Modelling the Degree of Emotional Concern: COVID-19 Response in Social Media

The massive impact caused by the COVID-19 pandemic has left no one indifferent, becoming an unprecedented challenge. The use of protections such as sanitary masks has become increasingly common, restrictions in our daily lives, such as social distancing or confinements, have had serious consequences on the economy and our welfare state. Although the measures imposed throughout the world follow the same pattern, they have been applied with different criteria depending on the country. Over extended periods of time, people tend to change their perception of an event and its magnitude, or in other words, they stop being so concerned despite the seriousness of the matter. In this paper, we introduce a new metric to quantify the degree of emotional concern of people being affected by a topic, and we confirm how populations from different countries follow this trend of downplaying the effect of the pandemic and reach a state of indifference. To do this, we propose a method to analyze the social media stream over time extracting the different emotional states from the Russel Circumplex plane and computing the shifting created by the tragic event—the pandemic. We complete this metric by incorporating searching behavior to reflect not only push contents but also pull inquiries. The resulting metric establishes a relationship between the pandemic and the emotional response by defining the degree of Emotional Concern. Although the method can be applied to any location with a significant and varied amount of geo-localized social media streams, the scope of this paper covers the most representative cities in Europe.

Gender Differences in Empathy During Adolescence: Does Emotional Self-Awareness Matter?

Empathy refers to the capacity to experience emotions similar to those observed or imagined in another person, with the full knowledge that the other person is the source of these emotions. Awareness of one's own emotional states is a prerequisite for self-other differentiation to develop. This study investigated gender differences in empathy during adolescence and tested whether emotional self-awareness explained these differences. Two-hundred-eleven adolescents (108 girls and 103 boys) between 14 and 19 years completed the Interpersonal Reactivity Index (IRI) and the Toronto Alexithymia Scale (TAS-20) to assess empathy and emotional self-awareness, respectively. Overall, girls obtained higher scores than boys on IRI subscales like emotional concern, personal distress, and fantasy. Regarding emotional self-awareness, we found gender differences in TAS-20 scores, with girls reporting greater difficulty identifying feelings and less externally oriented thinking than boys. Difficulty identifying feelings explained the greatest personal distress experienced by girls. Lower externally oriented thinking accounted for girls’ greater emotional concern and fantasy. These findings offer an insight into the role of emotional self-awareness–which is essential for self-other differentiation–as an account for gender differences in empathic abilities during adolescence. In girls, difficulty identifying feelings can impair the ability to differentiate between ones’ and others’ emotions, leading them to experience self-focused and aversive responses when confronted with others’ suffering. Conversely, in boys, externally oriented thinking can mitigate personal distress when faced with others’ discomfort.

Quality of life of mild cognitive impairment patients with type 2 diabetes mellitus and hypertension

Mild cognitive impairment (MCI) is a progressive neurodegenerative disease on which diabetes mellitus and hypertension play an important role as major risk factors. This study aims to assess the quality of life of MCI patients with type 2 diabetes and hypertension. A cross sectional study was carried out in a tertiary care teaching hospital. Cognitive status of patients were assessed by Addenbrooke’s Cognitive Examination III (ACE-III) and Montreal Cognitive Assessment (MoCA). Mild Cognitive Impairment Questionnaire (MCQ) was used to score the quality of life. SPSS 21.0 was used to perform statistical analysis. Kruskal-Wallis test and Mann Whitney U test were used to analyze the relationship between quality of life and demographic parameters. Totally 1887 patients with type 2 DM and hypertension were screened to detect MCI patients. The prevalence of MCI in the population was found to 24.64%. Mean age of the population was 45.12 ± 10.54. Quality of life of patients was affected due to MCI with diabetes and hypertension in early ages. Patients employed in Govt or private sector (p=0.021) and disease duration less than 10 years (p=0.025) had significantly better quality of life. Two domains of MCQ, such as emotional concern and practical concern were assessed separately found that MCI patient’s practical concern scores did not differ significantly from emotional concern scores (p= 0.874). Quality of life was affected in MCI patients with diabetes and hypertension in early ages. Routine clinical examination should consider the quality of life as an important parameter during the patient visit and necessary modifications should be given to enhance the quality of life as well as patient satisfaction.

Digressions: Sancho and Sterne

Artifice and authenticity are conflictingly related in the extroverted and stylised displays of feeling in the texts of Laurence Sterne and Ignatius Sancho. Whereas Sterne employs aesthetic playfulness to set himself apart from literary predecessors, Sancho uses it to claim a part in the culture of taste and sensibility. This chapter reads Sancho and Sterne’s literary adoption of a digressive tonality distinctly not as imitative but as entangled. The scenes dealing with slavery in Tristram Shandy and A Sentimental Journey are tied into more bawdy episodes. While not necessarily only sentimental, they still elude ideas of political solidarity. Sancho’s interjections of emotional concern in his published letters in turn not only highlight his capacity to feel (as well as his attachment to his family); in adopting the Sternian digressive dash, he does not adhere to the usual linear form of redemptive abolitionist writing and displays a uniquely Black aesthetic voice, albeit one that also reproduces deprecating sentimental tropes. This needs to be read as more than simply epigonic. Sancho’s digressive tone, it will be argued, intervenes more fundamentally into the sentimentalist romance with the cultured, feeling subject of modernity, while Sterne remains more elusive in his aestheticised divagations.

Exploring the reasons cancer survivors do not seek help for their concerns: a descriptive content analysis

PurposeTo understand reasons why adult cancer survivors do not seek assistance as they transition from the end of cancer treatment to follow-up care. Understanding these reasons should inform survivorship care, help reduce the burden of suffering and increase quality of life for survivors.MethodsA national survey was conducted in collaboration with ten Canadian provinces to identify unmet needs and experiences with follow-up for cancer survivors between one and 3 years post-treatment. The survey included open-ended questions to allow respondents to add topics of importance and details that offered a deeper insight into their experiences. This publication presents the analysis of the quantitative data and open-ended responses regarding reasons why the adult cancer population does not seek help with their concerns.ResultsIn total, 13 319 respondents answered the question about seeking help. 87% had a physical concern of which 76% did not seek help; 77% had an emotional concern of which 82% did not seek help; and 45% had a practical concern of which 71% did not seek help. Frequently identified reasons for not seeking help included being told it was normal and not thinking anything could be done, not wanting to ask, not thinking services were available, handling it on their own and not thinking it was serious enough to seek help.ConclusionsSurvivors have multiple reasons for not seeking help for their concerns. These findings can be useful to healthcare providers in proactively identifying and addressing the needs of these survivors.

Accuracy Empathy of Student College of Java Tribe and Sunda Tribe

This study aims to describe the accuracy of empathy in Javanese and Sundanese students from the Guidance and Counseling Study Program at Ahmad Dahlan University. Samples were taken by purposive sample with 60 students consisting of 30 Javanese students and 30 Sundanese students. The instrument used was empathy accuracy scale. The study results were analyzed using descriptive statistical analysis and different tests with Anova. The results showed that the accuracy of empathy among Javanese and Sundanese students had a significant value of 0.821 0.05, which means there was no significant difference between the accuracy of empathy among Javanese and Sundanese students. This research also reveals that the highest aspect of empathy accuracy in Javanese students is emotional concern, while Sundanese students are perspective taking. This means that the accuracy of empathy among Javanese students is higher in understanding and feeling the emotional of others, while the accuracy of empathy of Sundanese students is higher in understanding and placing themselves in the minds of others. The results of this study can be used as a base for developing techniques and strategies in guidance and counseling services that focus on developing accuracy of empathy in adolescents

The Needs and Experiences of Post-Treatment Adolescent and Young Adult Cancer Survivors

(1) Background: Adolescents and young adults (AYAs) who have been diagnosed with and treated for cancer have unique healthcare needs, but more research is needed to inform developmentally targeted cancer care for this population. The purpose of the current analyses was to describe the physical and psychosocial concerns and experiences of AYA cancer survivors during the post-treatment phase. (2) Methods: A national survey was conducted by the Canadian Partnership Against Cancer to evaluate the experiences and unmet needs of cancer survivors (≥18 years) within the first 5 years following cancer treatment. The current analyses were conducted on the AYA survivor population (18–34 years). (3) Results: A total of 575 surveys were completed by AYAs. Of these, 61% were female, 51% were married/partnered, and 52% were 1–3 years post treatment. Approximately three-quarters report their physical or emotional health as good/very good. Overall, 88% reported at least one physical concern [mean of 3.98+2.11 physical concerns (range 0–9)], 90% reported at least one emotional concern [mean of 3.77+1.75 emotional concern (range 0–6)], and 79% reported at least one practical challenge [mean of 2.39+1.28 practical concerns (range 0–5)]. The most common concerns were anxiety/worry about cancer returning (83%), fatigue/tiredness (78%), and depression/loss of interest in daily activities (66%). On average, 43% of those reporting a concern sought help. Common reasons for not seeking help included not wanting to ask, being told that it was normal to feel the way they did, or embarrassment. Of those who did seek help, 37% encountered difficulty obtaining assistance. (4) Conclusions: These results suggest that post-treatment AYA cancer survivors have a high rate and number of physical, psychosocial, and practical concerns and are often not seeking or receiving help to address these. Proactive approaches to characterizing and eliminating barriers to obtaining appropriate care are needed.

Medical Trainees’ Experiences With Dying and Death

This study investigates medical trainees’ experiences with dying and death, by means of semistructured interviews. Nine medical students and nine residents reported a total of 114 experiences. The great majority of these experiences took place during the final year of medical school. The authors identified the latent characteristics, which illustrate an in-depth understanding of the significance of the described experiences. Three main themes emerged: circumstances of death, personal relationship, and one’s own role. The age of the dying person, the extent of suffering, time frame and setting, and the patients’ behaviors were factors that influence the perceptions of the experiences. The interviewees reported powerful emotional consternation by the patients’ deaths with whom they had developed a close relationship. Failure, helplessness, and guilt were negatively associated perceptions of one’s own role. This study illustrates the tension between emotional concern and professional detachment. It highlights the continuing existence of a physician image, in which control represents the key issue.