The study examined how dating relationships were affected by the ability of people to see themselves clearly and objectively, act in ways consistent with their beliefs, and interact honestly and truthfully with others — in other words, the ability to follow the words of William Shakespeare: “to thine own self be true,” said Amy Brunell, lead author of the study and assistant professor of psychology at Ohio State University’s Newark campus.

Findings showed that college students who reported being more true to themselves also reported more positive dating relationships.

“If you’re true to yourself, it is easier to act in ways that build intimacy in relationships, and that’s going to make your relationship more fulfilling,” Brunell said.

The study appears online in the journal Personality and Individual Differences and will be published in an upcoming print edition.

Participating in the study were 62 heterosexual couples, all of whom were college students. The participants completed a long list of questionnaires in three separate sessions that took place about two weeks apart.

The first set of questionnaires probed how true participants were to themselves, a characteristic that psychologists call “dispositional authenticity.”

This was measured through the answers to questions like “For better or for worse, I am aware of who I truly am.”

In the second phase, participants answered questions examining various aspects of their relationship functioning, including their willingness to discuss their emotions with their partner, and whether they kept secrets.

The third phase involved measures of relationship satisfaction and personal well-being.

Overall, the study found that both men and women who reported being more true to themselves also behaved in more intimate and less destructive ways with their partner, and that led to them feeling their relationship was more positive. In addition, they also reported greater personal well-being.

But the study revealed an interesting gender difference in how authenticity in men and women affected their partners, Brunell said.

Men who were more true to themselves had partners who showed more healthy relationship behaviors. However, there was no significant relationship between women being true to themselves and men’s relationship behaviors.

That finding may be the result of relationship gender roles in our society, she said.

“Typically in dating and marital relationships, the women tend to be ‘in charge’ of intimacy in the relationship,” Brunell explained.

“So when men have this dispositional authenticity, and want to have an open, honest relationship, it makes women’s job easier – they can more easily regulate intimacy,” she said.

But since men have less of a role in developing relationship intimacy, they were not affected as much by whether their partners were true to themselves or not.

The study also confirmed findings from other studies that show that when men or women act in constructive, healthy ways in a relationship, it increases their partners’ satisfaction with the relationship.

Brunell said being true to yourself doesn’t mean that you should accept all of your flaws and not try to make positive changes in your life. But you should be aware of both your limitations and areas where you can improve. One payoff could be better romantic relationships.

“It shouldn’t be a surprise, but being true to yourself is linked to having healthier and happier relationships for both men and women,” she said.

Source: Ohio State University

According to Prof. Ofra Mayseless, dean of the faculty of education at the University of Haifa, psychological maturity is defined as the capacity to control impulses and acceptance of responsibility for the consequences of one’s actions.

This study, a first in its field, examined the interplay between the two developmental domains. It addressed a central conceptual question: If these developmental domains are related, how do they converge and mutually interact?

For example, is a certain level of emotional maturity required before an individual develops to be highly spiritual?

What might be the ramifications of having transcendental experiences when an individual is not emotionally mature?

A sample group of 215 college students aged 19-30 revealed that the two developmental domains (psychological maturity and spiritual development) were moderately correlated, yet that each seemed to have different antecedents (e.g., social support and having firm ethnic identity was especially significant for achieving spiritual development).

Prof. Mayseless added that the findings also confirmed a link between psychological and spiritual maturity and an individual’s set of values. This raised the question of whether both developmental domains contribute to the development of a particular attribute or whether only one domain alone contributes to that attribute.

“For example,” Prof. Mayseless explained, “psychological maturity can contribute to a person’s level of generosity, while spiritual development may not add unique contribution after taking into account the person’s psychological maturity.

“However, this was not the case. This study has shown that both psychological maturity and being spiritually developed each contributes to an individual’s generosity and pro-social actions, independently.”

“The truth is, that I wanted to find that an individual reaching both types of maturity has an added value; that someone who is both psychologically and spiritually developed would demonstrate a higher set of values, such as generosity, endurance, pluralism. But this was not what we found,” Prof. Mayseless said.

“While this study has shown that each developmental domain contributes independently of the other, the contribution that each makes to a particular attribute are similar. There is probably some connection between them, but this might only be identified by a longitudinal study where we would follow individuals for some time to learn about changes in each domain,” concluded Prof. Mayseless.

Source: University of Haifa

Indiana University School of Medicine researchers believe the information is important for dealing with sexually transmitted diseases (STDs) and pregnancy in high school girls and beyond.

While there has been a significant amount of research on teenagers’ initial sexual experiences, the IU study is among the first to examine changes over time in decision-making about sexual abstinence among sexually active teenage girls.

This information may help tailor effective counseling to prevent adolescent pregnancy and STDs.

The new findings are reported in the March 2010 issue of Perspectives on Sexual and Reproductive Health.

Characteristics associated with the risk of a teen girl having sex after a period of abstinence differed according to how long she had been abstinent.

In the short term, a young woman was more likely to have sex when her relationship with her partner was good, when the girl felt good and when she was interested in having sex.

Long term, sexual interest and relationship quality were the two most important predictors of resumption of sex after a period of abstinence.

“Sexuality is an important developmental task for teens. They need to go from childhood to sexually mature adulthood while remaining sexually disease free and without getting pregnant.

“We conducted this study to better understand the factors that influenced teenage girls who became sexually active again after a period of abstinence. With this new understanding we can better help young women remain healthy and avoid unwanted pregnancy,” said study first author Mary A. Ott, M.D., assistant professor of pediatrics at the Indiana University School of Medicine.

Diagnosis of a STD was associated with a reduced risk of subsequent sex for a short time. However having an STD increased risk for sexual activity in the intermediate time period and was unrelated to the decision to have sex in the long run.

The study authors hypothesize that the switch may reflect either relationship turmoil after diagnosis of an STD, followed by “makeup” sex, or may reflect adherence to Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recommendations for a period of abstinence following STD treatment, followed by resumption of previous sexual activity.

“Either way, the findings suggest that counseling only about abstinence after a sexually transmitted infection is insufficient. Clinicians should anticipate resumption of sexual behavior and tailor counseling appropriately,” said Dr. Ott.

The researchers also found that, in the short term, girls who characterized themselves as irritable, angry or unhappy were unlikely to return to sexual activity after a period of abstinence. That finding contradicts anecdotal information that depressed individuals are likely to engage in sexual activity.

The researchers evaluated 354 sexually active urban teen girls for up to four and a half years between 1999 and 2006. Study participants were 14 to 17 years old and not pregnant when they enrolled. Sexual experience was not an inclusion criterion, but 81 percent of participants were sexually experienced at enrollment; most of the others had their first sexual experience during the study period.

Participants reported a total of 9,236 abstinence periods, which averaged 31 days.

“Having data from the same group of young women over such a long period of time, as they go through periods of having sex and times when they are not having sex and as they change partners, enables us to understand a complex process of motivation in a way that previous studies have not.

“What we have established in this study are the major factors associated with the decision to resume sex,” said study senior author J. Dennis Fortenberry, M.D., professor of pediatrics.

Source: Indiana University School of Medicine

Researchers at Vanderbilt University believe the findings provide evidence of differences in the brain’s reward system that may underlie vulnerability to what’s typically referred to as psychopathy.

Normal individuals who scored high on a measure of impulsive and antisocial traits display a hypersensitive brain reward system, according to a brain imaging study by researchers.

The study in the current issue of the journal Nature Neuroscience was funded by the National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA), a component of the National Institutes of Health.

Psychopathy is a personality disorder characterized by a combination of superficial charm, manipulative and antisocial behavior, sensation-seeking and impulsivity, blunted empathy and punishment sensitivity, and shallow emotional experiences.

Psychopathy is a particularly robust predictor of criminal behavior and recidivism.

Since psychopathic individuals are at increased risk for developing substance use problems, the Vanderbilt team decided to investigate possible links between the brain’s reward system (activated by abused substances and natural reward), and a behavioral trait (impulsive/antisociality) characteristic of psychopathy.

Researchers used two different technologies to measure the brain’s reward response.

In the first experiment, positron emission tomography (PET) was used to image the brain’s dopamine response in subjects who received a low oral dose of amphetamine. Dopamine is a brain chemical associated with reward and motivation.

In the second experiment, the same subjects participated in a game, in which they could make (or lose) money while their brains were being scanned using functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI).

The results in both cases show that individuals who scored high on a personality assessment that teases out traits like egocentricity, manipulating others, and risk-taking had a hypersensitive dopamine response system.

The picture that emerges from these high resolution PET and fMRI scans suggests that alterations in the function of the brain’s reward system may contribute to a latent psychopathic trait.

The researchers speculate that a heightened response to an anticipated reward could make such individuals less fearful about the consequences of their behavior, which, combined with a reduced sensitivity to others’ emotions and resistance to learning from mistakes, could lead to the manipulative and aggressive style of behaviors that is common in psychopaths.

The traits analyzed in this study have been previously shown to predict antisocial behavior and substance abuse in both incarcerated and community samples.

“By linking traits that suggest impulsivity and the potential for antisocial behavior to an overreactive dopamine system, this study helps explain why aggression may be as rewarding for some people as drugs are for others,” said NIDA Director Dr. Nora Volkow.

“However, while having an antisocial trait may be a driving factor, it is clearly not sufficient to trigger aggressive behaviors; thus, we need to continue to investigate the other contributors to psychopathy.”

While the Vanderbilt researchers believe they’ve made an important first step showing that characterizations of psychopathic behavior are closely related to changes in brain activity, they hope to validate their findings with new studies on individuals who have been actually diagnosed as psychopaths.

“The amount of dopamine released was up to four times higher in people with high levels of these traits, compared to those who scored lower on the personality profile,” says Joshua Buckholtz, doctoral candidate in neuroscience and the lead author of the study.

“Because of these exaggerated dopamine responses, individuals with a latent psychopathic trait may become focused on a chance to get a reward, and less able to shift their attention until they get what they’re after. This pattern, along with other traits, could develop into psychopathic personality disorder.”

Source: National Institute on Drug Abuse/National Institutes of Health

According to experts, the effects include an increase in chance of sleepy-driving car crashes.

Ronald D. Chervin, M.D., says Americans can prepare for the daylight-saving time switch. Chervin says it can be as simple as going to sleep and waking up earlier by 15 minute intervals in the days leading up to Sunday’s change.

“Being prepared is important, especially if you need to be alert that day for any reason, particularly driving a car. Even one hour of sleep loss can affect some people,” says Chervin, a professor of neurology at the University of Michigan and director of U-M’s Sleep Disorders Center.

In the days immediately following the spring switch each year, more people have serious crashes, probably because of the sleep loss and adjustments that everyone’s biological clock must make to the new schedule.

The first day of daylight-saving time is not the only time when the amount of sleep should be of concern, however. Chervin says most adults should get about eight to 8.5 hours of sleep a night, but many get less and are chronically sleep deprived. Those patterns can start in childhood.

“We generally spend one-third of life sleeping—or at least we should,” Chervin says. “We’re learning more and more about how that one-third has critical impact on the other two-thirds.”

It’s hard to find any aspect of health untouched by sleep, Chervin says. The brain of a person who does not get enough sleep—in quality and in quantity—is unable to operate efficiently. Health, emotions, memory and more are affected.

Furthermore, sleep disorders also may increase risks of obesity, diabetes, stroke and heart attacks.

Healthy Sleep Advice from the National Sleep Foundation

• Go to sleep and wake up at the same time every day, and avoid spending more time in bed than needed.
• Use your bedroom only for sleep to strengthen the association between your bed and sleep. It may help to remove work materials, computers and televisions from your bedroom.
• Create an environment conducive to sleep that is quiet, dark and cool with a comfortable mattress and pillows.
• Reduce or eliminate your intake of caffeine, nicotine and alcohol.

Source: University of Michigan

While the players take center stage during a game, the role of the coaching staff, in particular the head coach, has risen to celebrity status.

Indeed, whether they win or lose, one outcome is certain: Coaches will follow predictable patterns in what they say after the game. Wake Forest professor John Llewellyn has studied those patterns for years and calls it coachtalk.

“There is much more to the game than the numbers on the scoreboard,” says Llewellyn, an associate professor of communication.

“Coaches are called upon to provide explanation and even consolation for their fans. Those stories are now an essential part of the game.”

Llewellyn analyzed the professional language of Division I men’s college basketball coaches for “Coachtalk,” a chapter in the book “Case Studies in Sport Communication.”

His research reviewed post-game comments from such legendary coaches as Bob Knight, Dean Smith, Mike Krzyzewski and Tom Izzo. He found recurring themes that both winning and losing coaches employ.

The most consistent theme with losing coaches is acknowledgment of the winner, or deference, says Llewellyn.

Winning coaches elevated all aspects of the game, while remaining humble. They also reinforced the traditional values of sport, while acknowledging their suffering throughout the season, Llewellyn said.

Losing coaches deferred to the winners, while subtly giving their fans an alternate definition of winning such as, “It’s just an honor to be here.” Losing coaches also often credited the outcome to fate, while acknowledging that they suffered from the loss.

Llewellyn points to Izzo’s reaction after the 2000 championship game against the University of Florida as an example of expressing excitement in the context of humility: “This is more overwhelming than I thought it would be, if you want the truth,” Izzo told reporters.

Llewellyn also found that losing coaches are in the position of justifying on-court judgments, often in terms of fate. After his team’s 30-point loss to the University of Nevada-Las Vegas in 1990, Duke’s Mike Krzyzewski said, “We were our best in March. This game was in April, huh?”

Llewellyn says coachtalk reveals an underlying respect and regard that coaches have for each other and for the social world of athletics — a world where competition can be fierce. Coachtalk also allows for the idea of a “second season” at tournament time.

“Tournament time is a great chance for rededication and renewal, even though teams have played 30 games by the time this ‘new season’ comes around,” says Llewellyn.

“Coachtalk is the language coaches use to generate hope and explain outcomes. It sustains the culture of sports.”

Source: Wake Forest University

While team sports and physical activity have been associated with improved self-esteem, better nutrition and less smoking and drug abuse among children, the present study suggests that fostering leadership skills and empathy in children may reinforce healthy lifestyle behaviors.

The study was presented at the American College of Cardiology’s 59th annual scientific session, a premier cardiovascular medical meeting that brings together cardiologists and cardiovascular specialists to further advances in cardiovascular medicine.

Researchers at the University of Michigan gathered physiological data (height, weight, blood pressure, blood glucose and cholesterol) and responses to questionnaires on diet, exercise, leadership and empathy from 709 public school children in sixth grade. Children were then divided into tertiles by leadership and the three groups were compared with each other.

Middle school children who scored highest in leadership skills were more physically active (≥ 20 min/day) on a weekly basis (4.71 days ± 2.11 days). These children were also apt to show high scores in empathy. Moderate exercise (≥ 30 min/day) and participation in team sports also correlated to higher leadership and empathy scores.

“We looked at reports of activity and participation in team sports, where leadership and empathy skills are frequently developed, to see if we could find differences in reported health behavior,” said Elizabeth Jackson, MD, MPH, assistant professor of medicine, division of cardiovascular medicine, University of Michigan Health System, Ann Arbor, MI and a co-investigator on the study.

“It seems that physical activity through team sports and exercise classes may have benefits beyond physical fitness. These findings suggest that children who develop leadership and empathy toward others are more likely to care about their own health, perhaps adopting life-long healthy behaviors that can prevent heart disease.”

She adds that this research indicates that children can be empowered during a critical period of their development that they can make a difference in their own life.

“Health behaviors are tied to other behaviors, so we can consider schools an excellent place to help children start caring for themselves and others,” said Dr. Jackson.

Further research is needed to gain a better understanding of the correlation between these social skills and healthy diet and exercise behaviors.

This study stemmed from a program called Life in Action, which educates and empowers youth across North America to change themselves through healthy daily choices, an active lifestyle and social responsibility. The program is a partnership of Free The Children and The Robert C. and Veronica Atkins Foundation, a leading philanthropic organization dedicated to tackling the obesity epidemic in North America.

Source: University of Michigan

Currently, men are often treated separately for power and control issues.

Sandra Stith, a professor of family studies and human services, and an expert in intimate partner violence says research supports treating substance abuse as a means to stopping violence in some situations.

However, she believes treatment philosophy should also consider that women can be violent themselves and that some couples choose to stay together regardless of violence in the relationship.

“Some standard requirements use particular models that have no evidence of efficacy at all,” Stith said.

“State treatment requirements are not always based on research but often on ideology and beliefs.”

She’s finding that standards often operate on myths, such as that only men are offenders. Stith said that because men are more likely to be arrested for violence against a partner, most treatment programs target them.

“In most of our research we find that although women are more likely to be injured by intimate partner violence, both men and women are often violent,” Stith said. “A lot of communities are just putting female offenders in victim services.”

Although research indicates that many women who are victims are also violent themselves, Stith said there’s been less research on understanding the risk factors and treatment for violent women.

“If the victim services don’t address the woman’s use of violence, then the women are not going to be served as well,” she said.

In 2009, Stith and Catherine McMonigle, a former student of Stith’s from Virginia Tech, published a study in “Preventing Partner Violence: Foundations, Interventions and Issues,” published by the American Psychological Association, on risk factors for intimate partner violence.

“As a clinician, I do this research because traditional treatment for offenders only focuses on power and control and really doesn’t look at domestic violence as having multiple causes,” she said. “If you treat everybody who comes in as having a problem with power and control, you’re missing the boat.”

Stith said this is because offenders also struggle with issues like substance abuse, depression, personality disorders and anger issues. She said some research has shown that by treating substance abuse, violence decreases for some offenders.

“We really need to do better screening and target treatments to the known risk factors,” she said.

In 2008, she and Virginia Tech’s Eric McCollum published a study in the journal Violence and Victims that showed how treating carefully screened violent couples together can be an effective part of a community’s larger response, which also includes victim services, offender treatment, law enforcement and the judicial system.

“Sometimes our society’s perspective is that all violent couples should separate,” Stith said. “But sometimes the reality is that people don’t. They’re living together and making decisions together. People think they’re doing the couple a favor by saying they won’t work with them because there’s been violence and they’re choosing to stay together. But we try to work with them to develop skills to end the violence rather than assuming they’ll separate.”

Stith leads a program at K-State for high-conflict couples.

“We do know there are skills you can learn, and we have evidence of the positive effect of the work we’ve done to help couples who want to learn new skills to deal with conflict,” Stith said.

Stith helps couples improve the way they deal with conflict by teaching them how to take a time out and how to calm themselves down. She also helps them improve their relationships.

“We do a lot of talking about ways you can hear what somebody you care about says and try to understand what’s going on for them instead of taking it personally,” she said. “The more personally you take it, the more you’re going to want to be violent or hurtful.”

Source: Kansas State University

“In the 16th century, naming men before women became the acceptable word-order to use because of the thinking that men were the worthier sex,” said by Dr Peter Hegarty of the University of Surrey.

“This grammar has continued with ‘Mr and Mrs’, ‘his and hers’ and the names of romantic couples like Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet. While the original sexist ideas behind this grammar are no longer accepted, we wanted to investigate whether the sexist habit of male names coming before female names still holds true and the psychological reasons why this might be.”

The new research investigated the modern written context of the Internet. Using 10 popular British boys and girls names and 10 popular American boys and girls names, the team searched the internet using each of the possible male-female name pairs as search terms, for both the male name first — e.g., ‘David and Sarah’, and then female name first, ‘Sarah and David’.

The results of this search found that for the British name pairs, the male-first name pairings accounted for 79 per cent of the mentions, and female-first pairs only 21 per cent. For the American names this was 70 per cent of the mentions were male-first and 30 per cent for female-first.

“These results were found to be statistically significant, and support the idea that gender stereotypes still affect the written language,” noted Dr. Hegarty.

“It has been argued that the male-first effect isn’t down to sexism but that it is due to phonological attributes of male names, or because male names come more readily to mind as they are popular and familiar. We therefore carried out further studies to investigate whether the male-first finding was a gender stereotyping effect.”

One hundred and 21 people were asked to imagine a heterosexual couple who were either ‘quite traditional and who conform strictly to gender scripts about how the two genders should behave’ or ‘non-traditional who deviate radically’. They were then asked to write down five name-combinations for their imaginary couple.

Participants named the imagined ‘traditional couples’ men-first more often than chance, but this effect was not seen for the naming of ‘non-traditional’ couples.

In a third study, 86 people were asked to write down names of an imagined lesbian or gay couple. Participants were then asked to assign attributes such as annual earnings, interest in fashion, interest in sport and physical attributes to each individual – for example Simon is physically stronger than John. Participants assigned significantly more of the masculine attributes and fewer of the feminine attributes to the person they named first.

Dr Hegarty said: “The results of our studies suggest that people tend to put men, or male qualities, before women. As this is a remnant of the sexist grammar of the 16th century, it would seem that psychologically, we are still sexist in writing.”

However, Hegarty cautions that the effect is likely to occur only among couples that we don’t know well. “When people address greeting cards to couples, for example, they often put the person that they know best first, whether female or male.”

The study was published online in the British Journal of Social Psychology.

Source: The British Psychological Society

The new study investigated whether attitudes of users toward video games and how they use them have a significant impact on certain cognitive tasks. The researchers specifically targeted brain skills in spatial intelligence, self-efficacy and academic performance.

Spanish researcher Llorca Díez looked at 266 participants ages 11 and 16. All children were given a semi-structured interview, a survey of use and preferences in video games, two intelligence tests and an inventory of self-efficacy. Parents filled out a survey on opinions, knowledge and attitudes toward video games.

Results revealed that boys not only play more than girls, but they start earlier, an outcome that could be related to a clearly cultural influence.

The researchers also found that as kids play more often, they do it for longer periods of time, which in the opinion of Llorca Díez “confirms the concern of some researchers about the possibility that some video games are addicting.”

There are also gender differences not only in the use that young people make of video games, but also in what they demand of them. Thus, boys are more stringent than girls, and prefer realistic, challenging, impressive and competitive games. They also like games with a very elaborate plot, containing a high level of artificial intelligence and with quite sophisticated graphic and sound elements.

More than half of parents have an unfavorable opinion about games, but, nevertheless, continue to acquire this type of entertainment for their children. Furthermore, they often do not take protection criteria into consideration at the time of purchase.

Regarding the variable of academic performance, the researcher points out that “it is not only affected by the use of video games, but also hours of study and self-efficacy perception have demonstrated predictors of school success.” There are more chances that students will obtain high grades if they believe in their own ability, and the learning process did not produce anxiety.

Other conclusions emerging from this research reveal that almost a third of teens play only on weekends, and, in fact, as the author of this work points out, “very few kids play every day, an encouraging result that indicates a certain degree of control.”

Over 40% of children play between one and two hours “each time they play” (not on a daily or weekly basis) and only 7% of them play more than three hours. Boys not only play more often, but when they do play, the do it for longer periods of time. Finally, young people prefer “non-sports strategy” games, followed by sports and the so-called “platform” games.

About 40% of respondents have problems arising from the use of video games (usually two or three problems at once). Nevertheless, the highest percentage of problems arises from the fact that “someone tells him that he plays too much” followed by “discussions with parents.” It is noteworthy that a significant number of the participants admitted sleeping less and not doing well at school work.

Yet Ángeles Llorca thinks that video games can represent “a very useful pedagogical tool” to encourage self-efficacy, a variable that improves academic performance. Therefore, it is necessary to encourage parents, teachers and advisers to get acquainted with this type of entertainment technology, which they should consider as part of visual communication. Likewise, motivation of children to play video games should be used as a pedagogical tool in the field of education.

The UGR researcher considers “essential” a dissemination of new technologies among educators and parents. They should acknowledge “the reality of children in this field, its use and enjoyment, in order to make the most of these games, and, at the same time, protect them from possible abuses and dangers.”

The research was conducted by Ángeles Llorca Díez from the Department of Didactics of Musical, Plastic and Corporal Expression at the University of Granada, and directed by professors Mª Dolores Álvarez Rodríguez (University of Granada) and Mª Ángeles Díez Sánchez (University of Salamanca).

Source: University of Granada

Even more disturbing is that doctors don’t realize they aren’t communicating effectively, and rate their own abilities far greater than what researchers found.

Suggesting needed changes in medical school training, the study points to the problems in a common medical practice in training, the “hand off.”

As shifts change in a hospital, outgoing physicians must hand off important information to their replacements in a brief meeting.

The research highlights the importance of educating doctors about successful communication skills during hand-offs.

“When resident hours are shortened, you have more hand-offs,” said Vineet Arora, MD, assistant professor of medicine at the University of Chicago Medical Center. “You could have concerns about either a tired physician who knows the patient or a well-rested physician that may not know the patient. The tradeoff is between fatigue and familiarity.”

Conducted through a unique collaboration between physicians and psychologists at the University of Chicago, the study observed hand-off communication between pediatric interns — first-year residents — at Comer Children’s Hospital at the University of Chicago. Interns at the end of an overnight shift would spend a total of 10-15 minutes sharing information about hospitalized patients with the resident relieving them in a designated hand-off room.

Both the outgoing and incoming interns were then asked by researchers about what they thought was the most important information conveyed during the hand-off about each patient. Surprisingly, what the outgoing intern identified as the most important information was not successfully communicated to the incoming intern 60 percent of the time. The rationale for certain medical decisions – such as why a patient is on a particular drug or why the primary care physician should be contacted – was also not understood by the receiving intern in a majority of cases.

But despite these miscommunications, interns on both sides of the hand-off consistently rated the quality of their communication as very high. Boaz Keysar, PhD, a professor of psychology at the University of Chicago and co- author of the paper, said that this disconnect between perceived and actual success of communication is common in other settings.

“You would imagine the kind of miscommunication we discover elsewhere actually might be reduced when the stakes are high in a clinical setting, because it matters so much,” Keysar said. “But the opposite is true, which I think is counter-intuitive and important to know.”

The results were even more striking given the optimal hand-off conditions for interns at Comer Children’s Hospital. In each hand-off, a conversation takes place in a designated room under supervision by more experienced physicians. In previous research, Arora found that many hospitals and programs have much less organized hand-off procedures – if they occur at all.

In illustrating the communication breakdowns that plague even best-case hand-off conditions, Arora and Keysar hope to inform medical centers and schools of the need for better education about hand-offs.

The study found that “anticipatory guidance” — offering to-do items or if-then advice — was a more effective way of communicating information between interns than passing on knowledge items in bulk. Currently, Arora and colleagues are working on a simulation exercise for fourth-year medical students to train more effective hand-off communication skills.

Such training, they hope, will be more effective than relying upon computer programs and electronic medical records to facilitate hand-off communication. A verbal exchange of information remains important so that young doctors can make quick, informed decisions about patients, Arora said.

“IT solutions cannot substitute for a successful communication act,” Arora said. “We aren’t at the point where computers are going to do that for us.”

“Technology solutions can help so that you have the information that you need when you need it, but to look at that information and be able to make a judgment about what to do, that is what the hand-off conversation is for.”

The research was published in the March issue of Pediatrics.

Source: University of Chicago Medical Center

But a new study finds one more reason why parents should not let their kids watch those movies: adolescents who watch R-rated movies are more likely to try alcohol at a young age.

In a study of 6,255 children, researchers examined the relationship between watching R-rated movies and the probability of alcohol use across different levels of “sensation seeking,” which is a tendency to seek out risky experiences.

“The study found that watching R-rated movies affected the level of sensation seeking among adolescents,” noted James D. Sargent, a pediatrician at Dartmouth Medical School.

“It showed that R-rated movies not only contain scenes of alcohol use that prompt adolescents to drink, they also jack up the sensation seeking tendency, which makes adolescents more prone to engage in all sorts of risky behaviors.”

“There is another take home point in the findings. When it comes to the direct effect on alcohol use, the influence of R-rated movies depends on sensation seeking level.”

“High sensation seekers are already at high risk for use of alcohol, and watching a lot of R-rated movies raises their risk only a little. But for low sensation seekers, R-rated movies make a big difference. In fact, exposure to R-rated movies can make a low sensation seeking adolescent drink like a high sensation seeking adolescent,” Sargent explained.

The Dartmouth pediatrician said that one possible explanation is high sensation seeking adolescents tend to get their experiences out on the street. They hang around other high sensation seekers, who are also engaging in risky behaviors, so there is less room for movies to make a difference in their risk for alcohol use.

“The message to parents is clear. Take the movie ratings literally. Under 17 should not be permitted to see R-rated movies,” Sargent said.

The study was based on telephone surveys of 6,522 adolescents aged 10-14 years. The children were surveyed every 8 months for a period of two years from 2003 through 2005.

Parental consent and adolescent consent was obtained prior to interviewing each respondent. To protect confidentiality, adolescents indicated their answers to sensitive questions by pressing numbers on the telephone, rather than speaking aloud. The study sample mirrored the U.S. adolescent population with respect to age, sex, household income and census region, but with a slightly higher percentage of Hispanics and a slightly lower percentage of Blacks.

Sensation seeking was based on how individual subjects identified with statements like: “I like to do scary things, I like to do dangerous things, I often think there is nothing to do, and I like to listen to loud music.” Adolescents were also asked if they had ever tried alcohol that their parents were not aware of. This excluded adolescents who initiated drinking with sips of alcohol provided by parents. R-rated movie watching was measured by asking respondents if they had watched a random selection of movie titles drawn from box office hits during 2003 that had grossed at least $15 million. The movie titles included movies that had G (general audience), P/G (parental guidance) and R (restricted) ratings.

The study was funded by the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism.

The study was published in the March issue of Prevention Science.

Source: Society for Prevention Research

Smoking a larger number of cigarettes per day may not reduce the risk.

“These results could guide the development of studies on various tobacco components with animal models to help understand the relationship between smoking and Parkinson’s disease,” said study author Honglei Chen, MD, PhD, of the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences in Research Triangle Park, N.C.

“Research to reveal the underlying chemicals and mechanisms is warranted; such studies may lead to a better understanding of the causes of Parkinson’s disease. However, given the many adverse consequences of smoking, no one would suggest smoking in order to prevent Parkinson’s disease.”

The study involved 305,468 AARP members age 50 to 71 who completed a survey on diet and lifestyle at the time and again about 10 years later. During that time, 1,662 of the people had developed Parkinson’s disease, or about one-half of one percent.

Current smokers were 44 percent less likely to develop Parkinson’s disease than people who had never smoked. People who had smoked in the past and quit were 22 percent less likely to develop Parkinson’s than people who had never smoked.

People who smoked for 40 or more years were 46 percent less likely to develop Parkinson’s disease than people who never smoked. Those who smoked for 30 to 39 years were 35 percent less likely to have the disease than nonsmokers. In contrast, those who smoked for one to nine years were only eight percent less likely to get the disease.

The risk of developing Parkinson’s disease did not change based on how many cigarettes a person smoked per day.

Chen noted that studies have shown that smoking is not associated with a slower progression of the disease once Parkinson’s develops or a reduced risk of death, so he said there is no evidence to support the use of nicotine or other smoking-related chemicals in treating the disease.

The new study was published in the March 2010, online issue of Neurology, the medical journal of the American Academy of Neurology.

Source: American Academy of Neurology

It is the first study done with monkeys that examines the effects of flu during pregnancy.

Results from this study support findings from rodent studies suggesting this type of infection may increase the risk of schizophrenia in the offspring, said lead author Sarah J. Short, Ph.D.

“This was a relatively mild flu infection, but it had a significant effect on the brains of the babies,” Short said.

“While these results aren’t directly applicable to humans, I do think they reinforce the idea, as recommended by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, that pregnant women should get flu shots, before they get sick.”

In the study, 12 rhesus macaques were infected with a mild influenza A virus 1 month before their baby’s due date, early in the third trimester of pregnancy. For comparison, the study also included 7 pregnant monkeys who did not have the flu.

When the babies were 1 year old, magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) scans were taken of their brains. Researchers also assessed the babies’ behavioral development at that time.

The babies born to flu-infected mothers showed no evidence of direct viral exposure. Their birth weight, gestation length and neuromotor, behavioral and endocrine responses were all normal.

However, the MRI scans revealed significant reductions in overall brain size in the flu-exposed babies. In addition, the scans found significant reductions of “gray matter” (the portion of brain tissue that is dark in color) especially in areas of the brain called the cingulate and parietal lobe, and significant reductions of “white matter” (brain tissue that is lighter in color) in the parietal lobe.

The cingulate is located in the middle of the brain, but spans a broad distance from front to back and relays information from both halves of the brain. This structure is important for numerous cognitive function related to emotions, learning, memory, and executive control of these processes to aid in decision-making and anticipation of rewards. In addition this structure also plays a role in regulating autonomic processes, such as blood pressure and respiratory control. The parietal lobe comprises a large section on both sides of the brain between the frontal lobes and the occipital lobes, in the back of the brain. This part of the brain integrates information from all the senses and is especially important for combining visual and spatial information.

“The brain changes that we found in the monkey babies are similar to what we typically see in MRI scans of humans with schizophrenia,” said Gilmore.

“This suggests that human babies whose mothers had the flu while pregnant may have a greater risk of developing schizophrenia later in life than babies whose mothers did not have the flu. Normally that risk affects about 1 of every 100 births. Studies in humans suggest that for flu-exposed babies, the risk is 2 or 3 per 100 births.”

Most of the work of the study was done at the Harlow Center for Biological Psychology, which is part of Wisconsin’s Department of Psychology. The center’s director, Christopher Coe, Ph.D., is senior author of the study. Gilmore, a schizophrenia researcher who has led several studies that used MRI scans of newborn human brains, led the analysis of MRI data in the pregnancy and influenza study.

The study was conducted at the University of Wisconsin-Madison in collaboration with the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill has found. Short worked on the study while earning her doctorate at Wisconsin and now is a post-doctoral fellow at UNC working with John H. Gilmore, M.D., professor of psychiatry in the UNC School of Medicine.

The study was published online by the journal Biological Psychiatry.

Source: University of North Carolina School of Medicine

The study was designed to study the short-term effects of video game ownership on the academic development of boys. The researchers found that after the introduction of video games into a family, the boys’ reading and writing scores suffered.

The researchers recruited families who didn’t currently own a video game system, but were considering buying one.

Participants in the study — boys ages 6 to 9 — completed intelligence tests as well as reading and writing assessments. In addition, the boys’ parents and teachers filled out questionnaires relating to their behavior at home and at school.

Half of the families were selected to receive a video-game system (along with three, age-appropriate video games) immediately, while the remaining families were promised a video-game system four months later, at the end of the experiment. Over the course of the four months, the parents recorded their children’s activities from the end of the school day until bedtime. At the four-month time point, the children repeated the reading and writing assessments and parents and teachers again completed the behavioral questionnaires.

The results of this study showed that the boys who received the video-game system immediately spent more time playing video games and less time engaged in after-school academic activities than boys who received the video-game system at the end of the experiment. Furthermore, the boys who received the video-game system at the beginning of the study had significantly lower reading and writing scores four months later compared with the boys receiving the video-game system later on.

Although there were no differences in parent-reported behavioral problems between the two groups of kids, the boys who received the video-game system immediately had greater teacher-reported learning problems.

Further analysis revealed that the time spent playing video games may link the relationship between owning a video-game system and reading and writing scores. These findings suggest that video games may be displacing after-school academic activities and may impede reading and writing development in young boys.

The authors note that when children have problems with language at this young age, they tend to have a tougher time acquiring advanced reading and writing skills later on.

Because the researchers did not study a third group — say, boys who took up a new sport or a musical instrument as a new after-school activity — the researchers could not determine if the lower scores they found was simply the result of the displacement of time or the video games themselves.

Oddly, however, the researchers — Robert Weis and Brittany C. Cerankosky of Denison University — still concluded in the article, “Altogether, our findings suggest that video-game ownership may impair academic achievement for some boys in a manner that has real-world significance.”

The study was published in the journal, Psychological Science.

Source: Association for Psychological Science