According to the principles of the European Pillar of Social Rights, everyone should be entitled to an adequate minimum income sufficient for a healthy diet. Studies show that food insecurity remains a concern in Europe, highlighting the need to determine budgets for adequate nutrition, known as Food Reference Budgets. Previous approaches, based on expert-designed food baskets or focus group discussions, are often limited by their normative nature and/or low representativeness.

To address these problems, this study explores Linear Programming as a novel method to calculate Food Reference Budgets for twenty-six EU member states. To analyse if Linear Programming could be an adequate tool to calculate future Food Reference Budgets, this method was used to design country-specific food baskets that align with consumption habits and healthy diet requirements. The food baskets were then priced at different levels to determine the cost for healthy diets in twenty-six European countries.

Germany.

The calculations are based on consumption data from the EU Household Budget Survey (EU-HBS) from 2015 (2010 for Malta, Portugal and Slovenia). For Germany, data from the national income and consumption survey was used instead, as German data was not included in the EU-HBS.

The results show a positive correlation between optimised healthy and current observed diets for most food groups, indicating that country-specific preferences are reflected in the optimised healthy food baskets. Nevertheless, to meet healthy diet requirements, consumption of vegetables, fruit, fish and dairy must increase compared with the current observed diets. At a lower price level, the Food Reference Budgets ranged from 2·38 to 5·71 €/day, depending on the country. With a low-price level (20th percentile), costs for healthy diet accounted for between 5·74 % of income in Luxembourg and 29·00 % in Romania, showing the large differences in affordability between countries.

Overall, it was concluded that Linear Programming could be a promising approach for determining uniform and comparable European Food Reference Budgets and should be discussed in the context of the EU Commission’s efforts to modernise the European minimum income schemes.

Despite the increasing implementation of consultation-based hospice palliative care teams in tertiary hospitals of Korea, there is limited research on their impact on self-determination respect rates. Understanding this impact is crucial for improving end-of-life care practices and respecting patient autonomy. The aim of this study is to assess the trends in self-determination respect rates regarding advance care planning before and after the introduction of a consultation-based hospice palliative care team in a tertiary hospital.

A retrospective observational study was conducted using medical records from a tertiary hospital in Korea from March 2018 to December 2023. The study included all patients aged 19 years and older with medical records at a tertiary hospital during the specified period. We examined the characteristics of patients referred to the palliative care team, the effects of the consultation-based hospice palliative care team on the completion rates of advanced care planning, and changes in self-determination respect rates.

Following the introduction of the consultation-based hospice palliative care team, 411 patients were referred. The proportion of patients with completed advance care planning increased from 27.0% to 60.6% (p < 0.001). The overall number of advanced care planning completions and the self-determination respect rate also showed a marked increase, particularly from 2021 to 2022, when the respect rate spiked from 27.6% to 43.2%.

Introduction of a consultation-based hospice palliative care team improved the respect for patient self-determination in end-of-life care decisions. These findings support the integration of hospice care teams in tertiary hospitals to enhance early and informed end-of-life decision-making.

Declining participant engagement threatens human subjects research. Participant feedback systems (PFS) may combat this decline by empowering participants to evaluate their research experiences and share that feedback with researchers to identify targets for improvement. PFS signal that participant experiences are prioritized, making the request for feedback itself an intervention. PFS design work remains largely confined to clinical research. This exploratory study investigates the design parameters of extending PFS to nonclinical research. We conducted focus groups with nonclinical stakeholders: Experienced research participants (ERP) and research team members (RTM).

ERP focus groups were organized by affinity (LGBTQIA+, BIPOC, persons with disabilities, neurodivergent, and a general group). RTM focus groups were organized by unit within the University of Michigan. Transcripts were analyzed using inductive thematic analysis.

Ten focus groups (ERP: 5, n = 25; RTM: 5, n = 26) identified key PFS design considerations: (1) motivations for feedback, (2) feedback collection, and (3) feedback delivery. ERP and RTM collectively preferred anonymous web-based surveys with six potential topic areas: communication, respect, being valued, receiving value, burden, and safety. Feedback delivery faced two key design tensions: balancing institutional standardization with study-specific insights and aligning leadership’s preference for high-level summaries with frontline staff’s need for detailed, real-time feedback.

Expanding PFS to nonclinical research requires balancing centralization and study-specific flexibility. While centralization enhances consistency, the diversity of nonclinical studies necessitates adaptable implementation. A hybrid model is proposed to optimize feasibility. Future research should refine and test this model.

As natural disasters become more frequent and severe, healthcare organizations are tasked with ensuring both operational continuity and workforce wellbeing. This study examines the preparedness, response, and recovery efforts of a nationally ranked children’s hospital in the southeastern United States during the 2024 hurricane season, focusing specifically on the experiences of advanced psychology trainees.

Doctoral and postdoctoral trainees (N = 9) completed a brief anonymous survey examining departmental and organizational hurricane preparedness strategies and response following two successive hurricanes.

Results revealed variable engagement of trainees with preparedness materials and increased distress with threat of the second storm. Communication from training directors was identified as a key support factor, with trainees preferring personalized updates over broader organizational messaging. While most trainees reported their long-term career decisions are unlikely to be impacted by their hurricane experiences, one-third noted that geographic risk may influence future professional choices.

Findings highlight the importance of integrating disaster preparedness into training programs and underscore the need for tailored supports to promote psychological resilience during times of uncertainty. Limitations and recommendations for future multi-site, multi-informant, mixed-methods research are discussed to inform best practices in disaster preparedness for healthcare trainees.

To examine awareness of metabolic syndrome, lifestyle habits and attitudes towards physical health monitoring in a cohort of service users prescribed clozapine.

A cross-sectional study, utilising chart reviews and surveys, of service users attending a clozapine clinic in Ireland, to examine awareness of metabolic syndrome, current dietary and exercise habits and attitudes towards physical health checks for metabolic syndrome was conducted.

Sixty-nine service users attending the clozapine clinic (53.1% of attendees) participated in the study of which 23 (33.3%) participants met criteria for metabolic syndrome within the previous 12 months. Nine (13.0%) participants were aware of the term “metabolic syndrome”, with six aware of what metabolic syndrome entailed. Forty-seven (68.1%) participants described their diet as “healthy”, with 17 (24.6%) participants reporting the consumption of five portions of fruit and vegetables per day on a regular basis. Thirty-eight (55.1%) participants reported engaging in ≥ 2.5 hours of exercise per week. Most participants (> 70% for all physical indices) agreed that physical health monitoring was important with 46 participants (66.7%) stating physical health monitoring should occur monthly.

Although there was a limited awareness and understanding of “metabolic syndrome” in this cohort of service users prescribed clozapine, monitoring of physical health indices was acknowledged as important. Early dietary and exercise interventions in an attempt to combat high morbidity and premature mortality rates are advised for this service user cohort.

Structural abnormalities in cortical and subcortical brain regions are consistently observed in schizophrenia; however, substantial inter-individual variability complicates identifying clear neurobiological biomarkers. The Person-Based Similarity Index (PBSI) quantifies individual structural variability; however, its applicability across schizophrenia stages remains unclear. This study aimed to compare cortical and subcortical structural variability in recent-onset and chronic schizophrenia and explore associations with clinical measures.

Neuroimaging data from 41 patients with recent-onset schizophrenia, 32 with chronic schizophrenia, and 59 healthy controls were analysed. The PBSI scores were calculated for cortical thickness, surface area, cortical grey matter volume, and subcortical volumes. Group differences in PBSI scores were assessed using linear regression and analysis of variance. Correlations between the PBSI scores and clinical measures were also examined.

Both patients with recent-onset and chronic schizophrenia exhibited significantly lower PBSI scores than healthy controls, indicating greater morphometric heterogeneity. However, significant differences between the recent-onset and chronic patient groups were limited to subcortical and cortical thickness PBSI scores. Correlations between PBSI scores and clinical symptoms are sparse and primarily restricted to surface area variability and symptom severity in patients with recent-onset schizophrenia.

Patients with schizophrenia show marked structural brain heterogeneity compared with healthy controls, which is detectable even in the early stages of the illness. Although there were few differences in PBSI scores between the recent-onset and chronic schizophrenia groups and limited correlations between PBSI scores and clinical measures, the PBSI may still provide valuable insights into individual differences contributing to clinical heterogeneity in schizophrenia.

Through a range of coping strategies, individuals seek to manage the stressors to which they are exposed, employing cognitive and behavioral responses that shape their emotional regulation of such events. Emergency first responders are routinely subjected to high-stress situations due to the nature of their duties and the continuous care of critically ill patients. This sustained exposure significantly increases their vulnerability to the development of mental health disorders, notably posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD).

The aim of this study was to determine the coping strategies used by first responders when facing critical incidents and their association with PTSD.

A cross-sectional analytical study was conducted in 2022. All first responders from a volunteer fire department in a major Colombian city who voluntarily agreed to participate were included in the study. The participants were 28 ambulance crew members and 187 firefighters. Descriptive statistics were used for data analysis, and logistic regression models were applied to assess associations with PTSD. Principal components analysis was used to compute total scores, while the Lasso Method identified significant predictors.

The first responders most often employed avoidance and denial as coping strategies in response to the demands of their work in the prehospital field. After witnessing devastating events, many of them turned to religion for stress relief.

The study identified the use of maladaptive strategies associated with PTSD among staff, making it critical to develop training programs that help first responders cope with critical incidents by developing adaptive coping skills.