Background: During the COVID-19 pandemic, increased social media usage has led to worsened mental health outcomes for many people. Moreover, due to the sociopolitical climate during the pandemic, the prevalence of online racial discrimination has contributed to worsening psychological well-being. With increases in anti-Asian hate, Asian and Asian American social media users may experience the negative effects of online racial discrimination in addition to the reduced psychological well-being resulting from exposure to online COVID-19 content.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFThis experiment examined how two language features-linguistic agency and assignment of causality-of online support-seekers' messages regarding depression influenced viewers' perceived stigma and features of their support messages. Participants (N = 254) read and responded to an online support-seeking post about depression. Our results revealed that personal stigma toward a depressed individual was lower when the individual disclosed a biological cause for the depression and assigned agency to depression than agency to human.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFAlthough there is speculation that medicalization of addiction undermines conceived agency, only relatively modest effects have been reported. Research participants generally have ideas about addiction that are informed both by personal experience and by media, and their views may not be wholly updated in response to study-information. Here we examine the potential impact of addiction science theories on perceived volition and responsibility by considering the issues in the context of a hypothetical new drug, "Z.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFThe field of biological psychiatry is controversial, with both academics and members of the public questioning the validity and the responsible use of psychiatric technological interventions. The field of neuroethics provides insight into these controversies by examining key themes that characterize specific topics, attitudes, and reasoning tools that people use to evaluate interventions in the brain and mind. This study offers new empirical neuroethical insights into how the public responds to the use and development of psychiatric technological interventions by comparing how the public evaluates pharmacological and neurosurgical psychiatric interventions, in the context of online comments on news media articles about these topics.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFBackground: Psychiatric interventions are a contested area in medicine, not only because of their history of abuses, but also because their therapeutic goal is to affect emotions, thoughts, beliefs, and behaviors that are regarded as pathological. Because psychiatric interventions affect characteristics that seem central to who we are, they raise issues regarding identity, autonomy, and personal responsibility for one's own well-being. Our study addresses two questions: (1) Do the public and academic researchers understand the philosophical stakes of these technologies in the same way? Following from this, (2) to what extent does the specific type of psychiatric technology affect the issues these two groups raise? This study compares how ethical issues regarding neurosurgical and pharmaceutical psychiatric interventions are discussed among the public and in the professional community of academic medicine and bioethics.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFOBJECTIVE The research required to establish that psychiatric treatments are effective often depends on collaboration between academic clinical researchers and industry. Some of the goals of clinical practice and those of commercial developers of psychiatric therapies overlap, such as developing safe and effective treatments. However, there might also be incompatible goals; physicians aim to provide the best care they can to their patients, whereas the medical industry ultimately aims to develop therapies that are commercially successful.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFAim: During a surgical procedure, incidental findings (IF) may be found and often the immediate treatment is in the patient's best interest. Due to the nature of IFs, specific patient consent cannot be obtained under such circumstances. The dilemma is whether the surgeon should proceed or delay until consent is obtained, as there are significant ethical and legal implications.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFAim: Sometimes during an elective surgical procedure, an abnormality is found which is unrelated to the scheduled procedure. In many instances, immediate treatment of this unexpected pathology is in the patient's medical interests, however, specific patient consent has not been obtained. This study investigates current surgical practice when confronted by an incidental finding (IF), as well as surgeons' views on informed consent in this context.
View Article and Find Full Text PDF