\u201cGive, but Give until It Hurts\u201d: The Modulatory Role of Trait Emotional Intelligence on the Motivation to Help

Two studies investigated the effect of trait Emotional Intelligence (trait EI) on people\u2019s moti- vation to help. In Study 1, we developed a new computer-based paradigm that tested partic- ipants\u2019 motivation to help by measuring their performance on a task in which they could gain a hypothetical amount of money to help children in need. Crucially, we manipulated partici- pants\u2019 perceived efficacy by informing them that they had been either able to save the chil- dren (positive feedback) or unable to save the children (negative feedback). We measured trait EI using the Trait Emotional Intelligence Questionnaire\u2013Short Form (TEIQue-SF) and assessed participants\u2019 affective reactions during the experiment using the PANAS-X. Results showed that high and low trait EI participants performed differently after the presen- tation of feedback on their ineffectiveness in helping others in need. Both groups showed increasing negative affective states during the experiment when the feedback was negative; however, high trait EI participants better managed their affective reactions, modulating the impact of their emotions on performance and maintaining a high level of motivation to help. In Study 2, we used a similar computerized task and tested a control situation to explore the effect of trait EI on participants\u2019 behavior when facing failure or success in a scenario unre- lated to helping others in need. No effect of feedback emerged on participants\u2019 emotional states in the second study. Taken together our results show that trait EI influences the impact of success and failure on behavior only in affect-rich situation like those in which people are asked to help others in need

Does offering an incentive payment improve recruitment to clinical trials and increase the proportion of socially deprived and elderly participants?

BACKGROUND: Patient recruitment into clinical trials is a major challenge, and the elderly, socially deprived and those with multiple comorbidities are often underrepresented. The idea of paying patients an incentive to participate in research is controversial, and evidence is needed to evaluate this as a recruitment strategy. METHOD: In this study, we sought to assess the impact on clinical trial recruitment of a £100 incentive payment and whether the offer of this payment attracted more elderly and socially deprived patients. A total of 1,015 potential patients for five clinical trials (SCOT, FAST and PATHWAY 1, 2 and 3) were randomised to receive either a standard trial invitation letter or a trial invitation letter containing an incentive offer of £100. To receive payment, patients had to attend a screening visit and consent to be screened (that is, sign a consent form). To maintain equality, eventually all patients who signed a consent form were paid £100. RESULTS: The £100 incentive offer increased positive response to the first invitation letter from 24.7% to 31.6%, an increase of 6.9% (P < 0.05). The incentive offer increased the number of patients signing a consent form by 5.1% (P < 0.05). The mean age of patients who responded positively to the invitation letter was 66.5 ± 8.7 years, whereas those who responded negatively were significantly older, with a mean age of 68.9 ± 9.0 years. The incentive offer did not influence the age of patients responding. The incentive offer did not improve response in the most socially deprived areas, and the response from patients in these areas was significantly lower overall. CONCLUSION: A £100 incentive payment offer led to small but significant improvements in both patient response to a clinical trial invitation letter and in the number of patients who consented to be screened. The incentive payment did not attract elderly or more socially deprived patients. TRIAL REGISTRATIONS: Standard care versus Celecoxib Outcome Trial (SCOT) (ClinicalTrials.gov identifier: NCT00447759). Febuxostat versus Allopurinol Streamlined Trial (FAST) (EudraCT number: 2011-001883-23). Prevention and Treatment of Hypertension with Algorithm Guided Therapy (British Heart Foundation funded trials) (PATHWAY) 1: Monotherapy versus dual therapy for initiating treatment (EudraCT number: 2008-007749-29). PATHWAY 2: Optimal treatment of drug-resistant hypertension (EudraCT number: 2008-007149-30). PATHWAY 3: Comparison of single and combination diuretics in low-renin hypertension (EudraCT number: 2009-010068-41). ELECTRONIC SUPPLEMENTARY MATERIAL: The online version of this article (doi:10.1186/s13063-015-0582-8) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users

Patient and Surrogate Views of Community Consultation for Emergency Research

ObjectivePretrial community consultation (CC) is required for emergency research conducted under an exception from informed consent (EFIC) in the United States. CC remains controversial and challenging, and minimal data exist regarding the views of individuals enrolled in EFIC trials on this process. It is important to know whether participants perceive CC to be meaningful and, if so, whom they believe should be consulted.MethodsWe conducted a secondary analysis of data from two studies interviewing patients and surrogates of two recent EFIC trials (PEER‐RAMPART and PEER‐ProTECT). These interviews included similar open‐ and closed‐ended questions regarding participants’ views of the importance of CC, the rationale for their responses, and their views regarding which populations should be included in consultation efforts. A template analytic strategy was used for qualitative analysis of textual data, and descriptive statistics were tabulated to characterize demographic data and instances of major themes.ResultsNinety percent of participants perceived CC to be valuable. Participants’ reasons for finding CC valuable clustered in two categories: 1) as a method of informing the public about the trial to be conducted and 2) as a way of obtaining input and feedback from the community. Participants cited the medical community (43%) and individuals with a connection to the study condition (41%) as the most important groups to involve in consultation efforts; only 5% suggested consulting the general public in the area where the research will be conducted.ConclusionParticipants in EFIC trials and their decision makers generally valued CC as a method of informing and seeking input from the community. Participants felt that the most appropriate groups to consult were the medical community and individuals with connections to the condition under study. Consultation efforts focused on these two groups, rather than the general public, may be more efficient and more meaningful to individuals involved in EFIC trials. These findings also reinforce the importance of the distinction between public disclosure and CC.Peer Reviewedhttps://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/139974/1/acem13265-sup-0001-DataSupplementS1.pdfhttps://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/139974/2/acem13265_am.pdfhttps://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/139974/3/acem13265.pd

Are all ‘research fields’ equal? Rethinking practice for the use of data from crowd-sourcing market places

New technologies like large-scale social media sides (e.g., Facebook and Twitter) and crowdsourcing services (e.g., Amazon Mechanical Turk, Crowdflower, Clickworker) impact social science research and provide many new and interesting avenues for research. The use of these new technologies for research has not been without challenges and a recently published psychological study on Facebook led to a widespread discussion on the ethics of conducting large-scale experiments online. Surprisingly little has been said about the ethics of conducting research using commercial crowdsourcing market places. In this paper, I want to focus on the question of which ethical questions are raised by data collection with crowdsourcing tools. I briefly draw on implications of internet research more generally and then focus on the specific challenges that research with crowdsourcing tools faces. I identify fair-pay and related issues of respect for autonomy as well as problems with power dynamics between researcher and participant, which has implications for ‘withdrawal-withoutprejudice’, as the major ethical challenges with crowdsourced data. Further, I will to draw attention on how we can develop a ‘best practice’ for researchers using crowdsourcing tools

Improving Ethical Review of Research Involving Incentives for Health Promotion

Alex London and colleagues propose new ethical frameworks for evaluating the risks associated with research in which financial or other incentives are used to promote healthy behavior

Is informed consent related to success in exercise and diet intervention as evaluated at 12 months? DR's EXTRA study

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>There is a permanent need to evaluate and develop the ethical quality of scientific research and to widen knowledge about the effects of ethical issues. Therefore we evaluated whether informed consent is related to implementation and success in a lifestyle intervention study with older research participants. There is little empirical research into this topic.</p> <p>Methods</p> <p>The subjects (n = 597) are a subgroup of a random population sample of 1410 men and women aged 57-78 years who are participating in a 4-year randomized controlled intervention trial on the effects of physical exercise and diet on atherosclerosis, endothelial function and cognition. Data were collected in two steps: A questionnaire about informed consent was given to all willing participants (n = 1324) three months after the randomization. Data on implementation and success in the exercise and diet interventions were evaluated at 12 months by intervention-group personnel. The main purpose of the analysis procedure performed in this study was to identify and examine potential correlates for the chosen dependent variables and to generate future hypotheses for testing and confirming the independent determinants for implementation and success. The nature of the analysis protocol is exploratory at this stage.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>About half of the participants (54%) had achieved good results in the intervention. Nearly half of the participants (47%) had added to or improved their own activity in some sector of exercise or diet. Significant associations were found between performance in the interventions and participants' knowledge of the purpose of the study (p < 0.001), and between success in interventions and working status (p = 0.02), and the participants' knowledge of the purpose of the study (p = 0.04).</p> <p>Conclusion</p> <p>The main finding of this study was that those participants who were most aware or had understood the purpose of the study at an early stage had also attained better results at their 12-month intervention evaluation. Therefore, implementation and success in intervention is related to whether subjects receive a sufficient amount and are able to comprehend the information provided i.e. the core principles of informed consent.</p> <p>Trial Registration</p> <p>(ISRCTN 45977199)</p

Cancer patients’ respect experiences in relation to perceived communication behaviours from hospital staff: analysis of the 2012-2013 National Cancer Patient Experience Survey

The final publication is available at Springer via http://dx.DOI 10.1007/s00520-015-2973-5Purpose: Respect experiences are poorly understood despite respect being central to professionalism in healthcare and patient well-being, and needed for optimal patient care. This study explores which patient-perceived communication behaviours from hospital staff contribute most to cancer patients’ respect experiences and account for variation in their experience by socio-demographic and clinical characteristics. Methods: Secondary analysis of data from the 2012-2013 National Cancer Patient Experience Survey of 45191 patients with a primary cancer diagnosis treated in English National Health Service trusts providing adult acute cancer services who provided data on experienced respect and dignity. Results: Both autonomy-supportive and caring/emotionally sensitive behaviours were associated with reported respect, although the latter showed stronger associations and accounted for most differences in reports of respect between patient groups. Differences in respect were found by gender, race/ethnicity, age, the presence of long-standing conditions, treatment response, time since first treated for cancer (p<.001), employment and type of cancer (p<.05). Conclusions: The study questions the tendency to conceptualise respect primarily in terms of autonomy-supportive behaviours and shows the relative contribution of autonomy-supportive and caring/emotionally sensitive behaviours in explaining disparities in respect experiences. More attention should be paid to affective communication behaviours from hospital staff to reduce disparities in respect experiences

Institutional review board challenges related to community-based participatory research on human exposure to environmental toxins: A case study

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>We report on the challenges of obtaining Institutional Review Board (IRB) coverage for a community-based participatory research (CBPR) environmental justice project, which involved reporting biomonitoring and household exposure results to participants, and included lay participation in research.</p> <p>Methods</p> <p>We draw on our experiences guiding a multi-partner CBPR project through university and state Institutional Review Board reviews, and other CBPR colleagues' written accounts and conference presentations and discussions. We also interviewed academics involved in CBPR to learn of their challenges with Institutional Review Boards.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>We found that Institutional Review Boards are generally unfamiliar with CBPR, reluctant to oversee community partners, and resistant to ongoing researcher-participant interaction. Institutional Review Boards sometimes unintentionally violate the very principles of beneficence and justice which they are supposed to uphold. For example, some Institutional Review Boards refuse to allow report-back of individual data to participants, which contradicts the CBPR principles that guide a growing number of projects. This causes significant delays and may divert research and dissemination efforts. Our extensive education of our university Institutional Review Board convinced them to provide human subjects protection coverage for two community-based organizations in our partnership.</p> <p>Conclusions</p> <p>IRBs and funders should develop clear, routine review guidelines that respect the unique qualities of CBPR, while researchers and community partners can educate IRB staff and board members about the objectives, ethical frameworks, and research methods of CBPR. These strategies can better protect research participants from the harm of unnecessary delays and exclusion from the research process, while facilitating the ethical communication of study results to participants and communities.</p

'Relief of oppression': An organizing principle for researchers' obligations to participants in observational studies in the developing world

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>A central question in the debate about exploitation in international research is whether investigators and sponsors from high-income countries (HIC) have obligations to address background conditions of injustice in the communities in which they conduct their research, beyond the healthcare and other research-related needs of participants, to aspects of their basic life circumstances.</p> <p>Discussion</p> <p>In this paper, we describe <b>t</b>he Majengo sexually transmitted disease (STD) Cohort study, a long-term prospective, observational cohort of sex workers in Nairobi, Kenya. Despite important scientific contributions and a wide range of benefits to the women of the cohort, most of the women have remained in the sex trade during their long-standing participation in the cohort, prompting allegations of exploitation. The Majengo STD cohort case extends the debate about justice in international research ethics beyond clinical trials into long-term observational research. We sketch the basic features of a new approach to understanding and operationalizing obligations of observational researchers, which we call 'relief of oppression'. 'Relief of oppression' is an organizing principle, analogous to the principle of harm reduction that is now widely applied in public health practice. Relief of oppression aims to help observational researchers working in conditions of injustice and deprivation to clarify their ethical obligations to participants. It aims to bridge the gap between a narrow, transaction-oriented account of avoiding exploitation and a broad account emphasizing obligations of reparation for historic injustices. We propose that relief of oppression might focus researchers' consideration of benefits on those that have some relevance to background conditions of injustice, and so elevate the priority of these benefits, in relation to others that might be considered and negotiated with participants, according to the degree to which the participating communities are constrained in their realization of fundamental freedoms.</p> <p>Summary</p> <p>The over-arching aim of relief of oppression is that, within the range of benefits negotiated over time with the local communities and organizations, an increasing proportion reflects a shared interest in improving participants' fundamental freedoms. We describe how harm reduction serves as a useful analogy for how we envision relief of oppression functioning in international research.</p