Development of the Physiology Professional Skills Curriculum Mapping Tool (PS-MAP).

During the course of undergraduate studies, physiology (and related STEM) majors should acquire a both broad and in-depth foundation in physiological knowledge along with a distinct range of transferable (professional) skills (e.g., critical thinking, communication skills, data analysis). Previously, through a consultative and iterative process with physiology educators, the Professional Skills Committee of the Physiology Majors Interest Group (PMIG) defined and refined a consensus list of professional skills that physiology majors should acquire during their program of study. Here we describe the development and beta testing of a convenient tool to enable physiology and physiology-related program educators to map these professional skills across their curricula. The tool, referred to as PS-MAP, uses the Qualtrics platform and allows programs to collect and organize data about whether students are provided the opportunity to learn and develop the defined professional skills during their undergraduate experience. The authors have made the PS-MAP tool freely available to educators and provide practical tips for its implementation. Use of the PS-MAP tool and the data collected can help programs identify curricular strengths and gaps as well as facilitate curricular discussions among educators within the program.NEW & NOTEWORTHY In addition to foundational physiology knowledge, undergraduate physiology and related STEM majors should develop a range of transferable professional skills. However, evidence of this curricular goal has been lacking. Therefore, the Professional Skills Committee of the Physiology Majors Interest Group (PMIG) developed the freely available and convenient Physiology Professional Skills Curriculum Mapping Tool (PS-MAP) to assist educators in mapping these professional skills throughout their programs.

Psychological responses of women after first-trimester abortion.

BACKGROUND: Controversy exists over psychological risks associated with abortion. The objectives of this study were to examine women's emotions, evaluations, and mental health after an abortion, as well as changes over time in these responses and their predictors. METHODS: Women arriving at 1 of 3 sites for an abortion of a first-trimester unintended pregnancy were randomly approached to participate in a longitudinal study with 4 assessments-1 hour before the abortion, and 1 hour, 1 month, and 2 years after the abortion. Eight hundred eighty-two (85%) of 1043 eligible women approached agreed; 442 (50%) of 882 were followed for 2 years. Preabortion and postabortion depression and self-esteem, postabortion emotions, decision satisfaction, perceived harm and benefit, and posttraumatic stress disorder were assessed. Demographic variables and prior mental health were examined as predictors of postabortion psychological responses. RESULTS: Two years postabortion, 301 (72%) of 418 women were satisfied with their decision; 306 (69%) of 441 said they would have the abortion again; 315 (72%) of 440 reported more benefit than harm from their abortion; and 308 (80%) of 386 were not depressed. Six (1%) of 442 reported posttraumatic stress disorder. Depression decreased and self-esteem increased from preabortion to postabortion, but negative emotions increased and decision satisfaction decreased over time. Prepregnancy history of depression was a risk factor for depression, lower self-esteem, and more negative abortion-specific outcomes 2 years postabortion. Younger age and having more children preabortion also predicted more negative abortion evaluations. CONCLUSIONS: Most women do not experience psychological problems or regret their abortion 2 years postabortion, but some do. Those who do tend to be women with a prior history of depression.

[Evaluation of exposure to halothane and ethyl alcohol among technicians responsible for maintenance of anesthesia equipment]. / Ocena narazenia konserwatorów sprzetu anestezjologicznego na halotan i pary etanolu.

The authors discuss the measurements of exposure to halotane and ethyl alcohol among technicians responsible for maintenance of anaesthesiological instruments that occurs at various stages of maintenance work and in an operating room.

Personal resilience, cognitive appraisals, and coping: an integrative model of adjustment to abortion.

We hypothesized that the effects of personality (self-esteem, control, and optimism) on postabortion adaptation (distress, well-being, and decision satisfaction) would be fully mediated by preabortion cognitive appraisals (stress appraisals and self-efficacy appraisals) and postabortion coping. We further proposed that the effects of preabortion appraisals on adaptation would be fully mediated by postabortion coping. Results of a longitudinal study of 527 women who had first-trimester abortions supported our hypotheses. Women with more resilient personalities appraised their abortion as less stressful and had higher self-efficacy for coping with the abortion. More positive appraisals predicted greater acceptance/reframing coping and lesser avoidance/denial, venting, support seeking, and religious coping. Acceptance-reframing predicted better adjustment on all measures, whereas avoidance-denial and venting related to poorer adjustment on all measures. Greater support seeking was associated with reduced distress, and greater religious coping was associated with less decision satisfaction.

PIP: An integrative model of psychological adjustment to abortion, derived from existing cognitive-phenomenological models of coping with stressful life events, was tested in a longitudinal study of 527 women (mean age, 23.9 years) who underwent first-trimester abortion in Buffalo, New York (US), in 1993. It was hypothesized that the effects of personality (self-esteem, control, and optimism) on postabortion adaptation (distress, well-being, and decision satisfaction) would be mediated by pre-abortion cognitive appraisals of stress and self-efficacy. As hypothesized, women with more resilient personalities appraised their abortion as less stressful and had higher self-efficacy for coping with the event. The lower women's stress appraisals, the more they used acceptance/positive reframing for coping and the less they relied on avoidance/denial. Acceptance/reframing predicted better adjustment on all measures, while avoidance/denial and venting predicted poorer adjustment. Greater support seeking was associated with reduced postabortion distress, and greater religious coping was linked with less decision satisfaction. Collectively, the analyses suggested that the hypothesized model provided a parsimonious and theoretically grounded explanation of the pattern of associations in the data. These findings suggest a need for clinical interventions that help women learn to use more beneficial forms of coping with abortion.

Mixed messages: implications of social conflict and social support within close relationships for adjustment to a stressful life event.

The authors examined the impact of women's perceptions of negative (conflict) and positive (support) exchanges with their mothers, partners, and friends before having an abortion on negative (distress) and positive (well-being) indexes of adjustment after the abortion. Preabortion conflict and support from the partner predicted postabortion adjustment in the same affective domain: Conflict uniquely predicted distress, whereas support uniquely predicted well-being. Within-source interactions were observed between support and conflict from mothers and friends. Women who perceived high support from their mothers or friends were more distressed if they also perceived them as sources of high conflict than if they perceived them as sources of low conflict. Among women who perceived their mothers or friends as nonsupportive, no relationship was observed between conflict and distress. Cross-source buffering was not observed.

Aftereffects of short-term monocular deprivation on critical flicker frequency of the non-occluded eye.

Ten subjects were monocularly deprived for a period of 6 hr. The CFF of the non-occluded eye was determined just before deprivation, at 3 and 6 hr. of deprivation and at 1, 3, 5, and 18 hr. following restoration of binocular vision. Results indicated a large depression in CFF at 6 hr. of deprivation followed by a gradual return to baseline that was virtually complete 18 hr. afterr binocular vision was restored. The results were discussed in terms of previous research and theory.

Depression and later enhancement of the critical flicker frequency during prolonged monocular deprivation.

One eye was visually deprived for 1 day, and the critical flicker frequency in the other eye was determined at the start of the deprivation period and then at intervals of 3, 6, 9, 15, and 24 hours. There was an initial depression in performance, followed by an enhancement effect. No significant changes in the critical flicker frequency were observed in the occluded eye at corresponding times; thus the depression-enhancement phenomenon is specific to the nonoccluded eye.