based on inferences from facial appearance may have particularly critical and serious consequences, such as in emergency healthcare. No studies today have investigated this aspect in an actual emergency.

Pain and satisfaction: healthcare providers' facial appearance matters.

Trait inferences based solely on facial appearance affect many social decisions. Here we tested whether the effects of such inferences extend to the perception of physical sensations. In an actual clinical setting, we show that healthcare providers' facial appearance is a strong predictor of pain experienced by patients during a medical procedure.

Emotionally salient patient information enhances the educational value of surgical videos.

Medical students' motivations for choosing a medical career are likely based on and remain tethered to the affectively-laden caring component of doctor-patient interactions. However, this component is rarely presented in educational surgical videos. It is unknown whether affectively engaging students by including patient-related emotionally salient information potentiates or draws focus away from learning a surgical procedure and whether such information affects motivation and attitudes toward the video.

The Role Of Effective Radiation Therapist-Patient Communication In Alleviating Treatment-Related Pain And Procedural Discomfort During Radiotherapy.

Purpose: Managing radiotherapy (RT)-induced pain is essential for reducing the likelihood of treatment interruption and improving the chance of tumor control. The current study aimed to examine the role of radiation therapist (RTTs) interaction and effective information communication in modulating patients' experiences of pain and discomfort during RT.

Methods: Participants were 91 cancer patients undergoing RT for the first time referred to the Radiotherapy Unit of Sant'Orsola-Malpighi Hospital in Bologna, Italy.

Trusting your heart: Long-term memory for bad and good people is influenced by resting vagal tone.

Several studies have highlighted the role of heart rate variability (HRV) in social engagement and social cognition. However, whether HRV is involved in the ability to remember faces associated with affectively salient behavioural information remains unexplored. The present study aims to close this gap by investigating long-term face-memory accuracy in individuals differing in resting vagally-mediated HRV.

First Impression Misleads Emotion Recognition.

Recognition of others' emotions is a key life ability that guides one's own choices and behavior, and it hinges on the recognition of others' facial cues. Independent studies indicate that facial appearance-based evaluations affect social behavior, but little is known about how facial appearance-based trustworthiness evaluations influence the recognition of specific emotions. We tested the hypothesis that first impressions based on facial appearance affect the recognition of basic emotions.

Burnout and psychological distress between surgical and non-surgical residents.

Surgical training is considered to be very stressful among residents and medical students choose less often surgery for their career. Our aim was to assess the prevalence of burnout and psychological distress in residents attending surgical specialties (SS) compared to non-surgical specialties (NSS). Residents from the University of Bologna were asked to participate in an anonymous online survey.

Emotion recognition in medical students: effects of facial appearance and care schema activation.

Context: Identifying the factors that may interfere with or sharpen the ability to recognise emotions when observing patients is a critical goal in medical education. This study addressed these issues by investigating the effects of facial appearance bias on medical students' emotion recognition (Experiment 1) and whether such bias is modulated by the activation of relational caregiving schema (Experiment 2).

Methods: In Experiment 1, medical students were asked to recognise the emotions expressed by individuals differing in facial appearance (trustworthy, neutral and untrustworthy).

Health-related quality of life in clinically isolated syndrome and risk of conversion to multiple sclerosis.

Background And Objectives: A few studies have found that low scores on self-rated health and quality of life measures are associated with following worsening disability in multiple sclerosis (MS). We wanted to estimate the association between self-rated quality of life scores among patients with clinically isolated syndrome (CIS) and the risk of subsequent conversion to definite MS.

Methods: One hundred sixty-two patients from the GERONIMUS cohort with a symptom or sign suggestive of MS and without a definite diagnosis of MS at the time of inclusion were asked to evaluate their health-related quality of life according to MSQoL-54 scale.

Person information facilitates memory for face identity.

We tested whether episodic information about people facilitates memory for their faces (Experiment 1) and whether this effect is specific for face identity (Experiment 2). Participants were presented with faces paired with behavioral descriptions (positive, neutral, or negative) and faces displayed alone. In both experiments, participants were more likely to recognize faces paired with behavioral descriptions, and after 1-week delay, their memory was better for faces paired with descriptions of salient behavior (i.

I care, even after the first impression: Facial appearance-based evaluations in healthcare context.

Purpose: Prior research has demonstrated that healthcare providers' implicit biases may contribute to healthcare disparities. Independent research in social psychology indicates that facial appearance-based evaluations affect social behavior in a variety of domains, influencing political, legal, and economic decisions. Whether and to what extent these evaluations influence approach behavior in healthcare contexts warrants research attention.

Effect of organizational features on patient satisfaction with care in Italian multiple sclerosis centres.

Background And Purpose: Receiving clear, complete and up-to-date information and having a satisfying relationship with the health professional (HP) are of primary importance for MS patients. Healthcare organization plays a key role in promoting an effective relationship and communication between patients and HPs. The present study aims to explore which care organization and service characteristics provided by Italian MS centres best predict patients' satisfaction with healthcare.

What patients' complaints and praise tell the health practitioner: implications for health care quality. A qualitative research study.

Objective: In order to identify which health care aspects play a role in patient satisfaction and quality of health care, the present study analyses a large number of instances of complaint and praise.

Design And Setting: One thousand two hundred and thirty-five instances of complaint and one thousand five hundred thirty-six of praise submitted from patients or other souces (i.e.

Fear of dental pain in Italian children: child personality traits and parental dental fear.

Objectives: Dental anxiety could impede dental treatment in children. Evidence shows that parents' fear of dentists contributes to children's anxiety towards dentists. The aim of the present study was to determine whether and to what extent: a) parents' anxiety and depression personality traits, b) parent's dental fear, and c) child personality traits can predict children's dental anxiety in an Italian population.

Effects of Gender and Personality on First Impression.

The present study explores whether and to what extent individual differences (i.e., gender and personality traits of perceiver) predict inferences of trustworthiness from emotionally neutral unfamiliar faces and the related confidence in judgment.

Assessing subjective quality of life domains after multiple sclerosis diagnosis disclosure.

Background And Objective: An investigation of the domains Italian patients with multiple sclerosis (MS) named as constituting their quality of life over time.

Design: We assessed, in 68 patients, QoL domains using the Schedule for the Evaluation of Individual QoL: (a) before MS diagnosis disclosure, (b) thirty days after disclosure, and (c) after one and (d) four years' follow-up.

Results: The life domains most frequently named by patients were as follows: Family, Work and Finance, Hobbies, Health, Relationship with Friends and Job Effectiveness.