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Excessive Facebook use affects users' everyday social, health, and emotional functioning. The main aim of the study was to investigate the relations between Facebook intrusion, emotional functioning (three aspects of emotional intelligence, the tendency to ruminate, and the tendency to experience anxiety), and health problems (somatic symptoms, social dysfunction, and anxiety/insomnia). The participants were 1396 high school and university or college students; 71% of them were women. The authors used the Facebook Intrusion Scale, the Emotional Intelligence Scale (INTE), the Rumination Questionnaire, the Trait Anxiety Inventory (X-2), and the General Health Questionnaire. They found that the examined aspects of emotional functioning-rumination, trait anxiety, and emotional intelligence-were related to Facebook intrusion. They also established that anxiety, rumination, and emotional intelligence exerted a significant indirect effect on health problems: anxiety/insomnia via Facebook intrusion. Additionally, the study revealed an indirect effect of anxiety, rumination, and emotional intelligence on Facebook intrusion via health problems: anxiety/insomnia., Author(s): Agata Blachnio [sup.1] , Aneta Przepiórka [sup.1] , Andrzej Cudo [sup.1] Author Affiliations: (1) grid.37179.3b, 0000 0001 0664 8391, Institute of Psychology, The John Paul II Catholic University of [...]

Cyberchondria, defined as excessive concern about one's health and looking for solutions to health problems on the Internet, is becoming increasingly common. This paper examines the relations between the dimensions of stress appraisal (threat, challenge-activity, challenge-passivity, harm/loss) and cyberchondria. We also tested whether these relations were mediated by rumination. The study included a nonclinical sample of N = 615 participants aged 18 to 83 years (M = 43.86, SD = 14.57, 53 % women), who completed the short version of the Cyberchondria Severity Scale, the Rumination Scale, and the Stress Appraisal Questionnaire. We used the Computer-Assisted Web Interview (CAWI) method. The results revealed that rumination was a partial mediator between stress as a threat and cyberchondria and between stress as a harm/loss and cyberchondria. Cyberchondria was positively related to rumination, stress as a threat, and stress as a harm/loss and negatively related to the challenge-activity dimension of stress appraisal. The study indicates that stress appraisal is linked to cyberchondria and that rumination plays an important role in this relationship.

Abstract Background In 2011, a civil war started in Syria, which is on-going and has reached a death toll of over 400,000 people. Humanitarian organizations, including Aid to The Church in Need (ACN), have strived to provide help and medical support to the civilian victims. Methods We performed a retrospective analysis of data gathered in ACN projects in Syria in 2019. The datasets included descriptions of diseases, treatments, costs, cities, and hospitals. For each patient, we assigned the following additional categories: type of help (treatment, diagnosis, or nonmedical), type of treatment (medical or surgical), medical specialty, gross anatomic region, and presence of trauma. Results A total of 3835 patients benefited from ACN support in Syria in 2019. The majority of financial support went towards treatment (78.4%), while other support went towards nonmedical help (15.7%) or providing a diagnosis (5.9%). Among treatments, 66.6% were medical and 33.4% surgical. The most common medical specialty was internal medicine (48.4%), followed by public health (13.7%) and surgery (7.3%). Anatomic region was undefined in 68.3% of cases and, when defined, was most commonly the abdominal cavity and pelvis (13%). The vast majority of cases 95.1%) were not associated with trauma. Procedural costs were highest in the Valley of Christians region, and lowest in Tartous. Network graphs were used to visualize the three most common diagnoses and treatments for each medical specialty. Conclusions The present report describes the treatment of war victims in Syria in 2019. The patients lacked the most basic medical or surgical healthcare. Charity organizations, like ACN, constitute a valuable source of information about the healthcare of war victims. Unfortunately, the methods of describing medical treatment provided to civilian victims remain underdeveloped. Future studies will require the cooperation of healthcare providers, humanists, and social workers. The present findings can help to optimize the provision of humanitarian help by charity organizations, by tailoring projects to the specific needs of Syrian war victims.

Recently, there has been an increase in the number of aid campaigns launched via social media. The paper explores the phenomenon called "helping by clicking," which consists in clicking "Like" to support a charitable campaign or cause. The main aim of the paper is to present a new measure: The Helping by Clicking Types Questionnaire (HCTQ), assessing the patterns of helping by clicking. In developing the questionnaire, we relied on the theory of reciprocal altruism. The study included two samples of n = 349 and n = 1,006 participants. The HTCQ consists of 19 items making up three subscales: People, Environment, and Animals. The present research included two independent studies. Study 1 was conducted to determine the psychometric properties of the questionnaire, while Study 2 was conducted to verify the previous results and to test the usefulness of the questionnaire in distinguishing individuals with different patterns of helping by clicking. The measure was designed to assess three aspects of helping: helping people, helping the environment, and helping animals via social media. The study showed that the HCTQ was suitable for measuring patterns of helping by clicking. All HCTQ factors had good Cronbach's alpha reliability coefficients. The HCTQ concerns a new and largely unexplored area of helping that involves the use of modern technologies. It reveals people's motivations for helping. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Adult individuals frequently face difficulties in attracting and keeping mates, which is an important driver of singlehood. In the current research, we investigated the mating performance (i.e., how well people do in attracting and retaining intimate partners) and singlehood status in 14 different countries, namely Austria, Brazil, China, Greece, Hungary, Italy, Japan, Peru, Poland, Russia, Spain, Turkey, the UK, and Ukraine ( N = 7,181). We found that poor mating performance was in high occurrence, with about one in four participants scoring low in this dimension, and more than 57% facing difficulties in starting and/or keeping a relationship. Men and women did not differ in their mating performance scores, but there was a small yet significant effect of age, with older participants indicating higher mating performance. Moreover, nearly 13% of the participants indicated that they were involuntarily single, which accounted for about one-third of the singles in the sample. In addition, more than 15% of the participants indicated that they were voluntarily single, and 10% were between-relationships single. We also found that poor mating performance was associated with an increased likelihood of voluntary, involuntary, and between-relationships singlehood. All types of singlehood were in higher occurrence in younger participants. Although there was some cross-cultural variation, the results were generally consistent across samples.

Despite being bio-epidemiological phenomena, the causes and effects of pandemics are culturally influenced in ways that go beyond national boundaries. However, they are often studied in isolated pockets, and this fact makes it difficult to parse the unique influence of specific cultural psychologies. To help fill in this gap, the present study applies existing cultural theories via linear mixed modeling to test the influence of unique cultural factors in a multi-national sample (that moves beyond Western nations) on the effects of age, biological sex, and political beliefs on pandemic outcomes that include adverse financial impacts, adverse resource impacts, adverse psychological impacts, and the health impacts of COVID. Our study spanned 19 nations (participant N = 14,133) and involved translations into 9 languages. Linear mixed models revealed similarities across cultures, with both young persons and women reporting worse outcomes from COVID across the multi-national sample. However, these effects were generally qualified by culture-specific variance, and overall more evidence emerged for effects unique to each culture than effects similar across cultures. Follow-up analyses suggested this cultural variability was consistent with models of pre-existing inequalities and socioecological stressors exacerbating the effects of the pandemic. Collectively, this evidence highlights the importance of developing culturally flexible models for understanding the cross-cultural nature of pandemic psychology beyond typical WEIRD approaches.

Introduction: The timing of treatment remains unresolved for patients with unruptured intracranial aneurysms (UIAs) and headaches, particularly when the pain is short term, localized, and related to the aneurysm site. We lack evidence to support the notion that when a headache accompanies an aneurysm, it elevates the risk of rupture. Results: We describe 2 cases of fatal subarachnoid hemorrhage in patients with a history of headache and known aneurysms. Both of these patients had good indications for treatment: a young age and an aneurysm >7 mm, and both were qualified for elective surgery. However, both patients died of fatal aneurysm ruptures before the planned surgery. Conclusion: These cases suggested that treatment should be started as soon as possible, when a UIA is diagnosed based on a short-term period of severe headaches or when a UIA is observed and then severe headaches appear. There is no straightforward guideline for treatment timing in these patients. However, in this era of UIAs, the significance of sentinel headaches should be reevaluated. Given the incidence of headaches in the general population and the very low risk of aneurysm rupture, there may be a tendency to neglect the role of headache as a possible warning sign.

Abstract Background In the early days of neurosurgery, extradural haemorrhages (EDHs) contributed to a high mortality rate after craniotomies. Almost a century ago, Walter Dandy reported dural tenting sutures as an effective way to prevent postoperative EDH. Over time, his technique gained in popularity and significance to finally become a neurosurgical standard. Yet, several retrospective reports and one prospective report have questioned the ongoing need for dural tenting sutures. Dandy’s explanation that the haemostasis observed under hypotensive conditions is deceiving and eventually causes EDH may be obsolete. Today, proper intra- and postoperative care, including maintenance of normovolemia and normotension and the use of modern haemostatic agents, may be sufficient for effective haemostasis. Thus, there is a fundamental need to evaluate the necessity of dural tenting sutures in a solid, unbiased, evidence-based manner. Methods This study is designed as a randomised, multicentre, double-blinded, controlled interventional trial with 1:1 allocation. About one half of the participants will undergo craniotomy without dural tenting sutures and will be considered an intervention group. The other half will undergo craniotomy with these sutures. Both groups will be followed clinically and radiologically. The primary outcome is reoperation due to extradural haematoma. Secondary outcomes aim to evaluate the impact of dural tenting sutures on mortality, readmission risk, postoperative headaches, size of extradural collection, cerebrospinal fluid leak risk and the presence of any new neurological deficit. The study protocol follows the SPIRIT 2013 statement. Discussion It is possible that many neurosurgeons around the globe are tenting the dura in elective craniotomies which brings no benefit and only extends the operation. Unfortunately, there is not enough data to support or reject this technique in modern neurosurgery. This is the first study that may produce strong, evidence-based recommendations on using dural tenting sutures. Trial registration, ethics and dissemination The Bioethics Committee of the Medical University of Warsaw approved the study protocol (KB/106/2018). The trial is registered at http://www.clinicaltrials.gov ( NCT03658941 ) on September 6, 2018. The findings of this trial will be submitted to a peer-reviewed neurosurgical journal. Abstracts will be submitted to relevant national and international conferences. Trial status Protocol version and date: version 1.5, 14.01.2020 First recruitment: September 7, 2018 Estimated recruitment completion: September 1, 2021

Problematic mobile phone use can be related to negative mental states. Some studies indicate that behavioural dependency is related to variables associated with the country of origin. The aim of our study was to investigate if country indicators moderated the relationship between phubbing and psychological distress. Our sample consisted of 7,315 individuals from 20 countries, who completed the Phubbing Scale and the Kessler Psychological Distress Scale (K6). The analyses also included country indicators: the Gender Gap Index (GGI), the Human Development Index (HDI), the Social Progress Index (SPI), Hofstede’s dimensions of culture, and the World Happiness Index (WHI). Our results showed that psychological distress was related to at least one dimension of phubbing (i.e., to communication disturbance or phone obsession) in all countries, which means this relationship is culturally universal. The results of the study demonstrate the importance of testing measurement invariance to determine what type of analysis and what type of conclusion are valid in a given study or comparison. Moreover, the increasing or decreasing correlation between phubbing and distress is related to some culture-level indices.

We try to assess the validity of assumptions taken when deriving drift velocity. We give simple formulas for characteristics of the spatiotemporal correlation function of the observed diffraction pattern for the frozen flow and the more general Briggs model. Using Low-Frequency Array (LOFAR) Cassiopeia intensity observation, we compare the experimental velocity scaling factor with a theoretical one to show that both models do not follow observations. We also give a qualitative comparison of our drift velocity estimates with SuperDARN convection maps. The article is essentially an extended version of the conference paper: “Determining ionospheric drift and anisotropy of irregularities from LOFAR core measurements”, Signal Processing Symposium 2021 (SPSympo 2021).

Introduction Pure arterial malformations (PAMs) are rare vascular abnormalities defined as dilated, tortuous arterial loops without any associated venous compartment. PAMs are thought to be benign developmental anomalies that can be safely managed conservatively. Methods We present a case of life-threatening hemorrhage in a patient with a PAM associated with two aneurysms and review the literature describing hemorrhages associated with PAMs. Results A 65-year-old female presented with subarachnoid and intraventricular hemorrhage. A digital subtraction angiography revealed a posterior inferior cerebellar artery PAM associated with two saccular aneurysms, which were subsequently microsurgically clipped. At the 1-year follow-up, the patient was neurologically intact. In our literature review, we identified 21 papers describing a total of 37 PAMs. Patients were predominantly female (64.9%) and their median age was 35 years. Almost half (48.6%) of PAMs were associated with aneurysms. In the group of PAMs that were not associated with an aneurysm, the intracranial hemorrhage rate was 15.8%, while in cases of coexisting PAM and aneurysm it was 44.4% (p = .0789). Conclusions PAM natural history remains unknown, particularly in cases of coexistence with aneurysms. Patients so affected require careful observation. The description of PAMs as benign vascular malformations should be revised. Surgical management of hemorrhagic PAMs coexisting with aneurysms is possible and should be considered.

Background: Social networking sites (SNSs) play an important role in many aspects of life nowadays, and it seems to be crucial to explore their impact on human well-being and functioning. The main aim of the study was to examine the mediating role of Facebook intrusion between positive capital and general distress. Positive capital was considered as comprising self-esteem, ego-resiliency, and self-control, while general distress was seen as having three dimensions: depression, anxiety, and stress.Methods: The sample consisted of N = 4,495 participants (M = 22.96 years, SD = 5.46) from 14 countries: Australia, Cyprus, Greece, Hong Kong, Lithuania, New Zealand, Peru, Poland, Russia, Spain, Turkey, Ukraine, United Kingdom, and United States. We used the following methods: the Facebook Intrusion Questionnaire (FIQ), the Self-Esteem Scale (SES), the Brief Self-Control Scale (SCS), The Ego Resiliency Revised Scale and the Depression, Anxiety, and Stress Scale-21 (DASS-21).Results: We found that Facebook intrusion was a mediator between self-esteem and general distress and between self-control and general distress.Limitations: The present study was based on a cross-sectional study, and the measures used were self-report measures. The majority of the participants were recruited using convenience sampling.Conclusions: The present findings contribute to a better understanding on how the social media have impact on individual mental health. Implications for future studies are discussed.

The current research aimed to study the strategies that people employ in order to become more desirable as mates in different cultural settings. More specifically, using a closed-ended questionnaire on a sample of 7181 participants from 14 different countries, we identified 10 different strategies that people employ to become more appealing as mates. Participants indicated that they had more frequently used the "Enhance looks," followed by the "Show off abilities and talents," and the "Demonstrate similarity" strategies. On the other hand, they had less frequently used the "Keep undesirable things hidden," the "Show off and exaggerate wealth and abilities," and the "Drastic appearance changes" strategies. Female participants indicated that they had more extensive used the "Enhance looks" strategy than male participants, while male participants indicated that they had more extensive used the "Increase income and social status" and the "Show off and exaggerate wealth and abilities" strategies than female participants. The sex effects, as well as the extent of use, were generally consistent across the different cultures. The identified strategies were classified further into two main strategies, namely the "Develop and demonstrate desirable traits" and the "Deceive about undesirable traits," which was generally consistent across the different countries. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]