Academic procrastination has been a widespread problem behavior among undergraduates. This study aimed to examine the prevalence of academic procrastination among undergraduates in health ...professions, and explore the mediation effects of self-efficacy for self-regulation and fear of failure in the relationship between self-esteem and academic procrastination. A cross-sectional design was used to study 1184 undergraduates in health professions from China. Participants completed measures of academic procrastination, self-esteem, self-efficacy for self-regulation and fear of failure. We used Pearson product-moment correlation to examine the bivariate correlations between study variables, and path analysis to examine mediation. Among the 1184 undergraduates, 877 (74.1%) procrastinated on at least one type of academic task. The total score for academic procrastination was negatively correlated with scores for self-esteem and self-efficacy for self-regulation, and positively correlated with the score for fear of failure. Moreover, the relationship between self-esteem and academic procrastination was fully mediated by self-efficacy for self-regulation (indirect effect: β = − .15, 95% bootstrap CI − .19 to − .11) and fear of failure (indirect effect: β = − .06, 95% bootstrap CI − .09 to − .04). These findings suggest that interventions targeting the enhancement of self-efficacy for self-regulation and the conquest of fear of failure may prevent or reduce academic procrastination among undergraduates in health professions, especially for those with lower self-esteem.
Self-management intervention is an important component of disease management in patients with heart failure. It can improve heart failure knowledge, quality of life, and heart failure-related ...hospitalizations of heart failure patients. However, studies on the effect of two self-management interventions tasks have reported conflicting results.
This study conducted an up-to-date systematic review of the literature to evaluate the effects of self-management interventions on heart failure knowledge, quality of life, and heart failure-related hospitalizations in patients with heart failure.
Systematic review and meta-analysis.
We searched PubMed, Embase, Web of Science, Cochrane Library, and the references of articles in 14th December 2019.
The study characteristics included: authors, year, country, sample size, mean age of patients with heart failure, duration of intervention, recruitment and intervention delivery, interventions based on self-efficacy theory, cognitive behavioral therapy, disease management, self-care education. The risk of bias for each study was assessed independently by two investigators based on the Cochrane Handbook. This study used Revman to analyze different research outcomes. The fixed-effect model was used in the absence of significant heterogeneity or low heterogeneity, and if the heterogeneity was high, the random effect model was used.
A total of 4977 publications were retrieved in this study. After eliminating duplicates and screening for titles and abstracts, 209 articles were retrieved for full-text evaluation. Finally, a total sample size analyzed across 15 randomized controlled trials was 2630 participants. This study showed that self-management interventions significantly improved heart failure knowledge (0.61, 95% confidence interval (CI) 0.27–0.95, p = 0.0004), quality of life (0.20, 95% CI 0.02–0.38, p = 0.03), and heart failure-related hospitalization (OR 0.40, 95% CI 0.29 to 0.55, p<0.00001) in patients with heart failure.
This study reveals the beneficial effects of self-management interventions on heart failure knowledge, quality of life, and heart failure-related hospitalization in patients with heart failure. Therefore, high quality randomized controlled designs are needed to explore the optimal self-management interventions for patients with heart failure.
Tweetable abstract: This study reveals self-management interventions can improve heart failure knowledge, quality of life, and reduced heart failure-related hospitalization.
For solving the problem of the abandonment of the career in nursing undergraduates, it is important to understand their motivation to choose nursing as a career and its associated personal and ...situational factors.
To examine the relationships between optimism, educational environment, career adaptability, and career motivation in nursing undergraduates using the career construction model of adaptation.
This study adopted a cross-sectional design.
A convenience sample of 1060 nursing undergraduates from three universities completed questionnaires for measuring optimism, educational environment, career adaptability, and career motivation. Confirmatory factor analyses, descriptive analyses, comparison analyses, correlation analyses, and mediation analyses were performed accordingly.
Nursing undergraduates' career motivation was positively correlated with their career adaptability (r = 0.41, P < 0.01), the educational environment (r = 0.60, P < 0.01), and optimism (r = 0.26, P < 0.01). In addition, the effects of optimism and educational environment on career motivation were partially mediated by career adaptability in nursing undergraduates.
In nursing undergraduates, the educational environment had a relatively strong positive association with career motivation, while optimism had a weak one. Career adaptability played a mediating role in the relationships. Targeted interventions may improve nursing undergraduates' career motivation.
Self-care can improve heart failure outcomes. Self-care confidence is associated with self-care behaviors and may serve as a mediator between potential influencing factors (e.g. functional capacity, ...knowledge, and health literacy) and self-care behaviors. However, evidence is limited on these relationships. The COM-B model (consisting of capability, opportunity, and motivation) may be an appropriate framework to understand the above relationships.
The purpose of this study was to explore factors associated with self-care behaviors and to examine the mediating role of self-care confidence.
Three hundred and twenty-one patients (mean age 64 years, 51% male) with chronic heart failure completed measures of functional capacity, knowledge, health literacy, social support, socioeconomic status, self-care, and sociodemographic and clinical characteristics. Structural equation modeling was used to analyze the data.
The scores for self-care maintenance and management were 48.4±15.9 and 54.3±19.3, respectively. The revised model showed good fit (root mean square error of approximation=0.029; comparative fit index=0.989). Functional capacity and knowledge were directly associated with self-care management, and health literacy and social support were directly related to self-care maintenance. Moreover, self-care confidence mediated the relationships between knowledge, health literacy, social support and self-care behaviors.
Chinese patients with chronic heart failure have poor self-care behaviors. Factors associated with self-care behaviors are confidence, functional capacity, knowledge, health literacy and social support. Self-care confidence appears to be a mediator between knowledge, health literacy, social support and self-care behaviors. Targeted interventions are required to optimize self-care behaviors in patients with chronic heart failure.
Viral vectors derived from different virus families, including poxvirus (canarypox virus vector ALVAC) and adenovirus (human Ad5 vector), have been widely used in vaccine development for a range of ...human diseases including HIV/AIDS. Less is known about the mechanisms underlying the host innate response to these vectors. Increasing evidence from clinical vaccine trials testing different viral vectors has suggested the importance of understanding basic elements of host-viral vector interactions. In this study, we investigated the innate interactions of APCs with two commonly used HIV vaccine vectors, ALVAC and Ad5, and identified AIM2 as an innate sensor for ALVAC, triggering strong inflammasome activation in both human and mouse APCs. Microarray and comprehensive gene-knockout analyses (CRISPR/Cas9) identified that ALVAC stimulated the cGAS/IFI16-STING-type I IFN pathway to prime AIM2, which was functionally required for ALVAC-induced inflammasome activation. We also provided evidence that, in contrast to ALVAC, the Ad5 vector itself was unable to induce inflammasome activation, which was related to its inability to stimulate the STING-type I IFN pathway and to provide inflammasome-priming signals. In preconditioned APCs, the Ad5 vector could stimulate inflammasome activation through an AIM2-independent mechanism. Therefore, our study identifies the AIM2 inflammasome and cGAS/IFI16-STING-type I IFN pathway as a novel mechanism for host innate immunity to the ALVAC vaccine vector.
This study aimed to explore the experiences of adaptation in heart failure (HF) patients according to the Roy adaptation model. A qualitative study was conducted between December 2020 and March 2021 ...in China. A total of 21 patients with HF were recruited at of two general hospitals. Semi structured face-to-face interviews were conducted with each participant. NVivo 11 was used to encode the transcription and thematic analysis was preformed to analyze the transcripts. Eleven minor themes emerged from the data, namely unbalanced nutrition, inappropriate activities, unrestricted liquid intake, excessive sodium intake, worrying about the future, negative emotions, poor spiritual aspect, unable to fulfill social roles, forced to stop work, interpersonal alienation, and less communication with friends or family. Most participants with HF experienced poor disease adaptation. The themes that emerged offer a new perspective on the experiences of disease adaptation in patients with HF.
Self-efficacy is crucial to the management of chronic disease. However, little is known about self-efficacy for managing chronic disease in patients with chronic heart failure.
The purpose of this ...study was to determine the incidence of inadequate self-efficacy for managing chronic disease and to identify the associated psychosocial factors in Chinese patients with chronic heart failure.
A cross-sectional design was used. One hundred and fifty-nine chronic heart failure patients (mean age 63 years, 53% female) completed instruments related to self-efficacy for managing chronic disease, general self-efficacy, anxiety and depression, perceived social support, and demographic/clinical variables.
Of 159 patients, 46 patients (29%) had inadequate self-efficacy for managing chronic disease (the mean score on the Self-efficacy for Managing Chronic Disease Six-Item Scale (SECD6) was<7). The scores for general self-efficacy and perceived social support were positively correlated with the mean SECD6 score (p<0.01), whereas the scores for anxiety and depression were negatively correlated with the mean SECD6 score (p<0.01). Multiple linear regression analysis revealed that the factors associated with self-efficacy for managing chronic disease were general self-efficacy, depression and perceived social support, and three factors accounted for 29% of the variance.
In Chinese patients with chronic heart failure, the prevalence of inadequate self-efficacy for managing chronic disease is high; general self-efficacy, depression and perceived social support are independent factors associated with self-efficacy for managing chronic disease. The screening of patients' self-efficacy and the implementation of relevant interventions may be beneficial to the promotion of self-management.
Identifying modifiable factors associated with depressive symptoms is important to develop corresponding strategies. This study aimed to determine the holistic factors related to depressive symptoms ...in heart failure (HF) patients. It was a secondary analysis of a cross-sectional study. We recruited 329 hospitalized HF patients from two hospitals in China. It is found that HF patients had a relatively high proportion (28.27%) of depressive symptoms. Red blood cell distribution width (RDW) (β = .222, p = .011) and physical symptoms (β = .151, p < .001) were positively associated with depressive symptoms, whereas resilience (β = −.241, p < .01) and family functioning (β = −.288, p = .001) were negatively associated with depressive symptoms. Thus, early screening and management of depressive symptoms are warranted. RDW may serve as a marker for screening depressive symptoms. Moreover, interventions focused on relieving physical symptoms and enhancing resilience and family functioning may reduce depressive symptoms.
The study of HIV infection and pathogenicity in physical reservoirs requires a biologically relevant model. The human immune system (HIS) mouse is an established model of HIV infection, but defects ...in immune tissue reconstitution remain a challenge for examining pathology in tissues. We utilized exogenous injection of the human recombinant FMS-like tyrosine kinase 3 ligand (rFLT-3 L) into the hematopoietic stem cell (HSC) cord blood HIS mouse model to significantly expand the total area of lymph node (LN) and the number of circulating human T cells. The results enabled visualization and quantification of HIV infectivity, CD4 T cell depletion and other measures of pathogenesis in the secondary lymphoid tissues of the spleen and LN. Treatment with the Caspase-1/4 inhibitor VX-765 limited CD4
T cell loss in the spleen and reduced viral load in both the spleen and axillary LN. In situ hybridization further demonstrated a decrease in viral RNA in both the spleen and LN. Transcriptomic analysis revealed that in vivo inhibition of caspase-1/4 led to an upregulation in host HIV restriction factors including SAMHD1 and APOBEC3A. These findings highlight the use of rFLT-3 L to augment human immune system characteristics in HIS mice to support investigations of HIV pathogenesis and test host directed therapies, though further refinements are needed to further augment LN architecture and cellular populations. The results further provide in vivo evidence of the potential to target inflammasome pathways as an avenue of host-directed therapy to limit immune dysfunction and virus replication in tissue compartments of HIV
persons.