Explore the vast range of titles available.

\"Will Self is one of Britain's best-known contemporary writers, a public intellectual whose novels have been shortlisted for the Booker Prize and translated into over twenty languages. In Will, his first ever memoir, he turns his attention fully to his own self, and in particular his addictions as a young man\"-- Provided by publisher.

Background Opioid agonist treatment (OAT) for patients with opioid use disorder (OUD) has a convincing evidence base, although variable retention rates suggest that it may not be beneficial for all. One of the options to include more patients is the introduction of heroin-assisted treatment (HAT), which involves the prescribing of pharmaceutical heroin in a clinical supervised setting. Clinical trials suggest that HAT positively affects illicit drug use, criminal behavior, quality of life, and health. The results are less clear for longer-term outcomes such as mortality, level of function and social integration. This protocol describes a longitudinal evaluation of the introduction of HAT into the OAT services in Norway over a 5-year period. The main aim of the project is to study the individual, organizational and societal effects of implementing HAT in the specialized healthcare services for OUD. Methods The project adopts a multidisciplinary approach, where the primary cohort for analysis will consist of approximately 250 patients in Norway, observed during the period of 2022–2026. Cohorts for comparative analysis will include all HAT-patients in Denmark from 2010 to 2022 ( N  = 500) and all Norwegian patients in conventional OAT ( N  = 8300). Data comes from individual in-depth and semi-structured interviews, self-report questionnaires, clinical records, and national registries, collected at several time points throughout patients’ courses of treatment. Qualitative analyses will use a flexible inductive thematic approach. Quantitative analyses will employ a wide array of methods including bi-variate parametric and non-parametric tests, and various forms of multivariate modeling. Discussion The project’s primary strength lies in its comprehensive and longitudinal approach. It has the potential to reveal new insights on whether pharmaceutical heroin should be an integral part of integrated conventional OAT services to individually tailor treatments for patients with OUD. This could affect considerations about drug treatment even beyond HAT-specific topics, where an expanded understanding of why some do not succeed with conventional OAT will strengthen the knowledge base for drug treatment in general. Results will be disseminated to the scientific community, clinicians, and policy makers. Trial registration The study was approved by the Norwegian Regional Committee for Medical and Health Research Ethics (REK), ref.nr.:195733.

Background Human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) cases among people who inject drugs increased during the US overdose crisis. Although HIV pre-exposure prophylaxis (PrEP) decreases HIV acquisition, and medications for opioid use disorder (MOUD) reduce overdose deaths, uptake remains suboptimal. The CHORUS + study will test the efficacy of a comprehensive peer recovery coaching intervention to increase PrEP and MOUD initiation and adherence. Methods This two-arm RCT will enroll 284 people who inject opioids (PWIO) and are negative for HIV from two sites. Participants randomized to the CHORUS + intervention will receive a study smartphone, motivational interviewing sessions, assistance connecting to PrEP and/or MOUD, and support to access resources addressing social needs such as employment and housing. We will also incorporate adapted ‘Life-Steps for PrEP’ modules to increase adherence. The control arm will receive information on local organizations with access to PrEP and MOUD. Participants will complete assessments at baseline, 1-, 3-, 6-, and 12-month visits. The primary outcome is adherence to HIV PrEP, assessed by tenofovir-diphosphate drug levels at 6-months post enrollment. Secondary outcomes include PrEP adherence assessed at 3- and 12-months, measured by drug levels (3-months), prescription refills, and self-report; and MOUD receipt at 3-, 6-, and 12-months, measured by prescription refills, self-report, and urine toxicology. The primary analysis will employ intent-to-treat logistic regression to assess differences in adherence between treatment arms, adjusting for stratification factors including site, race and sex assigned at birth. We will analyze secondary outcomes using similar methods. We will use multilevel growth curve modeling to evaluate changes in adherence over time by treatment group, incorporating random intercepts and slopes to account for individual trajectories. We will use exploratory multilevel structural equation modeling to assess mediators including HIV risk perception and PrEP/MOUD knowledge to understand pathways that may influence adherence. Discussion The CHORUS + intervention integrates a novel, theory-based, peer-delivered, smartphone-supported approach to address HIV prevention and opioid use disorder, while tackling social and structural barriers to care. Findings will inform strategies for linking PWIO to rapid HIV prevention and substance use treatment. Trial registration ClinicalTrials.gov number: NCT05769218.

Sense of agency refers to the feeling of control over one's own actions. The strength of this sense varies inter-individually. This means that people differ in their perception concerning the intensity of their intentions and actions. The current study aims to determine the factors influencing this sense of agency on a personality level. Furthermore, it gives insight into the correlative relation between the strength of the sense of agency and substance use. The study involved 210 participants who were tested for the experiment (intentional binding paradigm for sense of agency, hand paradigm for intentionality bias, questionnaires FAD-Plus, NI-20, substance use). Significant determinants in personality were narcissism (vulnerable subtype) and substance use (consumption in general beyond cannabis, and particularly for the substances cannabis, ecstasy, and cocaine). Both personality types were associated with a weaker sense of agency compared to controls. For both results, alterations in the dopaminergic system need to be discussed. The present results confirm prior hypotheses that dopamine seems to play a crucial role in perception of agency. Possibly a higher accessibility of dopamine increases sense of agency (hyper-binding), whereas a lower accessibility of dopamine decreases sense of agency (hypo-binding). A second aim of the study was to see whether there is a connection between sense of agency and intentionality bias. The perception of intention in others differs widely; some people tend to see arbitrary or accidental actions as unintentional, and others quickly label actions as 'intentional' although the information is not distinct for a categorization. This cognitive error is called intentionality bias. Results could not confirm a relationship between the two constructs-one's own intention and judging intention in others. This may be due to a lack of connection between the two constructs or to methodological aspects. Further directions and limitations are discussed.

Background Substance use disorder (SUD) is associated with executive function (EF) deficits and sensory modulation dysfunction (SMD). Yet, these deficits are not addressed therapeutically. This study aims to examine the effectiveness of the Functional-Cognitive and Sensory Treatment (F-CaST) compared to standard care to improve everyday performance and behavior and length of stay at the therapeutic community (TC) in individuals with SUD. In addition, to assess the improvement in EF, sensory modulation, participation, self-efficacy, life satisfaction, and use of strategies within and between groups. Satisfaction with F-CaST will also be assessed. Methods Forty-eight participants from a community of men in a TC, aged 18–45 years will be randomly allocated to (i) F-CaST—(experimental group) providing sensory and EF strategies for improving daily function; (ii) standard care (control group) as provided in the TC. Assessments will be conducted by assessors blind to group allocation at 4 time points: T1- pre-intervention; T2- post-intervention; T3- 1-month follow-up; and T4- 3-month follow-up. Primary outcome measures will be everyday performance, assessed by the Canadian Occupational Performance Measure (COPM), behavior and length of stay in the TC; secondary outcome measures will assess EF, SMD. Semi-structured in-depth qualitative interviews will be conducted at T1, T2 and T4. Discussion We hypothesize that F-CaST will lead to improved everyday performance and longer length of stay in the TC, compared to the control group. If F-CaST will prove to be effective, cognitive and sensory strategies may be incorporated as an adjunctive intervention in SUD rehabilitation. Trial registration : ClinicalTrials.gov NCT05647863 Registered on 13 December 2022, https://classic.clinicaltrials.gov/ct2/show/NCT05647863 .

BackgroundSubstance misuse, including problematic drug and alcohol use, are significant issues in society that can have multiple detrimental effects. Many people access support for their substance misuse during prison sentences, due to the associations between substance misuse and offending, and the high proportion of the prison population who have drug and alcohol issues. Breaking Free Online Health and Justice is a computer-assisted therapy program that has been developed to support substance-involved offenders to address their substance misuse and associated offending within prison settings.MethodsThis will be a parallel-group randomized controlled trial of 4-week Breaking Free Online Health and Justice program as an adjunct to standard treatment for substance misuse, in comparison to standard treatment only, in a male Category D open prison. Interventional and control groups will be compared in terms of the changes in their scores on multiple measures from baseline to post-treatment assessment at 4-weeks, and then 3- and 6-months follow-up. Participants will be adult male offenders serving sentences in prison in England who have demonstrable difficulties with drugs and/or alcohol for at least the past 12-months. The primary outcome measure will be self-reported substance misuse, with secondary outcomes being standardized psychometric assessments of substance dependence, mental health, biopsychosocial functioning, quality of life and post-release offending. Other secondary measures will include frequency of completion of specific intervention strategies in the program.DiscussionThis study will examine whether Breaking Free Online Health and Justice as an adjunct to standard substance misuse interventions in prisons, improves outcomes for substance-involved offenders receiving interventions in custodial settings. Findings from the study will be used to inform further developments of the program and potential improvements to custodial treatment.Trials registrationISRCTN09846981.

Philosophers, psychologists, neuroscientists, and psychiatrists examine the will and its pathologies from theoretical and empirical perspectives, offering a conceptual overview and discussing schizophrenia, depression, prefrontal lobe damage, and substance abuse as disorders of volition.

This study examined longitudinal relationships between adolescent life satisfaction (LS) and perceived parental support, parental behavioral control, and parental autonomy granting. A total of 819 students in grades 6-12 completed the Students' Life Satisfaction Scale (Huebner 1991), the Family Support Scale (FSS; Wills and Clearly 1996), and the Parental Control and Parental Autonomy Granting subscales of the Authoritative Parenting Measure (APM; Lamborn et al. 1991) on two occasions, 1 year apart. Analyses revealed that none of the parenting behaviors at Time 1 predicted changes in LS at Time 2. Additionally, LS at Time 1 did not predict changes in parental control or autonomy granting at Time 2, but did predict changes in parental support at Time 2. Implications and future research needs are discussed.

OBJECTIVES: This research compared the validity of self-reports of cigarette smoking for African-American, Hispanic, and White respondents. Previous research has raised a question about the validity of self-report for African Americans. METHODS: A self-report of cigarette smoking was obtained together with a measure of carbon monoxide from expired air. Convergence between self-reported smoking and the biochemical measure was analyzed separately for three ethnic groups at 7th grade, 8th grade, 9th grade, and 10th grade. RESULTS: Analyses indicated that the validity of self-reports of smoking was generally comparable across ethnic groups. Sensitivity and specificity were comparable with data reported in recent meta-analyses. Though sensitivity was slightly lower for minority adolescents than for White adolescents, prevalence rates corrected for group differences in sensitivity showed significantly lower smoking rates for African-American and Hispanic adolescents than for White adolescents. CONCLUSIONS: The lower smoking rates reported for African-American adolescents are real and are not substantially a consequence of reporting artifacts.

“That evening despite best intentions, Rebus took a cab from the guest house to the pub” (Rankin 2012, 254). Not only has the notorious, always thirsty Ex-Detective Inspector Rebus acted now and then against his best intentions. We all too often fail to skip this tempting glass of_______(enter your personal liquid vice here). We indulge in activities neither physiologically nor psychologically healthy: overworking, overeating, overspending, overdrinking are common problems in Western societies. But we do not only yield to the bad, we abstain from beneficial activities, too, such as a little run now and then, spending quality time with the