Medical Student Research Forum Posters

Studies in recent years widely suggest that adverse childhood experiences (ACEs) may have a detrimental impact on the health of individuals.Less is known about this association among health professions students in particular. One recent study showed that ACEs may be associated with engaging in risk behaviors among medical students (Sciolla et al., 2019).In contrast, fewer studies have examined positive childhood experiences (PCEs) as a possible protective factor with respect to health outcomes such as psychological distress. Furthermore, research on the mechanisms that link PCEs to outcomes among professional health students is scant, although studies have suggested that resilience may also protect professional health students from experiencing psychological distress (Bacchi et al., 2017; Clark et al., 2023).

Examine the number of appointments fulfilled within the past year, contrasting between the behavioral health clinic at Willow Free Clinic and the newly introduced hybrid model. Our hypothesis suggests that implementing the hybrid model at the behavioral health clinic will lead to an increase in the number of patients identified as screening positive and subsequently accessing care.

Autistic adolescents frequently exhibit cognitive control (or executive function) deficits for which the field lacks ecologically valid measures. The Map task is a new measure that has been validated in assessing the functional capacity of children at clinical high risk for psychosis, a pre-psychotic phase that shares similar deficits in communication and executive function with autism. This suggests it could be used in autistic children to measure similar cognitive deficits. We report preliminary results with these goals: 1) Examine whether autistic participants show impairments on the Map task compared to age, gender, and IQ-matched non-autistic participants, 2) Examine associations between Map task performance and another test of similar construct, the NIH Toolbox Cognition Battery. 3) Investigate associations between Map task performance and the Adaptive Behavior Assessment System-3 (ABAS-3), a measure of adaptive functioning.

Self-inflicted burns are a relatively uncommon but profound attempt at suicide. In 2019, suicide was the 10th leading cause of death in the United States with suicide by burns accounting for less than 1.0% of suicide attempts. Incidence of suicide by burning and self-inflicted burns have been estimated at between 0.67%-9.0% of total burn admissions in developed countries. 20 years ago, we first reviewed our experience with self-inflicted burns. This study evaluated for any change in the incidence or outcomes of self-inflicted burns. Due to the rarity of occurrence, there is limited literature available evaluating the psychosocial contributors and outcomes of suicide by burning and self-inflicted burns. Prior studies have described characteristics of patients with selfinflicted burns as predominantly male and Caucasian and with a history of psychiatric illness and substance use. A nationwide Japanese study with data from over 200 major tertiary care centers compared outcomes amongst 1094 patients with burns, 222 with self-inflicted burns. They concluded that self-inflicted burns are associated with increased in-hospital mortality. Other studies have found such an association does not exist after comparing for injury characteristics and patient demographics.

People with ADHD experience emotional regulation deficits,1 associated with greater functional impairment2. We used an Emotional Go/No-Go Task (EGNG), a modified Go/NoGo paradigm with emotional faces (happy, fear, anger) used as distractors to compare the effect of emotion regulation on response inhibition in ADHD compared to a matched typically developing (TD) group3. Previous work in ADHD-EGNG performance found that both ADHD and TD groups make significantly more omission errors (failing to respond during a go trial) when viewing fearful stimuli compared to neutral stimuli and that ADHD participants make significantly fewer commission errors (inappropriately responding during a no-go trial) when viewing fearful stimuli compared to neutral stimuli4. However, previous work only looked at one or two types of emotional stimuli alongside a neutral stimuli. The present work compares ADHD and TD performance on an EGNG paradigm incorporating three emotions (happy, fear, & anger) alongside nonemotional baseline stimuli to determine if participants with ADHD experience differential emotional regulation when exposed to different types of positive and negative emotional stimuli. We hypothesized ADHD participants would commit more omission and commission errors than TD participants especially on negative emotional stimuli.

The BOT-2 is a valid and reliable tool to measure motor function in children with ASD for initial diagnostic evaluation and for therapeutic interventions.

• In the United States, over 25 million individuals over the age of 5 speak English less than ‘very well’ with limited English proficiency (LEP). Of this group, more than 16 million individuals identify their preferred language as Spanish or Spanish Creole.

• Among Latino immigrants, those with LEP are less likely to receive mental healthcare services as compared to those with English proficiency (EP).

• A variety of Federal and state policies, including the Civil Rights Act of 1964, require that interpreter services be available to all LEP individuals.

• Professional interpreters are widely considered the best means of providing linguistically and culturally competent healthcare to patients with LEP. Use of interpretation services is proven more accurate, however, when providers are made to simplify their speech.

• This simplification includes shortening of phrases and avoidance of complex language, including idioms, jargon, humor and acronyms.

• Bilingual providers offer an alternative option to professional interpreters and recent research has found that language concordance between provider and patient can lead to improved healthcare outcomes.

• Until now, automated machine translation (AMT) has not been explored as an alternative option to professional interpreting services.

Objectives: Latino individuals report high rates of childhood trauma, but the impact of parenting styles on childhood maltreatment (CM) in this population is unknown. This study examined the association between CM and parental bonding (PB) among adult Mexican Americans and Mexican nationals seeking services at primary care and mental health clinics on both sides of the California-Mexico border.

Methods: The Childhood Trauma Questionnaire and Parental Bonding Instrument were administered to 516 patients at one of 8 clinics in San Diego and Imperial, CA and Tijuana, Mexico between 2007 and 2008. Statistical analyses included Chi-square tests and multivariable logistic regression.

Results: Among respondents, 305 reported moderate to severe CM and 210 reported mild or no CM. PB style of mothers [N=503, χ2 (3)=115.69, p < .001] and fathers [N = 417, χ2 (3)=70.4, p < .001] was significantly associated with CM history. Patients who characterized their maternal bonding as “affectionless control” had an 8.94-fold higher odds of reporting moderate to severe CM compared to patients who characterized their maternal bonding as “optimal parenting” (95% CI, 4.51 to 17.73). Patients who characterized their paternal bonding as “affectionless control” had a 10.90-fold higher odds of reporting moderate to severe CM compared to patients who characterized their paternal bonding as “optimal parenting” (95% CI, 4.96 to 23.96). Maternal and paternal “affectionless control” were associated with higher odds of emotional, physical, and sexual abuse and of emotional and physical neglect compared to “optimal parenting.”

Conclusions: Suboptimal parenting near the California-Mexico border is associated with CM, which may negatively impact patients’ physical and mental health and socioeconomic opportunities into adulthood. These results may be used to develop and test parenting interventions in the border region to increase “optimal parenting” and decrease “affectionless control” practices.

Postpartum depression and other perinatal mood disorders are common and underdiagnosed. Many barriers exist to accessing perinatal mental health resources including limited availability and cost. Automated conversational agents (chatbots) can deliver cognitive-behavioral-therapy content through message-based conversations and have been found to reduce depression and anxiety symptoms in select populations.

Traditionally, mental health and physical health have been treated as separate entities with the medical specialty of psychiatry bridging the gap between these physical and mental realms. While one of the aims of primary care is to address a patient through a holistic perspective rather than as a constellation of diseases, primary care clinicians are not extensively trained to diagnose and treat psychiatric illnesses. Some studies have suggested that primary care providers underdiagnose psychiatric illness. Only 5% to 60% of depressed patients in primary care settings are correctly identified and treated. Furthermore only 22% of these physicians intend to attend CME on depression and fewer 8% intend to change their care of depressed patients in the next 6 months. Concurrently, the majority of patients with known psychiatric illnesses will receive care within a primary care setting. Another concern with the current paradigm is the deleterious effect stigma held by primary care providers has in creating a “major barrier” to seeking care or treatment participation.

To address this critical lack of education, the UC Davis / UC Irvine Train New Trainers Primary Care Psychiatry Fellowship was developed. It is a one-year longitudinal program with over 50 hours of instruction, and a curriculum that includes case-based tele-education, monthly mentoring sessions with faculty and traditional didactic training. Particularly groundbreaking is the additional program objective of training fellows to teach what they have learned to their primary care colleagues.