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Fulltext The mediating role of health literacy between the presence of chronic disease and psychological distress among older persons in Xi'an city of China

Guo K, Ouyang J, Minhat HS

BMC Public Health, 2023 Dec 18;23(1):2530.
PMID: 38110936 DOI: 10.1186/s12889-023-17315-x

BACKGROUND: The increased number of older persons in China, and the prevalence of most chronic diseases raised with age significantly increased the total disease burden. When a person ages, psychological distress happens when they are faced with stressors that they cannot cope with. Psychological distress refers to non-specific symptoms of depression, anxiety, and stress. Health literacy influences several health outcomes, such as emotional functioning among the population. The primary purpose of this study is to examine the mediator role of health literacy between the presence of chronic disease and psychological distress among older persons living in Xi'an city. Thus, this study used the Cognitive Behavior Theory (CBT) as a combination of the basic behavioral and cognitive psychology principles to explain the cognitive processes associated with psychological distress.
METHODS: This study employs a quantitative research design using a cross-sectional survey of 300 older persons over 60 years living in the six urban districts of Xi'an city. Data were collected using the Health Literacy Questionnaire (HLQ) and the Depression Anxiety Stress Scale (DASS-21). This study employed descriptive statistics and inferential methods to analyze the data. The inferential methods applied structural equation modeling (SEM) to test the hypothesis of the mediator role of health literacy between the presence of chronic disease and psychological distress.
RESULTS: In this study, chronic disease had an effect on health literacy among older persons living in Xi'an city (β=-0.047, p
A Structured Collaborative Speaking Protocol to Support Communicative Confidence: An Instructor-Matched Clustered Quasi-Experimental Evaluation

Liang L, Ding P, Guo K, Megat Zakaria MAZB

J Vis Exp, 2026 Oct 27.
PMID: 42949244 DOI: 10.3791/73105

Communicative speaking activities do not always provide equitable or psychologically manageable opportunities for all learners in university English as a Foreign Language (EFL) classrooms. This article presents a reproducible structured collaborative speaking protocol and documents its feasibility and preliminary outcomes through an instructor-matched clustered quasi-experimental design. The multicomponent protocol combined rotating interactional roles, repeated speaking attempts, criterion-based peer feedback, one observable revision target, guided reflection, and scheduled behavior-focused video review. It was implemented once weekly for eight weeks in eight intact university EFL classes organized into four instructor-matched pairs. Within each pair, one class received the structured collaborative speaking condition and the other received an active-comparison condition matched for task topics, session duration, preparation time, and number of speaking attempts. Communicative confidence was the primary outcome and was assessed at baseline, post-intervention, and four-week follow-up. Willingness to communicate, speaking anxiety, speaking self-efficacy, perceived peer psychological safety, and independently rated speaking performance were secondary exploratory outcomes. Weekly process measures documented participation, state anxiety, feedback uptake, fidelity, contamination, and video-review completion. A total of 180 students entered the study; 176 completed the post-intervention assessment, and 159 completed follow-up. The protocol met the prespecified feasibility thresholds. Communicative confidence increased in both conditions, with a larger instructor-matched class-level increase in the structured condition at post-intervention, where the matched difference in change was 0.38 on a 1-7 scale (95% confidence interval, 0.24-0.52; four instructor-matched pairs), and at follow-up, where the matched difference in change was 0.55 (95% confidence interval, 0.38-0.72; four instructor-matched pairs). Because condition placement was nonrandom and the number of independent clusters was small, the estimates are best interpreted as preliminary class-level evidence rather than confirmatory evidence of general effectiveness.
Functional analysis of Trichinella spiralis serine protease 1.2 by siRNA mediated RNA interference

Yang F, Guo KX, Yang DQ, Liu RD, Long SR, Zhang X, et al.

Trop Biomed, 2020 Jun 01;37(2):458-470.
PMID: 33612815

A T. spiralis serine protease 1.2 (TsSP1.2) was identified in the muscle larvae (ML) and intestinal larvae surface/excretory-secretory (ES) proteins by immunoproteomics. The aim of this study was to determine the TsSP1.2 function in the process of T. spiralis intrusion, growth and reproduction by using RNA interference (RNAi). RNAi was used to silence the expression of TsSP1.2 mRNA and protein in the nematode. On 2 days after the ML were electroporated with 2 µM of TsSP1.2-specific siRNA 534, TsSP1.2 mRNA and protein expression declined in 56.44 and 84.48%, respectively, compared with untreated ML. Although TsSP1.2 silencing did not impair worm viability, larval intrusion of intestinal epithelium cells (IEC) was suppressed by 57.18% (P < 0.01) and the suppression was siRNA-dose dependent (r = 0.976). Infection of mice with siRNA 534 transfected ML produced a 57.16% reduction of enteral adult burden and 71.46% reduction of muscle larva burden (P < 0.05). Moreover, silencing of TsSP1.2 gene in ML resulted in worm development impediment and reduction of female fertility. The results showed that silencing of TsSP1.2 by RNAi inhibited larval intrusion and development, and reduced female fecundity. TsSP1.2 plays a crucial role for worm invasion and development in T. spiralis life cycle, and is a potential vaccine/drug target against Trichinella infection.
Phytoremediation as a potential technique for vehicle hazardous pollutants around highways

Guo K, Yan L, He Y, Li H, Lam SS, Peng W, et al.

Environ Pollut, 2023 Apr 01;322:121130.
PMID: 36693585 DOI: 10.1016/j.envpol.2023.121130

With the synchronous development of highway construction and the urban economy, automobiles have entered thousands of households as essential means of transportation. This paper reviews the latest research progress in using phytoremediation technology to remediate the environmental pollution caused by automobile exhaust in recent years, including the prospects for stereoscopic forestry. Currently, most automobiles on the global market are internal combustion vehicles using fossil energy sources as the primary fuel, such as gasoline, diesel, and liquid or compressed natural gas. The composition of vehicle exhaust is relatively complex. When it enters the atmosphere, it is prone to a series of chemical reactions to generate various secondary pollutants, which are very harmful to human beings, plants, animals, and the eco-environment. Despite improving the automobile fuel quality and installing exhaust gas purification devices, helping to reduce air pollution, the treatment costs of these approaches are expensive and cannot achieve zero emissions of automobile exhaust pollutants. The purification of vehicle exhaust by plants is a crucial way to remediate the environmental pollution caused by automobile exhaust and improve the environment along the highway by utilizing the ecosystem's self-regulating ability. Therefore, it has become a global trend to use phytoremediation technology to restore the automobile exhaust pollution. Now, there is no scientific report or systematic review about how plants absorb vehicle pollutants. The screening and configuration of suitable plant species is the most crucial aspect of successful phytoremediation. The mechanisms of plant adsorption, metabolism, and detoxification are reviewed in this paper to address the problem of automobile exhaust pollution.
Primary assessment of a T. spiralis putative serine protease for early serological detection of experimental trichinellosis

Sun GG, Lei JJ, Guo KX, Liu RD, Long SR, Zhang X, et al.

Trop Biomed, 2019 Sep 01;36(3):792-802.
PMID: 33597500

A putative serine protease of T. spiralis (TsSP) was expressed in Escherichia coli and its potential as a diagnostic antigen was primarily assessed in this study. Anti-Trichinella IgG in serum samples from T. spiralis different animal hosts (mice, rats, pigs and rabbits) were detected on Western blot analysis with rTsSP. Anti-Trichinella antibodies were detected in 100% (30/30) of experimentally infected mice by rTsSP-ELISA. Cross-reactions of rTsSPELISA were not found with sera from mice infected with other parasites (S. erinaceieuropaei, S. japonicum, C. sinensis, A. cantonensis and T. gondii) and sera from normal mice. There was no statistical difference in antibody detection rate among mice infected with the encapsulated Trichinella species (T. spiralis, T. nativa, T. britovi, and T. nelsoni) (P>0.05). The results of rTsSP-ELISA showed that serum specific antibody IgG in mice infected with 100 or 500 T. spiralis muscle larvae (ML) were detectable early at 7-8 dpi, but not detected by ML ES antigen-ELISA prior to 10-12 dpi. Specific anti-Trichinella IgG was detected in 100% (18/18) of infected pigs by rTsSP-ELISA and ES-ELISA, but no specific antibodies was not detected in 20 conventionally raised normal pigs by two antigens. The results showed the rTsSP had the potential for early serodiagnosis of animal Trichinella infection, however it requires to be assayed with early infection sera of swine infected with Trichinella and other parasites.
Fulltext Assessing social support impact on depression, anxiety, and stress among undergraduate students in Shaanxi province during the COVID-19 pandemic of China

Guo K, Zhang X, Bai S, Minhat HS, Nazan AINM, Feng J, et al.

PLoS One, 2021;16(7):e0253891.
PMID: 34297731 DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0253891

Following the 2019 coronavirus disease (COVID-19) outbreak in China, undergraduate students may experience psychological changes. During emergency circumstances, social support is an important factor influencing the mental health condition among undergraduate students in Shaanxi province. This study aims to find the factors associated with mental health symptoms of depression, anxiety, and stress among undergraduate students in Shaanxi province during the COVID-19 pandemic in China. A cross-sectional study was conducted from Feb 23 to Mar 7, 2020. A total of 1278 undergraduate students from the universities located in Shaanxi province participated in this study. The mental health symptoms were measured by 12-item Perceived Social Support Scale (PSSS) and Depression Anxiety Stress Scale (DASS-21) instruments. This survey showed that females receive more social support compared to males (t = -5.046, P<0.001); males have higher-level depression symptoms (t = 5.624, P<0.001); males have higher-level anxiety symptoms (t = 6.332, P<0.001), males have higher-level stress symptoms (t = 5.58, P<0.001). This study also found participants who have low social support was negatively correlated with mental health symptoms. In Conclusion, Males and low social support were associated with having the higher level of depression, anxiety, and stress symptoms among undergraduate students in Shaanxi province during the COVID-19 pandemic in China. Therefore, it is suggested that people should supply more social support for undergraduate students in Shaanxi province during COVID-19 pandemic.
An international multicenter analysis of the outcome of pediatric first variceal hemorrhage

Shneider BL, Gao X, Guo K, Jaramillo C, Molleston JP, Pimenta J, et al.

Hepatology, 2026 Oct 07.
PMID: 42842335 DOI: 10.1097/HEP.0000000000001881

BACKGROUND AND AIMS: Management of portal hypertension in children, including primary prophylaxis of variceal bleeding, is controversial due to limited understanding of mortality risk after the first variceal hemorrhage (1VH). This international multicenter study was designed to advance understanding of outcomes after pediatric 1VH.
APPROACH AND RESULTS: Center-specific characteristics and approaches to portal hypertension were determined at 44 international sites. K-means clustered the centers based upon volume and complexity of approaches [cluster 1 high (n=5), cluster 2 low (n=21), cluster 3 intermediate (n=18)]. Clinical features and outcomes after 1VH were available from 345 subjects. Factors associated with overall survival (OS) and survival with native liver (SNL) were estimated by Kaplan-Meier survival curves, log-rank tests, univariable and multivariable Cox regression models. OS and SNL were high in portal vein thrombosis and noncirrhotic diseases and significantly higher than biliary atresia and cirrhotic diseases ( p