To compare rates of clinical response in children with Clostridioides difficile infection (CDI) treated with metronidazole vs vancomycin.

Retrospective cohort study was performed as a secondary analysis of a previously established prospective cohort of hospitalized children with CDI. For 187 participants 2–17 years of age who were treated with metronidazole and/or vancomycin, the primary outcome of clinical response (defined as resolution of diarrhea within 5 days of treatment initiation) was identified retrospectively. Baseline variables associated with the primary outcome were included in a logistic regression propensity score model estimating the likelihood of receiving metronidazole vs vancomycin. Logistic regression using inverse probability of treatment weighting (IPTW) was used to estimate the effect of treatment on clinical response.

One hundred seven subjects received metronidazole and 80 subjects received vancomycin as primary treatment. There was no univariable association between treatment group and clinical response; 78.30% (N = 83) of the metronidazole treatment group and 78.75% (N = 63) of the vancomycin group achieved clinical response (P = 0.941). After adjustment using propensity scores with IPTW, the odds of a clinical response for participants who received metronidazole was 0.554 (95% CI: 0.272, 1.131) times the odds of those who received vancomycin (P = 0.105).

In this observational cohort study of pediatric inpatients with CDI, the rate of resolution of diarrhea after 5 days of treatment did not differ among children who received metronidazole vs vancomycin.

This report describes the implementation and evaluation of a unique escape room game/unfolding public health preparedness simulation into nursing education. The innovative approach was designed to teach disease investigation, epidemiological principles, and technical skills such as the tuberculosis (TB) skin testing techniques.

The escape room/unfolding health preparedness simulation was implemented with 29 pre-licensure nursing students and involved game-like activities as well as a realistic disaster simulation scenario with standardized patients.

The project yielded positive outcomes, with students demonstrating increased knowledge and confidence. Students also recommended the simulation for teaching disaster preparedness, highlighting its effectiveness. Evaluation data also suggested refinement of the simulation around the nurses’ roles.

While implementing this teaching innovation had challenges, the approach enhanced active learning, critical thinking, and teamwork in nursing education, preparing students for real-world health care challenges. The project underscores the importance of such simulations in training nursing students for public health emergencies. It also highlights the need for further research to assess long-term impacts on student outcomes, indicating the potential for continued improvement and development in the field.

Previous studies identified clusters of first-episode psychosis (FEP) patients based on cognition and premorbid adjustment. This study examined a range of socio-environmental risk factors associated with clusters of FEP, aiming a) to compare clusters of FEP and community controls using the Maudsley Environmental Risk Score for psychosis (ERS), a weighted sum of the following risks: paternal age, childhood adversities, cannabis use, and ethnic minority membership; b) to explore the putative differences in specific environmental risk factors in distinguishing within patient clusters and from controls.

A univariable general linear model (GLS) compared the ERS between 1,263 community controls and clusters derived from 802 FEP patients, namely, low (n = 223) and high-cognitive-functioning (n = 205), intermediate (n = 224) and deteriorating (n = 150), from the EU-GEI study. A multivariable GLS compared clusters and controls by different exposures included in the ERS.

The ERS was higher in all clusters compared to controls, mostly in the deteriorating (β=2.8, 95% CI 2.3 3.4, η2 = 0.049) and the low-cognitive-functioning cluster (β=2.4, 95% CI 1.9 2.8, η2 = 0.049) and distinguished them from the cluster with high-cognitive-functioning. The deteriorating cluster had higher cannabis exposure (meandifference = 0.48, 95% CI 0.49 0.91) than the intermediate having identical IQ, and more people from an ethnic minority (meandifference = 0.77, 95% CI 0.24 1.29) compared to the high-cognitive-functioning cluster.

High exposure to environmental risk factors might result in cognitive impairment and lower-than-expected functioning in individuals at the onset of psychosis. Some patients’ trajectories involved risk factors that could be modified by tailored interventions.

Trace amine-associated receptor 1 (TAAR1) agonists offer a new approach, but there is uncertainty regarding their effects, exact mechanism of action and potential role in treating psychosis.

To evaluate the available evidence on TAAR1 agonists in psychosis, using triangulation of the output of living systematic reviews (LSRs) of animal and human studies, and provide recommendations for future research prioritisation.

This study is part of GALENOS (Global Alliance for Living Evidence on aNxiety, depressiOn and pSychosis). In the triangulation process, a multidisciplinary group of experts, including those with lived experience, met and appraised the first co-produced living systematic reviews from GALENOS, on TAAR1 agonists.

The animal data suggested a potential antipsychotic effect, as TAAR1 agonists reduced locomotor activity induced by pro-psychotic drug treatment. Human studies showed few differences for ulotaront and ralmitaront compared with placebo in improving overall symptoms in adults with acute schizophrenia (four studies, n = 1291 participants, standardised mean difference (SMD) 0.15, 95% CI −0.05 to 0.34). Large placebo responses were seen in ulotaront phase three trials. Ralmitaront was less efficacious than risperidone (one study, n = 156 participants, SMD = −0.53, 95% CI −0.86 to −0.20). The side-effect profile of TAAR1 agonists was favourable compared with existing antipsychotics. Priorities for future studies included (a) using different animal models of psychosis with greater translational validity; (b) animal and human studies with wider outcomes including cognitive and affective symptoms and (c) mechanistic studies and investigations of other potential applications, such as adjunctive treatments and long-term outcomes. Recommendations for future iterations of the LSRs included (a) meta-analysis of individual human participant data, (b) including studies that used different methodologies and (c) assessing other disorders and symptoms.

This co-produced, international triangulation examined the available evidence and developed recommendations for future research and clinical applications for TAAR1 agonists in psychosis. Broader challenges included difficulties in assessing the risk of bias, reproducibility, translation and interpretability of animal models to clinical outcomes, and a lack of individual and clinical characteristics in the human data. The research will inform a separate, independent prioritisation process, led by lived experience experts, to prioritise directions for future research.

The association between cannabis and psychosis is established, but the role of underlying genetics is unclear. We used data from the EU-GEI case-control study and UK Biobank to examine the independent and combined effect of heavy cannabis use and schizophrenia polygenic risk score (PRS) on risk for psychosis.

Genome-wide association study summary statistics from the Psychiatric Genomics Consortium and the Genomic Psychiatry Cohort were used to calculate schizophrenia and cannabis use disorder (CUD) PRS for 1098 participants from the EU-GEI study and 143600 from the UK Biobank. Both datasets had information on cannabis use.

In both samples, schizophrenia PRS and cannabis use independently increased risk of psychosis. Schizophrenia PRS was not associated with patterns of cannabis use in the EU-GEI cases or controls or UK Biobank cases. It was associated with lifetime and daily cannabis use among UK Biobank participants without psychosis, but the effect was substantially reduced when CUD PRS was included in the model. In the EU-GEI sample, regular users of high-potency cannabis had the highest odds of being a case independently of schizophrenia PRS (OR daily use high-potency cannabis adjusted for PRS = 5.09, 95% CI 3.08–8.43, p = 3.21 × 10−10). We found no evidence of interaction between schizophrenia PRS and patterns of cannabis use.

Regular use of high-potency cannabis remains a strong predictor of psychotic disorder independently of schizophrenia PRS, which does not seem to be associated with heavy cannabis use. These are important findings at a time of increasing use and potency of cannabis worldwide.

Cannabis use and familial vulnerability to psychosis have been associated with social cognition deficits. This study examined the potential relationship between cannabis use and cognitive biases underlying social cognition and functioning in patients with first episode psychosis (FEP), their siblings, and controls.

We analyzed a sample of 543 participants with FEP, 203 siblings, and 1168 controls from the EU-GEI study using a correlational design. We used logistic regression analyses to examine the influence of clinical group, lifetime cannabis use frequency, and potency of cannabis use on cognitive biases, accounting for demographic and cognitive variables.

FEP patients showed increased odds of facial recognition processing (FRP) deficits (OR = 1.642, CI 1.123–2.402) relative to controls but not of speech illusions (SI) or jumping to conclusions (JTC) bias, with no statistically significant differences relative to siblings. Daily and occasional lifetime cannabis use were associated with decreased odds of SI (OR = 0.605, CI 0.368–0.997 and OR = 0.646, CI 0.457–0.913 respectively) and JTC bias (OR = 0.625, CI 0.422–0.925 and OR = 0.602, CI 0.460–0.787 respectively) compared with lifetime abstinence, but not with FRP deficits, in the whole sample. Within the cannabis user group, low-potency cannabis use was associated with increased odds of SI (OR = 1.829, CI 1.297–2.578, FRP deficits (OR = 1.393, CI 1.031–1.882, and JTC (OR = 1.661, CI 1.271–2.171) relative to high-potency cannabis use, with comparable effects in the three clinical groups.

Our findings suggest increased odds of cognitive biases in FEP patients who have never used cannabis and in low-potency users. Future studies should elucidate this association and its potential implications.

This constructivist grounded theory study aimed to (1) explore patients’ experiences of and roles in interprofessional collaborative practice for chronic conditions in primary care and (2) consider the relevance and alignment of an existing theoretical framework on patients’ roles and based on the experiences of patient advocates.

High-quality management of chronic conditions requires an interprofessional collaborative practice model of care considering an individual’s mental, physical, and social health situation. Patients’ experiences of this model in the primary care setting are relatively unknown.

A constructivist grounded theory approach was taken. Interview data were collected from primary care patients with chronic conditions across Australia in August 2020 – February 2022. Interviews were recorded, transcribed verbatim, and thematically analysed by (1) initial line-by-line coding, (2) focused coding, (3) memo writing, (4) categorisation, and (5) theme and sub-theme development. Themes and sub-themes were mapped against an existing theoretical framework to expand and confirm the results from a previous study with a similar research aim.

Twenty adults with chronic conditions spanning physical disability, diabetes, heart disease, cancer, autoimmune, and mental health conditions participated. Two themes were developed: (1) Adapting to Change with two sub-themes describing how patients adapt to interprofessional team care and (2) Shifting across the spectrum of roles, with five sub-themes outlining the roles patients enact while receiving care. The findings suggest that patients’ roles are highly variable and fluid in interprofessional collaborative practice, and further work is recommended to develop a resource to support greater patient engagement in interprofessional collaborative practice.

We examined whether cannabis use contributes to the increased risk of psychotic disorder for non-western minorities in Europe.

We used data from the EU-GEI study (collected at sites in Spain, Italy, France, the United Kingdom, and the Netherlands) on 825 first-episode patients and 1026 controls. We estimated the odds ratio (OR) of psychotic disorder for several groups of migrants compared with the local reference population, without and with adjustment for measures of cannabis use.

The OR of psychotic disorder for non-western minorities, adjusted for age, sex, and recruitment area, was 1.80 (95% CI 1.39–2.33). Further adjustment of this OR for frequency of cannabis use had a minimal effect: OR = 1.81 (95% CI 1.38–2.37). The same applied to adjustment for frequency of use of high-potency cannabis. Likewise, adjustments of ORs for most sub-groups of non-western countries had a minimal effect. There were two exceptions. For the Black Caribbean group in London, after adjustment for frequency of use of high-potency cannabis the OR decreased from 2.45 (95% CI 1.25–4.79) to 1.61 (95% CI 0.74–3.51). Similarly, the OR for Surinamese and Dutch Antillean individuals in Amsterdam decreased after adjustment for daily use: from 2.57 (95% CI 1.07–6.15) to 1.67 (95% CI 0.62–4.53).

The contribution of cannabis use to the excess risk of psychotic disorder for non-western minorities was small. However, some evidence of an effect was found for people of Black Caribbean heritage in London and for those of Surinamese and Dutch Antillean heritage in Amsterdam.

To determine if the high-level personal protective equipment used in the treatment of high-consequence infectious diseases is effective at stopping the spread of pathogens to healthcare personnel (HCP) while doffing.

Personal protective equipment (PPE) is fundamental to the safety of HCPs. HCPs treating patients with high-consequence infectious diseases use several layers of PPE, forming complex protective ensembles. With high-containment PPE, step-by-step procedures are often used for donning and doffing to minimize contamination risk to the HCP, but these procedures are rarely empirically validated and instead rely on following infection prevention best practices.

A doffing protocol video for a high-containment PPE ensemble was evaluated to determine potential contamination pathways. These potential pathways were tested using fluorescence and genetically marked bacteriophages.

The experiments revealed existing protocols permit contamination pathways allowing for transmission of bacteriophages to HCPs. Updates to the doffing protocols were generated based on the discovered contamination pathways. This updated doffing protocol eliminated the movement of viable bacteriophages from the outside of the PPE to the skin of the HCP.

Our results illustrate the need for quantitative, scientific investigations of infection prevention practices, such as doffing PPE.

Incidence of first-episode psychosis (FEP) varies substantially across geographic regions. Phenotypes of subclinical psychosis (SP), such as psychotic-like experiences (PLEs) and schizotypy, present several similarities with psychosis. We aimed to examine whether SP measures varied across different sites and whether this variation was comparable with FEP incidence within the same areas. We further examined contribution of environmental and genetic factors to SP.

We used data from 1497 controls recruited in 16 different sites across 6 countries. Factor scores for several psychopathological dimensions of schizotypy and PLEs were obtained using multidimensional item response theory models. Variation of these scores was assessed using multi-level regression analysis to estimate individual and between-sites variance adjusting for age, sex, education, migrant, employment and relational status, childhood adversity, and cannabis use. In the final model we added local FEP incidence as a second-level variable. Association with genetic liability was examined separately.

Schizotypy showed a large between-sites variation with up to 15% of variance attributable to site-level characteristics. Adding local FEP incidence to the model considerably reduced the between-sites unexplained schizotypy variance. PLEs did not show as much variation. Overall, SP was associated with younger age, migrant, unmarried, unemployed and less educated individuals, cannabis use, and childhood adversity. Both phenotypes were associated with genetic liability to schizophrenia.

Schizotypy showed substantial between-sites variation, being more represented in areas where FEP incidence is higher. This supports the hypothesis that shared contextual factors shape the between-sites variation of psychosis across the spectrum.

Persistent brain fog is common in adults with Post-Acute Sequelae of SARS-CoV-2 infection (PASC), in whom it causes distress and in many cases interferes with performance of instrumental activities of daily living (IADL) and return-to-work. There are no interventions with rigorous evidence of efficacy for this new, often disabling condition. The purpose of this pilot is to evaluate the efficacy, on a preliminary basis, of a new intervention for this condition termed Constraint-Induced Cognitive therapy (CICT). CICT combines features of two established therapeutic approaches: cognitive speed of processing training (SOPT) developed by the laboratory of K. Ball and the Transfer Package and task-oriented training components of Constraint-Induced Movement therapy developed by the laboratory of E. Taub and G. Uswatte.

Participants were > 3 months after recovery from acute COVID symptoms and had substantial brain fog and impairment in IADL. Participants were randomized to CICT immediately or after a 3-month delay. CICT involved 36 hours of outpatient therapy distributed over 4-6 weeks. Sessions had three components: (a) videogamelike training designed to improve how quickly participants process sensory input (SOPT), (b) training on IADLs following shaping principles, and (c) a set of behavioral techniques designed to transfer gains from the treatment setting to daily life, i.e., the Transfer Package. The Transfer Package included (a) negotiating a behavioral contract with participants and one or more family members about the responsibilities of the participants, family members, and treatment team; (b) assigning homework during and after the treatment period; (c) monitoring participants’ out-of-session behavior; (d) supporting problem-solving by participants and family members about barriers to performance of IADL; and (e) making follow-up phone calls. IADL performance, brain fog severity, and cognitive impairment were assessed using validated, trans-diagnostic measures before and after treatment and three months afterwards in the immediate-CICT group and on parallel occasions in the delayed-CICT group (aka waitlist controls).

To date, five were enrolled in the immediate-CICT group; four were enrolled in the wait-list group. All had mild cognitive impairment, except for one with moderate impairment in the immediate-CICT group. Immediate-CICT participants, on average, had large reductions in brain fog severity on the Mental Clutter Scale (MCS, range = 0 to 10 points, mean change = -3.7, SD = 2.0); wait-list participants had small increases (mean change = 1.0, SD = 1.4). Notably, all five in the immediate-CICT group had clinically meaningful improvements (i.e., changes > 2 points) in performance of IADL outside the treatment setting as measured by the Canadian Occupational Performance Measure (COPM) Performance scale; only one did in the wait-list group. The advantage for the immediate-CICT group was very large on both the MCS and COPM (d’s = 1.7, p’s < .05). In follow-up, immediate-CICT group gains were retained or built-upon.

These preliminary findings warrant confirmation by a large-scale randomized controlled trial. To date, CICT shows high promise as an efficacious therapy for brain fog due to PASC. CICT participants had large, meaningful improvements in IADL performance outside the treatment setting, in addition to large reductions in brain fog severity.