To estimate the association of catastrophic health expenditure (CHE) with the risk of depression in middle-aged and old people in China.

We used data of 2011, 2013, 2015 and 2018 from the China Health and Retirement Longitudinal Study, which covered 150 counties of 28 provinces in China. CHE was calculated as out-of-pocket health expenditure exceeding 40% of a household’s capacity to pay. Depression was measured by a 10-item Centre for Epidemiological Studies Depression Scale. We evaluated CHE prevalence and applied Cox proportional hazard models to estimate adjusted hazard ratios (aHRs) and 95% confident intervals (CIs) for the risk of depression among participants with CHE after controlling potential confounders, compared with those without CHE.

Among 5765 households included in this study, CHE prevalence at baseline was 19.24%. The depression incidence of participants with CHE (8.00 per 1000 person-month) was higher than that of those without CHE (6.81 per 1000 person-month). After controlling confounders, participants with CHE had a 13% higher risk (aHR = 1.13, 95% CI: 1.02–1.26) of depression than those without CHE. In subgroup analysis, the association of CHE with depression was significant in males and in people with chronic diseases, of younger age, living in rural areas and of lowest family economic level (all P < 0.05).

Nearly one of five middle-aged and old people in China incurred CHE, and CHE was associated with the risk of depression. Concerted efforts should be made to monitor CHE and related depression episode. Moreover, timely interventions about CHE and depression need to be implemented and strengthened among middle-aged and old people.

Given the rising burden of palliative care and the limited human resources for its facilitation in China, volunteers are becoming increasingly indispensable. In particular, there is a high demand for volunteers who can serve as spiritual caregivers. However, a volunteer’s ability to provide good spiritual care in a palliative setting may be influenced by their attitude toward palliative care. To uncover the current state of spiritual caregiving in palliative settings in China and insights into best practices for its improvement, this study measured spiritual care competence and identified its influencing factors and explored its relationship with attitudes toward palliative care among volunteers. Notably, this study is the first to consider spiritual care competence alongside attitudes toward palliative care.

A descriptive cross-sectional study using online survey methods was conducted with 385 volunteers in Shanghai, China. Data were collected using a structured questionnaire.

Volunteers demonstrated relatively low levels of spiritual care competence (58.50 ± 10.92). Statistically significant correlations were found between spiritual care competence and the following variables: age, educational background, marital status, religious beliefs, occupational status, and relevant training and practical experience. Attitude toward palliative care significantly correlated with spiritual care competence (r = 0.49, p < 0.001).

To continually improve volunteers’ spiritual care competence, diversified education and training programs about spiritual care should be designed for different kinds of volunteers; moreover, because attitude toward palliative care significantly impacted spiritual care competence, such programs should encourage positive attitudes toward palliative care.

The science of team science (SciTS) is an emerging research area that studies the processes and outcomes of team-based research. A well-established conceptual framework and appropriate methodology for examining the effectiveness of team science are critically important for promoting and advancing collaborative and interdisciplinary research. Although many instruments have been developed and used in the SciTS field, psychometric evidence has not been routinely assessed or reported for these scales. In addition, commonly used psychometric methods were mainly limited to internal consistency and factor analysis. To fill the gaps, this study introduces a framework based on Rasch measurement theory for creating and evaluating measures for team sciences.

We illustrate the application of Rasch measurement theory through the creation of valid measures to evaluate the processes of interdisciplinary scientific teams. Data were collected from 16 interdisciplinary teams through a university-wide initiative for promoting interdisciplinary team collaboration. Psychometric evidence based on a many-facet Rasch model was obtained for assessing the quality of the measures.

The interdisciplinary teams differed in their clarity measures. Significant differences were also found between gender groups, racial groups, and academic ranks. We reported the reliability of measures and identified items that do not fit the model and may present potential threat to validity and fairness of SciTS measures.

This study shows the great potential of using Rasch measurement theory for developing and evaluating SciTS measures. Applying Rasch measurement theory produces objective measures that are comparable across individuals, interdisciplinary teams, institutions, time, and various demographic groups.

Incentivizing the development of interdisciplinary scientific teams to address significant societal challenges usually takes the form of pilot funding. However, while pilot funding is likely necessary, it is not sufficient for successful collaborations. Interdisciplinary collaborations are enhanced when team members acquire competencies that support team success.

We evaluated the impact of a multifaceted team development intervention that included an eight-session workshop spanning two half-days. The workshop employed multiple methods for team development, including lectures on empirically supported best practices, skills-based modules, role plays, hands-on planning sessions, and social interaction within and across teams. We evaluated the impact of the intervention by (1) asking participants to assess each of the workshop sessions and (2) by completing a pre/postquestionnaire that included variables such as readiness to collaborate, goal clarity, process clarity, role ambiguity, and behavioral trust.

The content of the team development intervention was very well received, particularly the workshop session focused on psychological safety. Comparison of survey scores before and after the team development intervention indicated that scores on readiness to collaborate and behavioral trust were significantly higher among participants who attended the workshop. Goal clarity, process clarity, and role ambiguity did not differ among those who attended versus those who did not.

Multicomponent team development interventions that focus on key competencies required for interdisciplinary teams can support attitudes and cognitions that the literature on the science of team science indicate are predictive of success. We offer recommendations for the design of future interventions.

The role of the cerebellum in obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD) has drawn increasing attention. However, the functional connectivity between the cerebellum and the cerebral cortex has not been investigated in OCD, nor has the relationship between such functional connectivity and clinical symptoms.

A total of 27 patients with OCD and 21 healthy controls (HCs) matched on age, sex and education underwent magnetic resonance imaging (MRI). Seed-based connectivity analyses were performed to examine differences in cerebellar-cerebral connectivity in patients with OCD compared with HCs. Associations between functional connectivity and clinical features in OCD were analyzed.

Compared with HCs, OCD patients showed significantly decreased cerebellar-cerebral functional connectivity in executive control and emotion processing networks. Within the OCD group, decreased functional connectivity in an executive network spanning the right cerebellar Crus I and the inferior parietal lobule was positively correlated with symptom severity, and decreased connectivity in an emotion processing network spanning the left cerebellar lobule VI and the lingual gyrus was negatively correlated with illness duration.

Altered functional connectivity between the cerebellum and cerebral networks involved in cognitive-affective processing in patients with OCD provides further evidence for the involvement of the cerebellum in the pathophysiology of OCD, and is consistent with impairment in executive control and emotion regulation in this condition.

Psychiatric disorders such as schizophrenia and major depressive disorder (MDD) are likely to be caused by multiple susceptibility genes, each with small effects in increasing the risk of illness. Identifying DNA variants associated with schizophrenia and MDD is a crucial step in understanding the pathophysiology of these disorders.

To investigate whether the SP4 gene plays a significant role in schizophrenia or MDD in the Han Chinese population.

We focused on nine single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) harbouring the SP4 gene and carried out case–control studies in 1235 patients with schizophrenia, 1045 patients with MDD and 1235 healthy controls recruited from the Han Chinese population.

We found that rs40245 was significantly associated with schizophrenia in both allele and genotype distributions (Pallele = 0.0005, Pallele = 0.004 after Bonferroni correction; Pgenotype = 0.0023, Pgenotype = 0.0184 after Bonferroni correction). The rs6461563 SNP was significantly associated with schizophrenia in the allele distributions (Pallele = 0.0033, Pallele = 0.0264 after Bonferroni correction).

Our results suggest that common risk factors in the SP4 gene are associated with schizophrenia, although not with MDD, in the Han Chinese population.

Common psychiatric disorders are highly heritable, indicating that genetic factors play an important role in their aetiology. The CACNA1C gene, which codes for subunit alpha-1C of the Cav1.2 voltage-dependent L-type calcium channel, has been consistently found to be the shared risk gene for several kinds of mental disorder.

To investigate whether CACNA1C is a susceptibility gene for schizophrenia and major depressive disorder in the Han Chinese population.

We carried out a case–control study of 1235 patients with schizophrenia, 1045 with major depressive disorder and 1235 healthy controls. A tag single nucleotide polymorphism (SNP) rs1006737 along with another 10 tag SNPs in the CACNA1C gene were genotyped in all samples.

We found that rs1006737 was associated with both schizophrenia (Pallele = 0.0014, Pgenotype = 0.006, odds ratio (OR) = 1.384, 95% CI 1.134–1.690) and major depressive disorder (Pallele = 0.0007, Pgenotype = 0.003, OR = 1.425, 95% CI 1.160–1.752).

Our findings support CACNA1C being a risk gene for both schizophrenia and major depressive disorder in the Han Chinese population.