BackgroundEmpathy promotes positive physician-patient communication and is associated with improved patient satisfaction, treatment adherence and clinical outcomes. It has been suggested that personality traits should be taken into consideration in programs designed to enhance empathy in medical education due to the association found between personality and empathy among medical students. However, the associations between empathy and big five personality traits in medical education are still underrepresented in the existing literature and relevant studies have not been conducted among medical students in China, where tensions in the physician-patient relationship have been reported as outstanding problems in the context of China’s current medical reform. Thus, the main objective of this study was to examine the associations between empathy and big five personality traits among Chinese medical students.MethodsA cross-sectional study was conducted in a medical university in Northeast China in June 2016. Self-reported questionnaires including the Interpersonal Reactivity Index (IRI) and Big Five Inventory (BFI) and demographic characteristics were distributed. A total of 530 clinical medical students became our final subjects. Hierarchical regression analysis was performed to explore the effects of big five personality traits on empathy.ResultsResults of this study showed that big five personality traits accounted for 19.4%, 18.1%, 30.2% of the variance in three dimensions of empathy, namely, perspective taking, empathic concern and personal distress, respectively. Specifically, agreeableness had a strong positive association with empathic concern (β = 0.477, P<0.01), and a moderate association with perspective taking (β = 0.349, P<0.01). Neuroticism was strongly associated with personal distress (β = 0.526, P<0.01) and modestly associated with perspective taking (β = 0.149, P<0.01). Openness to experience had modest associations with perspective taking (β = 0.150, P<0.01) and personal distress (β = -0.160, P<0.01). Conscientiousness had a modest association with perspective taking (β = 0.173, P<0.01).ConclusionThis study revealed that big five personality traits were important predictors of self-reported measures of both cognitive and affective empathy among Chinese medical students. Therefore, individualized intervention strategies based on personality traits could be integrated into programs to enhance empathy in medical education.

Lycopene/tomato has been discussed as a potential effecter in the prevention and therapy of prostate cancer; however, no systematic review has been reported to illustrate its effect recently. In the present study, a meta-analysis was carried out to determine whether intake of lycopene and tomato/tomato products could reduce the risk of prostate cancer. Eleven cohort studies and six nested case-control studies were identified through searching of international journal databases and reference lists of relevant publications. Two reviewers independently assessed the study quality and extracted data from each identified study; only studies with sufficient quality were included in the review. The main outcome of interest was incidence of prostate cancer. Compared with consumers of lower raw tomato intake, the odds ratio (OR) of incidence of prostate cancer among consumers of higher raw tomato intake was 0.81 [95% confidential interval (CI) 0.59-1.10]; for consumers of higher level of cooked tomato intake versus lower cooked tomato intake, this OR was 0.85 (95% CI 0.69-1.06); the OR of higher lycopene intake versus lower lycopene intake for prostate cancer was 0.93 (95% CI 0.86-1.01) and the OR for higher level of serum lycopene versus lower serum lycopene level was 0.97 (95% CI 0.88-1.08). It's suggested that tomato may play a modest role in the prevention of prostate cancer. Further research would be needed to determine the type and quantity of tomato products regarding their potential in preventing prostate cancer.

Self-scheduling can have positive results for nurses and benefit the nurse manager. But if nurses see this as an individual entitlement instead of a balance between individual and unit benefit, everyone loses. This experience may be of use to others trying to implement a self-scheduling system.

Purpose: This study aimed to evaluate the global scientific output of research on pain catastrophizing and explore the hotspots and frontiers from 2010 to 2020 using bibliometric methods.Methods: Publications regarding pain catastrophizing published from 2010 to 2020 were extracted from the Web of Science Core Collection. CiteSpace was used to analyze the number of publications, countries, institutions, journals, authors, cited references, and keywords using standard bibliometric indicators.Results: A total of 1,576 publications on pain catastrophizing were retrieved from 2010 to December 31, 2020. The number and rate of the annual publications gradually increased totally. Pain (130) was the most productive journal. Meanwhile, Pain ranked first in the frequency (1,432) and centrality (0.31) of the cited journals. The most productive country and institution in this frequency field were the United States (642) and the University of Washington (73), respectively. Jensen MP (34) was the most prolific author, and Sullivan MJL (1,196) ranked first among the cited authors. In the ranking of frequency in the cited references, the first article was a critical review about pain catastrophizing published by Quartana (100). The keyword “Low back pain” had the highest frequency (556). “Total hip” was identified as a frontier research item for 2016–2020.Conclusion: The findings of this bibliometric study provide the current status and trends in the clinical research of pain catastrophizing and may help researchers to identify hot topics and explore new research directions in this field.

Background: The aim of this study was to investigate the amount and sources of stress in dental undergraduate students in Fujian, China, and the factors associated with stress. Methods: This cross-sectional study was conducted during the second semester of the 2017-2018 academic year at the School of Stomatology, Fujian Medical University, China. A total of 396 students were surveyed with the Dental Environment Stress Questionnaire (DES) and the Perceived Stress Scale (PSS) using an online survey system. The participants' demographic information, including sex, age, year of study, and grade point average (GPA) was also collected. One-way analysis of variance (ANOVA) was performed to compare the stress scores. Pearson correlation and multiple linear regression analyses were conducted to explore the associated factors of stress and academic performance. All statistical analyses were performed at a significance level of 5%. Results: A total of 347 undergraduate students participated in the present study, for a response rate of 87.6%. There were no significant differences in the DES and PSS total scores among students of different grades and sexes. Significant differences were found in the DES "workload" and "self-efficacy beliefs" scores among students from different study years (all P < 0.05). The Multiple linear regression showed that DES and PSS scores were negatively correlated with GPA, while sex was positively correlated with GPA (all P < 0.05). Female students had significantly higher GPAs than male students. Conclusions: Dental undergraduates in Fujian, China experienced moderate levels of stress. While the amount of stress did not differ by year of study, the sources of stress did differ. Stress scores and sex were negatively correlated with academic performance.

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Lycopene is a potentially useful compound for preventing and treating cardiovascular diseases and cancers. Studies on the effects of lycopene on oxidative stress offer insights into its mechanism of action and provide evidence-based rationale for its supplementation. In this analysis, randomized controlled trials of the effects of oral lycopene supplementation on any valid outcomes of oxidative stress were identified and pooled through a search of international journal databases and reference lists of relevant publications. Two reviewers extracted data from each of the identified studies. Only studies of sufficient quality were included. Twelve parallel trials and one crossover trial were included in the systematic review, and six trials provided data for quantitative meta-analysis. Our results indicate that lycopene supplementation significantly decreases the DNA tail length, as determined using comet assays, with a mean difference (MD) of -6.27 [95% confidence interval (CI) -10.74, -1.90] (P=.006) between the lycopene intervention groups and the control groups. Lycopene supplementation does not significantly prolong the lag time of low-density lipoprotein (MD 3.76 [95% CI -2.48, 10.01]; P=.24). Lycopene possibly alleviates oxidative stress; however, biomarker research for oxidative stress needs be more consistent with the outcomes in lycopene intervention trials for disease prevention.

BackgroundThis systematic review aimed at summarizing and evaluating the evidence of randomized controlled trials (RCTs) using acupuncture to improve endometrial receptivity (ER).MethodsWe searched 12 databases electronically through August 2018 without language restrictions. We included RCTs of women of infertility due to low ER, and excluded infertility caused by other reasons or non-RCTs. Two independent reviewers extracted the characteristics of studies and resolved the differences through consensus. Data were pooled and expressed as standard mean difference (SMD) or mean difference (MD) for continuous outcomes and risk ratio (RR) for dichotomous outcomes, with 95% confidence interval (CI).ResultsWe found very low to moderate level of evidence that acupuncture may improve pregnancy rate (RR = 1.23 95%CI[1.13, 1.34] P < 0.00001) and embryo transfer rate (RR = 2.04 95%CI[1.13, 3.70] P = 0.02), increase trilinear endometrium (RR = 1.47 95%CI [1.27, 1.70] P < 0.00001), thicken endometrium (SMD = 0.41 95% CI [0.11, 0.72] P = 0.008), reduce resistive index (RI) (MD = -0.08 95% CI [− 0.15, − 0.02] P = 0.01), pulse index (PI) (SMD = -2.39 95% CI [− 3.85, − 0.93] P = 0.001) and peak systolic velocity/ end-diastolic blood velocity (S/D) (SMD = -0.60 95% CI [− 0.89, − 0.30] P < 0.0001), compared with medication, sham acupuncture or physiotherapy. Acupuncture was statistically significant as a treatment approach.ConclusionThe efficacy and safety of acupuncture on key outcomes in women with low ER is statistically significant, but the level of most evidence was very low or low. More large-scale, long-term RCTs with rigorous methodologies are needed.