Introduction: Parkinson’s Disease (PD) is a progressive neurological disorder that severely affects patients’ lives. How patients cope with the stress of receiving this diagnosis is influenced by...Show moreIntroduction: Parkinson’s Disease (PD) is a progressive neurological disorder that severely affects patients’ lives. How patients cope with the stress of receiving this diagnosis is influenced by information-seeking coping style, which can be classified on two dimensions: monitoring (seeking information) and blunting (avoiding information). Patients’ level of monitoring and blunting may affect their perception of amount of information. Clinicians may not tailor the amount of information to the individual needs of patients, negatively impacting their recall. This study hypothesized that the amount of provided information by clinicians is equal for patients who score high on monitoring and patients who score high on blunting. Additionally, this study hypothesized that patients with high monitoring scores would report receiving too little information, and that patients with high blunting scores would report receiving too much information. Method: This study employed a prospective observational longitudinal design as part of the DiaMove Project. The sample consisted of newly diagnosed PD patients who completed questionnaires assessing their demographic characteristics, coping styles and perceived amount of information. Diagnostic consultations were video-recorded and subsequently observationally quantitatively coded for duration of information provision per topic. Statistical analyses included equivalence testing, independent t-tests and logistic regression. Results: This study found that the amount of information provided by clinicians is not equivalent for patients (N = 28) with high scores on the monitoring scale and those with high scores on the blunting scale (CI = [-0.26 – 0.37]; CI = [-0.20 – 0.43]). In addition, two independent t-tests were conducted, which showed no significant difference in the amount of information provided for high scores on the different coping styles (p = .288; p = .552). Furthermore, the likelihood of wanting to receive more or less information cannot be predicted by respectively high scores on the monitoring and blunting coping style (p > .05). Discussion: Patients’ level of monitoring or blunting was not a significant predictor for the amount of information provided and did not predict patients’ reported amount of information provided by clinicians. These findings may be influenced by limitations of self-reported questionnaires, such as the length and the small sample size of the study.Show less
Sex estimation of non-adult skeletal remains has long been regarded as a problematic or even an unattainable objective within physical anthropology and forensic science. Few extant methods have...Show moreSex estimation of non-adult skeletal remains has long been regarded as a problematic or even an unattainable objective within physical anthropology and forensic science. Few extant methods have been able to match the accuracy rates of methods designed for adult remains and those that have failed to achieve similarly acceptable rates when tested on a population other than the one on which the method was originally developed. Due to this, children are habitually excluded from archaeological investigations since a major component of their biological profiles is considered inaccessible. A definitive and reliable technique to estimate sex in non-adult osteological remains would contribute greatly to the field of osteoarchaeology, allowing for the refinement of osteological age estimation and growth studies as well as more perceptive interpretations of the social, economic, or environmental implications of osteological evidence. In this thesis, a population-specific statistical approach to non-adult sex estimation based on the crown and cervical dimensions of the permanent canines and maxillary first molars was tested on the documented post-medieval skeletal collection of Middenbeemster, the Netherlands. The odontometrics of the adult component of the population (n = 76) were used to develop 14 binomial logistic regression formulae, which were subsequently applied to the non-adult individuals of the same population (n = 15). Though the two formulae based on the maxillary first molar odontometrics performed little better than chance, all 12 of the formulae based on the permanent canines achieved accuracy rates above 75%, with eight surpassing 85% and five achieving 100% accuracy. It was demonstrated that as little as one dimension of the permanent maxillary or mandibular canine can be used to estimate sex with an acceptable level of confidence. Due to the necessity of a permanent canine, this method is only applicable to individuals aged five years and above at the time of death, including adult individuals whose state of preservation does not allow for morphometric sex estimation or whose morphological sex estimate was indeterminate. By allowing reliable sex estimation in non-adult skeletal remains, this method makes it possible to gain insights into the past lives of non-adult individuals, who all too often seem invisible in archaeological and historical narratives.Show less
