Health orientation and individual tendencies of a sample of Italian genetic testing consumers

Background

Over the last decade, genetic testing (GT) had markedly spread in European countries and struggled the debate concerning the psychological effects on the population. The aim of this study was to investigate the individual tendencies of GT consumers in a sample of Italian citizens.

Methods

A total of 152 Italian clients from GenomaLab, a private genetic company, were enrolled from February 2016 to September 2018 and completed an ad hoc survey.

Results

Results showed that GT consumers were motivated to preserve their well‐being, they felt responsible for their health, they were neither pessimistic nor optimistic toward negative occurrences, and poorly inclined to take high risks in their lives. Participants who had suffered from a disease in the past appear to be less tolerant to the uncertainty for future negative events.

Conclusion

Our results depict Italian GT consumers as health‐oriented, focused on prevention, who do not have a pessimistic perception of their condition but do not like to “bet” on their health, and probably their intention (and belief) is to acquire genetic information in order to reduce uncertainty and increase their decision‐making “power” related to their health. Taken together, all these results contribute to describe the population of GT users in European countries, to regulate the provision of GT results and to entail the communication of genetic risk information based on a consumers’ personal profile.

Avatars and the Disease: Digital Customization as a Resource for Self-Perception Assessment in Breast Cancer Patients

Avatars, or users' renditions within digital environments, may change depending on modifications of users' self-conception. According to literature, chronic health conditions influence patients and survivors' identity, because living with a disease requires people to reconfigure their self-representation and their own daily life and future plans. This is especially true for breast cancer, whose treatment and surgery also affect patients' body image, sexual identity, and sense of womanhood. In this study, 22 breast cancer survivors were asked to create multiple avatars resembling their actual self (AS), their ideal self (IS), and their self connected to the disease experience; then, they were asked to rate their attitudes toward their three avatars. Results show that disease avatars are significantly different in patients' attitudes toward them from AS and IS avatars. In addition, attitudes toward one's own avatars appeared partially related to clinically relevant psychological states, such as anxiety and depression. Discussion explores suggestions for usage of avatars in interventions for assessment and quality-of-life promotion among chronic patients.

Usability Testing of Two Mini-Games and One Serious Game to Educate People About Genetics

The lowering costs of DNA sequencing and the diffusion of numerous Direct to Consumer Genetic Testing (DTC-GT) services have made genetic testing easily available to the general public who can buy them without any medical prescription or consultation. Nevertheless, the knowledge required to understand the provided results and their implications is still scarce in the general public. Starting from these considerations, we developed two mini-games and one serious game to increase people genetic literacy through experiential learning. The three games were tested for usability on a sample of 30 participants, 10 for each game, who were asked to report any positive or negative issue related to the games and to fulfill the Game Experience Questionnaire in order to evaluate their playing experience. Results from the three games show that players experienced moderate levels of immersion and flow, low levels of negative sensations, and a prevalence of positive emotions. In general, these encouraging results suggest that the proposed games are suitable to transmit genetic notions to the general public.

Serious Games for Improving Genetic Literacy and Genetic Risk Awareness in the General Public: Protocol for a Randomized Controlled Trial

Background

Genetic testing and genetic risk information are gaining importance in personalized medicine and disease prevention. However, progress in these fields does not reflect increased knowledge and awareness of genetic risk in the general public.

Objective

Our aim is to develop and test the efficacy of a suite of serious games, developed for mobile and Web platforms, in order to increase knowledge of basic genetic concepts and promote awareness of genetic risk management among lay people.

Methods

We developed a new ad-hoc game and modified an arcade game using mechanics suitable to explain genetic concepts. In addition, we developed an adventure game where players are immersed in virtual scenarios and manage genetic risk information to make health-related and interpersonal decisions and modulate their lifestyle. The pilot usability testing will be conducted with a convenience sample of 30 adults who will be categorized into 3 groups and assigned to one game each. Participants will be asked to report any positive or negative issues arising during the game. Subsequently, they will be asked to complete the Game Experience Questionnaire. Finally, a total of 60 teenagers and adults will be enrolled to assess knowledge transfer. Thirty participants will be assigned to the experimental group and asked to play the serious games, and 30 participants will be assigned to the control group and asked to read leaflets on the genetic concepts conveyed by the games. Participants of both groups will fill out a questionnaire before and after the intervention to assess their topic-specific knowledge of genetics. Furthermore, both groups will complete the self-efficacy questionnaire, which assesses the level of confidence in using genetic information.

Results

We obtained evidence of game usability in 2017. The data will be submitted to a peer-reviewed journal and used to improve the game design. Knowledge-transfer testing will begin in 2018, and we expect to collect preliminary data on the learning outcomes of serious games by December 2018.

Conclusions

It is important to educate the general public about the impact of genetics and genetic testing on disease prevention and the consequent decision-making implications. Without such knowledge, individuals are more likely to make uninformed decisions or handover all decisions regarding genetic testing to their doctors. Technological innovations such as serious games might become a valid instrument to support public education and empowerment.

International Registered Report Identifier (IRRID)

DERR1-10.2196/9288

A P5 Approach to m-Health: Design Suggestions for Advanced Mobile Health Technology

In recent years, technology has been developed as an important resource for health care management, especially in regard to chronic conditions. In the broad field of eHealth, mobile technology (mHealth) is increasingly used to empower patients not only in disease management but also in the achievement of positive experiences and experiential growth. mHealth tools are considered powerful because, unlike more traditional Internet-based tools, they allow patients to be continuously monitored and followed by their own mobile devices and to have continual access to resources (e.g., mobile apps or functions) supporting health care management activities. However, the literature has shown that, in many cases, such technology not accepted and/or adopted in the long term by its users. To address this issue, this article reviews the main factors influencing mHealth technology acceptance/adoption in health care. Finally, based on the main aspects emerging from the review, we propose an innovative approach to mHealth design and implementation, namely P5 mHealth. Relying on the P5 approach to medicine and health care, this approach provides design suggestions to address mHealth adoption issues already at the initial stages of development of the technologies.

[Barriers and facilitators for physical activity in sedentary people residing in a disadvantaged Italian neighbourhood]

OBJECTIVES

to explore which factors have a personal significance of barrier or facilitator for physical activity (PA) in sedentary subjects living in a peripheral, multiethnic, and economically disadvantaged Italian neighbourhood.

DESIGN

qualitative, descriptive phenomenological study.

SETTING AND PARTICIPANTS

the study was carried out in Ponte Lambro, a neighbourhood in the South-eastern outskirts of Milan (Lombardy Region, Northern Italy). Among the first 260 participants in a primary cardiovascular prevention programme (called ProSALUTE) targeted to this community, 63 subjects were categorized as sedentary. Out of these, 45 were selected through purposive sampling and 24 of them participated in this study.

MAIN OUTCOME MEASURES

• qualitative content analysis of semi-structured interviews conducted through motivational interviewing; • analysis of values acquired by personal value cards.

RESULTS

the factors emerged throughout the interviews were external (social support, environment, and tools) and individual (health status, self-confidence, reliance on the beneficial effects of PA, psychological issues). Barriers or facilitators were recognized in each of these factors according to the expressed significance. The most frequently chosen personal values (health, family, delight, strength and autonomy) were concordant with the contents of the interviews.

CONCLUSION

distinctive barriers and facilitators to PA are identifiable among the significances expressed by residents in a disadvantaged neighbourhood. These barriers and facilitators may be the targets of socio-environmental or personal interventions aimed to promote an active life-style.

A web-based interactive tool to improve breast cancer patient centredness

The uniqueness of a patient as determined by the integration of clinical data and psychological aspects should be the aspired aim of a personalized medicine approach. Nevertheless, given the time constraints usually imposed by the clinical setting, it is not easy for physicians to collect information about the patient’s unique mental dimensions and needs related to her illness. Such information may be useful in tailoring patient–physician communication, improving the patient’s understanding of provided information, her involvement in the treatment process, and in general her empowerment during and after the therapeutic journey. The primary objective of this study is to evaluate the effect of an interactive empowerment tool (IEm) on enhancing the breast cancer patient–physician experience, in terms of increasing empowerment, i.e. by providing physicians with a personalised patient’s profile, accompanied by specific recommendations to advise them how to interact with each individual patient on the basis of her personal profile.

The study will be implemented as a two-arm randomised controlled trial with 100 adult breast cancer patients who fill in the ALGA-BC questionnaire, a computerised validated instrument to evaluate the patient’s physical and psychological characteristics following a breast cancer diagnosis. The IEm tool will collect and analyse the patient’s answers in real time and send them, together with specific recommendations to the physician’s computer immediately before physician’s first encounter with the patient. Patients will be randomised to either the intervention group using the IEm tool or to a control group who will only fill in the questionnaire without taking advantage of the tool (physicians will not receive the patient’s profile).

The proposed approach is supposed to improve the patient–physician communication leading to increased patient participation in the therapeutic process as a consequence leading to improvement in patient empowerment and personalisation of care.

Psycho-emotional tools for better treatment adherence and therapeutic outcomes for cancer patients

Personalized medicine should target not only the genetic and clinical aspects of the individual patients but also the different cognitive, psychological, family and social factors involved in various clinical choices. To this direction, in this paper, we present instruments to assess the psycho-emotional status of cancer patients and to evaluate the resilience in their family constructing in such a way an augmented patient profile. Using this profile, 1) information provision can be tailored according to patients characteristics; 2) areas of functioning can be monitored both by the patient and by the clinicians, providing suggestions and alerts; 3) personalized decision aids can be develop to increase patient's participation in the consultation process with their physicians and improve their satisfaction and involvement in the decision-making process. Our preliminary evaluation shows promising results and the potential benefits of the tools.

Clinical Trials, Data Protection and Patient Empowerment in the Era of the New EU Regulations

Cancer clinical trials and, in general, cancer clinical research by definition need a multi-modality approach. It is not enough to discover and register new drugs. To get cancer under control requires us to perform complex clinical studies that integrate drugs, companion diagnostics, new or improved surgical procedures and new radiotherapy approaches as well as, most importantly, to integrate all available information. This includes biological material and, of increasing importance, large amounts of data using big data technologies. To personalise treatment, genetic data are more and more frequently used. Therefore, the general approach is holistic. Legislators, on the other hand, work in a silo mentality; the needs of clinical research are poorly understood, and legislation focuses on either health care or the commercialisation of a product, and not on clinical research. In the last 2 years the EU has drafted several major regulations touching on clinical trials, in vitro diagnostics, medical devices and data protection, all of which will impact clinical research, although the silo mentality makes the overall framework inconsistent and potentially highly damaging to the EU's capacity to make rapid progress in the field of personalised medicine.

Decision-Making Process Related to Participation in Phase I Clinical Trials: A Nonsystematic Review of the Existing Evidence

Due to the lack of other treatment options, patient candidates for participation in phase I clinical trials are considered the most vulnerable, and many ethical concerns have emerged regarding the informed consent process used in the experimental design of such trials. Starting with these considerations, this nonsystematic review is aimed at analyzing the decision-making processes underlying patients' decision about whether to participate (or not) in phase I trials in order to clarify the cognitive and emotional aspects most strongly implicated in this decision. Considering that there is no uniform decision calculus and that many different variables other than the patient-physician relationship (including demographic, clinical, and personal characteristics) may influence patients' preferences for and processing of information, we conclude that patients' informed decision-making can be facilitated by creating a rigorously developed, calibrated, and validated computer tool modeled on each single patient's knowledge, values, and emotional and cognitive decisional skills. Such a tool will also help oncologists to provide tailored medical information that is useful to improve the shared decision-making process, thereby possibly increasing patient participation in clinical trials.

Development and psychometric testing of a breast cancer patient-profiling questionnaire

Introduction

The advent of “personalized medicine” has been driven by technological advances in genomics. Concentration at the subcellular level of a patient’s cancer cells has meant inevitably that the “person” has been overlooked. For this reason, we think there is an urgent need to develop a truly personalized approach focusing on each patient as an individual, assessing his/her unique mental dimensions and tailoring interventions to his/her individual needs and preferences. The aim of this study was to develop and test the psychometric properties of the ALGA-Breast Cancer (ALGA-BC), a new multidimensional questionnaire that assesses the breast cancer patient’s physical and mental characteristics in order to provide physicians, prior to the consultation, with a patient’s profile that is supposed to facilitate subsequent communication, interaction, and information delivery between the doctor and the patient.

Methods

The specific validation processes used were: content and face validity, construct validity using factor analysis, reliability and internal consistency using test–retest reliability, and Cronbach’s alpha correlation coefficient. The exploratory analysis included 100 primary breast cancer patients and 730 healthy subjects.

Results

The exploratory factor analysis revealed eight key factors: global self-rated health, perceived physical health, anxiety, self-efficacy, cognitive closure, memory, body image, and sexual life. Test–retest reliability and internal consistency were good. Comparing patients with a sample of healthy subjects, we also observed a general ability of the ALGA-BC questionnaire to discriminate between the two.

Conclusion

The ALGA-BC questionnaire with 29 items is a valid instrument with which to obtain a patient’s profile that is supposed to help physicians achieve meaningful personalized care which supplements biological and genetic analyses.

A neurofeedback-based intervention to reduce post-operative pain in lung cancer patients: study protocol for a randomized controlled trial

Background

Thoracic surgery appears to be the treatment of choice for many lung cancers. Nevertheless, depending on the type of surgery, the chest area may be painful for several weeks to months after surgery. This painful state has multiple physical and psychological implications, including respiratory failure, inability to clear secretions by coughing, and even anxiety and depression that have negative effects on recovery.

Objective

The aim of this study is to evaluate the effect of a neurofeedback-based intervention on controlling acute post-surgery pain and improving long-term recovery in patients who undergo thoracotomy for lung resection for non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) at an academic oncologic hospital.

Methods

This study will be based on a 2-parallel group randomized controlled trial design, intervention versus usual care, with multiple in-hospital assessments and 2 clinical, radiological, and quality of life follow-ups. Participants will be randomized to either the intervention group receiving a neurofeedback-based relaxation training and usual care, or to a control group receiving only usual care. Pain intensity is the primary outcome and will be assessed using the Numeric Pain Rating Scale (NRS) in the days following the operation. Secondary outcomes will include the effect of the intervention on hospital utilization for pain crisis, daily opioid consumption, anxiety, patient engagement, blood test and chest x-ray results, and long-term clinical, radiological, and quality of life evaluations. Outcome measures will be repeatedly taken during hospitalization, while follow-up assessments will coincide with the follow-up visits. Pain intensity will be assessed by mixed model repeated analysis. Effect sizes will be calculated as mean group differences with standard deviations.

Results

We expect to have results for this study before the end of 2016.

Conclusions

The proposed innovative, neurofeedback- and relaxation-based approach to support post-surgery pain management could lead to significant improvements in patient short and long-term outcomes.

[Cardiac magnetic resonance and uremic cardiomyopathy]

Cardiovascular disease (CV) represents the main risk factor for morbidity and mortality in chronic kidney disease (CKD) patients. Large epidemiological studies have shown direct association between severity of CKD and CV event rates. Although patients with end-stage renal disease (ESRD), including dialysis ones, are at greater CV risk, cardiovascular involvement is already evident at the early stages of CKD. End-stage CKD is characterized conventional atherosclerotic risk factor but they cannot account for CV risk as reflected in high rates of sudden cardiac death, heart failure and myocardial infarction. Non-atherosclerotic processes, including left ventricular hypertrophy and fibrosis, mostly account for the excess risk of CV. Employment of cardiac magnetic resonance (CMR) in CKD has brought an improved understanding of the adverse CV changes, known as uremic cardiomyopathy. It is due to ability of cardiac magnetic resonance to provide a comprehensive non - invasive examination of cardiac structure and function, arterial function, myocardial tissue characterization (T1 mapping and inversion recovery imaging), and myocardial metabolic function (spectroscopy).

Modulation of risky choices in recently abstinent dependent cocaine users: a transcranial direct-current stimulation study

Previous neurobiological and neuropsychological investigations have shown that risk-taking behaviors and addictions share many structural and functional aspects. In particular, both are characterized by an irresistible need to obtain immediate rewards and by specific alterations in brain circuits responsible for such behaviors. In this study, we used transcranial direct-current stimulation over the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (DLPFC) of two samples of subjects (18 dependent cocaine users and 18 control subjects) to investigate the effects of left and right cortical excitability on two risk tasks: (1) the balloon analog risk task (BART) and (2) the game of dice task (GDT). All subjects randomly received a left anodal/right cathodal stimulation (LAn+), a right anodal/left cathodal stimulation (RAn+), and a sham (placebo) stimulation each run at least 48 h apart. Participants were asked to perform the BART and the GDT immediately before and after each stimulation. Our results reveal that the activation of the DLPFC (left and right) results in a reduction of risky behaviors at the BART task both in controls subjects and cocaine dependent users. The effect of tDCS on GDT, instead, is more complex. Cocaine users increased safe behavior after right DLPFC anodal stimulation, while risk-taking behavior increased after left DLPFC anodal stimulation. Control subjects’ performance was only affected by the anodal stimulation of the right DLPFC, resulting in an increase of safe bets. These results support the hypothesis that excessive risk propensity in dependent cocaine users might be due to a hypoactivation of the right DLPFC and an unbalance interhemispheric interaction. In conclusion, since risky decision-making seems to be, at least in part, responsible for maintenance and relapse of addiction, we argue that a neuromodulation-based approach could represent a valuable adjunct in the clinical treatment of addiction.

Development of interactive empowerment services in support of personalised medicine

In an epoch where shared decision making is gaining importance, a patient’s commitment to and knowledge about his/her health condition is becoming more and more relevant. Health literacy is one of the most important factors in enhancing the involvement of patients in their care. Nevertheless, other factors can impair patient processing and understanding of health information: psychological aspects and cognitive style may affect the way patients approach, select, and retain information. This paper describes the development and validation of a short and easy to fill-out questionnaire that measures and collects psycho-cognitive information about patients, named ALGA-C. ALGA-C is a multilingual, multidevice instrument, and its validation was carried out in healthy people and breast cancer patients. In addition to the aforementioned questionnaire, a patient profiling mechanism has also been developed. The ALGA-C Profiler enables physicians to rapidly inspect each patient’s individual cognitive profile and see at a glance the areas of concern. With this tool, doctors can modulate the language, vocabulary, and content of subsequent discussions with the patient, thus enabling easier understanding by the patient. This, in turn, helps the patient formulate questions and participate on an equal footing in the decision-making processes. Finally, a preview is given on the techniques under consideration for exploiting the constructed patient profile by a personal health record (PHR). Predefined rules will use a patient’s profile to personalise the contents of the information presented and to customise ways in which users complete their tasks in a PHR system. This optimises information delivery to patients and makes it easier for the patient to decide what is of interest to him/her at the moment.