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Background and Objectives : Direct oral anticoagulants (DOACs) are used for minimising the risk of thromboembolic events. In clinical practice, there is no need to measure DOAC concentration in the routine. Nevertheless, there are cases where such measurements are necessary, as the European Society of Cardiology's guideline recommends. However, determining DOAC levels is not available for everyone due to chromogenic assay availability limitations from sample storage problems, as tests are performed only in a few healthcare settings. This study aimed to assess whether more applicable storage conditions could be used for transportation to provide chromogenic assays for outpatient healthcare and other hospitals' practices. Materials and Methods : Chromogenic assays measuring anti-FXa (for rivaroxaban and edoxaban) and anti-FIIa (for dabigatran) were used. Concentrations were determined immediately after blood collection as baseline value: (1) after the storage of citrated whole blood in refrigerator (+2-8 °C); (2) of citrated plasma in refrigerator (+2-8 °C); and (3) of citrated frozen plasma (-20 °C) on the third and seventh days of storage. Acceptable change limits were considered stable if the deviation did not exceed ±20% of the baseline value. Results : The median (Cl 95%) baseline value of rivaroxaban was 168 (147-236) ng/mL; of dabigatran 139 (99-178) ng/mL; and of edoxaban-174 (135-259) ng/mL. The median deviation from a baseline value stored as citrate whole blood samples (+2-8 °C) was 5.4% and 3.4%; as citrated plasma (+2-8 °C) was 0.4% and -0.6%; and as citrated frozen plasma (-20 °C) was -0.2% and 0.2% on the third and seventh days of storage, respectively. Conclusions : Our data suggest that whole blood samples stored in a refrigerator, as well as citrated plasma samples stored in both the refrigerator and freezer, preserve DOAC concentration stable at +2-8 °C or -20 °C for up to 7 days, and are suitable for transportation, except for low-concentration samples.

The Randomized Response Technique (Warner, Journal of the American Statistical Association, 60, 63-69, 1965) has been developed to control for socially desirable responses in surveys on sensitive attributes. The Crosswise Model (CWM; Yu et al., Metrika, 67, 251-263, 2008) and its extension, the Extended Crosswise Model (ECWM; Heck et al., Behavior Research Methods, 50, 1895-1905, 2018), are advancements of the Randomized Response Technique that have provided promising results in terms of improved validity of the obtained prevalence estimates compared to estimates based on conventional direct questions. However, recent studies have raised the question as to whether these promising results might have been primarily driven by a methodological artifact in terms of random responses rather than a successful control of socially desirable responding. The current study was designed to disentangle the influence of successful control of socially desirable responding and random answer behavior on the validity of (E)CWM estimates. To this end, we orthogonally manipulated the direction of social desirability (undesirable vs. desirable) and the prevalence (high vs. low) of sensitive attributes. Our results generally support the notion that the ECWM successfully controls social desirability bias and is inconsistent with the alternative account that ECWM estimates are distorted by a substantial influence of random responding. The results do not rule out a small proportion of random answers, especially when socially undesirable attributes with high prevalence are studied, or when high randomization probabilities are applied. Our results however do rule out that random responding is a major factor that can account for the findings attesting to the improved validity of (E)CWM as compared with DQ estimates., (© 2022. The Author(s).)

In self-reports, socially desirable responding threatens the validity of prevalence estimates for sensitive personal attitudes and behaviors. Indirect questioning techniques such as the crosswise model attempt to control for the influence of social desirability bias. The crosswise model has repeatedly been found to provide more valid prevalence estimates than direct questions. We investigated whether crosswise model estimates are also less susceptible to deliberate faking than direct questions. To this end, we investigated the effect of "fake good" instructions on responses to direct and crosswise model questions. In a sample of 1,946 university students, 12-month prevalence estimates for a sensitive road traffic behavior were higher and thus presumably more valid in the crosswise model than in a direct question. Moreover, "fake good" instructions severely impaired the validity of the direct questioning estimates, whereas the crosswise model estimates were unaffected by deliberate faking. Participants also reported higher levels of perceived confidentiality and a lower perceived ease of faking in the crosswise model compared to direct questions. Our results corroborate previous studies finding the crosswise model to be an effective tool for counteracting the detrimental effects of positive self-presentation in surveys on sensitive issues., Competing Interests: The authors have declared that no competing interests exist.

Nosocomial fungal infections are an emerging global public health threat that requires urgent attention and proper management. With the limited availability of treatment options, it has become necessary to understand the emerging epidemiological trends, mechanisms, and risk factors. However, very limited surveillance reports are available in the Latvian and broader European context. We therefore conducted a retrospective analysis of laboratory data (2017-2020) from Pauls Stradinš Clinical University Hospital (PSCUH), Riga, Latvia, which is one of the largest public multispecialty hospitals in Latvia. A total of 2278 fungal isolates were analyzed during the study period, with Candida spp. comprising 95% of the isolates, followed by Aspergillus spp. and Geotrichum spp. Amongst the Candida spp., C. albicans and C. glabrata made up about 75% of the isolates. The Department of Lung Diseases and Thoracic Surgery had the highest caseload followed by Intensive Care Department. Majority of the fungal isolates were collected from the bronchoalveolar lavage (37%), followed by urine (19%) and sputum (18%) samples. A total of 34 cases of candidemia were noted during the study period with C. albicans being the most common candidemia pathogen. Proper surveillance of emerging epidemiological trends serve as the most reliable and powerful cornerstone towards tackling this emerging threat.

Antimicrobial resistance (AMR) is one of the most serious threats in modern medicine which requires the constant monitoring of emerging trends amongst clinical isolates. However, very limited surveillance data is available in the Latvian context. In the present study, we conducted a retrospective analysis of microbiological data from one of the largest public multispecialty hospitals in Latvia from 2017 to 2020. AMR trends for 19 gram-negative bacterial (GNB) genera were investigated. During the study period, 11,437 isolates were analyzed with Escherichia spp. (34.71%), Klebsiella spp. (19.22%) and Acinetobacter spp. (10.05%) being the most isolated. Carbapenems like Meropenem and Ertapenem were the most effective against GNBs (3% and 5.4% resistance rates, respectively) while high resistance rates (>50%) were noted against both Ampicillin and Amoxicillin/Clavulanic acid. Enterobacter spp. and Klebsiella spp. showed a significant increase in resistance rate against Ertapenem ( p = 0.000) and Trimethoprim-Sulfamethoxazole ( p = 0.000), respectively. A decrease in the prevalence of Extended-Spectrum Beta-Lactamase positive (ESBL+) Enterobacterales was noted. Despite the lower prescription levels of the penicillin group antimicrobials than the European average (as reported in ESAC-Net Surveillance reports), GNBs showed high average resistant rates, indicating the role of ESBL+ isolates in driving the resistance rates. Constant and careful vigilance along with proper infection control measures are required to track the emerging trends in AMR in GNBs.

Indirect questioning techniques such as the crosswise model aim to control for socially desirable responding in surveys on sensitive personal attributes. Recently, the extended crosswise model has been proposed as an improvement over the original crosswise model. It offers all of the advantages of the original crosswise model while also enabling the detection of systematic response biases. We applied the extended crosswise model to a new sensitive attribute, campus islamophobia, and present the first experimental investigation including an extended crosswise model, and a direct questioning control condition, respectively. In a paper-pencil questionnaire, we surveyed 1,361 German university students using either a direct question or the extended crosswise model. We found that the extended crosswise model provided a good model fit, indicating no systematic response bias and allowing for a pooling of the data of both groups of the extended crosswise model. Moreover, the extended crosswise model yielded significantly higher estimates of campus Islamophobia than a direct question. This result could either indicate that the extended crosswise model was successful in controlling for social desirability, or that response biases such as false positives or careless responding have inflated the estimate, which cannot be decided on the basis of the available data. Our findings highlight the importance of detecting response biases in surveys implementing indirect questioning techniques., Competing Interests: The authors have declared that no competing interests exist.

Non-randomized response techniques (NRRTs) such as the crosswise model and the triangular model (CWM and TRM; Yu et al. Metrika, 67, 251-263, 2008) have been developed to control for socially desirable responding in surveys on sensitive personal attributes. We present the first study to directly compare the validity of the CWM and TRM and contrast their performance with a conventional direct questioning (DQ) approach. In a paper-pencil survey of 1382 students, we obtained prevalence estimates for two sensitive attributes (xenophobia and rejection of further refugee admissions) and one nonsensitive control attribute with a known prevalence (the first letter of respondents' surnames). Both NRRTs yielded descriptively higher prevalence estimates for the sensitive attributes than DQ; however, only the CWM estimates were significantly higher. We attribute the higher prevalence estimates for the CWM to its response symmetry, which is lacking in the TRM. Only the CWM provides symmetric answer options, meaning that there is no "safe" alternative respondents can choose to distance themselves from being carriers of the sensitive attribute. Prevalence estimates for the nonsensitive control attribute with known prevalence confirmed that neither method suffered from method-specific bias towards over- or underestimation. Exploratory moderator analyses further suggested that the sensitive attributes were perceived as more sensitive among politically left-oriented than among politically right-oriented respondents. Based on our results, we recommend using the CWM over the TRM in future studies on sensitive personal attributes.

The crosswise model is an indirect questioning technique designed to control for socially desirable responding. Although the technique has delivered promising results in terms of improved validity in survey studies of sensitive issues, recent studies have indicated that the crosswise model may sometimes produce false positives. Hence, we investigated whether an insufficient understanding of the crosswise model instructions might be responsible for these false positives and whether ensuring a deeper understanding of the model and surveying more highly educated respondents reduces the problem of false positives. To this end, we experimentally manipulated the amount of information respondents received in the crosswise model instructions. We compared a crosswise model condition with only brief instructions and a crosswise model condition with detailed instructions and additional comprehension checks. Additionally, we compared the validity of crosswise model estimates between a higher- and a lower-educated subgroup of respondents. Our results indicate that false positives among highly educated respondents can be reduced when detailed instructions and comprehension checks are employed. Since false positives can also occur in direct questioning, they do not appear to be a specific flaw of the crosswise model, but rather a more general problem of self-reports on sensitive topics. False negatives were found to occur for all questioning techniques, but were less prevalent in the crosswise model than in the direct questioning condition. We highlight the importance of comprehension checks when applying indirect questioning and emphasize the necessity of developing instructions suitable for lower-educated respondents., Competing Interests: The authors have declared that no competing interests exist.

For decades, sequential lineups have been considered superior to simultaneous lineups in the context of eyewitness identification. However, most of the research leading to this conclusion was based on the analysis of diagnosticity ratios that do not control for the respondent's response criterion. Recent research based on the analysis of ROC curves has found either equal discriminability for sequential and simultaneous lineups, or higher discriminability for simultaneous lineups. Some evidence for potential position effects and for criterion shifts in sequential lineups has also been reported. Using ROC curve analysis, we investigated the effects of the suspect's position on discriminability and response criteria in both simultaneous and sequential lineups. We found that sequential lineups suffered from an unwanted position effect. Respondents employed a strict criterion for the earliest lineup positions, and shifted to a more liberal criterion for later positions. No position effects and no criterion shifts were observed in simultaneous lineups. This result suggests that sequential lineups are not superior to simultaneous lineups, and may give rise to unwanted position effects that have to be considered when conducting police lineups.