Full title: Psychological interventions for needle-related procedural pain and distress in children and adolescents.

BACKGROUND: This review is an updated version of the original Cochrane review published in Issue 4, 2006. Needle-related procedures are a common source of pain and distress for children. Our previous review on this topic indicated that a number of psychological interventions were efficacious in managing pediatric needle pain, including distraction, hypnosis, and combined cognitive behavioural interventions. Considerable additional research in the area has been published since that time. OBJECTIVES: To provide an update to our 2006 review assessing the efficacy of psychological interventions for needle-related procedural pain and distress in children and adolescents. SEARCH METHODS: Searches of the following databases were conducted for relevant randomized controlled trials (RCTs): Cochrane Central Register of Controlled Trials (CENTRAL); MEDLINE; EMBASE; PsycINFO; the Cumulative Index to Nursing and Allied Health Literature (CINAHL); and Web of Science. Requests for relevant studies were also posted on various electronic list servers. We ran an updated search in March 2012, and again in March 2013. SELECTION CRITERIA: Participants included children and adolescents aged two to 19 years undergoing needle-related procedures. Only RCTs with at least five participants in each study arm comparing a psychological intervention group with a control or comparison group were eligible for inclusion. DATA COLLECTION AND ANALYSIS: Two review authors extracted data and assessed trial quality and a third author helped with data extraction and coding for one non-English study. Included studies were coded for quality using the Cochrane Risk of bias tool. Standardized mean differences with 95% confidence intervals were computed for all analyses using Review Manager 5.2 software. MAIN RESULTS: Thirty-nine trials with 3394 participants were included. The most commonly studied needle procedures were venipuncture, intravenous (IV) line insertion, and immunization. Studies included children aged two to 19 years, with the most evidence available for children under 12 years of age. Consistent with the original review, the most commonly studied psychological interventions for needle procedures were distraction, hypnosis, and cognitive behavioural therapy (CBT). The majority of included studies (19 of 39) examined distraction only. The additional studies from this review update continued to provide strong evidence for the efficacy of distraction and hypnosis. No evidence was available to support the efficacy of preparation and information, combined CBT (at least two or more cognitive or behavioural strategies combined), parent coaching plus distraction, suggestion, or virtual reality for reducing children's pain and distress. No conclusions could be drawn about interventions of memory alteration, parent positioning plus distraction, blowing out air, or distraction plus suggestion, as evidence was available from single studies only. In addition, the Risk of bias scores indicated several domains with high or unclear bias scores (for example, selection, detection, and performance bias) suggesting that the methodological rigour and reporting of RCTs of psychological interventions continue to have considerable room for improvement. AUTHORS' CONCLUSIONS: Overall, there is strong evidence supporting the efficacy of distraction and hypnosis for needle-related pain and distress in children and adolescents, with no evidence currently available for preparation and information or both, combined CBT, parent coaching plus distraction, suggestion, or virtual reality. Additional research is needed to further assess interventions that have only been investigated in one RCT to date (that is, memory alteration, parent positioning plus distraction, blowing out air, and distraction plus suggestion). There are continuing issues with the quality of trials examining psychological interventions for needle-related pain and distress.

Cochrane Database Syst Rev. 2013 Oct 10;10:CD005179. Uman LS, Birnie KA, Noel M, Parker JA, Chambers CT, McGrath PJ, Kisely SR. IWK Health Centre & Dalhousie University, Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada.

Full title: Socio-demographic and clinical predictors of absenteeism - A cross-sectional study of urban industrial employees.

CONTEXT: Public sector undertakings are facing a threat of privatization due to unsatisfactory performance putting pressure on management and in turn to employees. There is an increasing trend of absenteeism observed amongst employees citing job stress. AIM: To find an association between job stress and absenteeism in relation to socio-demographic and clinical profile. MATERIALS AND METHODS: The study was conducted in an urban aeronautical industry with 68 employees who mentioned stress at workplace during evaluation. Job stress was assessed using Professional Life Stress Scale (David Fontana). Those who scored more than 30 (n = 43) were taken up for the study after an informed consent. A semi-structured questionnaire was administered to find socio-demographic and clinical profile. Employees who reported taking leave in last six months just to avoid work or workplace constitute the "absenteeism" group. The absenteeism group was compared to non-absenteeism group using Fisher exact/Chi-square test or independent t-test depending on type of variables. RESULTS: Out of 43 subjects, 18 had absenteeism while 25 did not have absenteeism. Comparing the two groups, interstate migration, having more than one previous job, commuting time more than an hour, co-morbid anxiety/depression, and alcohol abuse were significantly associated with absenteeism (P < 0.05). Absentees complained more about fatigue and relationship problem with colleagues than non-absentees (P < 0.05). Factors like age, sex, marital status, education, gross pay, job tenure, past or family history of psychiatry illnesses had no significant association with absenteeism (P > 0.05). CONCLUSION: In absenteeism research, one of the widely accepted models is Steerand Rhode's "Process model of absenteeism." The model postulates job stress as one of the barriers for attendance. Thus, knowing the factors for absenteeism would help in preventing absenteeism.

Ind Psychiatry J. 2013 Jan;22(1):17-21. doi: 10.4103/0972-6748.123589. Chakraborty S, Subramanya AH. Department of Psychiatry, Hindustan Aeronautics Limited Hospital, Bangalore, Karnataka, India.

The last few years have seen the publication of a number of studies by researchers claiming to have induced "synaesthesia," "pseudo-synaesthesia," or "synaesthesia-like" phenomena in non-synaesthetic participants. Although the intention of these studies has been to try and shed light on the way in which synaesthesia might have been acquired in developmental synaesthestes, we argue that they may only have documented a phenomenon that has elsewhere been accounted for in terms of the acquisition of sensory associations and is not evidently linked to synaesthesia. As synaesthesia remains largely defined in terms of the involuntary elicitation of conscious concurrents, we suggest that the theoretical rapprochement with synaesthesia (in any of its guises) is unnecessary, and potentially distracting. It might therefore, be less confusing if researchers were to avoid referring to synaesthesia when characterizing cases that lack robust evidence of a conscious manifestation. Even in the case of those other conditions for which conscious experiences are better evidenced, when training has been occurred during hypnotic suggestion, or when it has been combined with drugs, we argue that not every conscious manifestation should necessarily be counted as ynaesthetic. Finally, we stress that cases of associative learning are unlikely to shed light on two highly specific characteristic of the majority of cases of developmental synaesthesia in terms of learning patterns: First, their resistance to change through exposure once the synaesthetic repertoire has been fixed; Second, the transfer of conditioned responses between concurrents and inducers after training. We conclude by questioning whether, in adulthood, it is ever possible to acquire the kind of synaesthesia that is typically documented in the developmental form of the condition. The available evidence instead seems to point to there being a critical period for the development of synaesthesia, probably only in those with a genetic predisposition to develop the condition.

Front Psychol. 2013 Oct 14;4:660. Deroy O, Spence C. Centre for the Study of the Senses, School of Advanced Study, University of London London, UK.

Full title: Depression and experience of vision loss in group of adults in rehabilitation setting: Mixed-methods pilot study.

There is a paucity of literature regarding the relationship between the experience of vision loss and depression. Therefore, the current pilot study aimed to explore whether significant differences existed in levels of depression between adults with different vision loss experiences. A group of adults aged between 20 and 65 yr old with irreversible vision loss in a rehabilitation setting was interviewed. Semistructured interviews were conducted in order to explore patients' experience of vision loss. The Center for Epidemiologic Studies Depression Scale (CES-D) was used to assess depressive levels; 39.5% (n = 15) of patients met CES-D criteria for depression. In addition, higher levels of depression (p < 0.05) were identified in patients whose interviews revealed greater self-awareness of impairment, inadequate social support, and longer rehabilitation stay. Current findings draw attention to variables such as self-awareness of impairment and perceived social support and suggest that depression following vision loss may be related to patients' emotional experiences of impairment and adjustment processes.

J Rehabil Res Dev. 2014 Jan;50(9):1301-14. doi: 10.1682/JRRD.2012.08.0138. Senra H, Vieira CR, Nicholls EG, Leal I. University of Deusto, Faculty of Psychology, Avenida de las Universidades 24, 48007 Bilbao, Spain. 23/Jan/2014 17:0123/Jan/2014 17:01 hugo_senra@hotmail.com.