Forgiveness: A Key Component of Healing From Moral Injury?

Service members and veterans can be exposed to potentially traumatic and morally injurious experiences (PMIEs) including participating in, witnessing, or failing to prevent an act(s) that transgresses their core beliefs. Violation of one's deeply held morals and values can be profoundly distressing and shatter one's sense of self at the deepest level. Relationships with self, others, the world, and for some, the Sacred, can also be fractured. Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) and/or Moral Injury (MI) can result. Left unresolved, MI can leave individuals struggling with guilt, shame, cognitive dissonance, and negative self-attributions. A holistic approach that addresses the psychological and spiritual harm associated with MI is warranted. We wonder if forgiveness can help individuals struggling with MI to address the harm caused by actions or inactions, release negative emotions, and mend relationships. Commonly used by Spiritual/Religious (S/R) Leaders, forgiveness practices are increasingly being explored by Mental Health Professionals as a complement to evidence-based treatment approaches. This article provides case examples that illustrate the use of forgiveness practices that promote recovery and identifies programs used in clinical practice that incorporate forgiveness. Research is yet needed to better understand the importance of forgiveness in the treatment and healing of PTSD and/or MI. This requires an interdisciplinary discourse between Mental Health Professionals and S/R Leaders working in the field of MI. Such engagement and integrated use of forgiveness practices may yield improved outcomes not only for service members and veterans, but for all those struggling as a result of PTSD and/or MI.

Treatment of generalized anxiety disorder: a comprehensive review of the literature for psychopharmacologic alternatives to newer antidepressants and benzodiazepines.

OBJECTIVE: Generalized anxiety disorder (GAD) is common, chronic, and debilitating. Treatment with benzodiazepines and newer antidepressants is often inadequate. This article reviews the effectiveness of alternative and augmenting medications, such as older antidepressants, antipsychotics, anticonvulsants, and ß-blockers. DATA SOURCES: A search using MEDLINE (1980 to week 4 of May 2010) with the key words generalized anxiety disorder or GAD and therapeutics or treatment was conducted. Articles included adult patients with a GAD diagnosis that established chronicity of illness. These included a small number of studies that used DSM-III criteria but added a chronicity of symptoms and included all studies that used DSM-III-R and DSM-IV criteria. Articles that did not include medications or that exclusively focused on newer antidepressants (selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors, serotonin-norepinephrine reuptake inhibitors, bupropion, and mirtazapine), buspirone, benzodiazepines, or herbal or investigational medications were excluded. Review articles and non-English-language articles were also excluded. RESULTS: Thirty-six studies were reviewed. All of the references were then analyzed, and key portions were extracted. Many studies were open trials. Double-blind, placebo-controlled studies with imipramine, risperidone, olanzapine, hydroxyzine, ondansetron, tiagabine, valproate, and pregabalin had been conducted. Imipramine, hydroxyzine, valproate, and pregabalin were the most effective, although risperidone, olanzapine, ziprasidone, and aripiprazole may also reduce symptoms. CONCLUSIONS: Several medication strategies can be considered as promising alternatives or augmenting to antidepressant or benzodiazepine therapy in GAD.

Diversifying residents' outpatient psychiatry experience: a contemporary model for academic outpatient psychiatry clinics.

A diversified, outpatient experience is an important part of psychiatric training, yet challenging to attain. We describe a multiple, subspecialty psychiatry clinic model for 3rd year psychiatry residents. Evaluation findings based on its initial implementation indicated improved resident supervision, better therapeutic alliance and an overall increase in satisfaction. This model facilitates resident exposure to diverse patients and treatment modalities as well as faculty development of expertise. It also promotes academic training excellence.

Using the cross-cultural care survey to assess cultural competency in graduate medical education.

BACKGROUND: Cultural competency is an important part of medical policy and practice, yet the evidence base for the effectiveness of training in this area is weak. One reason is the lack of valid, reliable, and feasible tools to quantify measures of knowledge, skill, and attitudes before and/or after cultural training. Given that cultural competency is a critical aspect of "professionalism" and "interpersonal and communication skills," such a tool would aid in assessing the impact of such training in residency programs. OBJECTIVES: The aim of this study is to enhance the feasibility and extend the validity of a tool to assess cultural competency in resident physicians. The work contributes to efforts to evaluate resident preparedness for working with diverse patient populations. METHOD: Eighty-four residents (internal medicine, psychiatry, obstetrics-gynecology, and surgery) completed the Cross-Cultural Care Survey (CCCS) to assess their self-reported knowledge, skill, and attitudes regarding the provision of cross-cultural care. The study entailed descriptive analyses, factor analysis, internal consistency, and validity tests using bivariate correlations. RESULTS: Feasibility of using the CCCS was demonstrated with reduced survey completion time and ease of administration, and the survey reliably measures knowledge, skill, and attitudes for providing cross-cultural care. Resident characteristics and amount of postgraduate training relate differently to the 3 different subscales of the CCCS. CONCLUSIONS: Our study confirmed that the CCCS is a reliable and valid tool to assess baseline attitudes of cultural competency across specialties in residency programs. Implications of the subscale scores for designing training programs are discussed.

Monoamine oxidase inhibitor usage in Hawaii.

OBJECTIVE: Previous studies involving prescriptions of monoamine oxidase inhibitors (MAOIs) have focused on predominantly Caucasian populations with little representation of Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders. The Asian American diet includes tyramine-rich fermented food items. This study describes the characteristics of MAOI prescribing patterns in Hawaii, a state with predominantly Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders. METHODS: Antidepressant usage including MAOIs were identified using a commercial insurance database from Hawaii Medical Service Association, a Blue Cross/Blue Shield subsidiary. Prescriptions from 1999 to 2003 were identified with basic information including ethnicity, age, diagnostic category, morbidity level, and 6 months adherence to MAOIs. RESULTS: Of the 28,890 patients prescribed antidepressants, seventeen individuals (0.06%, 95% confidence interval 0.03-0.09%) were prescribed MAOIs. MAOIs continue to be seldom used in treatment. There was no significant difference in prescriptions for MAOIs vs. other antidepressants based on ethnicity. CONCLUSIONS: MAOIs are vastly underutilized in all ethnic groups including Asian American and Pacific Islander groups.

Methylation of human papillomavirus genomes in cells of anal epithelia of HIV-infected men.

Intra-anal malignancies disproportionately affect individuals who engage in anal intercourse because of infection with human papillomaviruses (HPVs), with an increased risk attributed to infection with HIV because of a declining immunity against HPVs. Long-term persistence of HPVs suggests yet other mechanisms that determine the clinical outcome, however. Because methylation of HPV DNA represses oncogene expression in cervical samples, we investigated whether this mechanism also occurs in HIV-positive men and studied the methylation of CpG dinucleotides overlapping with the HPV-16 enhancer and promoter in 16 anal samples. Similar to cervical infections, the average methylation frequency was 12.3%, with heterogeneities between clones from different and the same samples. In low-grade anal intraepithelial neoplasia (AIN), methylation was high in CpGs overlapping the viral enhancer but rare in promoter positions, whereas methylation was high in promoter regions in high-grade AIN, especially in samples with a high load of viral genomes. The viral replication origin was never methylated. We also detected de novo methylation at methylated (me) CpA, meCpT, and meCpC dinucleotides. Our study expands the observation and mapping of HPV DNA methylation to anal infections and the HIV-positive patient population. As observed at the cervix, DNA methylation may force HPVs into latency with functional replication but repressed transcription. Escape from this repression is a prerequisite for neoplastic progression; however, methylation resumes because of chromosomal integration of HPV genomes but spares some HPV genomes in each cell that maintain the transformed phenotype. DNA methylation, taken together with virus load, may be useful to diagnose the emergence of a population of tumor cells.

Genomic diversity of human papillomavirus-16, 18, 31, and 35 isolates in a Mexican population and relationship to European, African, and Native American variants.

Cervical cancer, mainly caused by infection with human papillomaviruses (HPVs), is a major public health problem in Mexico. During a study of the prevalence of HPV types in northeastern Mexico, we identified, as expected from worldwide comparisons, HPV-16, 18, 31, and 35 as highly prevalent. It is well known that the genomes of HPV types differ geographically because of evolution linked to ethnic groups separated in prehistoric times. As HPV intra-type variation results in pathogenic differences, we analyzed genomic sequences of Mexican variants of these four HPV types. Among 112 HPV-16 samples, 14 contained European and 98 American Indian (AA) variants. This ratio is unexpected as people of European ethnicity predominate in this part of Mexico. Among 15 HPV-18 samples, 13 contained European and 2 African variants, the latter possibly due to migration of Africans to the Caribbean coast of Mexico. We constructed phylogenetic trees of HPV-31 and 35 variants, which have never been studied. Forty-six HPV-31 isolates from Mexico, Europe, Africa, and the United States (US) contained a total of 35 nucleotide exchanges in a 428-bp segment, with maximal distances between any two variants of 16 bp (3.7%), similar to those between HPV-16 variants. The HPV-31 variants formed two branches, one apparently the European, the other one an African branch. The European branch contained 13 of 29 Mexican isolates, the African branch 16 Mexican isolates. These may represent the HPV-31 variants of American Indians, as a 55% prevalence of African variants in Mexico seems incomprehensible. Twenty-seven HPV-35 samples from Mexico, Europe, Africa, and the US contained 11 mutations in a 893-bp segment with maximal distances between any two variants of only 5 mutations (0.6%), including a characteristic 16-bp insertion/deletion. These HPV-35 variants formed several phylogenetic clusters rather than two- or three-branched trees as HPV-16, 18, and 31. An HPV-35 variant typical for American Indians was not identifiable. Our research suggests type specific patterns of evolution and spread of HPV-16, 18, 31, and 35 both before and after the worldwide migrations of the last four centuries. The high prevalence of highly carcinogenic HPV-16 AA variants, and the extensive diversity of HPV-18, 31, and 35 variants with unknown pathogenic properties raise the possibility that HPV intra-type variation contributes to the high cervical cancer burden in Mexico.