Attitudes toward mental illness in medical students: does personal and professional experience with mental illness make a difference?

PURPOSE

Medical students may be susceptible to emotional difficulties because of the high levels of both academic and interpersonal stress associated with their training. This study examined attitudes toward mental illness in medical students. It was expected that people who had experience of mental illness, either in their personal lives or through their professional experience, would have more positive attitudes toward students with mental health problems than would people who had not had such experience.

METHOD

Faculty and staff employed by a large American university medical centre completed a questionnaire package including several measures designed to assess specific attitudes toward medical students with emotional problems. Data were also collected on the degree to which specific mental disorders were thought to interfere with the performance of medical students.

RESULTS

In general, prior experience with mental illness, either through personal or professional activities, was associated with more positive attitudes about students with mental illness. However, the pattern of findings was complex.

CONCLUSION

Future research should examine the extent to which specific mental illnesses actually affect the performance of medical students.

Juvenile rheumatoid arthritis in African Americans

OBJECTIVE

To examine racial differences in disease expression in African American and Caucasian children with pauciarticular and polyarticular juvenile rheumatoid arthritis (JRA).

METHODS

A retrospective chart review was conducted of 35 African American and 137 Caucasian children with pauciarticular and polyarticular JRA.

RESULTS

African American children were significantly older than Caucasian children at the time of presentation. This was true both for the group as a whole and for each of the disease onset subtypes. African American children were less likely to have positive antinuclear antibody tests than Caucasian children. This finding paralleled a low incidence of uveitis in African American children. African American children were also more likely to have IgM rheumatoid factors (detected by latex agglutination) than Caucasian children. This was true even for African American children with pauciarticular JRA.

CONCLUSION

There are significant phenotypic differences between African American and Caucasian children with JRA.

A retrospective analysis of microbial contaminants in outdated random-donor platelets from multiple sites

BACKGROUND

Platelet components contaminated with bacteria are an important source of transfusion-associated bacterial sepsis. Estimates of contamination rates vary widely (0-10%) and are highly controversial. The present study, designed with stringent testing regimens, retrospectively determined the prevalence of microbial contaminants in platelets from four collection regions.

STUDY DESIGN AND METHODS

During a 9-month period, outdated platelet units were assayed by spreading aliquots from the unit, and from thioglycollate broth medium inoculated with part of the unit, onto 5-percent sheep blood agar media. Cultures were examined after 72-hour incubation at 37 degrees C, and, if bacterial growth was present, the assay processes were repeated with fresh inocula. Units were considered contaminated only if repeatedly positive.

RESULTS

Four (0.08%) of 4995 units sampled were contaminated, two with Corynebacterium sp. and one each with Propionibacterium acnes and Aspergillus terreus. Contaminants were present at low, subclinical levels and were detected only after amplification in thioglycollate. The contaminated units were cultured 1, 2, 3, and 7 days after expiration.

CONCLUSION

Contamination rates were low and did not vary by region. The identification of A. terreus suggests the role that transfusion may play in transmitting fungal infections should be reassessed. The persistent detection of contaminated platelet units supports the need for a test to detect clinically relevant levels of microbial contaminants in blood components.

Alcohol and violent pornography: responses to permissive and nonpermissive cues

Both alcohol consumption and violent pornography have been implicated independently in the commission of sexual aggression. In addition to alcohol consumption, the presence of alcohol in the context of violent pornography may act as a permissive cue to influence judgments of such material's acceptability and self-reported likelihood of engaging in sexually violent behavior. To test this proposition, an experiment which varied beverage condition (alcohol vs no alcohol), expectancy set (expect vs do not expect alcohol) and a permissive (presence of alcohol) vs nonpermissive (absence of alcohol) cue was conducted on both male and female subjects. Secondary analyses on male subjects alone investigated the role of the personality trait hypermasculinity in affecting judgments. Results showed that (1) alcohol itself rather than expectancy set influenced judgments and willingness to engage in sexual violence; (2) the presence of alcohol interacted with alcohol consumption to affect willingness to engage in sexual violence; (3) men high in hypermasculinity judged the violent pornographic story more positively than did men low in this trait; and (4) alcohol interacted with hypermasculinity to affect acceptability judgments, but only for men low on this trait. These findings are consistent with cognitive disruption models and show promise for future investigations of the influence of permissive cues, as well as the role of hypermasculinity.

Neurolinguistic analysis of the language abilities of a patient with a "double disconnection syndrome": a case of subangular alexia in the presence of mixed transcortical aphasia

In contrast to the classic form of alexia without agraphia, subangular alexia results from a single lesion located deep in the white matter of the left parietal lobe. In the present report, a patient with subangular alexia and features of mixed transcortical aphasia is described. Neurolinguistic findings include: alexia without agraphia, paucity of spontaneous speech, moderate auditory comprehension difficulty, excellent repetition, echopraxia, colour agnosia, and naming disorder. Neurolinguistic tests revealed intact phonological organisation and grammatical filter." Our studies revealed a "double disconnection syndrome," the co-existence of two relatively rare neurobehavioural disorders. Furthermore, the studies reported here clearly show dissociations of language functions in both the visual and auditory modality, which demonstrates that the stages of language processing are separable.