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Patient perspectives on stress after ICU and a short primary care based psychological intervention – results from a qualitative sub‑study of the PICTURE trial
No full textBackground:
Approximately 20–25% of patients who survive medical treatment at an intensive care unit (ICU) develop post-traumatic stress symptoms. There is currently a gap in follow-up care for them. As part of the PICTURE study, general practitioners (GPs) carried out a brief interview-based intervention. The aim of this sub-study is to record the most distressing memories of ICU treatment from the patient’s perspective and their evaluation of a GP-based brief psychological intervention.
Methods:
Participants were recruited from the intervention group of the main PICTURE study using selective sampling. All of them had experienced an ICU stay with mechanical ventilation and severe organ failure in the previous two years. They were interviewed about their experience of psychological stress during their ICU stay and their retrospective evaluation of the intervention. Semi-structured, guideline-based telephone interviews were conducted for this purpose, processed, and analyzed using the structuring qualitative content analysis based on Mayring.
Findings:
When asked N = 8 patients about the most stressful memory of their stay at ICU, the main themes were helplessness, pain, fixation, inability to communicate and sleep disturbances. The question of amnesia regarding the stay in the ICU was answered affirmatively by half of the interviewees but was not experienced as stressful. The brief trauma-focused intervention carried out by their GPs was well received by all respondents.
Conclusions:
The interviewees confirm that aversive traumatizing experiences are often associated with intensive care treatment and reinforce each other. These are due to the treatment setting but should be reduced wherever possible. In view of chronification and the lack of specific follow-up treatment options for these patients and the long waiting times for psychotherapy, the implementation of low-threshold treatment options by GPs appears to be ideally suited to closing this gap in care, particularly for patients with mild to moderate symptoms of a post-traumatic stress disorder.publishe
Childhood maltreatment and mental health problems in a 10-year follow-up study of adolescents in youth residential care : A latent transition analysis
No full textChildhood maltreatment and mental health problems are common among young people placed out-of-home. However, evidence on the impact of maltreatment on the course of mental health problems in at-risk populations is sparse. The aim of this longitudinal study is twofold: (a) describe the course of mental health problems and the shift in symptom patterns among adolescents in youth residential care into young adulthood and (b) assess how childhood maltreatment is related to the course of mental health problems. One hundred and sixty-six adolescents in Swiss youth residential care were followed up into young adulthood (36.1% women; MAge-Baseline = 16.1 years; MAge-Follow-Up = 26.4 years). Latent transition analysis was employed to analyze transitions of symptom patterns and their association with maltreatment exposure. We found three latent classes of mental health problems: a “multiproblem”-class (51.8% baseline; 33.7% follow-up), a “low symptom”-class (39.2% baseline; 60.2% follow-up), and an “externalizing”-class (9.0% baseline; 6.0% follow-up). Individuals in the “multiproblem”-class were likely to transition towards less-complex symptom patterns. Higher severity of self-reported childhood maltreatment was associated with more complex and persistent mental health problems. Our study underlines the need for collaboration between residential and psychiatric care systems within and after care placements, with a specialized focus on trauma-informed interventions and care.publishe
Resurrection of a diatom after 7000 years from anoxic Baltic Sea sediment
No full textDormancy is a wide-spread key life history trait observed across the tree of life. Many plankton species form dormant cells stages that accumulate in aquatic sediments and under anoxic conditions, form chronological records of past species and population dynamics under changing environmental conditions. Here we report on the germination of a microscopic alga, the abundant marine diatom Skeletonema marinoi that had remained dormant for up to 6871 ± 140 years in anoxic sediments of the Baltic Sea and resumed growth when exposed to oxygen and light. Resurrected diatom strains, representing cohorts from 6 different time points of the past 6871 ± 140 years, are genetically differentiated and fundamental physiological functions such as growth and photosynthesis had remained stable through time, despite distinct environmental dynamics. Showing that resurrection and full functional recovery, in comparison to 3 ± 2 years of dormancy, is possible after millennial resting, we emphasize the relevance of dormancy and living sediment archives. For the future, sediment archives, together with the resurrection approach would offer a powerful tool to trace adaptive traits over millennia under distinct climatic conditions and elucidate the underlying mechanisms.publishe
Mirror Me : Exploring Avatar Self-Views in Multi-user Virtual Reality
No full textThis paper investigates avatar self-views in virtual reality (VR) and their impact on multi-user communication scenarios. Self-views in video conferencing have been shown to impact our self-perception and mental load, so we explore whether similar effects occur in VR, as personal and professional gatherings progressively move to virtual spaces with 3D avatars. We identify the following key design dimensions for self-representations in VR: spatiality, anchoring and size, and self-visibility. Based on these, we designed three variants (Remote Perspective View, Personal Mirror, and Miniature Avatar), which we compare to a baseline (No Additional Self-View) in a user study. Our analysis of sixteen dyads playing a word-guessing game requiring verbal and non-verbal communication (i.e., explaining and charades) in VR confirms that self-views are beneficial for communication scenarios that require expressive body language or facial expressions, as this allows monitoring the own avatar's animations. Further, the Miniature Avatar was overall preferred due to its spatiality, world-anchoring, and full self-visibility. Based on our results, we offer design recommendations for self-views covering the key design dimensions in VR.publishe
Editorial: Affektive Praktiken im digitalen Klimaaktivismus : Figurations-und Positionierungsprozesse in umkämpften Protestnarrativen
No full textpublishe
Sozial-ökologische Krisen und kognitives Altern : Eine Untersuchung der kognitiven Einflüsse der COVID-19-Pandemie und der Klimakrise auf Gedächtnisfunktion und verbale Funktion älterer Personen
No full textSocio-environmental crises such as the ones induced by the COVID-19 pandemic and ongoing climate change significantly impact individual health, not only but especially at older ages. While the health effects of COVID-19 lockdowns and the cardiovascular risks posed by climate change (especially heat waves) in the older population have been studied, their differential impacts on cognitive functioning in later life remain less understood, despite their relevance for the sociology of age(ing). This article thus explores the “cognitive impact” of socio-environmental crises by addressing two questions: (1) How does cognitive functioning change from the prepandemic to the postlockdown phase, and how does this compare with baseline cognitive changes? (2) How are average and peak summer temperatures linked to cognitive change over a 2-year period?
Using longitudinal data from the Survey of Health, Ageing and Retirement in Europe (SHARE), we analysed cognitive changes in a sample of adults aged 50+ in Germany from 2004 to 2022. Random effects change score analysis focused on two cognitive measures: memory and verbal fluency. Results show that COVID-19–related cognitive decline in memory is significantly greater than baseline change rates of cognitive decline, but no such effect was observed for verbal fluency. Higher average summer temperatures are associated with faster declines in memory and verbal fluency, while peak summer temperatures are not correlated with cognitive functioning. While the social and biological mechanisms behind such changes still need to be disentangled scientifically, the sociopolitical need for action during times of polycrises is unquestionable.publishe
Infectious disease outbreaks drive political mistrust
No full textThe COVID-19 pandemic has renewed attention to the far-reaching social implications of emerging infectious diseases, an issue with historical parallels in the transformative effects of the Black Plague and Spanish Flu. However, the potential for epidemics to reshape political trust and fuel instability has remained underexplored. This study leverages a novel dataset on zoonotic disease outbreaks—including Ebola, Marburg, H1N1, and the Black Plague—and geolocated Afrobarometer survey data from dozens of African states to investigate whether exposure to these deadly outbreaks alters public confidence in political institutions. Estimating the average-treatment-effect-in-the-treated with coarsened exact matching, we find that individuals with an infectious disease outbreak experience significant declines in trust toward the political establishment, especially the president, parliament, and ruling party (reductions of 0.2, 0.18, and 0.22 points, respectively, on a four-point scale). These findings, consistent across various spatial and temporal windows, provide robust empirical evidence that deadly infectious disease outbreaks can exacerbate political polarization and undermine political stability. The study emphasizes the critical need for policy strategies that integrate public health preparedness with efforts to preserve and rebuild institutional trust during outbreaks.publishe
When Expertise Is Not Enough : Explaining the European Commission's Non-success in the Integration of Public Sector Accounting
No full textThe European Commission crucially relies on expertise and advice to fulfil its focal role in drafting policies. For this reason, it maintains numerous expert groups. When handling technical complex cases, expert groups engage in deliberative supranationalist problem-solving that is driven by logic and knowledge. Based on the Commission's policy initiative to develop European Public Sector Accounting Standards (EPSAS) for the integration of European Union member states' government accounting practices, this study investigates how and under what conditions policy incentives translate via expert group deliberations into draft policies. Drawing on policy design literature and using process tracing, this study finds that pre-existing policy instruments or design choices on higher order policy elements could lead to challenges in achieving the integrity and superiority of solutions at the level of calibration and street-level requirements, thus failing to produce the necessary expert consensus.publishe
Effectiveness of body exposure for the treatment of body image disturbance : A meta-analysis
No full textBody image disturbance (BID) is a defining feature of several psychiatric disorders, notably eating disorders and body dysmorphic disorder. Although body exposure (BE) has been proposed as an effective intervention, the strength of its effects and the factors influencing its efficacy remain uncertain. We conducted random-effects meta-analyses of randomized controlled trials in which BE was delivered as a stand-alone intervention. Outcomes included negative affect, BID-related measures, arousal, and disorder-specific symptoms. Potential moderators (e.g., attention focus, facilitator presence) were examined. BE produced moderate effects on BID-related measures (0.60, 95 % CI [0.40, 0.80]) and disorder-specific symptoms (0.76, 95 % CI [0.15, 1.36]), but did not significantly reduce negative affect (0.30, 95 % CI [−0.07, 0.67]). Arousal could not be assessed due to insufficient data, and no significant moderators emerged, likely reflecting the small, heterogeneous evidence base. These results support BE as an effective approach for reducing BID and disorder-specific symptoms and highlight the need for experimental research comparing BE variations and targeting broader outcome domains to guide individualized, evidence-based clinical practice.publishe
Collective intelligence in animals and robots
No full textThis comment explores how collective intelligence emerges from local interactions in animal groups, and how these principles inform the design of swarm robotic systems. It highlights the reciprocal value of robotics in studying biological collectives and outlines opportunities in intelligentmatter, distributed computation, and perception-driven behavioral models.publishe