Two versions of perspectives on caring for older patients scale: Translation and psychometric testing among Chinese nursing students.

This study aimed to translate the Perspectives on Caring for Older Patients scale into Chinese, both the full and the shortened versions, and test its psychometric properties among Chinese nursing students. In this methodological research, the scale were translated and administered to 307 nursing students recruited from two universities in mainland China. The psychometric testing mainly included internal consistency reliability using Cronbach's alphas, 2-week test-retest reliability using the intraclass correlation coefficient, convergent validity with Kogan's Attitude toward Older People scale, and factorial validity using exploratory factor analysis. Cronbach's alphas for the full and the shortened version scales were 0.77 and 0.75, respectively. The intraclass correlation coefficient values of both versions exceeded 0.70 and their scores were moderately correlated with the Kogan's Attitude toward Older People scale's scores. While exploratory factor analyses revealed a six-factor structure for the full version with factor loadings of five items below 0.3, the shortened version identified two factors with all factor loadings above 0.3. This study concluded that the psychometric properties of the full version scale were adequate and similar to those of the shortened version except for factorial validity.

Effects of Ganoderma lucidum polysaccharides against doxorubicin-induced cardiotoxicity.

Doxorubicin (DOX) is a widely used anthracycline derivative anticancer drug, but the use of DOX in clinical applications is limited by its cardiotoxicity. In the current research, we were aiming to assess the effects of Ganoderma lucidum polysaccharides (GLPS) on DOX-induced cardiotoxicity and to illustrate the associated mechanisms. H9c2 rat cardiomyocytes were treated with DOX in the absence or presence of GLPS, and we found GLPS treatment ameliorated DOX-induced H9c2 cell death. Moreover, results of in vivo studies indicated that GLPS significantly decreased the serum levels of lactate dehydrogenase (LDH), creatine kinase (CK) and aspartate aminotransferase (AST) and attenuated DOX-induced histological changes of the heart tissues. In addition, we found DOX administration promoted myocardial apoptosis, potentiated oxidative stress, decreased the activities of antioxidant enzymes and increased the production of pro-inflammatory cytokines. However, GLPS pretreatment markedly attenuated all these untoward effects of DOX. Furthermore, GLPS pretreatment was found to inhibit Cul3-mediated K48-linked polyubiquitination of Nrf2 through suppressing Cul3 expression, thereby stabilizing Nrf2 expression in H9c2 cells after DOX treatment, leading to the decreased expression of P53 and p-P65 and increased levels of MDM2 and HO-1, resulted in the attenuated apoptosis, oxidative stress and inflammation induced by DOX.